d up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in bubbling over
like a lovely, white, linen-clad glass of Rhine wine and seltzer.
Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief
and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and
generally damp atmosphere.
"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says for you to
send him ten dollars to spend getting the brass band half drunk before
the six o'clock train, on which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent
five dollars paying the negroes to polish up their instruments and clean
up the uniforms and it cost him twenty-five to bail the cornettist out
of jail for roost robbing, and it takes a whole gallon of whisky to get
any spirit into the drummer. He says tell you that as this is your
shindig you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for
me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!"
"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to
you, Pettie, dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk
for my pocket-book.
"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a
perfect rose cloud of blushes.
"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the ten
in her hand. I looked at Ruth Chester and we both laughed. It is true
that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week
ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her
the ten dollars and a blessing.
"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she
rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before
I could stop her, she was gone.
She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron
gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the edge
of the porch. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft
was almost more than I could stand, and apparently more than Billy was
prepared to accept.
"Go way, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?"
I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on
my hardwood floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of
triumph.
"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe
drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the
end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You
and Doc kin put it in your trunk 'caus
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