Then she would wonder if Jean thought the same. But, whatever Jean thought, she made no sign.
Something of this longing for the life of last year came over Jo at Tom’s careless question. She looked at him half-resentfully: he was so unconscious of any real worries, although he grumbled cheerfully at the heat and the drought. They really touched him very little: he would go back to school, bored at going, feeling certain that before he returned the drought would be broken and the country smiling again. He was a year and a half older than they, and yet he was only a child, playing: and they were workers——
She gave herself a mental shake.
“Well, you are a pig, Jo Weston!” she addressed herself silently. “Jealous and bad-tempered, and altogether piggish! Be ashamed of yourself!”—and forthwith smiled cheerfully at the unconscious Tom.
“Work’s really rather a lark when you get going,” she stated unconcernedly. “We get a lot of fun out of it.”
“Well, you both look as if you were always on the grin,” said Tom. “Goodness knows, there’s not much laughing going on at our place. Father’s always growling at the drought, and Mother says she’s tired of looking at bare paddocks and she means to have a flat in Town. And Father says he’d rather be shot than live in a flat. So there it is, and I’m beginning to think it won’t be so bad to go back to school, though the bare idea of swotting over Latin gives me the creeps. Hullo, Sarah! how are you?”
“I’ve been better, and I’ve been worse,” said Sarah, non-committally, putting down a loaded tea-tray. “And how’s yourself, Master Tom?”
“Oh, first-rate,” Tom said. “Is it hot enough for you, Sarah?”
“That’s one of them questions as ought to be put down by an Ack of Parlyment,” said Sarah testily. “I druv into the township with Miss Jean yesterday, an’ it was just as ’ot as ’ot: an’ every one arsked the same thing, no matter what shop I went into. A body knows she ain’t lookin’ ’er best with ’er face the colour of a tomato an’ perspiration droppin’ off ’er forehead, an’ it sort of rubs it in to be arsked all the time, ‘Is it ’ot enough for you?’ Anyone lookin’ at me with ’alf an eye could see it was a good deal more’n ’ot enough for me. But they kep’ on arskin’, all the same.”
“Sorry,” said Tom, laughing. “Stupid of me, Sarah—but when it’s as hot as this all one’s brain turns to dough.”