At the supper-table she began to talk about the beautiful five-mile drive from town, and the sunset from the top of the hill.
“It is pretty,” said Minnie.
“And the bridge with the willows. It is pretty enough for a picture; and the ducks sailing down the stream.”
“I always said we had pretty things near home,” remarked her father.
Then Lottie found a nook in the woods to talk about, and Pet told of a place like a cave, and the view on the top after you climbed the big rock. The tired mother brightened. After supper Jean followed her father out the back door and stood beside him.
“How is the watermelon patch doing?” she asked, in a voice of great interest, after thinking a minute.
“Finely! Never so well before. Come and look at it.”
It was a pleasant walk. Jean imagined that she had a white shawl thrown about her, and once in a while gave it a twitch as she listened while the farmer talked about his melons. She asked questions she had never thought of asking before, and learned several new things about the farm.
“It’s a good thing to be a good farmer,” she said. “I never thought before how much farmers had to know.” Her father looked pleased.
It was Jean’s work to wash the milk-pails and milk-pans. She did it that night with a sense of enjoyment which she had never had before, for she was simply “helping” of her own accord. She would be very helpful; she would try to make these strangers care very much for her. She would watch every day to see what she could do for them. Mrs. Lane last summer had taught the class in the Sunday-school to which Jean belonged, and had said that “all must try to be a blessing to every one whom their life touched.” It appeared to Jean that her life touched everybody’s in this house.