The Camerons of Highboro Part 3

CAMERON FARM

Elliot opened her eyes to bright suns.h.i.+ne. For a minute she couldn't think where she was. Then the strangeness came back with a stab, not so poignant as on the night before but none the less actual.

"Oh," said a small, eager voice, "do you think you're going to stay waked up now?"

Elliott's eyes opened again, opened to see Priscilla's round, apple-cheeked face at the door.

"It isn't nice to peek, I know, but I'm going to get your breakfast, and how could I tell when to start it unless I watched to see when you waked up?"

"_You_ are going to get my breakfast?" Elliott rose on one elbow in astonishment. "All alone?"

"Oh, yes!" said Priscilla. "Mother and Laura are making jelly, and sh.e.l.ling peas in between--to put up, you know--and Trudy is pitching hay, so they can't. Will you have one egg or two? And do you like 'em hard-boiled or soft; or would you rather have 'em dropped on toast?

And how long does it take you to dress?"

"One--soft-boiled, please. I'll be down in half an hour."

"Half an hour will give me lots of time." The small face disappeared and the door closed softly.

Elliott rose breathlessly and looked at her watch. Half an hour! She must hurry. Priscilla would expect her. Priscilla had the look of expecting people to do what they said they would. And hereafter, of course, she must get up to breakfast. She wondered how Priscilla's breakfast would taste. Heavens, how these people worked!

As a matter of fact, Priscilla's breakfast tasted delicious. The toast was done to a turn; the egg was of just the right softness; a saucer of fresh raspberries waited beside a pot of cream, and the whole was served on a little table in a corner of the veranda.

"Laura said you'd like it out here," Priscilla announced anxiously.

"Do you?"

"Very much indeed."

"That's all right, then. I'm going to have some berries and milk right opposite you. I always get hungry about this time in the forenoon."

"When do you have breakfast, regular breakfast, I mean?"

"At six o'clock in summer, when there's so much to do."

Six o'clock! Elliott turned her gasp of astonishment into a cough.

"_I_ sometimes choke," said Priscilla, "when I'm awfully hungry."

"Does Stannard eat breakfast at six?" Elliott felt she must get to the bed-rock of facts.

"Oh, yes!"

"What is he doing now?"

Priscilla wrinkled her small brow. "Father and Bruce and Henry are haying, and Tom's hoeing carrots. I _think_ Stan's hoeing carrots, too. One day last week he hoed up two whole rows of beets; he thought they were weeds. Oh!" A small hand was clapped over the round red mouth. "I didn't mean to tell you that. Mother said I mustn't ever speak of it, 'cause he'd feel bad. Don't you think you could forget it, quick?"

"I've forgotten it now."

"That's all right, then. After breakfast I'm going to show you my chickens and my calf. Did you know, I've a whole calf all to myself?--a black-and-whitey one. There are some cunning pigs, too.

Maybe you'd like to see them. And then I 'spect you'll want to go out to the hay-field, or maybe make jelly."

"Oh, yes," said Elliott, "I can't see any of it too soon." But she was ashamed of her double meaning, with those round, eager eyes upon her.

And her heart went down quite into her boots.

But the chickens, she had to confess, were rather amusing. Priscilla had them all named and was quite sure some of them, at least, answered to their names and not merely to the sound of her voice. She appealed to Elliott for corroboration on this point and Elliott grew almost interested trying to decide whether or not Chanticleer knew he was "Chanticleer" and not "Sunflower." There were also "Fluff" and "Scratch" and "Lady Gay" and "Ruby Crown" and "Marshal Haig" and "General Petain" and many more, besides "Brevity," so named because, as Priscilla solicitously explained, she never seemed to grow. They all, with the exception of Brevity, looked as like as peas to Elliott, but Priscilla seemed to have no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng them.

Priscilla's enthusiasm was contagious; or, to be more exact, it was so big and warm and generous that it covered any deficiency of enthusiasm in another. Elliott found herself trailing Priscilla through the barns and even out to see the pigs, meeting Ferdinand Foch, the very new colt, and Kitchener of Khartoum, who had been a new colt three years before, and almost holding hands with the "black-and-whitey" calf, which Priscilla had very nearly decided to call General Pers.h.i.+ng. And didn't Elliott think that would be a nice name, with "J.J." for short?

Elliott had barely delivered herself of a somewhat amused affirmative (though the amus.e.m.e.nt she knew enough to conceal), when the small tongue tripped into the pigs' roster. Every animal on the farm seemed to have a name and a personality. Priscilla detailed characteristics quite as though their possessors were human.

It was an enlightened but somewhat surfeited cousin whom Priscilla blissfully escorted into the summer kitchen, a big latticed s.p.a.ce filled with the pleasant odors of currant jelly. On the broad table stood trays of ruby-filled gla.s.ses.

"We've seen all the creatures," Priscilla announced jubilantly "and she loves 'em. Oh, the jelly's done, isn't it? Mumsie, may we sc.r.a.pe the kettle?"

Aunt Jessica laughed. "Elliott may not care to sc.r.a.pe kettles."

Priscilla opened her eyes wide at the absurdity of the suggestion.

"You do, don't you? You must! Everybody does. Just wait a minute till I get spoons."

"I don't think I quite know how to do it," said Elliott.

The next minute a teaspoon was thrust into her hand. "Didn't you _ever_?" Priscilla's voice was both aghast and pitying. "It wastes a lot, not sc.r.a.ping kettles. Good as candy, too. Here, you begin." She pushed a preserving-kettle forward hospitably.

Elliott hesitated.

"_I'll_ show you." The small hand shot in, sc.r.a.ped vigorously for a minute, and withdrew, the spoon heaped with ruddy jelly. "There!

Mother didn't leave as much as usual, though. I 'spect it's 'cause sugar's so scarce. She thought she must put it all into the gla.s.ses.

But there's always something you can sc.r.a.pe up."

"It is delicious," said Elliott, graciously; "and what a lovely color!"

Priscilla beamed. "You may have two sc.r.a.pes to my one, because you have so much time to make up."

"You generous little soul! I couldn't think of doing that. We will take our 'sc.r.a.pes' together."

Priscilla teetered a little on her toes. "I like you," she said. "I like you a whole lot. I'd hug you if my hands weren't sticky. Sc.r.a.ping kettles makes you awful sticky. You make me think of a princess, too.

You're so bee-yeautiful to look at. Maybe that isn't polite to say.

Mother says it isn't always nice to speak right out all you think."

The dimples twinkled in Elliott's cheeks. "When you think things like that, it is polite enough." In the direct rays of Priscilla's s.h.i.+ning admiration she began to feel like her normal, petted self once more.

Complacently she followed the little girl into the main kitchen. It was a long, low, sunny room with a group of three windows at each end, through which the morning breeze pushed coolly. Between the windows opened many doors. At one side stood a range, all s.h.i.+ning nickel and cleanly black. Opposite the range, at a gleaming white sink, Aunt Jessica was busying herself with many pans. At an immaculately scoured table Laura was pouring peas into gla.s.s jars. On the walls was a blue-and-white paper; even the woodwork was white.

"I didn't know a kitchen," Elliott spoke impulsively, "could be so pretty."

"This is our work-room," said her aunt. "We think the place where we work ought to be the prettiest room in the house. White paint requires more frequent scrubbing than colored paint; but the girls say they don't mind, since it keeps our spirits smiling. Would you like to help dry these pans? You will find towels on that line behind the stove."

Elliott brought the dish-towels, and proceeded to forget her own surprise at the request in the interest of Aunt Jessica's talk. Mrs.

Cameron had a lovely voice; the girl did not remember ever having heard a more beautiful voice, and it was used with a cultured ease that suddenly reminded Elliott of an almost forgotten remark once made in her hearing by Stannard's mother. "It is a sin and shame," Aunt Margaret had said, "to bury a woman like Jessica Cameron on a farm.

What possessed her to let Robert take her there in the first place is beyond my comprehension. Granting that first mistake, why she has let him stay all these years is another enigma. Robert is all very well, but Jessica! I would defy any one to produce the situation _anywhere_ that Jessica wouldn't be equal to."