They did not return that day or the next; and Peace had concluded that they were angry with her; but the third morning bright and early they appeared at the gate, unlatched it, and marched in solemn file up the path to the house. Mrs. Wood herself, with Peace close behind, answered their timid knock, and Ophelia, clad in a clean, neatly patched gingham dress, with her hair hanging in two smooth plaits down her back, faltered, "Ma wants to know would you like to get milk of us? The little heifer has just come in fresh and we've got plently to sell."
"Ma'd 'a' come herself," piped up Vinie from the rear, "but she's sick today."
"It's just a headache," hastily explained Tobias, beginning to scowl at the family chatterbox, and then heroically smiling instead.
"She's lost another customer," confided Vinie, "a wash customer, 'cause her tubs are so rusty, and it made her cry."
"But we're going to get her some new tubs," interrupted Antonio excitedly, "and then we can come for your clo'es if you want us to."
"We've got seventy cents in our banks," said Augustus shyly.
"And if you need any wood chopped or piled, or carpets beat up, or errands run, we'll be glad to do it for you—cheap," recited Tobias, in a curious singsong voice, as if he had learned the words by rote.
"But what about the milk?" reminded Vinie, when the sudden pause which followed had grown too oppressive.
"O!" Mrs. Wood roused to a realization that seven eager bodies were listening for her answer. What should she say? Once more her eyes travelled the length of the line. What a transformation had taken place! Each face was polished till it fairly glistened in the sun, each pair of bare, brown legs was clean and spotless, each fiery red head had been brushed till not a hair was out of place, and each small figure was clad in stiffly starched garments which looked as if they had just come from the ironing board.