"I reckon, Dolly C., that you've forgot the days when you and I were on Miranda Stott's truck-farm; when I cut firewood by the cord and you sat on the logs an' taught me how to spell. 'Twouldn't do for me to claim I can't split up one tree; and this one'll be as neat a job as you ever see, time I've done with it. Trot along and write your own telegrams; or get that Starky to do it for you. Ha, ha! He thought he could saw wood, himself. Said he learned it campin' out; but the first blow he struck he hit his own toes and blamed it on the axe being too heavy. Trot along with him, girlie, and don't hender me talkin'."
The "Little Lady of the Manor," as President Ryall had called her, walked away with her nose in the air. Preferred to chop wood, did he? And it wasn't nice of him--it certainly wasn't nice--to set her thinking of that miserable old truck-farm and the days of her direst poverty. She was Dorothy Calvert now; a girl with a name and heiress of Deerhurst. She'd show him, horrid boy that he was!
But just then his cheerful whistling reached her, and her indignation vanished. By no effort could she stay long angry with Jim. He was annoyingly "common-sensible," as he claimed, but he was also so straight and dependable that she admired him almost as much as she loved him. Yes, she had other friends now, and would doubtless gain many more, but none could ever be a truer one than this homely, plain-spoken lad.
She spied the girls and Monty in the arbor and joined them; promptly announcing:
"If our House Party is to be a success you three must help. Jim won't. He's going to chop wood. Monty, will you ride to the village and send that telegram to Mabel Bruce?"
The lad looked up from the foot he had been contemplating and over which Molly and Alfy had been bending in sympathy, to answer by another question:
"See that shoe, Dolly Calvert? Close shave that. Might have been my very flesh itself, and I'd have blood poisoning and an amputation, and then there'd have been telegrams sent--galore! Imagine my mother--if they had been!"
"That's as Yankee as I am. Always answer your own questions when you ask them and save a lot of trouble to the other fellow. No, I _wasn't_ hurt but I _might_ have been! Since I'm not, I'm at your service, Lady D. Providing you word your own message and give me a decent horse to ride."