“What, this morning?”
“It’s what he telled me.”
“Well, don’t go and make a day’s work of it,” commanded Mrs. Stephen. “There’s a sight o’ things a-waiting to be done.”
“I can’t be back afore two, hasten as I ’ool,” returned Jim, giving the horse his head and clattering off.
“I wonder what the master sent him to-day for, when he’s away himself?” cried Becca to her sister, returning to the table in the kitchen.
“Well, he got a message last night to say that if he didn’t send for it away to-day it wouldn’t be kept for him,” said Eunice. “It’s a precious long way to have to go for a load o’ manure!”
“But then we get it for the fetching; there’s naught to pay,” returned Becca.
She had begun to wash up the breakfast-things, and when that was done she put the kitchen to rights. Eunice seemed to be at all sorts of jobs, indoors and out, and went stalking about in pattens. The furnace had been lighted in the brewhouse, for Eunice had a day’s washing before her. Becca went up to make the beds, and brought down sundry armfuls of clothes for the wash. About ten o’clock she appeared in the brewhouse with her bonnet and shawl on. Eunice was standing at the tub in her pattens, rubbing away at the steaming soap-suds.
“Why, where be you going?” she exclaimed in evident surprise.