u want me to." It cost her something to say
those words, but she said them with a smile.

"Good! I'll telephone Mrs. Cameron that we will bring you home this
afternoon. I'll go over to the Blisses' to do it, though maybe their
telephone's knocked out, too. The one at our hired man's house isn't
working. Here comes Mother with an egg the hen has just laid for your
breakfast." "Just a-purpose," said Mrs. Gordon. "It's warm yet and
marked 'Elliott Cameron' plain as daylight. Is my hair full of straw,
Harriet?"

"It is, straw and cobwebs. Where have you been, Mother? You know you
haven't any business in the haymow or crawling under the old carryall.
Why don't you let Alma bring in the eggs? She's little and spry."

"Pooh!" said Mrs. Gordon, with one of her silent laughs. "Pooh, pooh!
Alma isn't any match for old Whitefoot yet. You'd think that hen laid
awake nights thinking up outlandish places to lay her eggs in. Wait
till you get to be sixty, Harriet. Then you'll know you can't let
folks wait on you. Before that it's all right, but after sixty you've
got to do for yourself, if you don't want to grow old.--Two, dearie?
I'm going to make you a drop-egg on toast for your breakfast."

"Oh, no, one!" cried Elliott. "I never eat two. And can't I help? I
hate to have you get my breakfast."

"Why, yes, you can dish up your oatmeal," calmly cracking a second
egg. "'T won't do a mite of harm to have two. Maybe you're hungrier
than you think. Now Harriet, the water, and we're all ready. I'll help
you finish those peas while she eats."

The woman and the girl shelled peas, their fat fingers fairly flying
through the pods, while Elliott devoured both eggs and a bowl of
oatmeal and a pitcher of cream and a dish of blueberries and wondered
how they could make their fingers move so fast.

"Practice," said Mrs. Gordon in answer to the girl's query. "You do a
thing over and over enough times and you get so you can't help doing
it fast, if you've got any gumption at all. The quarts of peas I've
shelled in my life time would feed an army, I guess."

"Don't you ever get tired?"

"Tired of shelling peas? Land no, I like it! I can sit in here and
look at you, or out on the back piazza and watch the mountains, or on
the front step and see folks drive by, and I've always got my
thoughts." A shadow crossed the placid face. "My thoughts work better
when my fingers are busy. I'd hate to just sit and hold my hands. Ted
dared me once to try