"Yes, Stonie," answered Rose Mary judicially, while Everett's
shoulders shook with mirth that he felt it best not to give way to in
the face of the sympathetic Swarm, "you all must stay with Tobe, if he
has to be buried, and go right back as fast as you can. Troubles must
make us stay close by our friends."
"If I get much closer to him I'll throw up," sniffed Jennie, and her
protest was echoed by a groan from Peggy into the apron, while the
area which showed above its folds turned white at the prospect of
being obliged to draw near to this brother in affliction.
"Yes, but you sicked Tobe, with the rest of us, and in this _girls_
don't count. You've got to go back, smell or no smell, sick or no
sick," announced the General firmly, in the decisive tones of one
accustomed to be obeyed.
"Yes, Stonie," came in a meek and muffled tone from the apron, "we'll
go back with you."
"Can't we just set on the fence of the lot--it ain't so far?" pleaded
Jennie in almost a wail. "I'm afraid Pete will cry from the smell if
we go any closter. He's most doing it now."
"Yes, General, let the girls sit on the fence," pleaded Everett, with
his eyes dancing, but a bit of mockery in his voice, "after all they
are--girls, you know."
"Oh, well, yes, they can," answered Stonewall Jackson in a
magnanimously disgusted tone of voice. "They always get girls when
they don't want to do anything. Come on, Tobe'll be crying if we don't
hurry. Billy, you help Jennie drag Pete, so he can go fast!"
But during the conference the disgusted toddler had been pondering the
situation, and at this mention of his being dragged back to the scene
of offense he had made a quick sally across the plank that spanned the
spring branch and with masculine intuition as to the safe place in
time of danger, he had plunged head foremost into Rose Mary's skirts,
so that only his small fat back showed to the enemy.
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