Missy was embroiled in a catastrophe, a tangle of embarrassments and
odd complications. Aunt Nettie attributed the blame broadly to "that
O'Neill girl"; she asserted that ever since Tess O'Neill had come to
live in Cherryvale Missy had been "up to" just one craziness after
another. But then Aunt Nettie was an old maid--Missy couldn't
imagine her as EVER having been fifteen years old. Mother, who could
generally be counted on for tenderness even when she failed to
"understand," rather unfortunately centred on the wasp detail--why
had Missy just stood there and let it keep stinging her? And Missy
felt shy at trying to explain it was because the wasp was stinging
her LEG. Mother would be sure to remark this sudden show of modesty
in one she'd just been scolding for the lack of it--for riding the
pony astride and showing her--

Oh, legs(! Missy was in a terrific confusion, as baffled by certain
inconsistencies displayed by her own nature as overwhelmed by her
disgraceful predicament. For she was certainly sincere in her
craving to be as debonairly "athletic" as Tess; yet, during that
ghastly moment when the wasp was . . .

No, she could never explain it to mother. Old people don't
understand. Not even to father could she have talked it all out,
though he had patted her hand and acted like an angel when he paid
for the bucket of candy--that candy which none of them got even a
taste of! That Tess and Arthur should eat up the candy which her own
father paid for, made one more snarl in the whole inconsistent
situation.

It all began with the day Arthur Simpson "dared" Tess to ride her