The words, as she spoke them, sounded like a compliment. It mightn’t be so bad, Elliott reflected, to wash milk-pans every morning. And in Rome you do as the Romans do. She watched closely while Aunt Jessica washed the separator. She could easily do that, she was sure. It did not seem to require any unusual skill or strength or brain-power.
“It is not hard work,” said Aunt Jessica, pleasantly. “But so many girls aren’t dependable. I couldn’t count on them to make everything clean. Sometimes I think just plain dependableness is the most delightful trait in the world. It’s so rare, you know.”
Elliott opened her eyes wide. She had been accustomed to hear charm and wit 51 and vivacity spoken of in those terms, but dependableness? It had always seemed such a homely, commonplace thing, not worth mentioning. And here was Aunt Jessica talking of it as of a crown jewel! Right down in her heart at that minute Elliott vowed that the separator should always be clean.
The separator, however, must not commit her indiscriminately, she saw that clearly. Perhaps in fact, it would save her. Hadn’t Aunt Jessica said each had her own tasks? Ergo, you let others alone. But she had an uncomfortable feeling that this reasoning might prove false in practice; in this household a good many tasks seemed to be pooled. How about them?
And then Laura looked up from her jars and said the oddest thing yet in all this morning of odd sayings: “Oh, Mother, mayn’t we take our dinner out? It is such a perfectly beautiful day!” As though a 52 beautiful day had anything to do with where you ate your dinner!
But Aunt Jessica, without the least surprise in her voice, responded promptly: “Why, yes! We have three hours free now, and it seems a crime to stay in the house.”
What in the world did they mean?
Priscilla seemed to have no difficulty in understanding. She jumped up and down and cried: “Oh, goody! goody! We’re going to take our dinner out! We’re going to take our dinner out! Isn’t it jolly?”
She was standing in front of Elliott as she spoke, and the girl felt that some reply was expected of her. “Why, can we? Where do we go?” she asked, exactly as though she expected to see a hotel spring up out of the ground before her eyes.
“Lots of days we do,” said Priscilla. “We’ll find a nice place. Oh, I’m glad it takes peas three whole hours to can themselves. 53 I think they’re kind of slow, though, don’t you?”