d considerable when his sister opened the
kitchen window, thrust out her dark head, and called in a voice
shrill as her mother's, but as yet wholly sweet, with no harsh notes
in it: "Jerome! Jerome! Dinner is ready."

Jerome whooped in reply, dropped his spade, and went leaping down the
hill. When he entered the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table
and Elmira was taking up the dinner. Elmira was a small, pretty girl,
with little, nervous hands and feet, and eager black eyes, like her
mother's. She stretched on tiptoe over the fire, and ladled out a
steaming mixture from the kettle with an arduous swing of her sharp
elbow. Elmira's sleeves were rolled up and her thin, sharply-jointed,
girlish arms showed.

"Don't you know enough, without being told, to lift that kettle off
the fire for Elmira?" demanded Mrs. Edwards of Jerome.

Jerome lifted the kettle off the fire without a word.

"It seems sometimes as if you might do something without being told,"
said his mother. "You could see, if you had eyes to your head, that
your sister wa'n't strong enough to lift that kettle off, and was
dippin' it up so's to make it lighter, an' the stew 'most burnin'
on."

Jerome made no response. He sniffed hungrily at the savory steam
arising from the kettle. "What is it?" he asked his sister, who
stooped over the kettle sitting on the hearth, and plunged in again
the long-handled tin dipper.

Mrs. Edwards never allowed any one to answer a question when she
could do it herself. "It's a parsnip stew," said she, sharply.
"Elmira dug some up in the old garden-patch, where we thought they
were dead. I put in a piece of pork, when I'd ought to have saved it.
It's good 'nough for anybody, I don't care who 'tis, if it's Doctor
Prescott, or Squire Merritt, or the minister. You'd better be
thankful for it, both of you."

"Where's father?" said Jerome.

"He 'ain't come home yet. I dun'no' where he is. He's been gone long
enough to draw ten cords of wood. I s'pose he's potterin' round
somewheres--stopped to talk to somebody, or something. I ain't going
to wait any longer. He'll have to eat his dinner cold if he can't get
home."

Elmira put the dish of stew on the table. Jerome drew his chair up.
Mrs. Edwards grasped the long-handled dipper preparatory to
distributing the savory mess, then suddenly stopped and turned to
Elmira.

"Elmira," said she, "you go into the parlor an' git the china bowl
with pink flowers on it, an' then y