Hugh did not at all understand why she was sick and unequal to the demands made upon her strength, but he did see that she was so, and that her tired young face wore a discouraged expression.
“I’ll take Jack with me; that’ll help some,” he said as an afterthought.
“If you would——” The relief in her voice told the strain it was upon her to work and watch the toddling child. “I’ll tell you—hurry back and tack this carpet down for me. I’ll have the room and closet straightened up so that you can do it by then.”
She wiped Jack’s dirty face with the end of a towel she thrust into the water pitcher on the washstand and sent him off with a kiss to the welcome ride. As she worked after they were gone, she ran over in her mind the supplies on hand for the feeding of fifteen men on such short notice. Threshing and corn-shelling meant hard work to the men who followed the business, but it meant feasting and festivity as well, and it was with the prospect of much cooking on the morrow that Elizabeth furrowed her forehead, and hurried with the replacing of the contents of the closet. There was a sponge to be set to-night and bread to bake to-morrow; there was a cake to be baked, beans picked over and set to soak, and dried fruit to stew; also, and what was more annoying, she had let the churning run over for twenty-four hours in order to finish her cleaning.
“If I can’t get around to that churning, I’ll just let it go if it does sour,” she decided at last.
When Hugh came back she set him to work at the carpet and went to the kitchen to look after things there. Nathan had offered to keep Jack when he heard of the unexpected work his mother was going to have thrust upon her, and Hugh, remembering Elizabeth’s relieved expression when he had offered to bring the child, was only too glad to leave him in such good hands.
“How long is that child going to stay at Hornby’s?” John demanded the next morning. He set the heavy cream jar on the table and faced Elizabeth, who was kneading the bread on the big bread-board which rested on the top of the flour barrel.
“I don’t know—till Uncle Nate gets time to bring him home to-day, I suppose.”
Elizabeth did not look up.
“Well, I don’t want this thing to happen again. A child that age has no business away from home. What was your idea, anyhow?”