Harriet laughed. “You and Johnny can mind the place. The men and Alma are all off at the lower farm and here goes the last woman. Good-by.”
Elliott went briskly about her program. She found soap and a pan and rinsed her dishes under the hot-water faucet. Then she sat down to the peas. Johnny, who had followed her about for a while, deserted her for pressing affairs of his own out-of-doors. Elliott pinched the pods as 187 scientifically as she knew how and wondered whether, if she should shell peas all her life, her slender fingers would ever acquire the lightning nimbleness of the Gordons’ fat ones. How long Harriet was gone!
She was thinking about this when she heard something that made her first stop her work to listen and then jump up hurriedly, spilling the peas out of her lap. The wailing of a terrified child was coming nearer and nearer. Elliott set down the peas that were left and ran out on the veranda. There was Johnny stumbling up the path, crying at the top of his lungs.
“Why, Johnny!” She ran toward him. “Why, Johnny, what is the matter?”
Johnny precipitated himself into her arms in a torrent of tears. Not a word was distinguishable, but his wails pierced the girl’s ear-drums.
“Johnny! Johnny, stop it! Tell me where you’re hurt.”
But Johnny only sobbed the harder. He couldn’t be in danger of death—could he?—when he screamed so. That showed his lungs were all right, and his legs worked, too, and his arms. They were digging into her now, with a force that almost upset her equilibrium. Could something be wrong inside of him?
“What’s the matter, Johnny? Stop crying and tell me.”
Johnny’s yells slackened for want of breath. He held up one brown little hand. She inspected it. Dirty, of course, unspeakably, but otherwise—Oh, there was a bunch on one knuckle, a bunch that was swelling. “Is that where it hurts you, Johnny?”