"Good morning," said Scarborough, looking in on the three women.
They stopped work and smiled at him, and the girls dried their hands and shook hands with him—all with an absolute absence of embarrassment that, to one familiar with the awkward shyness of country people, would have told almost the whole story of Scarborough's character. "I'll get you some breakfast in the dining-room," said Mrs. Gabbard.
"No—just a little—on the corner of the table out here," replied Scarborough.
Mrs. Gabbard and Sally bustled about while he stood in the doorway of the shed, looking out into the yard and watching the hens make their careful early morning tour of the inclosure to glean whatever might be there before scattering for the day's excursions and depredations. He had not long to wait and he did not linger over what was served.
"You've et in a manner nothing," complained Mrs. Gabbard.
"I haven't earned an appetite yet," he replied. "Just wait till this evening."
As soon as he was out of view he gave a great shout and started to run. "What folly to bother with, a foolish, trouble-breeding thinking apparatus in a world like this!" he thought, as the tremendous currents of vitality surged through him. And he vaulted a six-rail fence and ran on. Down the hollow drenched with dew, across the brook which was really wide enough to be called a creek, up the steep slope of the opposite hill at a slower pace, and he was at the edge of the meadows. The sun was clear of the horizon now, and the two wagons, piled high with hay and "poled down" to keep the loads steady, were about to move off to the barn.
"Bring back a fork for me, Bill!" he called to the driver of the nearer wagon—Bill was standing on the lofty top of his load, which projected forward and rear so far that, forward, the horses were half canopied. Against Bill's return he borrowed Gabbard's fork and helped complete the other wagon, the sweat streaming from his face as his broad shoulders swung down with the empty fork and up with a great mat of hay.
They worked alternately in the fields and at the barns until half-past eleven. Then they went into the shade at the edge of the meadow and had their dinner.
"My old woman," said Gabbard, "says that two set-down meals a day in harvest time's as many as she'll stand for. So we have dinner out here in good weather, and to the barn when it rains."