At noon, after a morning cultivating in the fields, the boys were not sorry when the farmer advised them to take it easy during the afternoon. The day was very warm.
“Well, we will, just at first, while hardening up.” Harold was afraid the farmer would think that he was not in earnest about wanting to help, but there was no twinkle evident in the kind blue eyes of Silas Warner.
The boys, hoes over their shoulders, walked single file through the field of corn toward the farmhouse. The girls had not yet seen them and they expected to be well laughed at. Nor were they mistaken. They found Jenny and Lenora out in the kitchen garden. The former maiden had been gathering luscious, big, red strawberries, while her friend sat nearby on a rustic bench. Jenny stood upright, her basket brimming full, and so she first saw the queer procession.
“Oh, Lenora, do look! Is it or is it not your brother Charles?” The grinning boys doffed their frayed straw hats and made deep bows. Jenny pretended to be surprised. “Why, Harold, is that you? I thought Grandpa had hired a tramp or two to help out. My, but you look hot!”
“Indeed, young ladies, it does not take much perspicacity to make that discovery.” He mopped his brow with his handkerchief as he spoke.
Charles laughed. “It’s harder on Harold than on me. We do this sort of thing every day up at the Agricultural School.”
Then, to tease, he added: “Why don’t you invite the girls to watch you milk this evening?”
“Well, I may at that,” the younger boy said, nothing daunted by their laughter. “But just now we must hie us to our cabin. I promised to visit Mother about two.” Then to Charles he suggested: “Before we eat the good lunch Sing Long will have for us, suppose we go swimming, old man, what say?”
“Agreed! It sounds good to me!” Turning to his sister, Charles took her hand lovingly. “I’ll be over to spend the afternoon with you, dear?”
Harold, glancing almost shyly at the other girl, wished he could say the same thing to her. Then it was he recalled something. “Charles,” he said, “Mother wanted me to bring you over to the big house this afternoon. I call it that to designate it from the cabin. She is eager to meet my new friend.”