"I suppose, when it comes warm, you can sit out in the arbor?"
"When the grape leaves get big enough to hide me—yes," said Mercy. "I don't go into the garden excepting in schooltime. Then the young ones aren't always running by and tormenting me," snapped the cripple, chopping off her speech at the end.
She was a self-tormentor. It was plain that the poor child made herself very miserable by believing that everybody possessing a strong back and lively legs felt his or her superiority to her and delighted in "showing off" before her. The girl of the Red Mill felt only pity for a sufferer possessing such an unfortunate disposition.
She tried to turn the conversation always into pleasant channels. She held Mercy's interest in the Red Mill and her life there. She told her of the broods of downy chicks that she cared for, and the butter-making, and the household tasks she was able to help Aunt Alviry about.
"And don't you go to school?" demanded Mercy.
"I am going now. I hope this spring and summer to prepare myself for entering the Cheslow High."
"And then you'll be in town every day?" said Mercy, with one of her occasional wistful looks.
"I hope to. I don't know how I will get here. But I mean to try. Miss Cramp says if I'll come two or three times a week this summer, after our school closes, that she will help me to prepare for the High School exams., so I can enter at the beginning of the fall term.
"I know Miss Cramp," said Mercy. "She lives on this street. You'll be so busy then that you'll never get in to see me at all, I suppose."
"Why, I can come much oftener," cried Ruth. "Of course I will."