Part 16 (1/2)

”And when do you expect them back?” she asked finally.

”I don't know,” said the old lady, ”but they'll be back as soon as the work is over, you may depend--they don't lag, my girls, neither of 'em.”

”I am sure of that,” she a.s.sented quickly. ”They are the hardest workers I ever saw: I wonder that they never rest, and tell them so.”

”Time enough for resting when all's done,” said the old lady briskly.

”That was my mother's word before me and I've handed it down to Ann and Hester.”

”But then, at that rate, none of us would ever rest, would we?” she protested humourously.

”This side o' green grave?” the old lady shot out. ”Maybe so. But podding peas is a kind of rest--after picking 'em!”

”And have you really picked all these--and in the sun, too?” she said, surprised. ”I trust not for me--I could get along perfectly...”

The old lady jumped briskly after her loaves, tapped the bottoms knowingly, then stood each one on its inverted pan in a fragrant row on the dresser.

”Peas or beans or corn--it makes no odds, my dear,” she cried cheerfully. ”It's all to be done, one way or another, you see.”

An inspiration came to the idler by the window, and before she had quite caught at the humour of it, she spoke.

”Why should you get my breakfast--for I am sure you are going to?” she said. ”Why shouldn't I--if you think I could--for I don't like to sit here and have you do it all!”

”Why not, indeed?” the old woman replied, with a shrewd smile at her.

”Hester judged you might offer, and left the tray ready set.”

”Hester judged?” she repeated wonderingly. ”Why, how could she, possibly? How could she know I would come down, even?”

”She judged so,” the mother nodded imperturbably. ”The kettle's on the boil, now, and I've two of the rusks you relished yesterday on the pantry shelf. Just dip 'em in that bowl of milk in the window and slip 'em in the oven--it makes a tasty crust. She keeps some chocolate grated in a little blue dish in the corner and the b.u.t.ter's in a crock in the well. The brown hen will show you her own egg, I'll warrant that.”

Amused, she followed all these directions, and poured herself a cup of steaming chocolate, the first meal of her own preparing since childish banquets filched from an indulgent cook. And then, the breakfast over, she would have left the kitchen, empty just then, for the mistress of it had pottered out on one of her endless little errands, had not a sudden thought sent a flush to her forehead, so that she turned abruptly at the threshold and walking swiftly to the water spigot, sent a stream into a tiny bra.s.s-bound tub she took from the deep window seats, frothed it with Hester's herb-scented soap, and rinsed and dipped and dried each dish and cup of her own using before the old woman returned.

”It is surprising how--how _satisfactory_ it makes one feel, really,”

she began hastily at the housewife's friendly returning nod, ”to deal with this sort of work. One seems to have accomplished something that--that had to be done... I don't know whether you see what I mean, exactly....”

”Bless you, my dear, and why shouldn't I see?” cried the other, scrubbing the coats of a lapful of brown jacketed potatoes at the spigot. ”Every woman knows that feeling, surely?”

”I never did,” she said, simply. ”I thought it was greasy, thankless work, and felt very sorry for those who did it.”

”Did they look sad?” asked the old worker.

In a flash of memory they pa.s.sed before her, those white-ap.r.o.ned, bare-elbowed girls she had watched idly in many countries and at many seasons; from the nurse that bathed and combed her own children, singing, to the laundry-maids whose laughter and ringing talk had waked her from more than one uneasy afternoon sleep.

”Why, no, I can't say that they did,” she answered slowly, ”but to do it steadily, I should think...”

”It's the steady work that puts the taste into the holiday, my mother used to say,” said the old woman shortly. ”Where's the change, else?”

”But of course there are many different forms of work,” she began, slowly, as though she were once for all making the matter clear to herself, and not at all explaining obvious distinctions to an uneducated old woman, ”and brain workers need rest and change as much, yes, more, than mere labourers.”

”So they tell me,” said Hester's mother respectfully, ”though of course I know next to nothing of it myself. Ann says it's that makes it so dangerous for women folks to worry at their brains too much, for she's taken notice, she says, that mostly they're sickly or cranky that works too much that way. Hard to get on with, she says they are, the best of 'em.”

”Indeed!” she cried indignantly, ”and I suppose to be 'easy to get on with' is the main business of women, then!”