Part 18 (1/2)
When at last Gail and Faith reached home, expecting to be met by tears and reproaches from three hungry maids, they were surprised to find supper spread on the table awaiting their coming, and to hear a strange tale of mishap and adventure that would have done credit to the age of Mother Goose or Robinson Crusoe.
”Doesn't that sound like a fairy prince?” asked Peace, when the recital was ended. ”But he says he isn't one.”
”I should say it sounded like a plain robber story,” said Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair. ”What did you give him that money for! It's the last we will ever see of it. You are worse than _Jack and the Bean-Stalk_. You haven't even a handful of bean blossoms to show.”
”I've got a curl from Bossy's tail,” said Peace indignantly, and then burst into tears, unable to bear the sight of Gail's drawn face any longer.
”Yes, and a robber on our trail. Supposing he comes tonight for the rest of the money you told him about. No, Cherry, I don't want any supper.
Come and help me bolt the windows and fix things for the night. I wish Hope was here now.”
The supper remained untouched, the dishes were cleared away in silence, and as soon as Hope arrived the unhappy little household climbed wearily, fearfully upstairs to bed, where Peace sobbed herself to sleep, with faithful Allee's arms about her neck. But no robber came to disturb the brown house and at length even Gail and Faith drifted away to slumberland, in spite of this added trouble.
In the dusk of early morning, while the world was still asleep, a heavy wagon drew up at the gate of the Greenfield cottage, unloaded its precious burden and drove rapidly away again; while Peace, in her restless tossing, dreamed that a gentle, brown-eyed cow stood in Bossy's stall, lowing for some breakfast. She awoke with a start, to hear a familiar, persistent mooing, and the tinkle of a bell in the barnyard, and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house awake with a whoop of joy: ”She has come, she has come! The cow has come! My tramp isn't a robber or a beanstalk at all!”
CHAPTER XI
GARDENS AND GOPHERS
”Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover, or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to scatter, or--or anything else to do?” Peace panted breathlessly one warm Sat.u.r.day afternoon late in May.
”No,” smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiring face. ”You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can rest awhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting.”
”Can--may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lot of seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he's going to Alaska.”
”Government seed! What kinds?”
”Cuc.u.mbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and--”
”But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought you wanted your little plot of ground for flowers?”
”I do. One of these packages is sweet peas.”
”Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't have any use for sweet pea seed.”
”Hope said that was the name on the package.”
”Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of the Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard fence, and plant the peas there.”
Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gail straightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthful planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into the freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.
”Mercy, but this yard is big!” sighed weary Peace, as she began digging along the third and last side. ”Have you got enough left to stick in here, Allee?”
”This is all,” answered the blue-eyed toiler, displaying a handful of flat, black seed in her ap.r.o.n.
”Those don't look like peas,” cried Cherry, pausing to examine the queer-looking things. ”All I ever saw were round.”
”Garden peas _are_ round,” answered Peace, with a knowing air, ”but these are sweet peas, and they are flat.”
”Did you ever see any before?” demanded Cherry suspiciously, nettled by her sister's manner.