When he was receiving his third helping of ham, Arethusa leaned over close and whispered in his ear, but very, very softly, so that Miss Eliza would not hear her, "Pig!"
She also lost no single opportunity of conveying to him, though much more by expression than by actual word of mouth, how exceedingly ridiculous she thought he looked in his borrowed clothing. It was far too small for him in every possible way. Ross Worthington was a large man, but Timothy was even larger. He topped Arethusa, who was quite tall for a girl, by considerably more than half a head, and he was built all over in proportion.
When he was not covertly teasing his next-door neighbor, Timothy carried on a very polite conversation with Miss Eliza on sundry country matters. He complimented the stand of corn in the Redfield lot near that "V" lot of his own, and told her that it did not seem to show the need of rain so badly as did his corn; and Miss Eliza bridled at the compliment. She was proud of her ability as a farmer, and that the "Redfield Farm" could hold its own among the other farms in the county, even after all the male members of the family had been long gone to their reward, was due solely to Miss Eliza's indefatigable energy. She deserved the compliment; and any others of like tenor that Timothy might have given.
But she was modestly deprecatory, though her old eyes did shine, and her appreciation was written all over her. That had always been a wet piece of ground, said Miss Eliza; she hadn't been so sure corn would do at all well there. She was a bit surprised herself.
It was rather sad, remarked Timothy, after a bit, that this rain couldn't have come just two or three weeks sooner. He was afraid that some of their farmer friends had lost some money by the drought.
Miss Eliza agreed that it was sad. She specified one or two persons whose crops had not seemed to her to be quite up to the mark. And there was a field or two of her own which, if Timothy were to see, he would not compliment quite so highly; but this rain would work wonders in a great many places. It hadn't come altogether too late.
In a slight lull which followed Timothy's third helping to ham, Miss Letitia asked Arethusa if she had brought her father's letter back to the house with her.
Arethusa's eyes shone immediately.
"Yes," she replied. Then she remembered, "No, I didn't either. I left it down in the Hollow Tree."
"It happened to be my letter," said Miss Eliza, drily.