That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles held, so, as he fell into step at Alden's side, he queried: "You did not come hither and strip our place, did you?"
"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and--"
"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding of so many proprietors? I have been to northward."
Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated, "John Alden, what do you want of posies? You're a man."
"Well, what do _you_ want of them, Miles?" John smiled down at him.
"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them to the Elder's cottage--"
"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins, now, perhaps?"
"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I do not like Priscilla Mullins."
"Then you are the only one of that mind in New Plymouth. Why do you not like her?"
Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each hump and hummock in his path, but Alden was waiting for his answer, and he wished to please him. "Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke out at last, "I do not like Priscilla Mullins because she kissed me."
Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking Miles up by the back of his doublet, shook him a little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly, as he set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again, "you are an ungrateful little cub."
Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but he had no time to defend himself, for just then they came over the brow of the hill by Cooke's cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's labor must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis and Jack, and, in bragging to his comrades of his flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That night, when he stopped to have a word with her, he told her all about them, but he found that she was not interested in a story of six blossoms, seeing that Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a fair large bunch of them, such as no one else in the settlement could show.
But in the days that followed Miles had little time to go seeking flowers on the hillslopes, or gossiping with his sister in the twilight. For, with never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole colony worked now in good earnest,--taking alewives in the brook, tugging them up into the fields, setting the little hills with corn seed and with fish to keep it moist. To crown all, the planting fell in a season of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder warmth of England, that sapped the heart of the stoutest worker.