An hour later Jenny drove away, laughing to herself over her amusing adventure and eager to tell Grandma Sue and Granddad Si all about it.
CHAPTER VII.
JENNY’S TEACHER
It was two o’clock when Jenny skipped to the side porch of the Rocky Point farmhouse. Her grandmother, who was sitting there with her mending basket at her side, looked up with the welcoming smile that she always had for the girl. Dropping down on the wooden bench, back of which hung a blossom-laden garland of Cecil Brunner rose vine, Jenny took off her wide, flower-wreathed straw hat and began fanning her flushed face. The sparkle in her soft brown eyes told the watcher at once that something of an unusual nature had occurred. The old woman dropped her sewing on her lap, pushed her spectacles up under her lavender-ribboned cap and then said with a rising inflection: “Well, Jenny dearie, what have you been up to?”
A peal of amused laughter was the girl’s first answer, followed by a series of little chuckles that tried to form themselves into words but couldn’t. Mirth is contagious and the old woman laughingly said: “Tut! Tut! Jenny, don’t keep all the fun of it to yourself. What happened over to the seminary that was so amusing? I reckoned you’d have sort of a hard tune making things straight with Miss O’Hara, if she’s as snappy as poor Etta Heldt said she was.”
Jenny became serious at once, and, leaning forward, she began earnestly: “Miss O’Hara is kindhearted, Granny Sue, but she does seem to have a powerful lot to worry her. Etta didn’t try to be real helpful, I know that, although I was so sorry for her, and when I told Miss O’Hara all about the poor orphan, there were tears in her eyes, honestly there were, Granny, and she said that when the next orphan came, she’d try to make that kitchen more homelike.”
Her listener was pleased and nodded many times, as she commented: “Well, well, that’s somethin’ now that my Jenny gal has brought to pass, but it wasn’t about that you were having such a spell of laughin’, I reckon.”
Again there were twinkles in the brown eyes as the girl confessed: “No, Granny Sue, it wasn’t, and in as many years as Rip Van Winkle slept, you couldn’t guess what it was.”
The old woman looked puzzled, as she always did when Jenny quoted from some of her “readin’ books.” “Wall, I reckon I couldn’t, bein’ as I don’t know how long the lazy fellow slept, so I reckon you’d better tell me what you’ve been up to over to the seminary.”
She had replaced her glasses and was again sewing a patch on an old shirt of Grandpa Si’s, but she looked up when the girl said: “You’ll be astonished as can be, because you never even guessed that your granddaughter knew how to wait on table, stylish-like, with all the flourishes.”
Down went the sewing, up went the glasses, and an expression of shocked displeasure was in the sweet blue eyes of the old woman.