A Tangled Web by L. M. Montgomery

brother’s car, waiting to take him to the station.
    Just then Destiny, with an impish chuckle, tapped him on the shoulder. His half-sister Nancy was corning into the yard almost in tears. She couldn’t get to the levee if he wouldn’t take her. Her husband’s car had broken down. And she must get to the levee. She would have no chance at all of getting that darling old jug if she did not go.
    â€œYoung Jeff here can take you. I’ll wait for the evening train,” said Peter obligingly.
    Young Jeff demurred. He had to hoe his turnips. He could spare half an hour to take Peter to the station, but spend a whole afternoon down at Indian Spring he would not.
    â€œTake her yourself,” he said. “If the evening train suits you as well, you’ve nothing else to do this afternoon.”
    Peter yielded unwillingly. It was almost the first time in his life he had done anything he really didn’t want to do. But Nancy had always been a sweet little dear—his favorite in his own family. She “Oh—Petered” him far less than any of the others. If she had set her heart on that confounded jug, he wasn’t going to spoil her chance.
    If Peter could have foreseen the trick Fate had it in mind to play him, would he really have gone to the levee, Nancy to the contrary withstanding. Well, would he now? Ask him yourself.
    So Peter came to the levee, but he felt a bit grim and into the house he would not go. He did not give his real reason—for all his hatred of sham. Perhaps he did not acknowledge it even to himself. Peter, who was not afraid of any other living creature from snakes and tigers up, was at the very bottom of his heart afraid of Aunt Becky. The devil himself, Peter reflected, would be afraid of that blistering old tongue. It would not have been so bad if she had dealt him the direct thwacks she handed out to most people. But Aunt Becky had a different technique for Peter. She made little smiling speeches to him, as mean and subtle and nasty as a cut made with paper, and Peter had no defense against them. So he thankfully draped himself over the railing of the veranda. The Moon Man was standing at the other end, and Big Sam Dark and Little Sam Dark were in the two rocking-chairs. Peter didn’t mind them but he had a bad moment when Mrs. Toynbee Dark dropped into the only remaining chair with her usual whines about her health, ending up with pseudo-thankfulness that she was as well as she was.
    â€œThe girls of today are so healthy,” sighed Mrs. Toynbee. “Almost vulgarly so, don’t you think, Peter? When I was a girl I was extremely delicate. Once I fainted six times in one day. I don’t really think I ought to go into that close room.”
    Peter, who hadn’t been so scared since the time he had mistaken an alligator for a log, decided that he had every excuse for being beastly.
    â€œIf you stay out here with four unwedded men, my dear Alicia, Aunt Becky will think you have new matrimonial designs and you’ll stand no chance of the jug at all.”
    Mrs. Toynbee turned a horrible shade of pea-green with suppressed fury, gave him a look containing things not lawful to be uttered and went in with Virginia Powell. Peter took the precaution of dropping the surplus chair over the railing into the spirea bushes.
    â€œExcuse me if I weep,” said Little Sam, winking at Peter while he wiped away large imaginary tears from his eyes.
    â€œVindictive. Very vindictive,” said Big Sam, jerking his head at the retreating Mrs. Toynbee. “And sly as Satan. You shouldn’t have put her back up, Peter. She’ll do you a bad turn if she can.”
    Peter laughed. What did Mrs. Toynbee’s vindictiveness matter to him, bound for the luring mysteries of untrod Amazon jungles? He drifted off into a reverie over them, while the two Sams smoked their pipes and reflected, each according to his bent.
    8
    â€œLittle” Sam