He assisted his smiling wife to alight and then from the bottom of the car produced a wicker trunk that was really no bigger than a large suitcase, but much more dignified looking.
“She says a trunk gives her a little more permanent feeling than a bag and makes a hotel room seem more homelike,” went on Mr. Kean. Mrs. Brown thought that she had never heard such a pleasant voice and jolly laugh.
“Judy, show your mother and father their room. I know they are tired and will want to rest before dinner.”
“Tired! Bless your soul, what have we done to be tired? We have been on a Pullman four nights, and that is when we get in rest enough for months to come. I know Julia will want to get at her doll trunk and change her traveling dress, but, if you will permit me, I shall stay down here with you. What a beautiful farm you have! How many acres in it?”
“I have three hundred acres in all; two hundred under cultivation and in grass, fifty in woodland, and fifty that are not worth anything. It is a strange barren strip of land that my father had to take as a bad debt and I inherited from him. We graze some forlorn sheep on it, but they won’t drink the water, and it is almost more trouble than they are worth to drive them to water on another part of the place.”
Mr. Kean listened intently. “I should like to see your farm, Mrs. Brown. Did you ever have the water on the barren strip analyzed?”
“No, Mr. Brown thought of looking into it but never did, and I have had so many problems to solve and expenses to meet with my large and growing family that I have never thought of it any more.”
Mrs. Kean and Judy came down to join the others in a very short time, considering that Mrs. Kean had unpacked her tiny trunk and shaken out her little frocks and changed into a dainty pink gingham that looked as though it had just come from the laundry, showing no signs of having been packed for weeks.
“What have you done to my Judy, Mrs. Brown? I have never seen her looking so well.”
“Fried chicken and candied sweet potatoes are the chief of my diet, and who would have the ingratitude not to show such keep?” laughed the daughter, pulling the little mother down on her lap and holding her as tenderly as though their relationship were reversed. “Robert and Julia, are you aware of the fact that your lady daughter has been a perfect lady since she came to these parts, and has got herself into no bad scrapes, and has not been saucy but once, and that was necessary? Wasn’t it, Mrs. Brown?”