And a few minutes later Grandma began the story.
“It was in the spring. Father was making garden, and he broke the hoe handle. All the boys were away from home helping a neighbor, so Father wanted Aggie or Belle to take the hoe to have a handle put in at the blacksmith shop at Nebo Cross Roads a mile away. But the girls were getting ready to go to a quilting, and I begged to be allowed to take the hoe to the blacksmith shop.
“Mother was afraid at first, but Father said there was nothing to hurt me, and Mother finally gave in. So right after dinner, carrying the hoe and a poke of cookies to eat if I got hungry, I started out.
“I was to leave the hoe at the shop and go on down the road to Strangs’ to wait till the hoe was mended. I can remember yet how important I felt going off alone like that. I picked wild flowers and munched cookies and sang all the songs I knew.
“Mr. Carson, the blacksmith, said it would be a couple of hours before the hoe would be ready, and I went down to Strangs’ to wait. But when I got there I found the house all locked up and no one at home. I sat down on the steps to wait for some one to come, but the heat and the quiet made me sleepy so I got up and moved around the yard. I was lonely there by myself. I walked around looking at the flowers and the garden and the chickens and played a while with a kitten I found sleeping in the sun. I thought that afternoon would never end. Surely I had been there two hours. I started for the blacksmith shop. Maybe it would be closed. I ran all the way. Mr. Carson looked surprised when I asked for the hoe.
I played a while with a kitten
“‘Why, it’s only been a half-hour since you went away,’ he said.
“I went back to Strangs’, and this time I was determined to wait a long time. After a while Isabel Strang came home. She had been at the quilting, but all the rest of the family had gone away to stay several days. Isabel was going to our house to spend the night if she got through the evening’s work in time. She had come past our house, and Mother had told her to keep me all night with her for company if she could not get back before dark and to send me home early in the morning.
“Isabel hurried, and while she milked the cows and fed the pigs and chickens and got supper I went after the hoe.