As the afternoon wore on, and still Carson did not appear, Sally’s gratitude for Mrs. Carson’s inarticulate kindness sent her on a flying trip to the orchard to gather enough hard, sour apples to make pies for supper. Carson, she began to hope, was so busy setting up the cider mill that he would have no time to take her back to the orphanage, even if he wanted to. Maybe she was safe for a while; she would not run away just yet, for if she ran away she would never see David again—
It was fun to have the whole big kitchen to herself. Humming under her breath, she cut chilled lard into well-sifted flour, using the full amount that Mrs. Carson’s pie crust called for. At the orphanage the pie crust was tough and leathery, because the matron would not permit the cook to use enough lard. What joy it was to cook on a prosperous farm, where there was an abundance of every good thing to eat! If only she could stay the whole summer through! She could stand the hard work....
As she piled the sliced apples thickly into the crimped pie crust, she thought wistfully of Mrs. Carson, who was kind to her although she was a hard taskmistress.
“Maybe,” Sally reflected sadly, dusting around nutmeg over the thickly sugared apples, “if I could stay on here, Mrs. Carson would want to adopt me. But of course Pearl and Mr. Carson wouldn’t let her. They hate me because David likes me and won’t marry Pearl. And I like David better than anybody in the world,” she confessed to herself, as the pink in her cheeks deepened. “But I would love to have a mother, even if it was only a ready-made mother. I wonder why some girls have everything, and others nothing? Why should Pearl have a mother who just spoils her past all enduring? Pearl isn’t good—she isn’t even good to her mother.”
When her three big apple pies were in the oven, she washed the bread bowl in which she had mixed her pie crust; washed and dried vigorously the big yellow pine board and rolling pin, and restored them to their proper places. Then, feeling very useful and virtuous, she set the table for supper, singing little scraps of popular songs which she had heard over the radio during her week on the farm.
By that time her pies were baked to a deep, golden brown, with little glazed blisters across their top crusts.
“If I do say it myself,” she said, in her little old-woman way, her head cocked sideways as she surveyed her handiwork, “those are real pies. I hope Mrs. Carson will be surprised and pleased.”
Then, because she was very tired and the late afternoon sun was making an inferno of the kitchen, Sally climbed the steep back stairs to the garret, intending to take a cooling sponge bath and a short nap before the family returned, hungry for supper. She was about to pass David’s door when his voice halted her:
“That you, Sally? I’ve been enjoying your singing, even if I did spend more time listening than studying.”
She went involuntarily toward him. “I didn’t know you were up here, David,” she told him. “I’m sorry I interrupted your studying. I wouldn’t have sung if I’d known you were up here.”