"I have noticed mother have that species of brain-wave before," said Tom, staking vigorously. "Well, I'll come; but I must finish this row first. Even to catch fish and eat pies I won't leave my precious peas to trail in the dust. Peas are money, young Garth!"
"I'll help you," Garth said eagerly. "If I hand you stakes you'll get on ever so quicker."
"True for you," said his father. They worked together until they came to the end of the row, and Tom stood up, glad to stretch his aching back.
"People with long cheap backs like mine ought never to be asked to double them up," he remarked.
A grey horse and a flapping blue skirt came into view, mounting the hill towards the house.
"There's 'Possum!" Garth-cried. "I wonder would she come with us? May I ask her, Dad?"
"Yes, of course," Tom answered. Garth shot across to the garden gate, and he followed more slowly.
'Possum had lost all outward traces of her accident, except that she walked a little stiffly, and was not yet capable of any hard work. She did as much as possible in the saddle; but for the most part her father had suddenly put down his foot where work for her was concerned—the result of a conversation with Aileen—and the girl was experiencing a most unusual holiday. It almost troubled her: leisure had so little come her way. Now, her father performed all her rough tasks; and Bertha and young Bill gathered the fruit and vegetables, and prepared them for market, while Polly and little Joe tended the fowls, fed the broods of baby chickens, and gathered the eggs. As a kind of favour, 'Possum was permitted to market her produce—with Bill or Bertha as attendant, to jump in and out of the cart and carry the loads into the houses. 'Possum did not enjoy it. "I ain't used to being a lady," she said.
She fell back thankfully on the Macleods; and there were few days when she did not ride up to the cottage on the hill—to potter about the farm with Tom and Garth, and look at the crops and the stock, or to watch Aileen as she worked in the garden or in the house. Aileen was busy with a good deal of sewing in those days, most of which she was careful to conceal when she heard 'Possum's step. One day 'Possum surprised her in the act of working at some pale pink print, and laid her hand gently on the stuff. "Your things is always so pretty," she said wistfully. Whereat Aileen smiled, and remarked vaguely that pink was a good washing colour.
To-day 'Possum professed herself as very willing to join the fishing party: and they set off happily, laden with baskets and quart-pot, to the boat-shed, where Tom dealt mysteriously with the motor. The launch was only a tiny one, fitted up by Mr. Gordon for his fishing expeditions: five or six people filled it comfortably, and it drew so little water that it could be run into the shallowest of bays and creeks. Tom settled 'Possum and Aileen comfortably in the stern, and Garth took up his usual position, as far out of the bow as he could hang his small person with safety. Bran whined distressfully on the shore. Ordinary boating-trips were permitted him; but to bring leaping fish into the boat upset all his calmness, and sent him into such paroxysms of barking that when fishing was part of the programme he had been condemned to remain at home. Garth sorrowed over it, and talked severely to him on the subject of gaining more sense: orations which Bran heard with respect, but which had so far produced no effect.