"Let's make the time, then. Start the fashion, you and I."
"That's right, girlie. All we need's some one to give us a shove up the right trail and we'll keep to it. Like you startin' the girls last winter in that camp-wagon—no, camp-fire club at school. Vashti, she's a different young one since—quit thinkin' about her hair ribbons and how to git to the dances downtown every week and took to washin' the young one's faces and readin' the receipt book instead. And that reminds me. She sent you up a cake she made herself; red, white and blue frosting—and a jar of jell. I'll run git 'em out the hack before the dogs smell 'em." At the door she stopped to call back, "Here comes Con Gardner and Lance Fitch! Oh, yes! And I forgot to tell you"—her voice fell—"Zip Miller won't be over. He's got the spotted fever."
"Oh, how dreadful!" Harry turned from a survey of the cooking with distress in her eyes. The spotted fever was the perpetual menace in the country where sheep grazed. The worst of it was that no one knew the exact cause or cure; the sufferers died or recovered without apparent reason.
"The doctor's went over every day," Mrs. Robinson went on, then broke off with, "I'll tell you later; you ain't got time now."
Harry slipped off her apron to go to meet the latest guests. "Keep up the fire, won't you?" she said to Isita in passing. "That chicken is cooking just right."
"Don't you worry, Miss Harry," was her prompt answer. "I'll watch everything as careful as can be."
All day, while engaged in the exciting task of having everything ready at once, in seeing that Mrs. Mosher's baby had its warm milk and nap at the proper time, in managing so that the dinner should fall between two loads of hay, Harry found Isita always on hand, alert and responsive. The younger girl was deeply interested in Harry's way of setting the table: with eyes full of wonder she gazed at the white tablecloth spread symmetrically, the bowl of nasturtiums in the center, the fresh rolls laid inside the neatly folded napkins. When all was complete and they stood off to take a final view of the table, Isita said quietly, "That's the way it looks for Thanksgiving, ain't it? Ma's told me about that big time."
Harry looked at the girl with pity in her eyes. Never to have known Thanksgiving except through hearing about it!
"You'll go back some day," Harry said. "Every one must eat at least one Thanksgiving dinner with grandmother and grandfather."
She stopped, for Isita's eyes were fixed upon her with a bright, far-off gaze, and the girl was breathing quickly through her parted scarlet lips.