Family -- Juvenile fiction; Sisters -- Juvenile fiction
"Not precisely cheering up, perhaps," he said, "but a mental and
physical rest. Jack is bound to have sore muscles, after a long day
bending over tomato crates; he thinks he knows what it means to work,
but he has never worked in his life as he will now. And I don't know,
but I suspect, he may have a sore mind; Jack has never worked for
anyone and he must learn to be 'bossed.' All in all, Rosemary, I'd put
off going down to the tomato field till to-morrow."
"Well--all right," agreed Rosemary reluctantly. "I do think he might
have stayed with us and then he would have had a better time."
"If we're not going down to the field, I'll go get Bony and take him
down to the brook," said Sarah, quick to seize her advantage. "I can
wash him while Shirley goes wading."
CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW FRIEND
They spent the morning down at the brook. Shirley was enchanted to be
allowed to help build a dam--the height of his ambition, Doctor Hugh
whimsically told them. Shirley paddled around in the brook and brought
him stones and he laid them in a chain that made a crude dam, both
getting very warm and very wet and having a thoroughly enjoyable time
of it.
Rosemary had brought the camera and snapped a dozen poses of the
sunny-haired Shirley as she gamboled about with her skirts tucked up to
her waist, looking like a particularly chubby elf. Doctor Hugh had
done something to the camera that would, Rosemary was sure, correct her
tendency to overexpose a film and the results fully justified her
faith; whether it was due to his manipulation of the "innards" of the
camera or his instructions to her, the prints were exceptionally good
and clear.
Sarah, of course, devoted her morning to scrubbing the pig. The
doctor's shouts of laughter could not persuade her to curtail the
ceremony in the slightest detail. She had brought soap and towels and
brush with her and she gravely scrubbed and rinsed and dried Bony and
put him out in the sun to dry.
"He'll bake," protested Doctor Hugh, when, the pig's bath finished,
Sarah arranged him on a dry towel in the sun. "You'll have roast pork,
Sarah, if you're not careful."
"No I won't," answered Sarah confidently, straightening the pig's legs
for him since he did not offer to move.
"Can't he even grunt?" demanded Doctor Hugh who had never seen an
animal so willing to be waited upon.
"Of course he can grunt--" Sarah was indignant. "He can do anything."
"When the sun dries him on that side, she'll turn him over on the
other," whispered Rosemary. "You'll see."
The dam was built, the roll of films used up and Bony dry and
immaculate by the time Winnie rang the bell to tell them that lunch was
ready.
"We must have a picnic," said Doctor Hugh as they went up to the house,
he carrying Shirley, who objected to putting on her socks and sandals,
and Sarah carrying the pig with almost as much care. "I haven't been
to a picnic in years."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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