“Oh, I’ll tell you, daddy,” said Eppie, clasping her hands suddenly, after a minute’s thought. “There’s lots o’ loose stones about, some of ’em not big, and we might lay ’em atop of one another, and make a wall. You and me could carry the smallest, and Aaron ’ud carry the rest—I know he would.”
“Eh, my precious un,” said Silas, “there isn’t enough stones to go all round; and as for you carrying, why, wi’ your little arms you couldn’t carry a stone no bigger than a turnip. You’re dillicate made, my dear,” he added, with a tender intonation—“that’s what Mrs. Winthrop says.”
“Oh, I’m stronger than you think, daddy,” said Eppie; “and if there wasn’t stones enough to go all round, why they’ll go part o’ the way, and then it’ll be easier to get sticks and things for the rest. See here, round the big pit, what a many stones!”
She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift one of the stones and exhibit her strength, but she started back in surprise.
“Oh, father, just come and look here,” she exclaimed—“come and see how the water’s gone down since yesterday. Why, yesterday the pit was ever so full!”
“Well, to be sure,” said Silas, coming to her side. “Why, that’s the draining they’ve begun on, since harvest, i’ Mr. Osgood’s fields, I reckon. The foreman said to me the other day, when I passed by ’em, ‘Master Marner,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if we lay your bit o’ waste as dry as a bone.’ It was Mr. Godfrey Cass, he said, had gone into the draining: he’d been taking these fields o’ Mr. Osgood.”
“How odd it’ll seem to have the old pit dried up!” said Eppie, turning away, and stooping to lift rather a large stone. “See, daddy, I can carry this quite well,” she said, going along with much energy for a few steps, but presently letting it fall.
“Ah, you’re fine and strong, aren’t you?” said Silas, while Eppie shook her aching arms and laughed. “Come, come, let us go and sit down on the bank against the stile there, and have no more lifting. You might hurt yourself, child. You’d need have somebody to work for you—and my arm isn’t over strong.”
Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if it implied more than met the ear; and Eppie, when they sat down on the bank, nestled close to his side, and, taking hold caressingly of the arm that was not over strong, held it on her lap, while Silas puffed again dutifully at the pipe, which occupied his other arm. An ash in the hedgerow behind made a fretted screen from the sun, and threw happy playful shadows all about them.
“Father,” said Eppie, very gently, after they had been sitting in silence a little while, “if I was to be married, ought I to be married with my mother’s ring?”