"There's no use in your going home to lunch," he smilingly observed, at the same time watching Henry's face carefully. "You can eat right here in the orchard, unless your mother will be worrying about you."
This remark met with an astounding silence. Henry was the first to collect his wits. "No, our mother is dead," he said evenly, without embarrassment.
It was the doctor who hastened to change the subject he had introduced. "I smelled something when I came in," he said to Benny.
"What did it smell like?" inquired Benny.
"It smelled like cherry slump," replied the doctor with twinkling eyes.
"Cherry what?" asked Jess, struggling down her ladder with a full basket.
"I think that's what they call it—slump," repeated Dr. McAllister. "Do you care to try it?"
At this moment Mary appeared in the orchard with an enormous tray. And at the first sight of her cookery, nobody cared the least what its name was. It was that rare combination of dumpling beaten with stoned cherries, and cooked gently in the juice of the oxheart cherries in a real "cherry year." It was steaming in the red juice, with the least suspicion of melted butter over the whole.
"Do get two more, Mary," begged Mrs. McAllister, laughing. "It tastes so much better under the cherry trees!"
This was another meal that nobody ever forgot. Even the two hired men sitting under another tree devouring the delicious pudding, paused to hear Benny laugh. Nowadays those two men sometimes meet Henry—but that's another story. Anyway, they never will forget that cherry slump made by Irish Mary.