"Well," replied Miriam "she said she wasn't regularly employed, anyway, and there were plenty of cooks in the town that I could get, and that she was obliged to go. You see, the colored church in Thorbury has just got a new minister, and he has to board somewhere; and as soon as Phoebe heard that, she made up her mind to take a house and board him; and she did it before anybody else could get the chance. Mike, her husband, who works for us, talked to her and we talked to her, but it wasn't of any use. I think she considers it one of the greatest honors in the world to board a minister. Mike does not believe in that sort of business, but he says that Phoebe has always been in the habit of doing what she wants to, and he is getting used to it."
"But it is impossible for you to do all the work," said Dora.
"Oh, well," replied Miriam, "some of it doesn't get done, and some of it I am helped with. Mike does ever so much; he makes the fires, and carries the heavy things, and sometimes even cooks. My brother Ralph helps, too, when there is anything he can do, which is not often; but just now they are so busy with their hay that it is harder upon me than it was before. We have had soda biscuit and all that sort of thing, but I saw that Ralph was getting tired of them; and to-day I thought I would try and make some real bread,—though how it is going to turn out, I don't know."
"Come, let us go out and feed the calf," said Dora; "I really want to see how you do it. I have come to make you a good long call, you must know;" and then she explained how her brother had left her, while he went on to attend to his business.
At this Miriam was much relieved. She had been thinking that perhaps she would better go upstairs and take off that ridiculous silk dress, and entertain her visitor properly during the rest of her call; but if Miss Bannister was going to stay a good while, and if there was no coachman outside to see her and her train, there was no reason why she should not go and feed the calf, and then come back and put herself into the proper trim for the reception of visitors. It seemed strange to her, but she was positively sure that she would not have felt so much at ease with this handsomely dressed young lady, if she herself had been attired in her best clothes; but now they had met without its being possible for either Miss Bannister or herself to make any comparisons of attire. The old, draggled silk gown did not count one way or the other. It was simply a covering to keep one's clothes clean when one fed a calf. When they should return to the house, and she took off her old gown, she and her visitor would be better acquainted, and their comparative opinions of each other would not depend so much on clothes. Miriam was accustomed to making philosophical reflections concerning her relations with the rest of the world; and in regard to these relations she was at times very sensitive.
CHAPTER XI
TWO GIRLS AND A CALF
Having gone to the kitchen to fill the bottle with milk, which she had set to warm, Miriam accompanied her guest to the barn. As she walked by the side of Dora, with the bottle in one hand and the other holding up her voluminous silk robe, it was well for her peace of mind that no stately coachman sat upon a box and looked at her.
In a corner of the lower floor of the barn they found the calf, lying upon a bed of hay, and covered by a large piece of mosquito netting, which Miriam had fastened above and around him. Dora laughed as she saw this.
"It isn't every calf," she said, "that sleeps so luxuriously."