"The horse can wait," returned Mrs. Chester, in a tone of relief. "Yet, for your sake, John, it should have been our first purchase."
"After that necessary 'man,' my dear!"
But Mrs. Chester was in no mood for joking. The reaction from excitement had set in, and she let her husband's jest fall to the ground where it belonged. If only that unfortunate advertisement had done the same! They would not then have been so annoyed by an overflow of traders nor been rendered the laughing-stock of the community. Besides it was now past noon and dinner must be prepared; so she rose to go indoors, suggesting to Dorothy:
"It might be well to see if Hannah and the calf need water. You can take that old pail I use to scrub from and carry them a drink. Take but a half-pailful at a time. You're too young to lift heavy things, yet."
"All right: but, mother, that generous old man didn't say what the calf's name was. And isn't Hannah the oddest for—a cow? Real Quakerish it sounds to me. What shall you name your dear little pig? May I call my darling calf Jewel? Just to think! I never, never dreamed I should have a real live little calf for my very, very own!"
"May your Jewel prove a diamond of the first water!" cried father John, always sympathetic.
But mother Martha was carefully counting the contents of her depleted pocket-book and her tone was rather sharp as she answered:
"It's a poor pig that can't live without a name: and—I'm afraid that old Quaker gentleman was not—was not quite so generous as he seemed. A calf requires milk. A calf that 'runs with its mother' generally gets it; and——" She paused so long that her husband added:
"What becomes of the family that owns the calf? Is that what you were thinking, my dear? No matter! So long as that lowing mother and child were not cruelly 'separated' everything is right. May I come and peel the potatoes for you?"
For helpless to do great things for his household the crippled man had insisted upon his right to do small ones; but it always hurt his wife's pride to see her once stalwart husband doing "woman's work," so he never attempted it without permission.