The car swept up to the front of the house; Clem Carson’s hand on the horn summoned his women folks.
The house, which seemed small to Sally, accustomed to the big buildings of the orphanage, was further dwarfed by the huge red barns that towered at the rear. The house itself was white, not so recently painted as the lordly barns, but it was pleasant and homelike, the sort of house which Sally’s chums at the orphanage had pictured as an ideal home, when they had let their imaginations run away with them.
Sally herself, born with a different picture of home in her mind, had romanced about a house which would have made this one look like servants’ quarters, but now that it was before her she felt a thrill of pleasure. At least it was a home, not an institution.
A woman, big, heavy-bosomed, sternly corseted beneath her snugly fitting, starched blue chambray house dress, appeared upon the front porch and stood shading her eyes against the western sun, which revealed the thinness of her iron-gray hair and the deep wrinkles in her tanned face.
“Why didn’t you drive around to the back?” she called harshly. “This young-up ain’t company, to be traipsin’ through my front room. Did you bring them rubber rings for my fruit jars?”
“You betcha!” Clem Carson refused to be daunted in Sally’s presence. “How’s Pearl, Ma? Cold any better? I brought her some salve for her throat and some candy.”
“She’s all right,” Mrs. Carson shouted, as if the car were a hundred yards away. “And why you want to be throwin’ your money away on patent medicine salves is more’n I can see! I can make a better salve any day outa kerosene and lard and turpentine. Reckon you didn’t get any car’mels for me! Pearl’s all you think of.”
“Got you half a pound of car’mels,” Carson shouted, laughing. “I’ll drive the new girl around back.
“Ma’s got a sharp tongue, but she don’t mean no harm,” Carson chuckled, as he swung the car around the house.
When it shivered to a stop between the barns and the house, the farmer lifted out a few bundles which had crowded Sally’s feet, then threw up the cover of the hatch in the rear of the car, revealing more bundles. Carson was loading her arms with parcels when he saw a miracle wrought on her pale, timid face.