“I want you to harness the buggy for me after breakfast, Peg,” Barbara said soberly. “I’m going—somewhere on business, and I want to start early.”
warbled Peg unmelodiously, as he stooped to apply his wet sponge to the rear springs.
“Did you hear me, Peg?” demanded Barbara.
The old man gazed reproachfully at the girl through the spokes of the wheel.
“W’y, I’m goin’ to use the horses fer ploughin’ this mornin’, Miss Barb’ry,” he said soothingly. “An’ they’ll be all tuckered out b’ night.”
“But there’s no use of doing any more ploughing. I told you that last week. Unless I can manage somehow to—to raise the money, the farm——”
“Don’t say it!” interrupted Peg. “I don’t b’lieve in namin’ troubles. It helps ’em to ketch a body, someway, to notice ’em too much. I b’lieve in actin’ ’s if the’ wa’nt anythin’ th’ matter ’s long ’s ye kin.”
“Yes, and while you’re doing it the mortgage will foreclose itself,” Barbara said, recalling Stephen Jarvis’ curt phrase with a thrill of anger. “You hitch up Billy for me and bring him around at seven o’clock. Will you do it, please, Peg?”
“The fe-hell-o-shi-hip of k-hin-dred mi-hinds!”
chanted Mr. Morrison, with entire irrelevance.
“Very well, if you won’t, I’ll walk. It’s ten miles there and back, but you won’t care, as long as you have your own way.”
“Where was you thinkin’ of goin’, Miss Barb’ry?” demanded Peg cautiously. “Ye know I ain’t set on anythin’ that ain’t fer your good—yours an’ the Cap’n’s.”
But Barbara had already disappeared in a flutter of angry haste.
“Now, I s’pose,” soliloquized Mr. Morrison, “that I’ll actually hev to give up ploughin’ the hill lot this mornin’, an’ all ’long o’ that young female.” He shook his head solemnly.
“O Lord!” he burst out, “you know Miss Barb’ry, prob’bly’s well’s I do. She’s a mighty nice girl an’ always hes been; but she’s turrible set in her ways, an’ I declar’ I can’t see what in creation she’s a-goin’ to do; what with everythin’—you know now—I’ve spoke ’bout it frequent enough. Then the’s the Hon’rable Stephen Jarvis—him that holds th’ mortgage—he wants t’ marry her. But I don’ trust that man, Lord. I don’t know how he looks to you. But to me he ’pears hard-fisted, an’ closer’n the bark to a tree, an’ I c’n tell you he licks the hide off’n his horses right along. But the’ may be some good in him. Ef the’ is, bring it out, O Lord, so ’t folks kin see it. An’ fix things up with Miss Barb’ry, somehow. Kind o’ overrule Jarvis an’ the mortgage an’ all the rest, the way you know how. Amen!”