"I've got to tell Eunice and Reba," said Gretta. "They may take a notion to make me stay home."
"I believe you hope that they will!" cried Happie reproachfully. "See here, Gretta, you'll find that the Scollards neither bark nor bite, because it is their nature to—not! They are the nicest things, every one of them! You'll like Margery better than me; that's my one fear in bringing you together."
"I guess not," said Gretta looking up at Happie from her knees as she weeded the lettuce with eyes full of dog-like devotion and admiration.
"You let me ask your cousins to let you go with me; they won't refuse you to me, for shame's sake. You've finished all your work for the morning," said Happie.
"Work's never finished," corrected Gretta out of her deeper experience. "And we haven't had dinner."
"Maybe it won't take long to look over Don Dolor; he may not be a large horse," suggested Happie. "Come along, Gretta."
Gretta ushered Happie into the fleckless kitchen. There were two gaunt women, looking past sixty, though neither could have been much past forty. One was stirring milk in a stone crock on the back of the stove, which was just thickening into perfection for schmier-kase, while her sister was tying on her sunbonnet with resolute jerks of the strings, and hunting for the basket to bring in more wood. Her movements were accompanied by a running fire of scolding about Gretta, to whose account she set down the absence of the basket, which all the time hung peacefully on a nail in full sight above the table.
"What's wrong with you?" demanded Reba, lifting the crock from the stove and setting it down with the emphasis of its weight. "It's easier using the wheelbarrow anyhow, but if you want the basket, there 'tis. I guess you're getting near-sighted."
"I guess!" retorted Eunice derisively. "Why didn't you hang that there basket alongside the stove? Here I've been a-huntin' and a-huntin' for it," she added, catching sight of Gretta, and quite ignoring Happie.
"Good-morning, Miss Neumann," said that young lady, somewhat daunted by the difficulties of this beginning, but holding to her courage. "My aunt has a horse just arrived, and I'd like to have Gretta come over to see him, please. You'll let her go, for a little while, won't you?"