Every back bent a little lower. Every face flushed a little rosier under its coat of grime. Praise from Billy was all they asked.
“Well, I must get at my job, too. That’s thinking up things. You fellers do your work an’ get your money; but I got to rustle that money or bust.”
“O Billy, it hurts the ears of my mind to hear you say those vulgar words.” May Nell, playing “man” for the first time in her life, looked up from the “rod of grade” that she was piling deftly with a broken shingle. The color from sun and exercise added much to her beauty. She was neither blowsy nor smudged like the other children, and her lawn frock was as spotless as in the morning.
Billy looked at her thoughtfully, wondering why her fearless criticism did not displease him; lifted his battered hat and mussed again his tousled hair. “All right, Fair Ellen, I’ll try to obey the—”
“Lady of the Lake?” she finished quickly in a question. “Do you know that, too? I love it.”
“‘One burnished sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,’”
she quoted glibly. “I know a lot more of it. Do you?”
A scream from “the shack” stopped further quotations. Billy ran up the hill to learn the trouble. Only Evelyn was there in the little house built, half of boards, half of willow twigs woven lattice-wise, against a huge smooth rock. Beside this rock also ascended a cobble chimney; and the fireplace, roughly plastered, served its purpose well. Billy had made it all, and Edith wished the house fireplace would draw as well.
He found Evelyn on her knees before a hot fire, bravely trying to hold level one of the several pots that were sizzling there. Her drooping hair smothered her small hot face, and perspiration stood like dew on her anxious little upper lip.