I swallowed down my tears, but my heart was too sore to play any longer
with the baby, so I slipped it back into its mother's arms, who had got
her basket filled and was ready to start for home; a neighbor's lad had
come to carry it for her, and with quite a cheerful face she bade me
good-bye. The rest of my crowd had got their baskets filled, and paused
with longing eyes regarding the heaps that still remained. I made their
faces grow suddenly much brighter as, with a slight elevation of voice, I
said: "Thomas will carry the rest of these vegetables around for you with
the horses. You will please stand at your doors, and, as he drives along,
come out for it." There was a subdued murmur of thanks, and then they
started homewards. Mrs. Blake waited a few moments behind them to look
around the old place where she had spent so many days, and shook hands
with Thomas who remembered her very distinctly.
"It's odd doings for Oaklands having yon crowd come with their baskets,"
he said, grimly; "the young miss be like to turn things topsy-turvey."
"It's high time somebody did; what kind of reckonins will folks have
bime-by, of all their riches, and overplus, and so many of their own
kind of flesh and blood going hungry and naked?"
"Their reckonins be none in my line. I sees to the roots and posies, that
they thrive; and there my work ends."
"Yes, posies are fed and sheltered, and little human creeturs like the
widow Larkum's there can starve for all the great folks cares.
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