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There was a stray peach or greengage tree here and there, and if a plain, well-meaning carrot chanced to lift its leaves among the poppies, why, they were all the children of the same mother, and Miss Vilda was not the woman to root out the invader and fling it into the ditch.
"I want you more than all of 'em put together, Timothy; I want you, and I need you most of all," cried Miss Vilda, with the tears coursing down her withered cheeks; "and if you'll only forgive me for hurtin' your feelin's and makin' you run away, you shall come to the White Farm and be my own boy as long as you live."
"You won't do any such thing," responded Miss Vilda briskly. "You've got a royal welcome this time sure, and I guess you can earn your lodging fast enough. You hear that?" and she opened the door that led into the upper part of the house. A piercing shriek floated down into the kitchen, and another on the heels of that, and then another.
Ah! to have a little humming-bird's egg to love, and to feel that it was his very own, was something to Timothy, as it is to all starved human hearts full of love that can find no outlet. Miss Vilda was knitting, and Samantha was shelling peas, on the honeysuckle porch.
I'll size 'em up the best I ken, tho' mebbe it'll hender me in my work some; but time was made for slaves, as the molasses said when they told it to hurry up in winter time." Two hours later, Miss Vilda looked from the kitchen window and saw Jabez Slocum coming across the road from the garden.
Miss Vilda moved about the immaculate kitchen, frying potatoes and making tea, setting on extra portions of bread and doughnuts and a huge pitcher of milk; while various noises, strange enough in that quiet house, floated down from above. "This is dreadful hard on Samanthy," she reflected.
Gay kindled at the first casual mention of food; and, trying to clamber out of the basket, fell over the edge, thumping her head smartly on the stone steps. Miss Vilda covered her face with her hands, and waited shudderingly for another yell, as the child's carnation stocking and terra-cotta head mingled wildly in the air.
Miss Vilda sat down, and Rags went into her lap. "Now, make believe start somewheres, 'n' mebbe he'll get ahead 'n' put you on the right track." Miss Vilda did as she was told, and Rags followed close at her heels. "Gorry! I never see sech a fool! or wait, I'll tell you what's the matter with him. Mebbe he ain't sech a fool as he looks.
But Miss Vilda could not keep her wandering thoughts on the sermon any more than if she had been a small boy.
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