“I wouldn’t cry, little daughter; we must make the very best of things when we can’t change them,” he said with a sad resignation more pathetic by far than tears. He took his old red bandana from his pocket and wiped the drops from her flushed cheeks, compassionately.
“Well! You are the shif’lesses pair I ever did see,” said Mrs. Armitage shrilly. “Thella, if you don’t go at that onion bed I’ll take a strap to you.”
Thella gave her a look of bitter hatred, and walked sullenly to her work. The sun beat down with terrible force; Thella knelt unprotected on the edge of the bed, and pulled the offending weeds; her father hoed the long rows of corn steadily, only pausing to wipe away the perspiration as it trickled down his face. Mrs. Armitage, under the shade of an apple tree whose boughs bent low with yellow fruit, gossiped with a neighbor.
“Pa! pa!” called Thella softly, he paused and looked at her. “Can’t I have an apple? I’m so warm and thirsty.”
Low as was the call, Mrs. Armitage heard it; “’Tend to your work; you always want to be chankin’ something. Warm! it’s just nice and pleasant.”
Pa dropped his hoe between the long rows, and gathering half a dozen apples off the tree, called Thella to him: “It is nice and cool here, under the shade of the tree.”
He sat on the green bank, and took his little daughter on his knee; he pushed the thick hair from her warm face; she ate her apple, her head lying contentedly on her father’s shoulder. Mrs. Armitage went on gossiping with the neighbor, interspersing her remarks with flings about “People too lazy to breathe—humoring that good-for-nothing,” etc. If Pa Armitage heard, he made no sign, beyond pressing his arm a little closer about Thella’s waist.
Time went on. Thella was fourteen; her life was a horrible routine—up before dawn in the winter, and before the sun in summer, to milk and churn, cook and scrub; no thoughts expressed in her hearing except those relating to eating, working, and the continuous bad conduct of the neighbors—this last always sufficient for a whole day’s tirade. In summer it was not so bad; there were always the whispering trees, and the fragrant flowers; the green grass, and the busy booming of the bumble bees; the lowing of the solemn-eyed cows, that came at her call. Best of all was the walk down the long, shady lane, through the grassy dell, where, in the limpid brook, the funny crabs crawled backward; and the saucy, gray squirrel chattered at her from the beech and chestnut trees on the hillside; still an added joy when “pa” followed his little girl, telling her of his coming by putting his crooked little finger in his mouth, and thus whistling shrilly. Fast as her nimble feet could carry her she ran to him, and nestling her hand in his begged him to tell her of her very own mamma. Oh, the delightful walks and talks; the sun hanging low in the west and the soft wind just stirring the leaves; a little later the softly falling dew, the gathering shadows, a belated bird hopping from branch to branch with drowsy chirp; a rabbit darting across the path, causing Thella to glance over her shoulder in quick affright and cling a little closer to “pa’s” hand at sight of the dark shadows all around her; then the great red moon lifting his round face above the treetops, lighting up the openings, and leaving the shadows darker by contrast. The sweet silence seemed deepened by the shrill cry of the cicada, and the plaintive call of the whip-poor-will; at last pa would say, “We must hurry home, we shall get a scolding.”
Thella would sigh and answer: “Yes, pa, but this is so nice,” with a loving cuddle closer to his side.
Well they knew the remark Mrs. Armitage was sure to make about their “trapezing” all over the fields.