"Sittin'."

"Sittin'?"

"I've been sitting on the warm side of the big rock a little while,"
said Jerome. He looked subdued before his mother's gaze, and yet not
abashed. She always felt sure that there was some hidden reserve of
rebellion in Jerome, coerce him into obedience as she might. She
never really governed him, as she did her daughter Elmira, who stood
washing dishes at the sink. But she loved Jerome better, although she
tried not to, and would not own it to herself.

"Do you know what time it is?" said she, severely.

Jerome glanced at the tall clock in the corner. It was nearly ten. He
glanced and made no reply. He sometimes had a dignified masculine
way, beyond his years, of eschewing all unnecessary words. His mother
saw him look at the time; why should he speak? She did not wait for
him. "'Most ten o'clock," said she, "and a great boy twelve years old
lazing round on a rock in a pasture when all his folks are working.
Here's your mother, feeble as she is, workin' her fingers to the
bone, while you're doing nothing a whole forenoon. I should think
you'd be ashamed of yourself. Now you take the spade and go right out
and go to work in the garden. It's time them beans are in, if they're
going to be. Your father has had to go down to the wood-lot and get a
load of wood for Doctor Prescott, and here 'tis May and the garden
not planted. Go right along." All the time Jerome's mother talked,
her little lean strong fingers flew, twirling bright colored rags in
and out. She was braiding a rug for this same Doctor Prescott's wife.
The bright strips spread and twirled over her like snakes, and the