“I don’t know,” said her mother, “but ye have worked this morning like all possessed.”
“Well,” said Randy, “I’m just going to bring in towels and aprons from the line and sprinkle and iron them, so’s you can sit down awhile after dinner.”
Mrs. Weston looked at the bright, flushed face a moment, then said: “I do declare, Randy, you’re a real help. There ain’t a better daughter in this town, if I do say it.”
“Oh, mother,” said Randy, “I’d ’most work my fingers off just to hear you say that. I help you because I love you, though somehow I never ’til now could say it.”
Mrs. Weston wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron, then, turning to Randy, she kissed her, saying: “Why, Randy, it does me good to hear you say it, and, child, ye must know I’m all bound up in you and Prue. We busy folks sometimes forget to show how much we really feel.”
“I mean,” said Randy, “to make you and father happy, always; sometimes I forget to help, but always I mean to.”
“I know ye do,” said her mother.
Randy moved about the kitchen with a subtle sense of exhilaration. Her mother had always been kind and good, but to have her speak of her affection and say a word of approval for her helpfulness, what more could be needed to make a young girl happy? thought Randy.
She sang little snatches of melody while she cleared the dinner table, and grasped the first leisure moment to steal out under the apple tree, thence toward the brook to the old stone wall. A large stone had toppled from the wall, and Randy sat down upon it to rest. She had intended to make a little call upon Miss Dayton, to talk over the events of the picnic, and to hear what her new friend had to tell her; for Helen had hinted that she had another good time planned, and she promised to tell Randy all about it when next they met.
Tall alders grew luxuriantly almost the entire length of the wall, which served as a fence for one side of the pasture; and Randy, a bit tired with the forenoon’s work, easily fell into one of her day-dreams, when she was aroused by hearing voices behind the alders. There seemed to be two voices, and Randy heard them mention her father’s name. She was an honest girl who, under ordinary circumstances, would have scorned to listen; but something in the tone of the speaker’s voice seemed distinctly unfriendly when he spoke of her father, and Randy seemed, against her will, riveted to the spot and obliged to listen. She must have taken her place on the big stone when the conversation was well under way, but the sound of her own footsteps, while unheard by the earnest talkers, had prevented her from hearing their voices. She was invisible to them as they were to her, separated as they were by the alders.