In Exile and Other Stories by Mary Hallock Foote
page 52 of 173 (30%)
page 52 of 173 (30%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
and squeezing the fleece, with the water swirling round her. Her stout arms
ached, and her ears were stunned with the incessant bleatings; she counted with dismay the sheep still waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! Do stop crying, or else go to the house!" "He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now Dorothy's sole dependence. "Oh yes, do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go and come back quick." The water had run low that morning in Evesham's pond. He shut down the mill, and strode up the hills, across lots, to raise the gate of the lower Barton pond, which had been heading up for his use. He passed the cornfield where, a month before, he had seen pretty Dorothy Barton dropping corn with her brothers. It made him ache to think of Dorothy with her feeble mother, the boys as wild as preachers' sons proverbially are, and the old farm running down on her hands; the fences all needed mending, and there went Reuben Barton, now, careering over the fields in chase of a stray yearling. His mother's house was big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he thought of the "one ewe-lamb" he coveted out of Friend Barton's rugged pastures. As Evesham raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with its tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and the bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts in his blood; the distant bleating, the hot June sunshine and cloudless sky did not suggest to him sheep-washing; but now came a boy's voice shouting and a cry of distress, and he remembered with a thrill that Friend Barton |
|