When they reached the house Jack went off to do the evening “chores”, while Pam prepared to rush round indoors. She fairly yearned for time to wash her face and do her hair, but a glance at the clock and the keenness of her appetite warned her that she had better get forward with preparations for the evening meal. They had had no dinner that day, there had been no time; and a hunch of harvest-cake had been the only food for which they had stayed during the long hot hours. No wonder Pam felt tired! A year ago she would have thought of such a life with horror; but ideals change as one grows older, and Pam felt that her highest joy now lay in keeping the old home ready for her mother and the children.
The breakfast things were washed and spread for supper, the beds were made, and supper was smelling really good by the time Jack came into the house. Pam had washed her hands and face, she had even put her hair tidy, and she was feeling that she had earned a rest.
“What is the letter about?” asked Jack as he came to the supper-table. He was very damp about face and head, for he had been stuffing his head into a bucket of water, as that was the quickest way of getting clean, and being very anxious for his supper he had not stayed for much towel work.
“As if I should dream of opening the letter until you were here to share it with me!” cried Pam in fine scorn. “Oh, I do wonder how they are getting on with both of us away! Of course it may be good for the boys and Muriel to learn to help themselves, but it seems to me that they need us as much as ever they did.”
“I need my supper!” sighed Jack, and he reached for the saucepan of “stirabout” which was simmering on the stove.
“We will have a proper midday meal to-morrow,” said Pam. “I do not think it pays to go so long without meals, one feels so tired out; but oh, I do begrudge the time spent in coming indoors to cook it, especially now that there is so much to do.”
“Mother is coming!” yelled Jack, who had opened the letter because his portion of stirabout was too hot to eat. “She and the children are already on their way. Read the letter, Pam; they will be here next week! My word, she has hustled this business, and no mistake!”
“Mother coming!” cried Pam, who had snatched the letter and was eagerly devouring it. “It sounds too good to be true! You won’t get any dinner to-morrow, Jack; we dare not spend time in fussing about ourselves when there is so much to be done to get ready for her. You see what she says—that she has had such a good offer for the house and the furniture that it seemed better to take it, and come off straight away, especially as Dr. Grierson had written to her that for my sake she ought to come at any sacrifice. Oh, how could he write to her in such a fashion?”
“I am very glad that he did, because, don’t you see, his letter got there at the very moment it was needed to help Mother to make up her mind. Now she will come and she will settle down; and if Grandfather comes back she will be able to manage him—at least, we will hope so—or if he does not turn up, then she will be on the spot to claim the property as heir-at-law as soon as we are allowed to assume that he is dead. To my way of thinking there is a great deal in being on hand at a time like this.”
“So I think. But I can’t grasp it yet that Mother is really coming!” cried Pam, who had jumped up from the supper-table, and was rushing round frantically trying to do two or three things all at once. “Jack, I must clean the house down again from top to bottom, for I could not have Mother come and find the place dirty. What would she think of me?”