She took the bag and remarked laughingly: “Janet will be so glad to have her prodigal pig back again, Mr. Tompkins. But you can send her a bill for the corn he stole from you.”
Mr. Tompkins laughed as he said: “Tell Miss Janet not to become too fond of her pigs or she won’t want to eat them in the fall. She’ll act like my wife—I have to send her away on a visit from home when killin’ time comes around.”
Although Frances was delighted to recover the pig for Janet, she did not forget the message for Mr. Ames—to deliver a load of good compost at Green Hill as soon as possible. The order was placed in Ames’s post office box and he got it when he stopped for his mail.
Having a short time, that day, in which he could do a little extra job, he decided to take the manure to Green Hill Farm at once. No one was found in or about the house when he drove in at the side-gate, so he used his judgment and forked out the compost where he thought it was needed.
He had no idea that Natalie wanted half of it back in the garden, nor did he know that Norma was going into the floricultural business and wanted the rest of the manure for the flower-beds in the backyard where she was planting her slips and seeds.
He saw that the narrow beds running along both sides of the house and in front, had not yet been spaded over, so he thought the girls had planned to fertilize them and raise flowers there. Consequently, he spread the fresh compost all over these beds and then climbed back to his wagon-seat. He wiped his brow as he looked back at his finished work and murmured: “It’s out of their way up against those foundations, even if it isn’t just where they wanted it put.”
It was dreadfully warm that day, and the noonday sun fairly baked everything it shone upon. It shed the full power of its heat-rays upon the strips of ground where the compost had been heaped, causing the pungent odor from the fresh fertilizer to fill the air all about the house.
Mrs. James and Rachel had accompanied the girls to the farmyard to assist Janet in placing stout boards inside the pig pen fence to keep the little porkers from escaping again the way they had done before.
After Farmer Ames drove away Rachel came back to the house, smiling with gratification as she thought of the way she had bossed the construction on the pig-pen. But she had not reached the steps of the back stoop before she frowned. Then she wrinkled her flat nose and lifted her head to sniff audibly.
“Laws-ee! I mus’ta lef’ somethin’ on dat stove, and now it’s done gone and burned fit to smell us outen house and home!” was her instant comment as she rushed indoors.