"No, Suzanna, little girl," he said; "I guess talk from the heart rarely hurts." He paused. "Perhaps it was meant you should talk to him."
CHAPTER IX
A LEAF MISSING FROM THE BIBLE
Suzanna thought a great deal about the Eagle Man. She was extremely puzzled as to the exact place he filled in the world. While she admired him, indeed was strongly drawn to him, still she considered him in some ways quite inferior to her father. And so she wondered why he could live in a big house, could have servants who sprang at a word to do his bidding, and could eat all the fruit he wanted as evidenced by the great bunch of purple grapes, one of many bunches, while her father lived in a very small house, had no servants, and had little fruit to eat. She knew instinctively that the Eagle Man had no need to worry about rent day, and the many other similar things she felt harassed her father, and over and over again she pondered on this seemingly unjust state of affairs. It would have been so much better, she thought, if the Eagle Man occupied with his one daughter just a little cottage while the large Procter family had the bigger house. Though she dearly loved the little home, there had been times when it seemed very small for the growing Procter family.
But she concluded at last that for the present there were many perplexities which must remain perplexities till that wonderful time when she would be a woman, and everything made clear to her. Experiences, too, had shown her that a troublesome question of Monday often had resolved itself by Wednesday. So she went contentedly on her way.
On a morning following Suzanna's talk with the Eagle Man, Mrs. Procter and all the children except the baby who was taking his early morning nap upstairs, were in the kitchen busy at their tasks, Suzanna polishing the stove, and Maizie peeling the potatoes for supper, a task Mrs. Procter insisted upon being performed early in the day. Peter, exempted, because of his sex, from household duties—and very unfair this exemption Suzanna thought privately—was trying his awkward best to mend a baseball. Maizie broke a rather long silence.
"Mother!" she cried, and then waited.
Mrs. Procter looked up from her kneading.
"What is it, Maizie?" she asked.