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Updated: May 12, 2025
He raised himself up on one arm and looked gratefully at Miss Salome. "Thank you," he said. "I'll work hard. I'm used to doing a lot." "There, there!" said Miss Salome, patting his shoulder gently. "Lie down and rest. Dinner will be ready soon, and I guess you'll be ready for it." To Clemantiny she added in a low, gentle tone, "There's a look on his face that reminded me of Johnny.
"Humph!" said Clemantiny amiably. "New brooms sweep clean." But she gave him cream with his porridge that morning. Generally, all Miss Salome's hired hands got from Clemantiny was skim milk. Miss Salome's regular hired man lived in a little house down in the hollow. He soon turned up, and the other two men she had hired for harvest also arrived. Martin, the man, looked Chester over quizzically.
Then she added sorrowfully, "But it doesn't make your running away right, Chester." "Tell us all about it," demanded Clemantiny, sitting down on the wood-box. "Sit down, boy, sit down don't stand there looking as if you were on trial for your life. Tell us all about it." Thus adjured, Chester sat down and told them all about it his moonlight flitting and his adventures in Montrose.
But for all that, Chester could not have felt or looked more guilty if he had been telling an out-and-out falsehood at every breath. "Humph!" said Clemantiny in a dissatisfied tone. "What on earth do you suppose a midget like you can do in the harvest field? And we don't want any more help, anyway. We've got enough." Chester grew sick with disappointment. But at this moment Miss Salome spoke up.
Clemantiny opened her mouth and shut it again. She understood that it would be a waste of breath to say anything more. If Miss Salome had made up her mind to put this freckled, determined-looking waif, dropped on her doorstep from heaven knew where, into Johnny's room, that was an end of the matter.
Chester blushed until his freckles were drowned out in a sea of red, and Clemantiny saw it, of course. When did anything ever escape those merciless black eyes of Clemantiny's? "Do you think it's always wrong for a fellow to run away, Miss Salome?" he faltered. "It can't ever be right," said Miss Salome decidedly.
I really don't know much about him. But wouldn't you rather stay here with me for the winter, Chester?" "Ma'am? Miss Salome?" stammered Chester. He heard Clemantiny give a snort behind him and mutter, "Clean infatuated clean infatuated," without in the least knowing what she meant. "We really need a chore boy all the year round," said Miss Salome. "Martin has all he can do with the heavy work.
It would be useless to say that she did not want to keep her damsons for three years, and that she was content to eat them up and trust to Providence for the next year's supply. "Well, well, bake them then," she said placidly. "I don't suppose it makes much difference one way or another. Only, I insist what was that noise, Clemantiny? It sounded like something falling against the porch door."
"Dear me!" said Miss Salome mildly. She dropped her spoon, handle and all, into the taffy and never noticed it. "Dear me, Chester!" "I knew it," said Clemantiny triumphantly. "I knew it and I always said it. Run away, did you?" "Yes'm. My name is Chester Benson Stephens, and I lived at Upton with Aunt Harriet Elwell. But she ain't any relation to me, really. She's only father's stepsister.
You keep him right here, as you should, and let Harriet Elwell look somewhere else for somebody to scold!" "Clemantiny!" expostulated Miss Salome. "Oh, I must and will speak my mind, Salome. There's no one else to take Chester's part, it seems. You have as much claim on him as Harriet Elwell has. She ain't any real relation to him any more than you are." Miss Salome looked troubled.
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