“Yes, I heard you when it was too late. I heard the sheep before, but how could I imagine that you, Dorothy, and three boys as big as cockerels, were sheep-washing? It's the most preposterous thing I ever heard of!”,
“Well, I can't help being a woman, and the sheep had to be washed. I think there ought to be more men in the world when half of them are preaching and fighting.”
“If you'd only let the men who are left help you a little, Dorothy.”
“I don't want any help. I only don't want to be washed into the mill-head.”
They both laughed, and Evesham began again entreating her to let him take her to the house.
“Hasn't thee a coat or something I could put around me until Shep comes?” said Dorothy. “He must be here soon.”
“Yes, I've a jacket here somewhere.”
He sped away to find it, and faithless Dorothy, as the willows closed between them, sprang to her feet and fled like a startled Naiad to the house.
When Evesham, pushing through the willows, saw nothing but the bed of wet, crushed ferns and the trail through the long grass where Dorothy's feet had fled, he smiled grimly to himself, remembering that “ewe-lambs” are not always as meek as they look.
That evening Rachel had received a letter from Friend Barton and was preparing to read it aloud to the children. They were in the kitchen, where the boys had been helping Dorothy in a desultory manner to shell corn for the chickens; but now all was silence while Rachel wiped her glasses and turned the large sheet of paper, squared with many foldings, to the candle.