A gong was ringing somewhere in the corridor. As one in a dream, Jenny bade good-bye to Miss Dearborn, who promised to return at noon. Then the girl followed her new acquaintance into a room thronged with boys and girls and sat at the desk indicated.
CHAPTER XIX.
A WELCOME GUEST
Three days later, when Jenny entered the farmhouse kitchen, Grandpa Si, who was washing at the small sink pump, looked up twinkling-eyed to inquire: “Wall, Jenny-gal, them examinations are over now, ain’t they? I reckon they wasn’t nigh so terribul as yo’d figgered, when you got plumb up to ’em, was they now?”
Jenny, looking very pale and weary, dropped into the big armed chair opposite her grandmother, who was shelling peas for supper.
Then, unexpectedly, she burst into tears. Instantly the pan of peas was placed on the table and her grandmother had comforting arms about the girl. “Dearie, what is ailin’ yo’? Warn’t yo’ able to get the right answers for them examination questions?”
The distressed grandfather also hovered about, saying huskily: “Now look a-here, little un, we don’t keer, not a farthing’s worth, whether you knowed them answers or didn’t know ’em. I reckon you’re smarter’n most, how-so-ever, ’twas.” Jenny, who had been clinging to her grandmother, astonished them by saying between sobs: “’Tisn’t the examinations I’m crying about. It’s Lenora. They let me see her for a moment this afternoon and she is so weak and oh so unhappy. She thinks she will never get well, not if she has to stay in that cold, dreary old seminary, and Oh, Grandma Sue, how I do want her to get well. I have always longed to have a sister, and when I found Lenora Gale, I made believe she was the sister I had so wanted. No one knows how I love her.”
The old couple were greatly distressed. All these years their “gal” had so longed to have a sister of her very own, and all that time she had had one, whom she didn’t know. Grandma Sue smoothed the rumpled hair and kissed Jenny on the forehead. “Go to your room, dearie, and rest till supper time,” she said soothingly. “You’re all tired out with them examinations. You’ll feel better after you’ve had suthin’ warm to eat.”
Jenny permitted her grandfather to help her out of the chair and to lead her toward her room. There she flung herself down on her bed, and the loving old man drew a cover over her. Then he tiptoed back to the kitchen. “Ma,” he said, “I reckon us and Mis’ Poindexter-Jones have got suthin’ to answer for, makin’ it so them two gals grew up not knowin’ as they was sisters.”
“Mabbe so,” the old woman had resumed her pea-shelling. “Mabbe so, Silas, but it’s too late now. That proud, haughty gal wouldn’t thank no one to tell her she’s our Jenny’s sister, and she wouldn’t be no comfort to our gal, bein’ as she’s been fetched up so different. But that sweet Lenora Gale, her as is a farmer’s daughter, she’s a friend more suitin’ to our Jenny.” For a few moments the old woman’s fingers were busy, but she was silent and thoughtful. When the peas were ready for the pot, she poured them into the boiling water, then turned and said: “Silas Warner, you and me keer more to have Jenny happy than anything else, don’t we?”
“I reckon we do, Ma. What be yo’ aimin’ at? I kin see easy thar’s suthin’ yo’ want to say. I’m agreeable to it, whatever ’tis.”