always carries in her pocket, in case she goes a square away from home
and is overtaken by her appetite. She always has enough for everybody
else, too, I must not forget to add. "Well, if it is Miss Prissy's
robber come back, that makes the boys act so, Phyllis might just as
well be scared as the rest of us; and if it is something pleasant,
why, let her have a share of that, too." Some day I'm going-to break
loose from myself and hug Mamie Sue's funny fatness until she squeals.

"I don't believe that if it was just a frolic the boys would have got
Douglass to come away from his work to the Crotch; but maybe he was
going up-town anyway, and they knew that," said Roxanne as I came in
the door and was given welcomes of different degrees. The tall Willis
is getting so that she moves over for me to sit down by her, even if
she is just sitting on one small chair. I wish she could know how that
pleases me.

"Did the boys look to you as if the thing that is making them all act
so important was nice or disagreeable, Phyllis?" asked Roxanne as she
got out the inevitable darning bag.

The short Willis moved nearer and began to help sort and get ready for
patching. I always keep a thimble in Roxanne's darning bag now, but
sometimes the short girl beats me to it. The others never notice that
Roxanne's hands are never empty of patching jobs. Still Mamie Sue does
attentively feed her fudge in hunks while she darns.

"I don't know boys well enough to diagram their expressions," I
answered. "They always look excited and queer to me, and I can't tell
their jokes from their other affairs. What have they been doing?"