Hepsie avoided her glance because she knew the trouble was there. Hepsie had been very happy in this house and had been proud of a chance to keep its well supplied shelves in satisfactory condition. Gossip hovered over whatever went on in the Hunter home, and there was a distinction in being a.s.sociated with it; also Hepsie had come to love Elizabeth more than she usually did her country mistresses. She saw that all the unkind things which were being said about Elizabeth's stuck-up propensities were untrue, and that Elizabeth Hunter was as sensible and kindly as could be wished when people understood her.

"I'll be up and around hereafter," Elizabeth continued. "You don't understand mother. She's all right, only she isn't used to the farm."

"I guess I understand 'er all right," Hepsie said sullenly; "'t wouldn't make no difference, you bein' up. She'd be a-tellin' me what t' do just th' same, an' I'm tired enough, washdays, without havin' somebody t'

aggravate me about every piece that goes through th' rench."

She stood waiting for Elizabeth to speak, and when she did not, added resentfully:

"You an' me always got along. We had a clean house, too, if Mr. Hunter didn't think I knew much."

Elizabeth's surprise was complete. She had not supposed the girl knew John's estimate of her work. John was usually so clever about keeping out of sight when he insisted upon anything unpleasant that it had never occurred to Elizabeth that Hepsie was aware that John insisted upon having her do things which he felt that Hepsie could not be trusted to do unwatched. There was nothing more to be said. She reckoned the girl's wages, and told her that Jake could have the team.

Before Hepsie went that night, she came back to the bedroom and cuddled the baby tenderly.

"I'm--I'm sorry t' go an' leave you with th' baby so little, Lizzie.

'Taint hardly fair, but--but if you worked out a while you'd learn t' quit 'fore you was wore out." She stood thinking a moment, and then cautioned Elizabeth sincerely: "I'm goin' t' say one thing 'fore I leave: you'd better ship that old woman 'fore you try t' get another girl around these parts. I'll be asked why I left an'--an' I'll have t' tell, or git folks t' thinkin' I'm lazy an' you won't have me."

Elizabeth's heart sank. She would not plead for the girl to keep still. It would have been of no use; besides, her own sense of fairness told her that there was room for all that had been hinted at.

Monday John spent the day looking for a girl to take Hepsie's place. Tired and discouraged, he came home about four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Could you get me a bite to eat?" he asked Elizabeth as he came in. "I haven't had a bite since breakfast."

Elizabeth laid the baby on the bed, and turned patiently toward the kitchen. An hour was consumed in getting the extra meal and doing the dishes afterward, and then it was time to begin the regular supper for the rest of the family. When John found that she had thrown herself down on the bed to nurse the baby instead of coming to the table for her supper, he insisted that she at least come and pour the tea, and when she sat unresistant through the meal, but could not eat, he sent her to bed and helped his mother wash the supper dishes without complaint. The next morning, however, he hailed her forth to a.s.sist with the half-past four o'clock breakfast relentlessly, unaware that she had spent a weary and sleepless night.

"Are you going to look for a girl to-day?" she asked as he was leaving the house after the breakfast was eaten.

"Oh! I suppose so, but I haven't much hopes of getting one," he answered impatiently. Then seeing the tears in her eyes at the thought of the washing waiting to be done, he kissed her tenderly. "I'll do the best I can, dear; I know you're tired."

"Well, the next one I get I hope mother 'll let me manage her. If Hepsie wouldn't stand her ways of talking about things none of the rest will."

After a moment's reflection she added: "I cannot do all this work myself.

I'm so tired I'm ready to die."

John slipped his arm about her and said earnestly:

"I'll do all I can to help you with the dinner dishes, but you are not to say one word to mother about this."

It was gently put, but authoritative.

"Then you needn't look for one at all," she said sharply.

John's arm fell from about her and he looked at her in cold astonishment.

"I don't care," she insisted. "I can't keep a girl and have mother looking over every piece of washing that is hung on the line."

"Mother kept girls a long time in her own house," he answered, taking offence at once.

"I don't care; she dealt with a different kind of girls." Then with a sudden illumination, she added: "She didn't have such quant.i.ties of work to do, either. If we go on this way we'll have to have help and keep it or we'll have to cut down the farm work." She brightened with the thought.

"Let's cut the work down anyhow, dear. I'd have so much an easier time and--and you wouldn't have all those wages to raise every month, and we could live so much more comfortably."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"I don't see but we're living as comfortably as folks usually do," John replied evasively.

"I know, dear, but we have to have the men at meals all the time and--and----"

"Now see here, Elizabeth, don't go and get foolish. A man has to make a living," John said fretfully.

The girl had worked uncomplainingly until her last remnant of strength was gone, and they were neither willing to do the thing which made it possible to keep help, nor to let her do the work as she was able to do it. With it all, however, she tried patiently to explain and arrange. Something had to be done.

"I know you have to make a living, John, and I often think that I must let you do it in your own way, but there are so many things that are getting into a snarl while we try it this way. We don't have much home with strangers at our table every day in the year. We never have a meal alone.

I wouldn't mind that, but it makes more work than I am able to do, it is getting you into debt deeper every month to pay their wages, and you don't know how hard it is going to be to pay those debts a few years from now.

But that isn't the worst of it as far as I am concerned. I work all the time and you--you aren't satisfied with what I do when I do everything my strength will let me do. I can't do any more than I'm doing either."

"I _am_ satisfied with what you do," he said with evident annoyance at having his actions and words remarked upon. "Besides, you have mother to help you." He had ignored her remarks upon the question of debts, determined to fasten the attention elsewhere.

The little ruse succeeded, for Elizabeth's attention was instantly riveted upon her own hopeless situation.

"It isn't much help to run the girl out and then make it so hard to get another one," she said bitterly.

Instantly she wished she had not said it. It was true, but she wished she could have held it back. John did not realize as she did how hard it was going to be to get another girl. She had not told him of Hepsie's remarks nor of her advice. Elizabeth was not a woman to tattle, and the "old woman" Hepsie had referred to was his mother.

"Don't think I'm hard on her, John. If we could only get another girl I wouldn't care."

She waited for him to speak, and, when he did not do so, asked hopelessly:

"Don't you think we can get another girl pretty soon if we go a good ways off from this neighbourhood?"

"I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to hear anything more about it either," was the ungracious reply.

"I am in the wrong. You will hear no more on either subject."

The tone was earnest. Elizabeth meant what she said. John went from the house without the customary good-bye kiss. We live and learn, and we learn most when we get ourselves thoroughly in the wrong.

CHAPTER XIII

"ENn.o.bLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF ANOTHER'S GOODNESS AND LOVE"

It was on a Sat.u.r.day, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter's return, that Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.

"Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we must go to see them to-morrow."

"Oh, my goodness!" John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the pile of plates in his hands. "I'm tired enough to stay at home."