"She can shut her eyes and walk through the woods and tell the name of every tree just by feeling its leaves."
Jean appeared on the back porch and called down to them to come up and wash for dinner. This noon-time wash-up was really a function after one had been working and grubbing in the garden all the morning. Honey would bring in a fresh pail of well water first. Some day Kit intended demanding water piped into the house from Mr. McRae, but now they used the well.
Just as Honey came into the summer kitchen with the pail of water, Ella Lou's white nose showed outside the door by the hitching post and Cousin Roxana's voice called to them.
"No, thanks, I can't stop," she called. "I want Betty and Jean."
Mrs. Robbins came downstairs from her husband's room, cool and charming in her black and white lawn, with her hair piled high on her head, and little close curls framing in her face.
"Why, Roxy, come in and have dinner with us," she exclaimed.
"Don't talk to me about things to eat, Betty," answered Cousin Roxana briskly. "Never had such a set-to in my life. Why, I'm so turned over I can hardly talk. The poor thing, all alone up there on that hill with nothing but woods around her. Enough to make anybody lose heart, I declare it is. Get your bonnet right on, Betty. We can't stop for anything. I wouldn't eat dinner with King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba."
"What is it? Please tell us," Jean pleaded, and all three girls crowded around the carriage.
"Don't waste time, Jean. Get your hat on. She may be dead by now. It's that little Finnish woman up on the Parmelee place where you bought your chickens. Her husband's only been dead a little while, took sick on the ship coming over and died at Ellis Island, I heard. And she's pined and pined with four children on her hands, and this morning she just tied-- Oh, my land, I can't talk about it. Do come along. Thank the Lord the water wasn't very deep in the well and they've got her out. And we call ourselves church folks and Christians."
"Had I better take anything with me, Roxy?" asked Mrs. Robbins, hurrying down the porch steps with a motor cloak thrown around her. "Medicine, do you think?"