“Don’t count on me, children. I’ll take care of myself and get the men a hot dinner besides. I’d just as soon.”
“We’d like to have you go, mother, and I’m sure Aunt Susan would want us to bring you,” Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her knees.
“No, I don’t want to go. I’ll get the dinner though, and you needn’t hurry back.” She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had arranged the matter to everybody’s liking.
“Let her get the dinner then,” Elizabeth said, exasperated. “I’ll leave everything ready for it.”
“I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet.”
“We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn’t have a buggy till long after we were engaged,” Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his mother at home, which she knew would be useless.
“I should think you’d want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all the time about having too much to do,” John replied evasively.
“I wouldn’t get any rest,” Elizabeth replied quickly. “I’d get a dinner—that’s what I’d have to do if I stayed at home. I’d be on my feet three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That’s the rest I’d have.”
“The devil!” was the answer she got as John went out.
The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in secret over Susan Hornby’s neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them. She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.