“My kind!  Uncle Shad, what in the world have I got to do with Dan Higgins and coffins—­and all the rest of it?”

“Nothin’, nothin’ at all.  That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you if you’ll give me a chance.  Mary-’Gusta, your Uncle Zoeth and I have decided that you must go to school up to Boston, at the Misses Cabot’s school there.  You’ll board along with that Mrs. Wyeth, the one we met today.  She’s a good woman, I cal’late, though she is so everlastin’ straight up and down.  You’ll board there and you’ll go to school to those Cabot women.  And—­”

But Mary-’Gusta interrupted.  The hen was off the nest now, there was no doubt of that, and of all unexpected and impossible hatchings hers was the most complete.  The absurdity of the idea, to the girl’s mind, overshadowed even the surprise of it.

“What?” she said.  “Uncle Shad, what—?  Do you mean that you and Uncle Zoeth have been in conspiracy to send me away to school?  To send me away to Boston?”

Shadrach nodded.

“No conspiracy about it,” he declared.  “Me and Zoeth and Mr. Keith, we—­”

“Mr. Keith?  Yes, yes, I see.  It was Mr. Keith who put the idea in your head.  How perfectly silly!”

“Silly?  Why is it silly?”

“Because it is.  It’s ridiculous.”

“No, it ain’t, it’s common sense.  Other girls go to city finishin’ schools, don’t they?  That Irene Mullet’s just gone, for one.  Don’t you think we figger to do as much for our girl as Becky Mullet can do for hers?  Jumpin’ fire!  If you ain’t worth a hogshead of girls like Irene Mullet then I miss my guess.”

“Hush, Uncle Shad; what difference does that make?”

And now Zoeth put in a word.  “Mary-’Gusta,” he said, “you know what a good school like the one Shad’s been speakin’ of can do for a girl.  I know you know it.  Now, be right down honest; wouldn’t you like to have a couple of years, say, at a school like that, if you could have ’em just as well as not?  Didn’t you say not more’n a fortni’t ago that you was glad Irene Mullet was goin’ to have such a chance to improve herself?”

Mary-’Gusta had said that very thing; she could not truthfully deny it.

“Of course I did,” she answered.  “And I am glad.  But Irene’s case and mine are different.  Irene isn’t needed at home.  I am, and—­”

Shadrach broke in.  “Ah, ha!  Ah, ha!  Zoeth,” he crowed, triumphantly.  “Didn’t I tell you she’d say that?  I knew she’d say she wouldn’t go ’cause she’d think she’d ought to stay here and look out for us.  Well, Mary-’Gusta, you listen to me.  Zoeth and I are your guardians, lawfully appointed.  We’re your bosses, young lady, for a spell yet.  And you’re goin’ to do as we say.”

“But—­”

“There ain’t any ‘buts.’  The ‘buts’ are all past and gone.  Mr. Keith has arranged for you to board and room along with Mrs. Wyeth and I’ve arranged for your schoolin’ at the Cabot place.  Yes, and I’ve done more’n that:  I paid for your first year’s schoolin’ this very afternoon.  So there!  That’s ended.”