FIRST IMPRESSIONS
"Aren't you ever going to get up?" demanded Sarah.
Rosemary sat up and regarded her sister sleepily.
"Did you hear the violin?" she asked.
"What violin?" Sarah's surprise was an answer in itself.
While she dressed, hurried by the impatient younger girls, for Shirley
soon joined Sarah, Rosemary told of the music she had heard the night
before.
"Mother heard it, too; we both saw the old man," she asserted when they
were inclined to be skeptical and scoffed that she had been dreaming.
Winnie had evidently risen "with the larks" as she was fond of
declaring (though when pressed by Sarah, intent on the habits and
traits of larks, she had been forced to admit that she had never seen
one) for the windows on the first floor were unlocked and open to the
fresh morning air and the upper half of the Dutch door folded back to
let in a flood of sunshine.
"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes," Winnie greeted the girls.
"Ten minutes, no more, no less; and you're not to set foot out of the
house until you've eaten, because I don't intend to spend my time
fishing Sarah out of the well and pulling Shirley from under a hay
stack while the muffins are getting cold."
Mrs. Willis, coming downstairs, cool and sweet in a blue linen gown,
laughed at this arraignment but she, too, insisted that the farm should
be seen after breakfast.
"And do be careful about hindering Mr. and Mrs. Hildreth," she
cautioned them as they sat down at the table. "They are very busy
folk, I know, and you mustn't expect them to answer too many questions.
Richard and Warren will have their work laid out for them and can't be
distracted--you will have weeks to explore Rainbow Hill and I don't
want you to feel that you must be shown everything in one day."
"I'll help you, Mother," promised Rosemary. "Sarah and Shirley can go
out and play, but I'll help you and Winnie unpack."
However, when Sarah and Shirley dashed out of the house a few minutes
later, Rosemary was with them. Mrs. Willis had explained that her
eldest daughter could help her more by "looking after" the impetuous
Shirley and that unknown quantity, Sarah, than by remaining in the
house to open the trunks and boxes.
"I am going to do just as much as I can and then stop," the mother
said, smilingly. "I promised Hugh and Winnie to be temperate and not
tire myself needlessly. Hugh will probably call up this morning and I
want to be here when he does. You run along with Sarah and Shirley,
Rosemary--Mother feels safe about them when she knows you are with
them."
Rosemary flushed with pleasure and resolved to be worthy of the
confidence. She would be more patient than she had ever been before.
"It's just like Rosemary, to offer to stay in and help," said Winnie,
watching the three girls cut across the lawn in the direction of the
barns, "you could see plain she was crazy to go out and look around,
but she never grabs what she wants--that child was born unselfish."
Rainbow Hill was what, in the farming parlance, is known as "an all
around" place. That meant the owner, Mr. Hammond, believed in general
farming as distinguished from the specialized type such as truck
farming or dairying. Some oats and wheat were grown at Rainbow Hill,
several acres of tomatoes raised yearly for the cannery, a good crop of
hay harvested; there would be one "field crop" raised for marketing,
generally potatoes or cabbage. The milk from a small herd of cows was
sold at the local creamery and all food for the animals on the place
was grown on the farm. How much hard work was bound up in the tilling
of the well-ordered fields, the cultivation of the thrifty orchard and
the healthy aspect presented by the live stock was something the three
Willis girls could not be expected to grasp at once. Everything was
beautifully neat, from the freshly swept barn floor to the white-washed
chicken houses; not a weed showed its head in the large vegetable
garden and a town-bred girl might easily make the mistake of thinking
that this state of affairs was always to be found on every
farm--something to be taken for granted, like fresh eggs or new milk.
It was in the vegetable garden that they found Warren Baker. He was
dressed in a clean blue shirt and dark blue overalls and he was on his
knees beside a long row of thin green spikes.
"Good morning," he greeted the visitors politely. "Out seeing the
sights? But didn't you forget your hats?"
Warren wore an immense straw hat that shaded the back of his neck as
effectively as his face.
"Oh, we don't want to bother with hats," said Rosemary carelessly.
"Aren't those onions you're weeding?"
"They're onions," answered Warren, "but I'm not weeding them; I'm
thinning them. If you stayed in one place in the sun as long as I do,
a hat would feel pretty good."
Sarah asked why he was "thinning" the onions and he explained that he
pulled out some to give those left more room to grow.
"This the first time you've been on a farm?" he asked her.
"The first time I ever stayed on a farm," said Sarah with precision.
"I've been to different farms with Hugh--that's my brother; but we only
stayed a little while. I think, when I grow up, I'll have a farm and
be an animal doctor."
"Sarah loves animals," Rosemary explained. "We've seen the horses in
the barn and the chickens and the pigs; but we didn't see a cow yet."
"Rich turns them into the lane as soon as he finishes milking," said
Warren, rising from the onion row. "I'll go down and let them into the
pasture now and you can come and see them, if you like."
"Well--you're sure it won't be a trouble?" hesitated Rosemary.
"Mother says we mustn't bother you," added Shirley primly, speaking for
the first time.
"You can't bother me," said the boy so heartily that he reminded
Rosemary of Jack Welles.
"Then don't you have to work, only when you want to?" suggested Sarah
who unconsciously then and there outlined her ideals of labor.
Warren, leading the way out of the vegetable garden, laughed.
"Sure I have to work," he said good-naturedly. "If you knew Mr.
Hildreth, you wouldn't ask a question like that; he does two men's work
every day of his life and encourages everyone else to follow his
example. But you see, I can talk and work, too; it's all right to
talk, if you don't stop work to do it."
"Is it?" queried Sarah doubtfully.
"Not a question about it," declared Warren, taking down two bars for
the girls to go through into a green lane fenced in on either side with
a heavy wire fence. "Talk and work, mixed, are all right, but all talk
and no work makes Jack a poor hired man--haven't you ever heard that
proverb?"
Sarah puzzled over this until they came up with the cows and then she
forgot it promptly. There were ten of the sleek, cream-colored
bossies, gentle, affectionate creatures who pressed their deep noses
trustingly into Warren's hands and begged him to open the wide gate
that kept them from the shady pasture.
He swung the gate back and they moved slowly forward, beginning to crop
the grass before they were half way through.
"There's a brook," cried Shirley, catching sight of the water. "I want
to go wading--come on!"
"Not now," said Rosemary, catching Shirley by her frock as though she
feared that small girl might plunge into the stream head-first, "after
lunch, dear, if Mother is willing."
"We want to do a lot of other things first," Sarah reminded her. "We
haven't been up to the top of the windmill yet."
Warren turned and looked at her, a twinkle in his eyes.
"You wouldn't like it if you got up there and your sash caught on the
wheel," he told her. "Think how you would look going round and round
like a pinwheel. Folks would come to look at you instead of the
circus."
"I wouldn't catch my sash," said Sarah positively. "There's a little
platform up there and I could stand on that. And I saw the little iron
stairs that go up inside like a lighthouse."
The twinkle went out of Warren Baker's eyes and his pleasant voice was
serious when he spoke.
"There are just two places on this farm from which you are barred," he
said, his glance including the attentive three before him. "One is the
windmill; the door is usually locked and I don't know how it came to be
left open this morning. But locked or not, keep out of it--it is no
place for anyone unless a mechanic wants to oil or repair the machinery.
"The other place is the tool house. Mr. Hildreth has a bunch of fine
tools and they're the apple of his eye--apples, would be more accurate,
perhaps. The tool house is usually locked, too, and there are only
three keys; but if you do find it unlocked some fine morning, take my
advice and stay outside. Or, if you must go in, don't touch a tool.
The rest of the farm is open to you and the four winds--with reasonable
restrictions, I ought to add."
Three pairs of eyes stared at him so solemnly, that he felt
uncomfortable.
"I'm not laying down the law in my own name," he said earnestly. "Mr.
Hildreth is mighty particular about how things are run at Rainbow Hill
and I thought I could save you future trouble by warning you. Of
course I only work for him--'hired man' is my title--and very much at
your service."
There was so much boyish honesty in the speech, so much genuine good
will and an utter absence of attempt to strike a pose, not unmixed with
worth-while pride and a desire that his position should be clear to
them from the start, that even Sarah, who was quick to resent real or
fancied efforts to "boss" her, answered his smile with her own
characteristic grin.
"Of course we won't go where we shouldn't," said Rosemary warmly. "At
least not now, when there is no excuse for not knowing."
But Warren, noting that Sarah became absorbed in the antics of a beetle
crossing her shoe, registered a resolve to see that the windmill door
was kept locked.
"There's your brother," said Shirley, pointing to a figure coming down
the lane.
"Rich isn't my brother--he's my pal," replied Warren. "And Mr.
Hildreth is with him, so you'll have a chance to meet a real farmer and
a good one."
"Then I can ask him about the insides of cats," was Sarah's rather
disconcerting response.