"But you stopped crying, you know, before it could do that. Charlie'll
pump water and we'll wash all nice and clean and go in to Mother."
Water from the watering trough in the barn-yard soon effaced the traces
of tears and a happy trio entered the big yard near the house. An older
boy and Katie Landis came running to meet them.
"Oh, Amanda," said Katie, "did you come once! Just at a good time, too!
We're gettin' company for supper and Mom was wishin' you'd come so she
could ask you about settin' the table. We're goin' to eat in the room
to-night,'stead of the kitchen like we do other times. And we're goin'
to have all the good dishes and things out and a bouquet in the middle
of the table when we eat! Ain't that grand? But Pop, he told Mom this
morning that if it's as hot to-night as it was this dinner he won't
wear no coat to eat, not even if the Queen of Sheba comes to our place
for a meal! But I guess he only said that for fun, because, ain't, the
Queen of Sheba was the one in the Bible that came to visit Solomon?"
"Yes."
"Well, she ain't comin' to us, anyhow. It's that Isabel from Lancaster,
Martin's girl, that's comin'."
"Oh!" Amanda halted on her way across the lawn. "What time is she
coming?" she asked in panicky way, as though she would flee before the
visitor arrived.
"Ach, not for long yet! We don't eat till after five. Martin brings her
on the trolley with him when he comes home from the bank."
"Then I'll go in to see your mother a while." A great uneasiness
clutched at the girl's heart. Why had she come on that day?
But Mrs. Landis was glad to see her. "Well, Amanda," she called through
the kitchen screen, "you're just the person I said I wished would come.
Come right in.
"Come in the room a while where it's cool," she invited as Amanda and
several of the children entered the kitchen. "I'm hot through and
through! I just got a short cake mixed and in the stove. Now I got
nothin' special to do till it's done. I make the old kind yet, the
biscuit dough. Does your mom, too?"
"Yes."
"Ach, it's better, too, than this sweet kind some people make. I split
it and put a lot of strawberries on it and we eat it with cream."
"Um, Mom," said little Charlie, "you make my mouth water still when you
talk about good things like that. I wish it was supper-time a'ready."
"And you lookin' like that!" laughed the mother, pointing to his bare
brown legs and feet and his suit that bore evidence of accidental
meetings with grass and ground.