"There comes Mollie,
I guess, by the noise. Won't she be glad? Say, Mollie!--why, what a
looking object!"
This exclamation was called forth by the appearance of the little girl,
who had been heard running at full speed the length of the piazza, and
now presented herself at the door of Miss Ruth's room, her face flushed,
her hair in the wildest confusion, and the skirt of her calico frock
quite detached from the waist, hanging over her arm.
"Wasn't it lucky that the gathers ripped?" she cried, holding up the
unlucky fragment. "If they hadn't, mamma, I should be hanging, head
down, from the five-barred gate in the lower pasture, and no body to
help me but the cows. You see, I set out to jump, and my skirt got
caught in a nail on the post."
"O Mollie!" said her mother, "what made you climb the five-barred gate?"
"'Cause she's a big tom-boy," said Lovina Tibbs, who had come from the
kitchen to call the family to supper. "Ain't yer 'shamed of yerself,
Mary Elliot?--a great girl like you, most ten years old, walkin' top o'
rail fences and climbin' apple-trees in the low pastur'!"
"No, I'm not!" said Mollie, promptly.
"Hush, Mollie," said Mrs. Elliot. "Lovina, that will do. Wash your face
and hands, Mollie, and make yourself decent to come to supper.
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