Elizabeth made no more sales. In the end she disposed of the remainder of her goods at a store and turned Joe’s head homeward. Herbert was depressed by their bad luck.
“Perhaps it is all a mistake!”
Elizabeth slapped the lines on Joe’s back. Unconsciously she had taken them from Herbert and as unconsciously he had handed them to her. It was too late now to return them, but the next responsibility, however great or small, Herbert must shoulder.
“Of course it isn’t a mistake! They were just supplied, that is all. We’ll go on a day when there is no curb market.”
In encouraging Herbert, she forgot her own disturbance of mind. “We have ten dollars, at any rate, and that is as good as found.”
The June afternoon had grown cool; as the two drove across the grass to the doorway of the stone house the shadows of the mountain lay darkly about them. The house looked larger; it might have appeared, to one who did not love it, sinister. In the stone above the door the name John Baring was deeply carved; it seemed to Elizabeth suddenly to have no relation to her; it looked strange as even familiar words may look at times. But she spoke in her usual soft, brisk tone.
“To-morrow we’ll try Chambersburg. It is so much larger and there will not be so many gardens. Stable your war-horse, Herbert, and I’ll make waffles for supper.”
Elizabeth went into her room, originally a sitting-room behind the larger parlor with windows opening toward the woods. On the floor lay a piece of paper which had not been there when she went away. She picked it up and carried it to the window.
“What in the world!” she cried. With difficulty she deciphered the awkward writing.
This ant no place to rase apels. Nor yit for those what are kin to John Baring.