“I know it! Isn’t she a marvel? I believe she is half witch. Why, blind and twenty-five years old as he is, old Baltie to-day would bring Jabe Raulsbury enough money to make the covetous old sinner smile, I believe; if anything on earth could make him smile. I thought I should have screamed when she started off with her steed the other day. That old phaeton and harness she found in the barn here were especially sent by Providence, I believe. I never expect to see a funnier sight if I live to be a hundred years old than Mammy driving off down the road with that great basket of apples by her side and Jean perched behind in the rumble. Mammy was simply superb and proud as the African princess she insists she is,” and Constance laughed heartily at the picture she made.
“What did she do with her apples? I wish I could have seen her,” cried Eleanor.
“She had them stored away in our cellar. She had gathered them herself from mother’s pet tree and packed them carefully in a couple of barrels. How on earth she finds time to do all the things she manages to I can’t understand. She took that basket out to Mrs. Fletcher. You remember Mrs. Fletcher once said there were no apples like ours and Mammy remembered it. Still, I am afraid Mrs. Fletcher would never have seen that basket of apples if her home had not adjoined the Raulsbury place. You know Jabe had to pay a large fine before he could get free. Such an hour of triumph rarely comes to two human beings as came to Mammy and Jean when they drove that old horse past Jabe’s gateway and kind fate drew him to that very spot at the moment. Mammy is still chuckling over it, and Jean isn’t to be lived with. But enough of Mammy and her charger, let’s get to stock-taking.”
“Yes, do,” said Eleanor.
“I’ve been putting things down in black and white and here it is,” said practical Constance, opening a little memorandum book and seating herself beside her sister. “You see mother has barely fifteen hundred dollars a year from father’s life insurance and even that is somewhat lessened by the slump in those old stocks. Now comes the fire insurance settlement and the interest on that won’t be over seven hundred at the outside, will it?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Eleanor with a doubtful shake of her head. “But suppose we are able to sell the old place?”
“Yes, ‘suppose.’ If we do, well and good, but supposes aren’t much account for immediate needs, and those are the things we’ve got to think about now.”
“Then let me think too,” broke in Eleanor.
“You may think all you’ve a mind to; that’s exactly what your brains are for, and some day you’ll astonish us all. Meanwhile I’ll work.”
“Now, Constance, what are you planning? You know perfectly well that if you leave school and take up something that I shall too. I won’t take all the advantages.”