Then there were the ginger cookies, done up in oiled paper, in packages of a dozen, that his wife had made, and these the hungry young invaders could purchase at ten cents a package. They seemed so much a part of it all that cider never tastes quite perfect to Hampton graduates, to this day, without ginger cookies. Any of the Hampton girls would have been surprised to visit any other cider mill and find that their order for ginger cookies was not understood.
Opposite the mill, on the same side as the farmer’s house, but farther back, and screened all around by a circlet of trees, so that it sparkled in the midst of them like a Corot painting, was the cool mill-pond, with reeds and rushes growing out into it, and shady branches overhanging it.
Drawn toward this now in their search for something of interest to while away the time, Peggy and Katherine parted the bushes and young birch trees, and found themselves looking into the very heart of beautiful things, with all the world of dust and disappointment and fatigue behind them.
“That water looks cool,” murmured Peggy gladly.
“Yes; I don’t know as it’s safe drinking water, but I think we might wade in it.”
“If we have time.”
“An hour?—why of course there’s time. What else can we do to amuse ourselves?”
They were as entirely hidden from the road and the farm house as if they had been in another world. Without more argument, the two sat down and Katherine slipped out of her grey pumps, and flung her grey silk stockings after them. Peggy was wearing tan oxfords and tan stockings.
“O-oh, who would dream there could be anything so cold on such a warm day?” gasped Peggy, trying it with her toes.
“I like this reedy, weedy part,” laughed Katherine, her feet dipping in up to her ankles.