“Rebecca can do anything,” she thought, with enthusiastic loyalty, “and I mustn't be any stupider than I can help, or she'll choose one of the other girls for her most intimate friend.” So, mustering all her courage, she turned into Jacob Moody's dooryard, where he was chopping wood.
“It's a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Moody,” she said in a polite but hoarse whisper, Rebecca's words, “LEAD UP! LEAD UP!” ringing in clarion tones through her brain.
Jacob Moody looked at her curiously. “Good enough, I guess,” he growled; “but I don't never have time to look at afternoons.”
Emma Jane seated herself timorously on the end of a large log near the chopping block, supposing that Jacob, like other hosts, would pause in his tasks and chat.
“The block is kind of like an idol,” she thought; “I wish I could take it away from him, and then perhaps he'd talk.”
At this moment Jacob raised his axe and came down on the block with such a stunning blow that Emma Jane fairly leaped into the air.
“You'd better look out, Sissy, or you'll git chips in the eye!” said Moody, grimly going on with his work.
The Daughter of Zion sent up a silent prayer for inspiration, but none came, and she sat silent, giving nervous jumps in spite of herself whenever the axe fell upon the log Jacob was cutting.
Finally, the host became tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning on his axe he said, “Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's your errant? Do you want apples? Or cider? Or what? Speak out, or GIT out, one or t'other.”
Emma Jane, who had wrung her handkerchief into a clammy ball, gave it a last despairing wrench, and faltered: “Wouldn't you like—hadn't you better—don't you think you'd ought to be more constant at meeting and Sabbath school?”