It was very late when I awoke. Ralph was still sleeping, but Jessie had risen, and was moving quietly about the house. Above the slight noise that she made I heard distinctly the pu-r—rr of falling water, and knew that it was raining heavily. With the knowledge, the recollection that Joe had gone came back to me with an unusual sense of aggravation. Joe had always done the milking, and it had not rained since he left. Dressing noiselessly, in order not to disturb Ralph, I went out into the kitchen. Jessie looked up as I entered. “I’ll help you milk this morning, Leslie,” she said. “It’s too bad for you to have to putter around in the rain while I’m dry in the house.”
“There’s no use in our both getting wet,” I returned, ungraciously. “You’d much better finish getting breakfast and keep watch of Ralph. If he were to waken and find us both gone he’d probably start out a relief expedition of one in any direction that took his fancy. He’d be glad of the chance to get out in the rain.”
“Who would have thought of its raining so soon when we came home last night. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.”
“There’s none in sight now; we’re inside of one so thick that we can’t see out. I dare say we’ll encounter more than one rain-storm ‘while the days are going by’; but it would be handy if Joe were here this morning.”
“Yes, indeed! I only hope Joe’s conscience acquits him, wherever he is.”
“Oh, I am sure it does—if he has a conscience—for I suppose that’s what you would call his feeling obliged to worry about us,” I said, in quick defence of the absent friend whose actions I might secretly question, but of whom I could not bear that another should speak slightingly.
I put on my old felt hat and took up the milk-pail. Jessie was busy over something that she was cooking in a skillet on the stove, but she glanced up as I opened the door, and a dash of rain came swirling in.
“Why, Leslie Gordon! Are you going out in this storm dressed like that? Here, put on my mackintosh.”
I had forgotten all about wraps, but a shawl or cape would have been better than the long mackintosh that Jessie insisted upon buttoning me into. It was too long; the skirts nearly tripped me up as I started to run down the path to the corral, and when I held it up it was little protection.
The corral where the cows were usually penned over-night was behind the barn. As I came in sight of it a feeling of almost despair swept over me. The corral bars were down, and the cows were gone! I hung the milk-pail bottom-side up on one of the bar posts. The raindrops played a lively tattoo on its resounding sides, while I dropped the mackintosh skirt, regardless of its trailing length, and stood still, trying to recollect that I had put up the bars after we had finished milking on the previous evening. Search my memory as I might, however, I could not find that I had taken this simple but necessary precaution, and, if I had forgotten it, it was useless to suppose that Jessie had not.