"Oh, Christine," cried Mary, "don't let Ellen forget to wash my pink dress; I got some mud on it yesterday. And if you could iron it like a dear, I'd be ever so much obliged."
Christina promised willingly, and waved them a gay good-bye. She stood at the gate watching them as they turned down the broad white road. That road could be seen for miles from where she stood, winding away down over hill and through wooded hollow. It disappeared in a belt of forest but came into view again running along the margin of Lake Simcoe far off on the horizon, and away beyond her view it ended in a great city where Christina had never been. But that road always set her heart beating faster. It was the great highway that led out into the world, the road she longed to take. And always in the morning when she stood at the gate thus, just before turning back to the tasks that held her, it seemed to beckon her to come away.
And then she ran back to the barnyard to feed her chickens, and made the second Great Discovery about herself.
Uncle Neil came out of the noisy enclosure where the pigs were fighting with their morning meal, and helped her throw the feed to her quarrelsome brood. Uncle Neil had for years been a semi-invalid and spent his time doing the lighter work of the farm and garden. Though he had attended school only a few years in his childhood, he had a mind stored with the wealth of years of reading, held by an unfailing memory. And now that his physical ailments gave him more leisure, he was reading everything that was worth while that came to his hand. And he gave out his wealth generously to Christina as they did their work every morning in the barnyard.
They laughed together at one old hen whom Christina had named Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, after the one woman in Orchard Glen who managed everything and everybody on her farm. Her namesake of the barnyard ruled all the other hens and saw to it that she was well provided herself.
"She never waits for Opportunity's bald spot, now does she?" said Uncle Neil, admiringly, as the busy, fussy lady made a leap and caught a grain of corn, in mid-air, while another hen was watching for it to fall upon the ground.
"What's Opportunity's bald spot?" enquired Christina. "How dare you have some information you haven't given me?"
"Don't you know the old story about Opportunity and his bald spot?" enquired Uncle Neil delighted.
And then he told the ancient tale of Opportunity and his lock of hair that hung in front, and Christina listened with more than her usual absorption. She was making her second discovery.
"There!" she exclaimed, with an energy that sent the hens scurrying away, alarmed, from her feet. "That's just what's the matter with me. I am always letting Mr. Opportunity walk past and then when I try to grab him I catch hold of his bald spot and he slips away."