Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/212

 188  apple that struck Mr. Milligan was, she maintained, the very last of about four dozen.

Had the Milligans not been prejudiced, they might easily have learned how far from the truth this assertion was, for the porch of Dandelion Cottage was still bespattered with tomatoes but, in the Milligan yard, there were no traces of the recent encounter. This, to be sure, was no particular credit to Mabel for there might have been had Mr. Milligan delayed his coming by a very few minutes, for Mabel's pan still contained seven hard little apples and Mabel still longed to use them.

The Milligans, however, were prejudiced. Although Laura was often rude and disagreeable at home, she was the only little girl the Milligans had; in any quarrel with outsiders they naturally sided with their own flesh and blood, and, in spite of the tomatoes, they did so now. In her mother Laura found a staunch champion.