"I—don't—know. Perhaps, we would. If we had the pony, and the cart, and were let. That's a lot of 'ifs' to settle first."
"Why, of course. I was in the country once, two whole weeks. It was to a big house where my father was putting the plumbing in order for the family and the family had gone away while he was doing it. It was there he got the typhoid fever, and they went away because they didn't want to get it. They left some 'coons' to do the cooking and told my father he could bring me and ma, and we could have a vacation in a cottage on the place. So we did; and the man, the colored one, that took care of the horses used to hitch the pony up to the T-cart and me and ma rode out every day. Course, if you live in the country you'll have to have a pony. How else'd you go around? There wasn't any street cars to that country, 'at ever I saw, and folks can't walk all the roads there are. Pooh! You see, I've been and you haven't, and that's the difference."
"Yes, you've been and I haven't, but, Mabel Bruce, I know more about things that grow than you do, for I know—even in Lexington Market—you don't get strawberries and peaches at the same time. So you needn't expect all those good things when you come. You'll have to put up with part at a time, with whatever happens to be in our garden. If we have a garden! And as for ponies, our house in the country won't be a big one, like yours was, that much I know, too. We haven't any money, hardly. My mother Martha was crying about that yesterday, though she didn't know I saw her till I asked and after I'd spent all those two dollars for these silly shoes. Mabel Bruce, don't you ever go buy shoes too small for you. Umm. I tell you if you do your feet'll hurt you worse than my head did after I banged it—the dog banged it—on Mrs. Cecil's stoop. Isn't she a funny old woman? My father thinks she is the wisest one he knows, but I—I—Well, it doesn't count what I think. Only if I was as rich as she, and I expect I will be sometime, I wouldn't keep Great Dane dogs to jump on little girls like she does. Have some more ham, Mabel?"
The mere thought of her prospective wealth had increased Dorothy's hospitality—at her mother's expense: but to her surprise her guest replied:
"No—I guess—I guess I can't. Not 'less you've got some mustard mixed somewhere, to eat on it. I've et——"
"Eaten," corrected her classmate, who was considered an expert in grammar.
"Et-ten about all I can hold without—without mustard, to sort of season it. Ma always has mustard to put on her ham; and yours is—is getting sort of—bitter," replied Mabel, leaning back in her chair. She always ate rapidly—"stuffed," as her father reproved her—and to-day she had outdone herself. The food was delicious. Mrs. Chester was too thrifty a housewife ever to "spoil" anything, no matter how inexpensive a dish, and in her judgment, boiled ham was a luxury, to be partaken of sparingly and with due appreciation, never "gobbled."
Therefore it was with positive consternation that Dorothy's thoughts came back to practical things and to the joint which she had placed before her guest, allowing her to carve. Though she had herself barely tasted the morsel placed upon her own plate, being too much engaged in talking, she now perceived that Mabel had done more than justice to her lunch. So it was with a cry of real distress that she snatched the dish from the table, exclaiming:
"Well, I guess you don't need mustard to sharpen your appetite, you greedy thing! Beg pardon. That was a nasty thing to say to—to company, and I'm sorry I said it. But mother told me we had to live on that ham most the week, she'd be so much too busy to cook and—Why, Mabel Bruce! You've eaten almost half that pie, too! Hmm. I guess you can stay contented the rest the day. You won't need to go home to your two-o'clock dinner!"
No offense was intended or received. These two small maids had been accustomed, from infancy, to utter frankness with one another, and with perfect amiability the guest replied: