Thomas, advancing through the dusky
kitchen with cautious steps, encountered suddenly a chair in the dark
corner by the stairs, and just saved himself from falling. There was
a startled outcry from the sitting-room, and his mother came running
into the kitchen with a candle.
"Who is it?" she demanded, valiantly. Then she started and gasped as
her son confronted her. He shook a furious warning fist at the
sitting-room door and his mother, and edged towards the stairs. She
followed him close. "Hadn't you better jest step in a minute?" she
whispered. "Them girls have been here an hour, and I know they're
waitin' to see you." Thomas shook his head fiercely, and swung
himself around the corner into the dark crook of the back stairs. His
mother thrust the candle into his hand. "Take this, or you'll break
your neck on them stairs," she whispered.
Thomas, stealing up the stairs like a cat, heard one of the girls
call to his mother--"Is it robbers, Mis' Merriam? Want us to come an'
help tackle 'em?"--and he fairly shuddered; for Evelina's gentle-lady
speech was still in his ears, and this rude girlish call seemed to
jar upon his sensibilities.
"The idea of any girl screeching out like that," he muttered. And if
he had carried speech as far as his thought, he would have added,
"when Evelina is a girl!"
He was so angry that he did not laugh when he heard his mother answer
back, in those conclusive tones of hers that were wont to silence all
argument: "It ain't anything.
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