"It beats me," she said conversationally1, "where Sarah runs to every afternoon. It's been going on now for three weeks and she shuts up like a clam2 when I ask her any questions."
Winnie and Mrs. Willis were seated in the cool, shaded living-room with their mending. It was an intensely warm afternoon and several degrees cooler inside the house than on the porch. Winnie insisted on helping3 with the darning—she would have felt hurt had she been denied the task of mating and sorting and mending the stockings and socks for the family each week—and she took pride in assisting Mrs. Willis to keep Doctor Hugh's belongings4 in perfect order.
"Mother!" Rosemary hurried in, her hair a tangle5 of waves and ringlets dampened from heat and perspiration6, her cheeks like scarlet7 poppies and her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. "Mother, I've thought of something!"
"Rosemary leads an exciting life," Jack8 Welles had once declared in Mrs. Willis' hearing. "She can get all worked up about anything she happens to be thinking about."
Rosemary's mother remembered this speech now, smiling a little at the recollection.
"Richard and Warren are down in the tomato field, working their heads off in this broiling9 sun," said Rosemary more picturesquely10 than accurately11. "And Mother, couldn't I make lemonade and take it down to them?"
"We have lemons," put in Winnie.
Mrs. Willis nodded approval.
"Make plenty, dear," she said cordially. "Don't put in too much sugar, for the boys don't like it so sweet; but why not wait an hour until it is cooler?"
"Oh, Mother, let me do it now—they'll like it when they're working hard. Where's Shirley? She could carry the cups," and Rosemary paused in her flight kitchenwards.
"Shirley is asleep—don't wake her," cautioned the mother. "Ask Sarah to help you, dear; she is out in the barn. And do keep out of the sun as much as you can, dear."
"Yes'm," promised Rosemary obediently, disappearing.
"I'll go crack the ice," said Winnie, rising. "There's no use in making the kitchen look like Niagara Falls, if a little forethought can prevent it."
Rosemary was a quick worker and a neat one, when she didn't have to chop ice, and she soon had a shiny white enamel12 pail half filled with delicious cold lemonade. She poured out two generous glasses for her mother and Winnie and carried them in with her compliments and then set off expeditiously13, carrying pail, dipper and three cups, a feat14 that required her closest attention.
"Sarah!" she called when she reached the barn.
"What?" called back Sarah, not very graciously.
"Please come help me take some lemonade to the boys?"
Sarah put her head out of the barn door and eyed the pail thirstily.
"Let me have some?" she begged.
"If you'll help me carry these things," said Rosemary. "I brought three cups and there's enough lemonade for everyone."
"The ice will melt if you're going to talk all day," said Rosemary, the blazing sun making her more impatient than usual. "Come help me first and drink your lemonade after we get down to the tomato field."
"Sarah Willis! You can't carry that filthy17 pig and help me lug18 this pail, too—put him down," scolded Rosemary.
"Bony isn't filthy—he's had a bath this morning!" flared19 Sarah. "He's just as clean as any person, so there. And I want to show Richard and Warren what he can do."
"You know what Hugh would say if he saw you fussing with a pig and then coming around food without washing your hands," Rosemary reminded her. "If there is one thing Hugh won't stand, it's to have you handle pets and then come to the table without scrubbing your hands. You know that, Sarah."
"I'm not coming to any table," insisted Sarah. "Besides Bony is clean, I tell you. If I can't bring him I won't come at all."
The walk down to the tomato field was long and hot, and Rosemary could not hurry unless she had someone to share the weight of the pail which would, she knew, grow heavier at each step. She capitulated.
"But keep Bony on the other side of you," she commanded Sarah. "I don't see why he can't walk; do you carry him everywhere he goes?"
Sarah tucked the pig under one arm and gave the other hand to the handle of the pail.
"Bony can walk, but I am saving his strength," she remarked with a dignity worthy20 of Winnie. "You wait till you see what a smart pig he is, Rosemary; no one appreciates him except me."
Warren and Richard, bending over the long rows of tomatoes, straightened up in surprise as Rosemary's clear call came down to them.
"Stay up by the fence—you'll get your dress stained!" shouted Warren. "We'll come over."
"Ye gods, lemonade!" ejaculated Richard when he was near enough to hear the inviting21 tinkle22 of ice.
"And a pig!" grinned Warren. "Isn't Bony too heavy to cart around on a day like this, Sarah?"
"You must be baked!" Rosemary looked with sympathy at the two flushed faces.
Both boys looked warm and tired, but they averred24 stoutly25 that no one minded the heat "after they were used to it." They declared that nothing had ever tasted as good as the lemonade.
"What made you think of bringing us it?" asked Warren, sitting down on an overturned crate26 after his second cup and mopping his face with his handkerchief.
"Oh, last winter Jack Welles and the high school boys were shoveling snow, we took them hot coffee and doughnuts," said Rosemary carelessly. "I suppose I must have remembered how much they liked something warm to drink—and you like something cold just as much, don't you?"
"We sure do," agreed Richard warmly. "This Jack Welles is coming up next week, isn't he? Mr. Hildreth is counting on him for two weeks."
Rosemary moved the pail beyond the reach of Sarah who seemed to have developed an excessive thirst.
"Jack and Hugh are both coming next Sunday," she answered. "You'll like Jack, Warren, and so will you, Richard. He lives next door to us, you know."
"Well, I only hope he's used to hard work," said Richard. "How old is he, Rosemary? Almost sixteen? I don't suppose he has ever picked tomatoes from sunup to sundown, but the cannery opens next week and we'll be picking steadily27 until it closes. Mr. Hildreth is shipping28 some crates29 to-day, but the real picking starts when the cannery opens. We're counting on Jack to make a third hand."
"He'll want to go fishing," declared Sarah.
"Jack doesn't care how much he hurts the poor fish, jabbing hooks into them."
Sarah and Jack had had more than one violent argument over this question.
"It isn't cruel to go fishing," said Rosemary impatiently, thinking how tired Warren looked.
"I haven't been this year," announced Richard, "though they say there are several good streams near here. Sundays I seem to lack ambition and during the week, of course, there isn't time."
Sarah edged a little nearer the pail.
Warren looked at her and grinned.
"Not only would I catch them," he told her, "but I'd eat them; if we are to have fish to eat, Sarah, someone must catch them for us. The same way with roast chicken for Sunday dinner and roast pork, you know; they don't grow on bushes."
Sarah's eyes turned to Bony, now lying comfortably sprawled31 across her lap. She was sitting on the ground and Rosemary beside her.
"I never would eat Bony!" she said in horror-stricken tone.
"No, of course not," Richard put in quickly, "but you'd eat a pig you were not acquainted with, wouldn't you?"
Sarah was most uncomfortable. She liked roast pork and in winter was fond of little sausages. And now here was Richard telling her that pigs—like Bony—had to be killed before one could have roast pork to eat.
"Never mind, Sarah," said Rosemary, taking pity on her sister. "You don't have to think about what you eat—just don't try to make everyone see your way and don't argue so much and eat what Winnie gives you and you'll have nothing to worry about."
Warren laughed and held out his cup as Rosemary lifted the dipper invitingly32.
"What's a reformer?" demanded Sarah, eyeing the pail anxiously.
"You're one when you try to stop your friends from going fishing," Warren informed her. "That's the whole trouble with reform—no one is willing to improve himself and let his neighbor alone; for all you know, Sarah, you drive Jack Welles fishing in self-defense. Perhaps, if you let him alone, he wouldn't go at all."
Sarah stared, but Rosemary nodded.
"I don't know about Jack," said Rosemary, "but I do know that as soon as someone says it isn't right to do such and such a thing, I always want to do it. And it may be something I never thought of before."
"Like coasting down hill backward," contributed Sarah.
Rosemary dimpled and Warren, who had been uneasily thinking they ought to go back to the vines, resolved to wait a few minutes longer.
"Did you coast backward?" asked Richard with interest. "What happened?"
"Oh, I ran into another sled and cut my wrists and nearly broke the legs of the two boys on the other sled," Rosemary recited. "The trouble was I never would have thought of it, if it hadn't been for Miss Johnson. She's a woman who lives in Eastshore and she's forever scolding about girls—the way they 'carry on,' she calls it. I happened to hear her say that no nice, well-brought up girl would make herself conspicuous34 on a coasting hill."
"So you thought up the most conspicuous way of getting down the hill and did it?" suggested Richard.
"Well, it turned out more conspicuous than I intended," Rosemary acknowledged. "I never intended to tangle up three or four sleds and have the news get around that there had been an accident on the hill. Mother was so frightened when she heard of it—remember, Sarah?"
Sarah remembered. But she was more interested in the lemonade.
"There's some left, Rosemary," she tactfully declared.
"You've had enough," said Rosemary.
Richard rose to his feet at a significant glance from Warren. It was pleasant to rest a few moments, but the driving force of waiting work had not relaxed, merely slowed down.
"I wish I could help you," said Rosemary, simply and sincerely.
"What do you call it you've just been doing?" answered Warren. "Picking tomatoes isn't so hard, but it is monotonous35; giving us a little break in the day is something that counts big, Rosemary."
"Well, anyway, Jack will be here to-morrow to help you," said Rosemary. "Then perhaps you won't have to work so hard—many hands make light work, Winnie says."
"Now what," said Richard thoughtfully, "should you say was troubling the small Sarah at this moment?"
Sarah, cut off from the supply of lemonade, had turned her back on the others and was busily disgorging an assortment36 of articles from her blouse. When she whirled around upon the astonished group it was apparent that she had secreted37 upon her small person a pair of baby shoes, a doll's dress and a small parasol. In these her pig, Bony, was now arrayed.
"Tricks!" echoed Richard, while Rosemary rapidly identified the dress as belonging to Shirley's largest doll, ditto the parasol, and the shoes as a pair of Sarah's own carefully treasured for years by Winnie.
"What kind of tricks?" demanded Warren.
"You wait and see—" Sarah was so excited her voice trembled. "I taught him lots of things. I've been teaching him every afternoon in the barn—he is a naturally bright pig."
Her audience was inclined to share her opinion, after watching Bony perform. The pig walked up and down before them in the absurd costume, twirling the parasol and bowing to each in turn as he passed.
He danced, very mincingly39, to a tune40 Sarah played for him on the harmonica—Rosemary wondered how many other treasures Sarah's blouse could hold—and though Richard said that no pig, no matter how highly educated, could hope to identify that tune, it was admitted that Bony was a graceful41 dancer.
"He can wear spectacles and read a book, too," declared Sarah proudly, "but I couldn't bring them!"
"Well, you must have had a heap of patience," commented Warren admiringly. "Can he do anything else, Sarah?"
"Jump through a hoop," enumerated44 Sarah, "push a doll carriage and walk around carrying a doll like a baby—I broke two of Shirley's china dolls, teaching him that trick, but she doesn't know it yet. And, oh, yes, he can sweep—with a toy broom—and play a toy piano."
"So that's where all Shirley's toys have gone to!" Rosemary tried to speak severely45, but she ended by laughing. "Shirley has been missing her playthings, one after the other," Rosemary explained to the boys. "And we thought she took them outdoors to play with and forgot where she left them."
"After supper to-night," said Sarah, calmly ignoring this disclosure, "I'll give an exhibition in the barn."
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1
conversationally
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| adv.会话地 | |
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clam
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| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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8
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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9
broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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picturesquely
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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expeditiously
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| adv.迅速地，敏捷地 | |
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14
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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15
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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16
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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17
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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18
lug
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| n.柄，突出部，螺帽；(英）耳朵；（俚）笨蛋；vt.拖，拉，用力拖动 | |
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19
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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20
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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23
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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25
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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26
crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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27
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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28
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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29
crates
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| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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30
coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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31
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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32
invitingly
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| adv. 动人地 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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34
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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35
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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36
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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37
secreted
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| v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的过去式和过去分词 )；隐匿，隐藏 | |
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38
clarion
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| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
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39
mincingly
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40
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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41
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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42
celebrities
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| n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉 | |
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43
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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44
enumerated
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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