Since he had been with Aunt Matilda he had found opportunities to earn a trifle rather frequently. On the big place there were small, troublesome duties the farm hands found he could be relied on to do, which they were willing to pay for. They found out that he never failed them.
“Smart little chap,” they said; “always up to time when he undertakes a thing.”
To-day he had been steadily at work under the head man. Aunt Matilda had no objection to his odd jobs.
“He has his living to earn, and he may as well begin,” she said.
So Meg had been alone since morning. She had only one duty to perform, and then she was free. The first spring they had been with Aunt Matilda Robin had invested in a few chickens, and their rigorous care of them had resulted in such success that the chickens had become a sort of centre of existence to them. They could always have any dreams of the future upon the fortune to be gained by chickens. You could calculate on bits of paper about chickens and eggs until your head whirled at the magnitude of your prospects. Meg’s duty was to feed them, and show them scrupulous attentions when Robin was away.
After she had attended to them she went to the barn, and, finding it empty, climbed up to the Straw Parlor with an old “Pilgrim’s Progress,” to spend the day.
This afternoon, when the light began to redden and then to die away, she and Christian were very near the gates. She longed so to go in with him, and was yearning towards them with breathless eagerness, when she heard Robin’s cry below, coming up from the barn floor.
She sprang up with a start, feeling bewildered a second, before she answered. The City Beautiful was such millions—such millions of miles away from Aunt Matilda’s barn. She found herself breathing quickly and rubbing her eyes, as she heard Robin hurrying up the ladder.
Somehow she felt as if he was rather in a hurry, and when his small, black shock head and wide-awake black eyes appeared above the straw she had a vague feeling that he was excited, and that he had come from another world. He clambered on to the stack and made his way to her, and threw himself full length on the straw at her side.
“Meg!” he said—“Hallo, you look as if you were in a dream! Wake up!—Jones and Jerry are coming to the barn—I hurried to get here before them; they’re talking about something I want you to hear—something new! Wake up!”