SARAH'S SURPRISE
Winnie folded up a pair of stockings and dropped them into the
capacious bag which hung on the arm of her chair.
"It beats me," she said conversationally, "where Sarah runs to every
afternoon. It's been going on now for three weeks and she shuts up
like a clam when I ask her any questions."
Winnie and Mrs. Willis were seated in the cool, shaded living-room with
their mending. It was an intensely warm afternoon and several degrees
cooler inside the house than on the porch. Winnie insisted on helping
with the darning--she would have felt hurt had she been denied the task
of mating and sorting and mending the stockings and socks for the
family each week--and she took pride in assisting Mrs. Willis to keep
Doctor Hugh's belongings in perfect order.
"Mother!" Rosemary hurried in, her hair a tangle of waves and ringlets
dampened from heat and perspiration, her cheeks like scarlet poppies
and her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. "Mother, I've thought of
something!"
"Rosemary leads an exciting life," Jack Welles had once declared in
Mrs. Willis' hearing. "She can get all worked up about anything she
happens to be thinking about."
Rosemary's mother remembered this speech now, smiling a little at the
recollection.
"Richard and Warren are down in the tomato field, working their heads
off in this broiling sun," said Rosemary more picturesquely than
accurately. "And Mother, couldn't I make lemonade and take it down to
them?"
"We have lemons," put in Winnie.
Mrs. Willis nodded approval.
"Make plenty, dear," she said cordially. "Don't put in too much sugar,
for the boys don't like it so sweet; but why not wait an hour until it
is cooler?"
"Oh, Mother, let me do it now--they'll like it when they're working
hard. Where's Shirley? She could carry the cups," and Rosemary paused
in her flight kitchenwards.
"Shirley is asleep--don't wake her," cautioned the mother. "Ask Sarah
to help you, dear; she is out in the barn. And do keep out of the sun
as much as you can, dear."
"Yes'm," promised Rosemary obediently, disappearing.
"I'll go crack the ice," said Winnie, rising. "There's no use in
making the kitchen look like Niagara Falls, if a little forethought can
prevent it."
Rosemary was a quick worker and a neat one, when she didn't have to
chop ice, and she soon had a shiny white enamel pail half filled with
delicious cold lemonade. She poured out two generous glasses for her
mother and Winnie and carried them in with her compliments and then set
off expeditiously, carrying pail, dipper and three cups, a feat that
required her closest attention.
"Sarah!" she called when she reached the barn.
"What?" called back Sarah, not very graciously.
"Please come help me take some lemonade to the boys?"
Sarah put her head out of the barn door and eyed the pail thirstily.
"Let me have some?" she begged.
"If you'll help me carry these things," said Rosemary. "I brought
three cups and there's enough lemonade for everyone."
"Well--all right, I'll help you," decided Sarah, "but I'm thirsty now."
"The ice will melt if you're going to talk all day," said Rosemary, the
blazing sun making her more impatient than usual. "Come help me first
and drink your lemonade after we get down to the tomato field."
Sarah darted back into the barn and reappeared in a moment with Bony,
the pig, under her arm.
"Sarah Willis! You can't carry that filthy pig and help me lug this
pail, too--put him down," scolded Rosemary.
"Bony isn't filthy--he's had a bath this morning!" flared Sarah. "He's
just as clean as any person, so there. And I want to show Richard and
Warren what he can do."
"You know what Hugh would say if he saw you fussing with a pig and then
coming around food without washing your hands," Rosemary reminded her.
"If there is one thing Hugh won't stand, it's to have you handle pets
and then come to the table without scrubbing your hands. You know
that, Sarah."
"I'm not coming to any table," insisted Sarah. "Besides Bony is clean,
I tell you. If I can't bring him I won't come at all."
The walk down to the tomato field was long and hot, and Rosemary could
not hurry unless she had someone to share the weight of the pail which
would, she knew, grow heavier at each step. She capitulated.
"But keep Bony on the other side of you," she commanded Sarah. "I
don't see why he can't walk; do you carry him everywhere he goes?"
Sarah tucked the pig under one arm and gave the other hand to the
handle of the pail.
"Bony can walk, but I am saving his strength," she remarked with a
dignity worthy of Winnie. "You wait till you see what a smart pig he
is, Rosemary; no one appreciates him except me."
Warren and Richard, bending over the long rows of tomatoes,
straightened up in surprise as Rosemary's clear call came down to them.
"Stay up by the fence--you'll get your dress stained!" shouted Warren.
"We'll come over."
"Ye gods, lemonade!" ejaculated Richard when he was near enough to hear
the inviting tinkle of ice.
"And a pig!" grinned Warren. "Isn't Bony too heavy to cart around on a
day like this, Sarah?"
Sarah shook her head in negation, but remained silent.
"You must be baked!" Rosemary looked with sympathy at the two flushed
faces.
Both boys looked warm and tired, but they averred stoutly that no one
minded the heat "after they were used to it." They declared that
nothing had ever tasted as good as the lemonade.
"What made you think of bringing us it?" asked Warren, sitting down on
an overturned crate after his second cup and mopping his face with his
handkerchief.
"Oh, last winter Jack Welles and the high school boys were shoveling
snow, we took them hot coffee and doughnuts," said Rosemary carelessly.
"I suppose I must have remembered how much they liked something warm to
drink--and you like something cold just as much, don't you?"
"We sure do," agreed Richard warmly. "This Jack Welles is coming up
next week, isn't he? Mr. Hildreth is counting on him for two weeks."
Rosemary moved the pail beyond the reach of Sarah who seemed to have
developed an excessive thirst.
"Jack and Hugh are both coming next Sunday," she answered. "You'll
like Jack, Warren, and so will you, Richard. He lives next door to us,
you know."
"Well, I only hope he's used to hard work," said Richard. "How old is
he, Rosemary? Almost sixteen? I don't suppose he has ever picked
tomatoes from sunup to sundown, but the cannery opens next week and
we'll be picking steadily until it closes. Mr. Hildreth is shipping
some crates to-day, but the real picking starts when the cannery opens.
We're counting on Jack to make a third hand."
"He'll want to go fishing," declared Sarah.
"Jack doesn't care how much he hurts the poor fish, jabbing hooks into
them."
Sarah and Jack had had more than one violent argument over this
question.
"It isn't cruel to go fishing," said Rosemary impatiently, thinking how
tired Warren looked.
"I haven't been this year," announced Richard, "though they say there
are several good streams near here. Sundays I seem to lack ambition
and during the week, of course, there isn't time."
Sarah edged a little nearer the pail.
"You wouldn't catch fish would you, Warren?" she asked coaxingly.
Warren looked at her and grinned.
"Not only would I catch them," he told her, "but I'd eat them; if we
are to have fish to eat, Sarah, someone must catch them for us. The
same way with roast chicken for Sunday dinner and roast pork, you know;
they don't grow on bushes."
Sarah's eyes turned to Bony, now lying comfortably sprawled across her
lap. She was sitting on the ground and Rosemary beside her.
"I never would eat Bony!" she said in horror-stricken tone.
"No, of course not," Richard put in quickly, "but you'd eat a pig you
were not acquainted with, wouldn't you?"
Sarah was most uncomfortable. She liked roast pork and in winter was
fond of little sausages. And now here was Richard telling her that
pigs--like Bony--had to be killed before one could have roast pork to
eat.
"Never mind, Sarah," said Rosemary, taking pity on her sister. "You
don't have to think about what you eat--just don't try to make everyone
see your way and don't argue so much and eat what Winnie gives you and
you'll have nothing to worry about."
Warren laughed and held out his cup as Rosemary lifted the dipper
invitingly.
"In other words, Sarah," he counseled, "don't be so valiant a reformer."
"What's a reformer?" demanded Sarah, eyeing the pail anxiously.
"You're one when you try to stop your friends from going fishing,"
Warren informed her. "That's the whole trouble with reform--no one is
willing to improve himself and let his neighbor alone; for all you
know, Sarah, you drive Jack Welles fishing in self-defense. Perhaps,
if you let him alone, he wouldn't go at all."
Sarah stared, but Rosemary nodded.
"I don't know about Jack," said Rosemary, "but I do know that as soon
as someone says it isn't right to do such and such a thing, I always
want to do it. And it may be something I never thought of before."
"Like coasting down hill backward," contributed Sarah.
Rosemary dimpled and Warren, who had been uneasily thinking they ought
to go back to the vines, resolved to wait a few minutes longer.
"Did you coast backward?" asked Richard with interest. "What happened?"
"Oh, I ran into another sled and cut my wrists and nearly broke the
legs of the two boys on the other sled," Rosemary recited. "The
trouble was I never would have thought of it, if it hadn't been for
Miss Johnson. She's a woman who lives in Eastshore and she's forever
scolding about girls--the way they 'carry on,' she calls it. I
happened to hear her say that no nice, well-brought up girl would make
herself conspicuous on a coasting hill."
"So you thought up the most conspicuous way of getting down the hill
and did it?" suggested Richard.
"Well, it turned out more conspicuous than I intended," Rosemary
acknowledged. "I never intended to tangle up three or four sleds and
have the news get around that there had been an accident on the hill.
Mother was so frightened when she heard of it--remember, Sarah?"
Sarah remembered. But she was more interested in the lemonade.
"There's some left, Rosemary," she tactfully declared.
"You've had enough," said Rosemary.
Richard rose to his feet at a significant glance from Warren. It was
pleasant to rest a few moments, but the driving force of waiting work
had not relaxed, merely slowed down.
"I wish I could help you," said Rosemary, simply and sincerely.
"What do you call it you've just been doing?" answered Warren.
"Picking tomatoes isn't so hard, but it is monotonous; giving us a
little break in the day is something that counts big, Rosemary."
"Well, anyway, Jack will be here to-morrow to help you," said Rosemary.
"Then perhaps you won't have to work so hard--many hands make light
work, Winnie says."
"Now what," said Richard thoughtfully, "should you say was troubling
the small Sarah at this moment?"
Sarah, cut off from the supply of lemonade, had turned her back on the
others and was busily disgorging an assortment of articles from her
blouse. When she whirled around upon the astonished group it was
apparent that she had secreted upon her small person a pair of baby
shoes, a doll's dress and a small parasol. In these her pig, Bony, was
now arrayed.
"You want to look at my pig!" she announced in clarion tones. "He can
do tricks!"
"Tricks!" echoed Richard, while Rosemary rapidly identified the dress
as belonging to Shirley's largest doll, ditto the parasol, and the
shoes as a pair of Sarah's own carefully treasured for years by Winnie.
"What kind of tricks?" demanded Warren.
"You wait and see--" Sarah was so excited her voice trembled. "I
taught him lots of things. I've been teaching him every afternoon in
the barn--he is a naturally bright pig."
Her audience was inclined to share her opinion, after watching Bony
perform. The pig walked up and down before them in the absurd costume,
twirling the parasol and bowing to each in turn as he passed.
He danced, very mincingly, to a tune Sarah played for him on the
harmonica--Rosemary wondered how many other treasures Sarah's blouse
could hold--and though Richard said that no pig, no matter how highly
educated, could hope to identify that tune, it was admitted that Bony
was a graceful dancer.
"He can wear spectacles and read a book, too," declared Sarah proudly,
"but I couldn't bring them!"
Like all managers of celebrities she had begun to experience the
tyranny of the "props."
"Well, you must have had a heap of patience," commented Warren
admiringly. "Can he do anything else, Sarah?"
"Jump through a hoop," enumerated Sarah, "push a doll carriage and walk
around carrying a doll like a baby--I broke two of Shirley's china
dolls, teaching him that trick, but she doesn't know it yet. And, oh,
yes, he can sweep--with a toy broom--and play a toy piano."
"So that's where all Shirley's toys have gone to!" Rosemary tried to
speak severely, but she ended by laughing. "Shirley has been missing
her playthings, one after the other," Rosemary explained to the boys.
"And we thought she took them outdoors to play with and forgot where
she left them."
"After supper to-night," said Sarah, calmly ignoring this disclosure,
"I'll give an exhibition in the barn."