“When will Jud and Janey get their dinner?” he asked Barnabas.
“They kerried their dinner to-day. The scholars air goin’ to hev a picnic down to Spicely’s grove. How comes it you ain’t to school, Dave?”
“I have to help my mother with the washing,” he replied, a slow flush coming to his face. “She ain’t strong enough to do it alone.”
“What on airth kin you do about a washin’, Dave?”
“I can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty the tubs, fetch and carry the washings, and mop.”
Barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment.
“You’re a good boy, Dave, a mighty good boy. I don’t know what your ma would do without you. I hed to leave school when I wa’n’t as old as you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git eddicated. By the time I wuz foot-loose from farm work, I wuz too old to git any larnin’. You’d orter manage someway, though, to git eddicated.” 17
“Mother’s taught me to read and write and spell. When I get old enough to work for good wages I can go into town to the night school.”
In a short time M’ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less hearty appetites than those possessed by her brother and David.
“You ain’t what might be called a delikit feeder, Dave,” remarked Barnabas, as he replenished the boy’s plate for the third time. “You’re so lean I don’t see where you put it all.”