And I noticed some of those women acted as if they had lost something.

Maybe it was a chance to gossip about Laddie, for he hadn't left them a thing to guess at, and mother says the reason gossip is so dreadful is because it is always GUESSWORK.

Well, that was all fair and plain.

He had told those people, our very best friends, what he thought about everything, the way they acted included.

He was carrying something to each member of the Pryor family, and he'd left a way to return joking and unashamed, if they wouldn't let him in.