"I know where there's a chestnut tree," announced Reliance suddenly.
"Oh, do let's find it," said Edna. "I will put the tomatoes in my handkerchief and carry them that way. We ought to gather all the chestnuts we can, for I know mighty well after the boys come there won't be a nut left." There was a rush down the hill to the big chestnut tree about whose roots lay the prickly burs which the frost had opened to show the shining brown nuts within.
"I don't see how we are going to carry them," said Edna after a while, when she had gathered together quite a little heap.
"I'll show you," Reliance told her, and began tying knots in the corners of the apron she wore. "There," she said, "that makes a very good bag, and what we can't carry that way we can leave and come back for to-morrow. We'd better take as many as we can, though, for to-morrow will be such a busy day I may not be able to come, and if we don't, the squirrels will get them all."
"I could come alone, now that I know the way," said Edna, "or maybe mamma would come with me."
"I suppose we'd better be going back," said Reliance when she lifted the improvised bag to her arm. "It is near to milking time and that means getting ready for supper."
"What do you do to get ready for supper?" asked Edna taking hold of one side of the bag.
"Oh, I set the table and go down to the spring-house for the butter and cream. I can skim milk now, but I couldn't at first, I got it all mixed up."
"Do you skim all the milk?"
"Oh, no, that we put on the table to drink is never skimmed. The skimmed milk goes to the pigs."