"Here I be. Don't holler. I'll come, soon's I take the milk in. I thought you'd sleep till doomsday!" he replied, still in a low tone, yet with less caution than he usually displayed.
She sat down on the barn door sill and waited. She had a strong reluctance to enter the cottage which was tightly closed and where she had so greatly suffered. So that it was with real delight she saw the lad was bringing a plate with him, as he returned, and guessed it to be her breakfast.
"Oh! how nice! I'll love to picnic out here, but how does it happen? and, Jim, what makes you so sober? Is—is she sick? Didn't she go to market last night? Tell—talk—why can't you? I want to hear everything, every single thing. I didn't know—I went to sleep—What a funny wagon it is, anyway!"
The big vehicle stood in the yard before them, its shafts resting on the ground; and the four mules used to draw it were feeding in the pasture beyond. Dorothy thought it wonderful how anybody, most of all a woman, could drive four mules, as Miranda did, without reins to guide them, yet make them so obedient to her will. The wagon, also, was a curiosity to her, though she had often seen similar ones on the streets at home.
It was a large affair, rising several feet upwards from its box, its ends projecting; forward over the dashboard and, at the rear, backward beyond a step and a row of chicken crates. The top was of canvas, that had once been white, and the tall sides were half of a brick-red, half of bright blue. Its capacity was enormous, and so prolific was the truck-farm that it was always well filled when it made its city trips.
"Have you had your breakfast, too, Jim?" asked Dorothy, rather critically inspecting hers, which did not at all suggest the dainty cooking of mother Martha.
"Yep. All I wanted. He—I reckon he's powerful sick."
"Can't you sit down by me for company? I feel so good this morning. I'd like somebody to talk to."
"A minute, maybe. I can make it up later."
"Jim Barlow, I think you're a splendid boy. I never saw anybody so faithful to such a horrid old woman. You never waste a bit of time, you only study when you ought to sleep, and yet—yet I didn't like you at all when I first saw you. When I get home and my father gets well, I'm going to tell him or the minister all about you, and ask them to get you a better place. To send you to school, or do anything you like."