way to your cowardice. That is why you should be punished.
Everybody will laugh at you about this, and that is a disgrace to
the family."

"If you knew how awful the whole thing was," said Faith with a
shiver, "you would think we had been punished enough already. I
wouldn't go through it again for anything in the whole world."

"I believe you'd have run yourself if you'd been there," muttered
Carl.

"From an old woman in a cotton sheet," mocked Jerry. "Ho, ho,
ho!"

"It didn't look a bit like an old woman," cried Faith. "It was
just a great, big, white thing crawling about in the grass just
as Mary Vance said Henry Warren did. It's all very fine for you
to laugh, Jerry Meredith, but you'd have laughed on the other
side of your mouth if you'd been there. And how are we to be
punished? _I_ don't think it's fair, but let's know what we have
to do, Judge Meredith!"

"The way I look at it," said Jerry, frowning, "is that Carl was
the most to blame. He bolted first, as I understand it.
Besides, he was a boy, so he should have stood his ground to
protect you girls, whatever the danger was. You know that, Carl,
don't you?"

"I s'pose so," growled Carl shamefacedly.