“Run out and play! As if I were Dot or Tess! I like that! Why, I was thinking of asking you to let me join the society!”
“Oh, of course you may, Agnes! I didn’t think you’d care for it. Why, certainly you may join! We want to get as many into it as we can. Do come to the meeting this afternoon. Mr. Howbridge is going to explain everything, and I thought we might as well make it a little social affair. It was very good of you to help me with the baking.”
“Oh, I like that. And I believe I will come to the meeting. Now shall we clean up?”
“I do him,” interposed Linda. “I wash him all up,” and a sweep of her muscular arm indicated the pots, pans, dishes and all the odds and ends left from the rather wholesale baking.
“Oh, I shall be so glad if you will!” exclaimed Ruth. “I want to go over the parlor and library again. And I wonder what has become of Dot and Tess. I asked them to get me some wild flowers, but they have been gone over an hour and—”
The voice of Mrs. MacCall from the deep pantry interrupted.
“Hi, Tess! Hi, Dot!” she called. “Where ha’ ye been? Come ye here the noo, and be for me waukrife minnie.”
“What in the world does she mean?” asked Agnes, for sometimes, well versed as she was in the Scotch of the housekeeper, there were new words and phrases that needed translating. Especially as it seemed to the girls that more and more Mrs. MacCall was falling back into her childhood speech as she grew older—a speech she had dropped during her younger life except in moments of excitement.
This time, however, it was beyond even the “ken” of Ruth, who rather prided herself on her Highland knowledge. But Mrs. MacCall herself had heard the question. Out she came from the pantry, smiling broadly.
“Ye no ken ‘waukrife minnie’?” she asked. “Ah, ’tis a pretty little verse o’ Rabbie Burns. I’ll call it o’er the noo.”