Maybe I can--"
"Wait a minute, I've got a plan!" I exclaimed quickly; for being
Roxanne's friend often makes me need to think very quickly indeed.
"You go on believing they'll come, and your believing and my plan will
be almost sure to get them. I'll have to go home right now."
"Your plan won't make me have to--to let anybody give them to me, will
it, Phyllis?" And Roxanne's eyes were so soft with entreaty to spare
that family pride that I had to swallow the inconvenient lump in my
throat again. I wish my eyes knew how to mist with tears like a girl's
ought to do instead of my choking up like a boy. But I had my voice
good and steady by the time I got opposite Father across his office
table.
"And so," he said, as he looked at me with an expression I feel on
myself when I am going to take hold of some of the knots in Roxanne's
affairs, "I am to buy two barrels of apples here in the spring when
they are gold nuggets, and help you pack up ten baskets of them for me
to send to the furnace office force as a seasonable compliment, just
so that stiff-necked young Byrd can carry his family pride along home
in the basket with the apples for the making of six pies.
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