So saying, Joshua, having put himself outside of the potato, a final piece of pie, and the tea that had been cooling in his saucer, pushed back his chair and drew on his coat, saying as he went out: “The first strawberries over ter Aunt Jimmy’s ’ll be ready for marketing on Monday, and this is Thursday. I must look around and engage pickers. That acre bed of the new-fangled kind is a week ahead of Lockwood’s earliest. Aunt Jimmy was no fool when it came to foresighted fruit raisin’.”
“I never said she was, nor in other things either if her meanin’ could be read. What time did you say the fire started?” she added in an unconcerned sort of way, as she stooped to pick up the scattered cups, which were so substantial that they had not been broken by their fall.
“Let me see—it must hev been close to two o’clock when I drove out of the yard; the mail carrier had just passed, and he’s due at the corner at two, and at the rate I went I wasn’t fifteen minutes from the fire. From the way it had holt, it must have been goin’ all of half an hour. Queer ’Biram didn’t scent it sooner workin’ in the corn patch back of the wood lot as he appeared to be, leastways he came down the lane from there.
“Fire couldn’t hev ketched before one o’clock, for the hands up at Lockwood’s go up that way before and after noon as well as of mornings, and if Nellis had left anything smouldering, they’d have surely smelt it, first or last.”
Joshua paused a moment, but, as Mrs. Lane asked no more questions, went out, closing the door. No sooner did she hear the latch catch than she jumped up, saying to herself: “Appeared to come from the corn patch, did he? I wonder what he was doin’ there? He planted late, so the corn can’t be set for hoeing; he might be watchin’ for crows or riggin’ a scarecrow.” As she pronounced the last word she had reached the dresser where hung a large square calendar that advertised one of the husky sorts of breakfast foods that taste as if they might have been the stuffing of Noah’s pillow.
Lifting this down she carried it to the table, and, after hunting in the dresser drawer for the pencil with which she kept her various egg and butter accounts, she proceeded to put a series of dots about the particular day of the month (it was June 10th), and then reversing the sheet, she covered the back with a collection of curiously spelled and, to the casual observer, meaningless words.
She had barely time to replace the calendar when the boys came in for their supper, and she fell vigorously to rearranging the table and brewing fresh tea.
The elder boys spoke of the fire as a bit of “old Slocum’s usual luck,” for it was known that the house would need a great deal of repairing before any one but the artist, whose thoughts were always in the clouds, would be willing to hire it. Lammy alone rejoiced in the fire because, as he said, “When Bird comes back, the house won’t be there for her to see and make her sorry.”
“Better not say that outdoors,” warned Nellis, “or Slocum ’ll say you fired it on purpose—he’d like nothing better. By the way, mother,” he continued, as Mrs. Lane glanced keenly at Lammy, “what do you think I heard at the shop to-day?”
“Concernin’ what?”