“We can’t rightly tell till it’s all threshed out,” said the man; “but Tom Balcom ’lows it’ll average as well’s anything they’ve threshed, and they’ve had thirty-five bushels to the acre.”
Figures did not mean much to Esther, but her “Oh!” had a note of appreciation. Then, as he was turning away, she said earnestly: “I hope we shall have a good dinner for you, Mr. Erlock. Mother was ever so sorry she couldn’t come out to-day herself; I believe she was afraid you wouldn’t fare as well as you ought without her. But Mrs. Elwell came, and between us all we won’t let you suffer.”
“I hain’t a bit o’ doubt about the victuals being good,” said the man, gallantly. “I hope you found things all right in the house. I tried to red up a little for you.”
“Oh, everything was in beautiful order, and the women are all praising your good housekeeping,” said Esther, smiling.
He looked at once pleased and embarrassed. “I did the best I could,” he said, then turned with an awkward nod and hurried again to his work.
She remembered hers too, and hastened with her pitcher back to the house. It was a one-story frame, with gray shingled sides and a deep drooping roof whose forward projection formed a porch across the entire front. Ordinarily it wore an expression of shy reserve, but to-day, with doors and windows open, and the hum of voices sounding through and round it, it seemed to have taken a new interest in life and looked a willing part of the cheerful scene.
The kitchen which the girl entered was full of country women, so full indeed that it seemed a wonder they could accomplish any work, but every one was busy except a young woman with a baby in her arms, who sat complacently watching the labors of the others.
It is the neighborly fashion in the middle West for the women of adjoining farms to help each other in the labors of this busiest time in the year, and the custom had not been omitted to-day because there was no one to return the service. It was rendered willingly as ever, partly from regard for Dr. Northmore, and partly from sympathy with the lonely householder who managed his farm.
“I had to stop and talk a minute with Jake Erlock,” said Esther, apologetic for her slight loitering now that she felt the hurry of the work again. “He came up to draw the water for me, and you ought to have seen him blush when I told him you all thought he was a good housekeeper.”
“Well, if he has any doubt what we think on that point, he’d better come in here and we’ll tell him,” said a woman who was grinding coffee at a mill fixed to the wall. “I don’t believe there’s another man in this township that would manage as well as he does. I wouldn’t answer for the way things would look at our house if ’twas my man that had the running of ’em.”