"Not already!" groaned Harry, and rushed up to look.
A mile away a cloud of dust marched forward round a slow-moving light wagon, and Harry caught glimpses now and then of white-frocked children on the back seat.
"It's the Robinsons," said Harry with conviction. "They live nearest. Well, shell peas for all you're worth, and I'll go twirl the freezer. Be sure to call me when they get to the gate."
And down she dived into the cellar again.
"They're just pullin' up to the gate," came the summons from Isita at last, "and it is the Robinsons. There's a raft of young ones."
As Harry ran down the path to meet them, Mrs. Robinson, crimpy-headed, tall, angular, as vividly alive as ever, waved her hand in greeting.
"Bully for you, girlie!" she cried. "You've got the flag up. As I says to pa as we come round the butte," she went on without a pause as she clambered from the wagon, shook her skirts, pushed back her hat and fanned her face with her handkerchief, "and seen that flag floatin' up top the pole there, I says, 'Well, there's two real Americans in this country, anyhow.' For a hull lot of us Fourth of July has got to mean a big feed and sleepin' it off."
"Mother put the flag in my trunk when I was leaving home. She said we'd need it to remind us of—well, days like this, when we were too busy to observe them any other way. I'm afraid if she hadn't we'd have had the big dinner and nothing else."
"That's something to have, these hard times, lemme tell you," put in Pa Robinson from the rear of the wagon, where he was unloading small Robinsons. "Too late to look for rain now, and there's no more snow water to come down into the river. Looks to me like we'd all be glad to get red beans and side meat next winter."
"Say! That's true, too," his wife chimed in. "What's more, pretty near every truck patch on the flat got froze down that last freeze. I tell you, I'm glad us folks live up here on the bench; even if they do laugh at us for campin' on the rim rock."