Mother would be sure to remark this sudden show of modesty
in one she'd just been scolding for the lack of it--for riding the
pony astride and showing her--
Oh, legs(! Missy was in a terrific confusion, as baffled by certain
inconsistencies displayed by her own nature as overwhelmed by her
disgraceful predicament. For she was certainly sincere in her
craving to be as debonairly "athletic" as Tess; yet, during that
ghastly moment when the wasp was . . .
No, she could never explain it to mother. Old people don't
understand. Not even to father could she have talked it all out,
though he had patted her hand and acted like an angel when he paid
for the bucket of candy--that candy which none of them got even a
taste of! That Tess and Arthur should eat up the candy which her own
father paid for, made one more snarl in the whole inconsistent
situation.
It all began with the day Arthur Simpson "dared" Tess to ride her
pony into Picker's grocery store. Before Tess had come to live in
the sanitarium at the edge of town where her father was head doctor,
she had lived in Macon City and had had superior advantages--city
life, to Missy, a Cherryvalian from birth, sounded exotic and
intriguing.
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