We can't have the tree till the
exercises is over, but that won't be mor'n fifteen minutes, so I sent
Isaac home to make a mustard plaster. He's puttin' it on John now.
John's dreadful solemn and unamusin' when he's well, and I can't think
how he'll act when he's all crumpled up with stomach-ache, an' the
mustard plaster drawin' like fire."
Dick threw back his head and laughed. He had forgotten just how
unexpected Beulah's point of view always was.
Deacon Todd now came out cautiously.
"I've got it on him, mother, tho' he's terrible unresigned to it; an'
I've given him a stiff dose o' Jamaica Ginger. We can tell pretty soon
whether he can take his part."
"Here's Dick Larrabee come back, Isaac, just when we thought he had
given up Beulah for good an' all!" said Mrs. Todd.
The Deacon stood on the top step, his gaunt, grizzled face peering
above the collar of his great coat; not a man to eat his words very
often, Deacon Isaac Todd.
"Well, young man," he said, "you've found your way home, have you?
It's about time, if you want to see your father alive!"
"If it hadn't been for you and others like you, men who had forgotten
what it was to be young, I should never have gone away," said Dick
hotly. "What had I done worse than a dozen others, only that I
happened to be the minister's son?"
"That's just it; you were bringin' trouble on the parish, makin' talk
that reflected on your father.
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