"Of course, that was the reason my friend Oliver sold her to you so cheap. At ordinary rating that fine blooded cow would have brought at least a hundred dollars. Of course, too, there had to be some consideration to offset the price;" and again when, on the morning of that gathering at Seth Winters's smithy, Hannah had gnawed her fastening rope in two and started on a tour of the farm, he began to explain: "There is a way to prevent such——" But had paused abruptly, his attention attracted to the road below, and finished his possible advice by the pointing of his grimy finger and the exclamation: "Tiberius Cæsar! Look a-there!"
Mrs. Chester did look and instinctively sought the society of John and Dorothy, as a protection against the invasion that threatened them.
"Oh! what can it mean? They are all looking this way as if they were bound for Skyrie! Wagons, people, such a crowd—tell me, John Chester, have you advertised again? Is it another 'sale'?"
But he shook his head, as much surprised and alarmed as she: till Seth Winters, the foremost of this invading army, came up to them, and courteously doffing his hat, explained, with a gay:
"Good-morning, neighbors! Don't be frightened! We are nothing but a well-meaning bee!"
CHAPTER XIII
A BENEFICENT BEE
If to be busy is a synonym for "bee" this one was well named. As the blacksmith further explained, while Dorothy hastened to fetch a chair for Mrs. Calvert, who stood beside him, merrily smiling:
"It's a way country folks have of giving a neighbor a lift. We get up 'bees' to raise a barn, help in somebody's belated haying or harvesting, and we've arranged one now to get Skyrie into a little better shape. Too much of a job for one man to undertake alone, and with your permission, we'll begin. Each man knows his part and your near neighbor, John Smith, is boss of the whole. His farm is next to this, he knows most about Skyrie. 'One year's seeding makes seven years' weeding,' you know, and poor Skyrie has been running to weed-seeds far too long. May we begin?"