"Rosemary, have you ever heard of anybody taking a stool and a pail and goin' out to milk the cucumbers before breakfast?" This from Aunt Matilda.
"Rosemary, ain't you seen the juice of wild cucumbers when they spit their seeds out and ain't it just like milk, only some thicker?" This from Grandmother.
"I don't know," Rosemary answered, mechanically. The queer sense of a double self persisted. One of her was calm and content, the other was rebellious—and hurt.
"Humph!" snorted Grandmother.
Going for the Paper
"It's Thursday," Grandmother reminded her, "and I heard the mail train come in some time ago. You'd better leave the sweepin' an' go and get my paper."
"Yes, do," Aunt Matilda chimed in, with a sneer. "I can't hardly wait for this week's paper, more'n the other sufferin' five million can. Maybe there'll be a pattern for a cucumber milkin' stool in this week's paper; somethin' made out of a soap-box, with cucumber leaves and blossoms painted on it with some green and yellow house paint that happens to be left over. And," she continued, "they'd ought to be a pail too, but I reckon a tin can'll do, for the cucumbers I've seen so far don't look as if they'd be likely to give much milk. We can paint the can green and paste a picture of a cucumber on the outside from the seed catalogue. Of course I ain't got any freckles, but there's nothin' like havin' plenty of cucumber milk in the house, with hot weather comin' on."
Grandmother surveyed Matilda with a penetrating, icy stare. "You've got freckles on your mind," she said. "Rosemary, will you go to the post-office and not keep me waiting?"
The girl glanced at her brown gingham dress, and hesitated.