CHAPTER XXVII.
FUN AS FARMERS
Grandpa Si and Grandma Sue were alone at a five o’clock breakfast. They did not wish Jenny to get up that early as there was really nothing to do, but make the morning coffee, fry the bacon and flapjacks, which constituted the farmer’s breakfast menu every day in the year.
Silas Warner often tried to persuade his good wife to sleep later, telling her that he could well enough prepare his own breakfast, but he had long since desisted, realizing that he would be depriving her of one of their happiest hours together. It was then, when they were quite alone, that they talked over many things, and this morning Susan found her hands trembling as she poured the golden brown coffee into her husband’s large thick china cup. Silas had asked for three days to meditate on the serious question of whether or not they should tell Jenny that she was not their own child, and Susan well knew that this morning she would hear his decision.
It was not until the cakes were fried and she was seated opposite him that he looked over at her with his most genial smile, and yet the silent watcher knew him so well that she could sense that he was not happy in the decision which he evidently had reached. “Pa, you think it’s best to tell, don’t you? I can sort o’ see it comin’.”
“I reckon that’s about what my ruminatin’ fetched me to, Susan. You’n me know how our gal’s hankerin’ for an own sister, and now that Lenora is goin’, she’ll be lorner ’n ever, Jenny will.” He glanced toward the closed door which led to the living room where their “gal” slept since she had given her bed to her guest. “I cal’late we’d better keep it dark though till Lenora’s gone, then sort of feel our way as how best to tell it. Thar’s time enough. While Lenora’s here, there ain’t no need for any other sister for our gal.”
Susan Warner sighed, even while she smiled waveringly. “Wall, Si, if you think it’s best, I reckon ’tis. But it’ll be powerful hard to have Jenny thinkin’ the less of us.”
The good man rose and walked around the table and placed a big gnarled hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Tut! Tut! Susy,” that was the name he had used in the courtin’ days, “our gal ain’t made of no sech clay as that. She’ll stick by us all the tighter, you see if ’taint so.”
Further conversation on the subject was prevented by the arrival of Harold and Charles decked in overalls, which the former lad had obtained from his mother’s gardener.
Silas Warner stepped out on the side porch to greet them and his grin was at its widest. “Wall, I swan to glory, if here ain’t my two helpers. Ready to milk the cow, Harry-lad?”
Mrs. Warner appeared in the open door, her blue checked apron wound about her hands. She smiled and nodded. “Speak quietly, boys. We like Lenora to sleep as late as she can,” was her admonition.