Don't be scared. I'm coming right
back." Mrs. Merriam scorned subterfuges. She took always a silent
stand in a difficulty, and let people infer what they would. When
Mary Ann Pease inquired if it was the cat that had made the noise,
she asked if her mother had finished her blue and white counterpane.
The two girls waited a half-hour longer, then they went home. "What
do you s'pose made that noise out in the kitchen?" asked Arabella
Mann of Mary Ann Pease, the minute they were out-of-doors.
"I don't know," replied Mary Ann Pease. She was a broad-backed young
girl, and looked like a matron as she hurried along in the dusk.
"Well, I know what I think it was," said Arabella Mann, moving ahead
with sharp jerks of her little dark body.
"What?"
"It was him."
"You don't mean--"
"I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up the back
stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into something."
"What for?"
"Because he didn't want to see _us_."
"Now, Arabella Mann, I don't believe it! He's always real pleasant to
me."
"Well, I do believe it, and I guess he'll know it when I set foot in
that house again. I guess he'll find out I didn't go there to see
him! He needn't feel so fine, if he is the minister; his folks ain't
any better than mine, an' we've got 'nough sight handsomer furniture
in our parlor.
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