Mrs. Mills, trying to stop laughing, and wiping her eyes, protested (laughing harder than ever) that Sidney was talking nonsense. She declared that nobody was piling anything on her. She said that she was always delighted to have Sam's sisters come, because Sam liked to have them, and Father Mills liked it, too.
"Well, they oughtn't to like it; they ought to be ashamed to like it. It's nothing less than scandalous to allow it, when you've got to cook the dinner after nursing all night, and the weather's getting real warm," said Sidney, sharply, jerking out a knitting-needle, and slapping the ball of yarn back under her arm.
"But you know, Sidney, neither Sam nor Father Mills have much enjoyment. Sam's had a mighty hard time this winter, with the misery in his back, coming on whenever he tried to do anything; and all his bad luck too."
"What bad luck?" demanded Sidney, hard-heartedly.
"Why, didn't you know about his corn? Every ear of his share of the crop, that his tenant raised on that field of mine, rotted right in the pen, when nobody else lost any. I declare I can't yet see how it was."
"Did Sam cover his pen as everybody else did?" asked Sidney, relentlessly.
Kitty Mills stared, growing grave for an instant or two, being much puzzled. She wondered what in the world the question could possibly have to do with her husband's loss of his corn.
"No. He didn't cover the corn," she replied, much at a loss still. "He thought the winter was going to be drier than it turned out to be. And he doesn't often make mistakes in prophesying about the weather. He's a mighty close, good observer of all the signs. I've known him to sit still a whole day, without getting out of his chair, watching to see whether the ground-hog saw its shadow."
"Yes, I lay that's all so. I reckon he would sit still long enough to find out almost anything," responded Sidney, dryly. "There's not much use in talking to you, Kitty Mills; you're just as unmanageable in your way as Miss Pettus is in hers. But I know how to get round her if you'll help me do it. You know as well as I do how good-hearted she is, in spite of that peppery temper of hers."
Kitty Mills nodded silently, laughing again so that she could not speak.