“There ought to be enough to-day, Patsey; just look at them!” she exclaimed, as he came in laden with the berry baskets.
“My! Just don’t they look good!” exclaimed the boy, looking hungrily at them, for he had had nothing since breakfast; and although corn porridge with potatoes had been sufficiently satisfying at the time, he was conscious of very keen hunger at the present moment.
“There is a big one for you on the corner of the stove; sit down and eat it now, then you can get in the wood for to-morrow’s cooking. It is nearly three o’clock already; and the cars come up before six, you know,” Nell said, as she dusted down the baking board and put the things tidily away for the next day.
“I’ve got it all chopped, so it won’t take long to bring it down to the house in the truck,” Patsey said, attacking his pie with great gusto, and thinking that it was if anything even nicer than it looked; but then he was so very hungry that this imparted a special flavour to the homely viands.
Nell looked out through the open door with a sudden longing. The afternoon sunshine lay warm and bright on the cleared space before the house. It was late October, but the winter was holding off; the days were soft and pleasant, although the nights had mostly a touch of frost in them. She wanted to be out-of-doors, to feel the strong wind lifting her hair, to be dazzled with the sunshine, and to watch the darting chipmunks hunting and hoarding their winter store of nuts.
“Patsey, if I go to fetch in the wood, would you dust the sitting-room and your mother’s bedroom? I haven’t had time even to look in there since breakfast. If I go to do it now I shall not have a minute for out-of-doors; then I shall have that horrid buzzing in my head all the evening.”
“It is horrid work for a girl hauling that wood-truck down the slope,” said Patsey, with a rueful face, although, to be strictly honest, he deemed it still more horrid work for a boy to be obliged to dust a sitting-room and a bedroom.
“Oh, I don’t mind the wood-hauling. I simply could not go out walking for the sake of walking when there is so much to do in other ways; but to go backwards and forwards with the wood-truck is such an extremely virtuous way of taking the air that I shall not have any trouble with my conscience over the matter. Mind you dust the legs of the chairs, Patsey, and don’t round off the corners, for that isn’t good style in dusting.”
“What am I to do if customers come?” asked the boy, in a mumbling tone, his mouth fuller of pie than good manners warranted.
“Serve them, of course. But please don’t sell all the loaves before I get back, for I want a nice one for your mother’s supper. It won’t do to treat her badly on her first night at home, you know,” Nell said brightly; and she started up the slope at the back of the house, carrying her hat in one hand and dragging the wood-truck with the other.