"
"I know it. He played hookey. He wrote a excuse an' signed his maw's name
to it. Ike seen him do it. An' when the principal called up his maw this
mornin' an' ast her 'bout it, she up an' said she wrote it herself."
Nance was not sure whether she was called upon to admire the astuteness
of Mac or his mother, so she did not commit herself. But she was keenly
interested. Ever since that day in the juvenile court she had been
haunted by the memory of a trim, boyish figure arrayed in white, and by a
pair of large brown eyes which disdainfully refused to glance in her
direction.
"Say, Dan," she asked wistfully, "have you got a girl?"
"Naw," said Dan disdainfully, "what do I keer about girls?"
"I don't know. I thought maybe you had. I bet that there Clarke boy's
got two or three."
"Let him have 'em," said Dan; then, finding the subject distasteful, he
added, "what's the matter with hookin' on behind that there wagon?" And
suiting the action to the word, they both went in hot pursuit.
After a few jolting squares during which Nance courted death with her
flying skirts brushing the revolving wheels, the wagon turned into a side
street, and they were obliged to walk again.
"I wonder if this ain't the place?" she said, as they came in sight of a
low, white house half smothered in beech-trees, with a flower garden at
one side, at the end of which was a vine-covered summer-house.
"Here's where I beat it!" said Dan, but before he could make good his
intention, the stout little lady on the porch had spied them and came
hurrying down the walk, holding out both hands.
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