"Settled!" cried Miriam; and Dora gazed at her with radiant face. It was delightful to be able to bestow such pleasure.
In two minutes Mr. Bannister had brought in his horse. In the next minute all three of the party were busy unbuckling his harness; in ten minutes more it had been taken off, the saddle and bridle subst.i.tuted, and Mr.
Bannister was riding to Thorbury.
Dora of the sparkling eyes drew close to Miriam.
"Would you mind my kissing you?" she asked.
There was nothing in the warm young soul of the other girl which in the least objected to this token of a new-born friendship.
As Dora and Miriam, each with an arm around the waist of the other, walked out of the barn and pa.s.sed the lower story, the calf, who had been the main instrument in bringing about the cordial relations between the two, raised his head and gazed at them with his good eye. Then perceiving that they had forgotten him, and were going away without even arranging his mosquito net for the night, he slowly turned his clouded visual organ in their direction, and composed himself to rest.
CHAPTER XII
TO EAT WITH THE FAMILY
As the two girls entered the house, Miriam clapped her hands.
"What a surprise this will be for Ralph!" she exclaimed. "He hasn"t the slightest idea that you are here, or that anybody is going to spend the night with us. If Mike said anything about you and your brother,--which I doubt, for he is awfully anxious to get in that hay,--Ralph thought, of course, that you were both gone long ago."
The situation suited Dora"s fancy admirably.
"Let us make it a regular surprise," she said. "I am going to help you to get supper, and to do whatever you have to do. Suppose you don"t tell your brother that I am here, and let him find it out by degrees. Don"t you think that will be fun?"
"Indeed it will," cried the other; "and if you don"t mind helping a little about the cooking, I think that will be fun too. Perhaps you can tell me some things I don"t know."
"Let us begin," exclaimed Dora, "for everything ought to be ready before he comes in. Can you lend me a big ap.r.o.n?"
"I have only one," said Miriam, "and it is not very big; I intended to make some more, but I haven"t had time. But you needn"t do anything, you know. You can just give me advice and keep me company."
"Oh, I want to do things. I want to work," cried Dora; "it would be cruel to keep me from the fun of helping you get supper. Haven"t you something I can slip on instead of this dress? It is not very fine, but I don"t want to spatter or burn it."
"None of my clothes are long enough for you," said Miriam; "but perhaps I might find something in the garret. There are all sorts of clothes up there. If you choose, we can go up and look."
In the next minute the two girls were in the great garret, kneeling in front of a trunk, in which Miriam had found the silk robe, which now lay tumbled up in a corner of a stall in the cow-stable. Article after article of female attire was drawn out and tossed on the floor. Dora was delighted; she was fond of old-fashioned things, and here were clothes of various eras. Some colonial, perhaps, and none that had been worn since these two girls had come into the world. There was a calico dress with large pink figures in it which caught Dora"s eye; she sprang to her feet, shook it out, and held it up before her.
"This will do," she said. "The length is all right, and it does not matter about the rest of the fit."
"Of course not," said Miriam; "and now let us go down. We need not wait to put the rest of the things back."
As Dora was about to go, her eyes fell on an old-fashioned pink sunbonnet.
"If you don"t mind," she said, "I will take that, too. I shall be awfully awkward, and I don"t want to get cinders or flour in my hair."
When Dora had arrayed herself in the calico dress with pink flowers, she stood for a moment before the large mirror in Miriam"s room. The dress was very short as to waist, and very perpendicular as to skirt, and the sleeves were puffy at the elbows and tight about the wrists, but pink was a color that became her, the quaint cut of the gown was well suited to her blooming face, and altogether she was pleased with the picture in the gla.s.s. As for the sunbonnet, that was simply hideous, but it could be taken off when she chose, and the wearing of it would help her very much in making herself known to Mr. Ralph Haverley.
For half an hour the girls worked bravely in the kitchen. Dora had some knowledge of the principles of cookery, though her practice had been small, and Miriam possessed an undaunted courage in culinary enterprises.
However, they planned nothing difficult, and got on very well. Dora made up some of Miriam"s dough into little rolls.
"I wish I could make these as the Tolbridges" new cook makes them. They say that every morning she sends in a plate of breakfast rolls, each one a different shape, and some of them ever so pretty."
"I don"t suppose they taste any better for that," remarked Miriam.
"Perhaps not," said the other, "but I like to see things to eat look pretty." And she did her best to shape the little rolls into such forms that they might please the eye of Mr. Ralph as well as satisfy his palate.
Miriam went up to the dining-room to arrange the table. While doing this she saw Ralph approaching from the barn. In the kitchen, below, Dora, glancing out of the window, also saw him coming, and pulling her sunbonnet well forward, she applied herself more earnestly to her work.
Ralph came in, tired and warm, and threw himself down on a long horse-hair sofa in the hall.
"Heigh ho, Miriam," he cried; "hay-making is a jolly thing, all the world over, but I have had enough of it for to-day. How are you getting on, little one? Don"t put yourself to too much trouble about my supper. Only give me enough of whatever you have; that is all I ask."
"Ralph," said Miriam, standing gravely by him, "I did not have to get supper all by myself; there is a new girl in the kitchen."
"Good," cried Ralph; "I am very glad to hear that. When did she come?"
"This afternoon," said Miriam, "and she is cooking supper now. But, Ralph," she continued, "there is hardly any wood in the kitchen. We have--she has used up nearly all that was brought in this morning."
"Well," said Ralph, "there is plenty of it cut, in the woodhouse."
"But, Ralph," said Miriam, "I don"t like to ask her to go after the wood, herself, and some is needed now."
"Mike is just as busy as he can be down at the barn," said her brother, "and I cannot call him now. If you show her the woodhouse, she can get what she wants with very little trouble, and Mike will bring in a lot of it to-night."
"But, Ralph," persisted his sister, "I don"t want to ask her to stop her cooking and go out and get wood. It does not look like good management, for one thing, and for other reasons I do not want to do it. Don"t you think you could bring her some wood? Just a little basketful of short sticks will do."
Ralph sat up and knitted his brows. "Miriam," said he, "if your new cook is the right sort of a woman, she ought to be able to help herself in emergencies of this kind, with the woodhouse not a dozen yards from the kitchen. But as she is a stranger to the place, and I don"t want to discourage anybody who comes to help you, I will get some wood for her, but I must say that it does not look very well for the lord of the manor to be carrying fuel to the cook."
"It isn"t the lord of the manor," cried Miriam; "it is the head hay-maker, and when you dress yourself for supper, she will never think of you as the man who brought in the wood."
Dora, from the kitchen window, saw Ralph go out to the woodhouse, and she saw him returning with an arm-load of small sticks. Then she turned her back to the kitchen door, and bent her head over a beefsteak she was preparing for the gridiron.
Ralph came in with the wood, and put it down by the side of the great stove. As he glanced at the slight form in the pink gown, it struck him that this woman would not be equal to the hard work which would be sometimes necessary here.
"I suppose this wood will be as much as you will want for the present,"
he said, as he turned toward the door, "and the man will fill this box to-night, but if you need any more before he does so, there is the woodhouse just across the yard, where you can easily get a few sticks."
Dora half turned herself in the direction of the woodhouse, and murmured, "Yes, sir."
"Miriam," said Ralph, as he went into the dining-room, where his sister was putting the knives and forks upon the supper table, "do you think that woman is strong enough to wash, iron, and do all the things that Phoebe used to do when she was here? How old is she?"
"I don"t know, exactly," answered Miriam, going to a cupboard for some gla.s.ses; "and as to rough work, I can"t tell what she can do, until she tries."
When Ralph had made his toilet and come downstairs, attired in a very becoming summer suit, his sister complimented him.
"Hay-making makes you ever so much handsomer," she said; "you look as if you had been on a yachting cruise. There is one thing I forgot to say to you, but I do not suppose it will make any difference, as we are real country people now: our new cook is accustomed to eating at the table with the family."