“Oh, I don’t want to look at her. It seems to me your paw might of drove her to the up meadow, seein’s he was goin’ right up by there. It ain’t like as if he’d of had to go out o’ his way. It aggravates me offul.” She threw the last stick of wood into the box, and brushed the tiny splinters off her arm and sleeves. “Well, I guess I might as well string them beans for dinner before I clean up.” She took a large milkpan, filled with beans, from the table and sat down near the window. “Isaphene,” she said, presently, “what do you say to an organ, an’ a horse an’ buggy? A horse with some style about him, that you could ride or drive, an’ that ’u’d always be up when you wanted to go to town!” “What do I say?” The girl turned and looked at her mother as if she feared one of them had lost her senses; then she returned to her cake-beating with an air of good-natured disdain. “Oh, you can smile an’ turn your head on one side, but you’ll whistle another tune before long—or I’ll miss my guess. Isaphene, I’ve been savin’ up chicken an’ butter money ever since we come to Puget Sound; then I’ve always got the money for the strawberry crop, an’ for the geese an’ turkeys, an’ the calves, an’ so on. Your paw’s been real good about such things.” “I don’t call it bein’ good,” said Isaphene. “Why shouldn’t he let you have the money? You planted, an’ weeded, an’ picked the strawberries; an’ you fed an’ set the chickens, an’ gethered the eggs; an’ you’ve had all the tendin’ of the geese an’ turkeys an’ calves—to say nothin’ of the cows bawlin’ over the bars,” she added, with a sly laugh. “I’d say you only had your rights when you get the money for such things.” “Oh, yes, that’s fine talk.” Mrs. Bridges nodded her head with an air of experience. “But it ain’t all men-folks that gives you your rights; so when one does, I say he deserves credit.” “Well, I wouldn’t claim anybody’d been good to me just because he give me what I’d worked for an’ earned. Now, if he’d give you all the money from the potato patch every year, or the hay meadow, or anything he’d done all the workin’ with himself—I’d call that good in him. He never done anything like that, did he?” “No, he never,” replied Mrs. Bridges, testily. “An’ what’s more, he ain’t likely to—nor any other man I know of! If you get a man that gives you all you work for an’ earn, you’ll be lucky—with all your airs!” “Well, I guess I’ll manage to get my rights, somehow,” said Isaphene, beginning to butter the cake-pan. “Somebody’s comin’!” exclaimed her mother, lowering her voice to a mysterious whisper. “Who is it?” Isaphene stood up straight, with that little quick beating of mingled pleasure and dismay that the cry of company brings to country hearts. “I can’t see. I don’t want to be caught peepin’. I can see it’s a woman, though; she’s just passin’ the row of hollyhocks. Can’t you stoop down an’ peep? She won’t see you ’way over there by the table.”