Dotty’s Suitcase by Constance C. Greene

big peak of his hat, Jud’s narrow little face peered out, his sharp chin and freckles dazzling in the light. “It feels like next year, we been gone so long.”
    She had to stop and think. “Why, it’s only Saturday!” Dotty exclaimed, amazed that this was so.
    Jud rolled his oily eyes around and made a snout out of his nose. “Seems like we been gone for years.”
    â€œYou didn’t have to come. Nobody asked you. It’s not my fault we got in this mess.”
    â€œWhose is it then?” Jud asked innocently. “Whose is it?”
    â€œStop complaining,” Dotty said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “This is an adventure. We haven’t even missed a day of school, for Pete’s sake. Just stop complaining.”
    He snuffled loudly and she wasn’t sure whether he was fixing to cry or was laughing at her. She turned sideways so she couldn’t see him looking at her.
    â€œSome people will always be a stick-in-the-mud,” Dotty said. “They are born that way. They can’t help themselves. They are just plain born to be a stick-in-the-mud.”
    They rode on in silence broken only by the sound of Sarah’s hooves and the sudden noise of snow falling from the branch of a tree. After a time Mr. Clarke said, “Seems I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line. This doesn’t look familiar to me at all. I think I’ll stop up here and ask directions.” He reined in Sarah as they approached a farmhouse curled under the brim of a small hill, a farmhouse with peeling paint and a porch that clung to the front of the house for dear life, fearful it might drop off at any moment. A battered mailbox bearing the name A. Lazlo stood at the end of the drive, and a sign swung from a large old maple tree, proclaiming: “A PPLES . P ICK U R O WN . C ORTLANDS , M ACS , R OME B EAUTYS .” Dotty and Jud stayed in the sleigh as Mr. Clarke went up the front steps. A crowd of small faces looked out at them, pale and watery behind the cracked window-panes.
    A woman with a thin, irritable face came to the door. “Yes?” she said in a sharp tone.
    Mr. Clarke took off his hat, and she moved back, as if she thought he was going to hit her. “I wonder if you could tell me which road goes to Boonville,” he said courteously. “I seem to have lost my way.”
    The woman smiled tentatively, as if her face were stiff and she’d forgotten how to smile from lack of practice. “Why,” she said, “you ain’t but a spit away. At the foot of the driveway, you turn left and then …”
    â€œHe turns right is better, Ma,” a large boy corrected her, coming out from behind his mother’s skirts, suddenly brave. “You turn left, you come to the old mill, you got to go around the pond. Takes twice the time. You turn right, you be better off. Takes you straight up to the highway, and it ain’t but a short distance then.” The boy stepped back behind the woman’s skirts as if he’d said his lines in a play and were going behind the curtain, his part over. There was a sound of scuffling.
    â€œThink they know everything, don’t they?” The woman took a swipe at her coarse gray hair, pushing it behind her ears. Then she took another swipe at the surging bodies behind her, apparently engaged in mortal combat.
    â€œYoung ’uns don’t mind their manners the way they used to. When I was a girl”—she smiled coquettishly at Mr. Clarke—“young ’uns had some respect for their elders.”
    Mr. Clarke thanked her as if she’d given him the keys to the city. “You’ve been very kind,” he said. The children giggled. Dotty stared angrily at them, sure they were making fun of Mr. Clarke because he was so polite. Jud had crawled so far under the blanket only the top of his hat showed.
    Mr. Clarke took up the reins, chirping to Sarah, telling her to