“Is this it in the deep pan?” asked Janet.
It was, so Janet lifted the dish while Natalie and the other girls led Susy by the tether-rope to a shady spot under the apple tree to eat her breakfast. But the calf sniffed at the warm milk only. She refused to taste a drop of it.
“She isn’t hungry, yet. We’ll leave it here for her to drink when she wants it,” said Janet.
So Susy was tethered on the grass back of the house and the pan of milk was left nearby under the tree so she could lap it if she wanted to. As the girls gathered about Mrs. James who was sitting on the porch with an open Bible upon her lap, Janet smiled.
“We haven’t made this Sunday a day of rest, thus far.”
“I was just looking over the Ten Commandments,” added Mrs. James, “and I wondered if it made any difference if you work because of necessity, or only for gain.”
“And we worked ‘our maid-servant and our man-servant, and the strangers within our gates,’ as well as the cattle, didn’t we,” said Janet.
Rachel appeared in the doorway from the dining room and said: “Natalie, you forgot to pull dat lettuce last evenin’. I tole you we diden’ have no salad fer Sunday ’cause you want to make us buy your lettuce.”
“I’ll go now and gather enough for dinner and supper, as long as I have sinned, already, on Sunday,” said Natalie, running away before any one could object to the plan.
Enough garden lettuce was gathered to last for three days at the rate of three meals per day, but Rachel kept that secret to herself. Then just as Natalie had bathed her warm face and seated herself once more on the breezy porch, Hester Tompkins ran in at the side gate and called to Mrs. James and the girls.