Marcus now selected a board of the right length, and had just begun to split it up into slabs for the front of the coop, when he heard Aunt Barbara’s bed-room window go up.
Marcus did not raise his eyes, but he could not stop his ears, and he had to hear the shrill tone that called out, “Stop! stop! Marcus Lee!”
Marcus rested his hatchet on the board, and looked up.
“You are a wasteful boy!” began Aunt Barbara. “You ought to be ashamed to cut up that good board!”
“Don’t mind her,” said Marcus, in an undertone, as he resumed his work.
“Wait a minute, Marcus,” said Hatty; and then raising her voice she called out, “Aunt Barbara, we want a coop for the chickens—some dear little bantams I brought from grandma’s!”
“Chickens!” said Aunt Barbara, much as if she had said bears! “What on earth did you bring them here for? why, they’ll ruin everything in the garden, and crow so in the morning nobody can sleep.”
“We are going to shut them up, Aunt Barbara, and that will keep them out of mischief,” said Hatty, trying to speak pleasantly.
“Take your own way! take your own way! Its never any use for me to say anything!” said Aunt Barbara, and her window was put down with such a force that made the glass rattle.
Marcus had expected to hear Hatty answer in her usual hasty way, and he was quite surprised to see that she did not seem at all angry, and now had no unkind remarks to make about Aunt Barbara. He did not know that Hatty had been obliged to cast one look up to the clear sky, to remember the Great Being who was looking down upon her, before she dare trust herself to speak, nor did he know that she was now wondering why Aunt Barbara should be so unlike her dear, dear grandma.