"It's all on account of my horrid name," she told him. "I just can't be good when folks say such mean things. Joe Pomeroy is a sneak anyway, and I've been itching to lick him for a long, long time--ever since Sneed hit me with the whip he uses to drive the cows with." "Did Sneed hit you with a whip?" "Yes. Oh, Tom, I never meant to tell you that! Now you'll go and fight him and he will hurt you, 'cause he's so much bigger than you are, and then Dad will whale you for fighting. Thrash Joe, but don't tackle Sneed. Oh, please!" Tom laughed ironically. "Hm, what satisfaction would it be to me to thrash someone that _you_ have licked, Puss?" he asked. "Please, Tom, don't touch Sneed," she begged, crying harder than ever; and to still her sobs, he promised, though in his heart he vowed vengeance. "How did you happen to go blackberrying without me?" he asked to divert her attention from her anxiety over him. "I thought you wanted me to go with you." "Why, you're so busy at the store that we don't have time to get more than a handful at night when you can go, and the bushes were just loaded with them just below Pomeroy's pasture. I never thought about Joe's being there to tease me. I did want the berries so much, for Aunt Maria said she would make some jelly and some jam if I would pick the berries. She won't gather 'em 'cause the thorns tear her hands so. I got the pail full--heaped up so they kept tumbling off--and now they are all spoiled and I've scratched my hands to pieces all for nothing." Tom expected a fresh wail would follow this statement, for though Tabitha was not ordinarily a cry-baby, the day of trials had been too much for her; but he was surprised when after a moment of silence in which he was vainly trying to think of something consoling to say, she remarked, "Well, I don't know's I care much about the berries, 'cause we're going to move, and I s'pose if we had a lot of jelly put up, Dad would say it wasn't any use to take it with us, and we would have to leave it along with the rest of the truck they've been sorting out today." "Move?" the boy interrupted, as the realization of what she was saying dawned upon him. "Who says we're going to move? What do you mean? They never told me!" "I heard Dad tell Aunt Maria we would leave the last of the week for the place where he has just come from, and they have been packing all the afternoon." Tom was silent and in the darkness Tabitha could not see his face, but she seemed to understand how he felt about it, and after a moment she slipped a thorn-scratched little hand into his, as she said,