"Well, he asked me to, mother, and I didn't want to refuse and hurt his feelings. I suppose it made him feel more at home. And Cousin Roxy says he's only twenty-four. I don't think that's old at all."
It took three days to cut the hay on the Greenacre land, and the girls had a regular Greek festival over it. They all went down and followed the big rake and helped pitch the hay up on the wagon. Then Helen got her kodak and took pictures of them pitching, and riding on the load up the long lane, and of the big sleepy-eyed yoke of oxen.
"You know," Jean said, "it looks like some scene from away back in the colonial days. I love to watch the oxen come along that lane with the top of the load brushing the mulberry tree branches."
"I'm so glad that you found out what those trees were," Kit teased. "Ever since we came here, you and Helen have been watching for apples to grow on them. I told you they were mulberry trees."
"It's so nice," Helen said dreamily, "to have one in the family who is always right."
Kit quickly fired a bunch of hay at her, but she dodged it and ran.
"Going to cut about nine ton or more," Honey said, coming up with a pail of spring water. "That ain't counting bedding neither. You can get fifteen a ton for bedding."
"What's bedding?" asked Kit.
"Oh, all sorts of stuff, pollypods and swamp grass and such. Say, if you go down where Ralph's cutting now, you'll see a Bob White's nest and speckled eggs. Don't take any, though."
"Isn't it lovely out here, Kit?" Jean wound her arm around Kit's waist as they crossed the meadow land. "I was lonesome at first but now I think I'd be more lonesome for this if I were away from it long."