“Only two more little days,” said Azalea, “and then we are through.”
“Little days, little days,” sang Carin in a tune of her own. “Only two more little days.”
“You use strange expressions,” remarked Miss Zillah to her girls. “Why do you say ‘little days’? Why not ‘short days’?”
“When I love anything,” explained Azalea, “I call it little.”
“Then you do love these days? I’m glad. I was afraid—”
“Aunt Zillah, dear—afraid?”
“Afraid you were tired, my girl. You’re tanned, of course, and so not pale, but you do seem rather weary.”
“Oh, I’m tired, but school teachers have a perfect right to be tired. Six weeks of teaching children who haven’t been in the habit of learning is rather an order, now, isn’t it, Aunt Zillah? But they’ve learned! All this last week they’ve studied like mad trying to get as much as they could before school closed. Even that queer, cross Mr. McIntosh has worked as if his life depended on it.”
“His young shote depended on it, you remember,” laughed Carin. “Mr. Rowantree has lost his wager with him and will have to hand over the brace of ducks.”
“So much the worse for Mary Cecily and the babies,” sighed Azalea. “Well, they’ll have plenty this year, anyway. The farm is really doing well, and it will do better next year now that Jake Panther is to take it over to work it on shares. He has much more in him than I thought at first. Now that he sees there’s some hope ahead for the Panthers, he’s a changed fellow. He’s roofed the cabin he and his grandmother live in, and set up a doorstep, and put out a rain barrel and made all sorts of improvements. Even Grandma Panther herself doesn’t look quite such a witch as she did.”