"Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren't you going to?"
"What?" asked John Murchison, and again took out his
pipe, as if this were the first he had heard of the
matter.
"Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You
can't do it under that," Oliver added firmly. "Crackers
are eight cents a packet this year, the small size."
"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite
and final, and its ambiguity was merely due to the fact
that their father disliked giving a plump refusal.
"Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No."
Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by
the pump, and sought his brother behind the woodpile.
Then he returned to the charge.
"Look here, Father," he said, "CASH DOWN, we'll take
ten."
John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were
usually impregnated with meaning, especially in anger.
"No more of this," he said. "Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go
and make yourselves of some use. You'll get nothing from
me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went through
the kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed.
His eldest son, arriving over the backyard fence in a
state of heat, was just in time to hear him. Lorne's
apprehension of the situation was instant, and his face
fell, but the depression plainly covered such splendid
spirits that his brother asked resentfully, "Well, what's
the matter with YOU?"
"Matter? Oh, not much.
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