My little mistress held out a hand to me, and being eager to follow, I sprang up and circled round her.
Stepping off the veranda to a gravel walk, they went round by the well to the carriage-house.
There was a huge door in front of it quite closed, and I wondered how Mrs. Denville would open it. She just laid a hand on it, and it slid back quite easily. “These doors are more convenient than the old-fashioned ones,” she said to Mary.
I peeped in. This was very interesting. There were different kinds of wagons, and carriages, and queer sorts of machines that Mrs. Denville told Mary were for planting seed, and cutting, and raking hay. A wide stairway led to a loft above, and I went tripping up-stairs after Mrs. Denville and Mary. Here were sleighs covered with white cloths, a long carpenter's bench with pots of paint, and bottles of different kinds, several stoves and a lot of pipe, some old chairs and tables—it seemed to be a kind of lumber room.
“How did Farmer Gleason get these sleighs up here?” asked Mary with wide-open eyes.
“Sleighs can be taken apart,” said her mother, “and even if they couldn't be, two strong, country men would think nothing of dragging a thing like a sleigh up that wide flight of steps. Now let us go down and visit the next building.”
This one was not as large as the carriage-house, and Mrs. Denville and Mary did not go in, but contented themselves with looking in the doorway. It was piled high with wood, and Mrs. Denville asked her little daughter if she knew why there was so much wood there.
“No,” said Mary, “I do not.”
“It is a frugal way that farming people have,” replied her mother. “Mr. Gleason was telling us about it last evening. The farmers cut their wood sometimes a year in advance, and pile it up under cover to dry thoroughly. It lasts longer, and is easier to burn than green wood. Now let us go on to the big barn.”
We three sauntered along in the warm sunlight. Mary had her arm tucked through her mother's. The child was so happy that she did not know what to do. It seemed as if half the sunshine had caught in her face and stayed there.