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"I've unstarched it, and unstarched it, and seems as if it got stiffer." "Boiling water," breathed Miss Theodosia, too spent with her struggles not to laugh, to admit of further speech. "Wait! Don't anybody dass to pour boilin' water on till I get Elly Precious out! Come to Evangeline this minute, darlin' dear no, they shan't boil him!" Elly Precious emerged, crowing.
We haven't got any grass to speak of, over to our house." "Don't speak of it! Of course he can eat mine, if you think it is edible. Ask the Reformed Doctor." "Him a doctor? Mercy gracious honest? Then he knows if Elly Precious'd ought to eat grass not really eat, you know." "Just graze a little let him graze." The Reformed Doctor rose to his feet and held out his hand to Miss Theodosia.
In pink Miss Theodosia was lovely. "Don't you think you'd better relieve Elly Precious' caretaker by this time? He may not enjoy being left in charge quite so long." "Not enjoy! Come an' see him not enjoy!" sang Evangeline from the window. She was flattening her nose against the pane and bubbling with sympathetic glee. Miss Theodosia went over and stood beside her.
"Who would have thought!" echoed Miss Theodosia. Elly Precious was fretting restlessly when she got back. The children were on the porch. "Nothing's the matter with him," Evangeline explained, "unless it's because he's a-goin' to be taken. I told him he was. It is kind of scaring to be taken. I feel kind of that way, too." "Taken where?" "Not any where just taken.
Miss Theodosia settled a little in her chair and waited. In time Evangeline's time she would know. Elly Precious held out his rigid little mourning arm and softly whimpered. "Give him to me, Stefana; he wants to come to me," Miss Theodosia said, extending welcoming hands. Very gently she relieved the tension of the small arm. "We're in mournin' for you," Evangeline explained sadly.
His picture an' mine an' Carruthers' we're all goin' to be taken now, pretty soon. I must go home an' prink Elly Precious an' Carruthers. You see, Mr. Bradford promised to take Stefana because it's her birthday, an' first we knew he said he'd take all o' us! He's got a camera. That's him now! I guess he's waitin' for Elly Precious an' me."
She walked on fast, now, across the back yard where the hens, just as happy as she was to be on solid ground, pottered around dreamily, their eyes half-shut up. . . . Elly could just think how good the sun must feel on their feathers! She could imagine perfectly how it would be to have feathers instead of skin and hair. She went into the kitchen door. Nobody was there.
"Will Dampier turned his broad back and looked out of the window. There was a moment's silence. They could hear the tinkling of bells, the whistling of the sea, the voices of the men calling to each other in the port, the sunshine streamed in; Elly was standing in it, and seemed gilt with a golden background. She ought to have held a palm in her hand, poor little martyr!"
She could not remember ever to have seen a baby's toes. "I've no doubt they are are excellent toes." The word did not satisfy her, but the suitable adjective was not at hand. "Mercy gracious! That's a funny way to talk about toes! Elly Precious's are pink as anything an' six yes'm! I've made consid'able money out of his toes.
Of course if you hadn't come, you wouldn't be standin' there lookin' at Elly Precious isn't he a darlin' dear? Wouldn't you like to look at his toes?" It was Miss Theodosia Baxter's turn to say "Mercy gracious!" but she did not say it aloud. It was her turn, too, to see a bit of humor in the situation on her front porch. "Not just now," she said rather hastily.
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