“Melodeon, aunty, melodeon,” and Helen laughed merrily at her aunt’s mistake, turning the conversation again, and this time to Canandaigua, where she had some acquaintances.
But Katy was so much afraid of Canandaigua, and what talking of it might lead to, that she kept to Cousin Morris, asking innumerable questions about his house and grounds, and whether there were as many flowers there now as there used to be in the days when she and Helen went to say their lessons at Linwood, as they had done before Morris sailed for Europe.
“I think it right mean in him not to be here to see me,” she said, poutingly, “and I am going over as quick as I eat my dinner.”
But against this all exclaimed at once. She was too tired, the mother said, she must lie down and rest, while Helen suggested that she had not told them about her trip, and Uncle Ephraim remarked that she would not find Morris at home, as he was going that afternoon to Spencer. This last settled it. Katy must stay at home; but instead of lying down or talking about her journey, she explored every nook and crevice of the old house and barn, finding the nest Aunt Betsy had looked for in vain, and proving to the anxious dame that she was right when she insisted that the speckled hen had stolen her nest and was in the act of setting. Later in the day, a neighbor passing by spied the little maiden riding in the cart off into the meadow, where she sported like a child among the mounds of fragrant hay, playing her jokes upon the sober deacon, who smiled fondly upon her, feeling how much lighter the labor seemed because she was there with him, a hindrance instead of a help, in spite of her efforts to handle the rake skillfully.
“Are you glad to have me home again, Uncle Eph?” she asked when once she caught him regarding her with a peculiar look.
“Yes, Katy-did, very glad?” he answered; “I’ve missed you every day, though you do nothing much but bother me.”
“Why did you look so funny at me just now?” Kate continued, and the deacon replied: “I was thinking how hard it would be for such a highty-tighty thing as you to meet the crosses and disappointments which lie all along the road which you must travel. I should hate to see your young life crushed out of you, as young lives sometimes are?”
“Oh, never fear for me. I am going to be happy all my life long. Wilford Cameron said I ought to be,” and Katy tossed into the air a wisp of the new-made hay.
“I don’t know who Wilford Cameron is, but there’s no ought about it,” the deacon rejoined. “God marks out the path for us to walk in, and when he says it’s best, we know it is, though some are straight and pleasant and others crooked and hard.”
“I’ll choose the straight and pleasant then—why shouldn’t I?” Katy asked, laughing, as she seated herself upon a rock near which the hay cart had stopped.