Roger Allan, straight and tall and speaking with a sweetness in his voice those listening had never heard before, stepped up to the young man with outstretched hand.
The young stranger looked for a moment at the dimming streets, into the kindly faces about him, and then shook hands gladly.
"It is good to be home," he said, "but I wish I had mother here with me."
CHAPTER IV
A RAINY DAY
On a rainy day Green Valley is just as interesting as it is in the sunshine. Somehow though the big trees sag and drip and the wind sighs about the corners there is nothing mournful about the streets.
The children go to school just as joyously in raincoats and rubber boots. Their round glad faces, minus a tooth here and there, smile up at you from under big umbrellas. After the school bell rings the streets do get quiet but there is nothing depressing about that; for as you pass along you see at doors and windows the contented faces of busy women.
Old Mrs. Walley sits at her up-stairs front window sewing carpet rags. Grandma Dudley at her sitting room window is darning her grandchildren's stockings and carefully watching the street. Whenever anybody passes to whom she wants to talk she taps on the window with her thimble. She is a dear entertaining old soul but hard to get away from. Women with bread at home waiting to be put into pans and men hungry for their supper try not to let Grandma Dudley catch sight of them.
Bessie Williams always makes cinnamon buns or doughnuts on rainy days. She always leaves her kitchen door open while she is doing this because she says she likes to hear the rain while she is working—that it soothes her nerves.