When Tiny and Johnny had , as they had so many things, together, one spring, they were both left rather weak and good-for-nothing, so Mr. Leslie, after a good deal of hunting, found a which seemed to him about what he wanted, and took board there for the whole summer, and the whole family. He meant to arrange his work so that he could often take a two-or-three-days’ holiday, beside going home every evening, for he was never so busy in the summer as he was in the winter, and he felt the need of rest and change.
It was a “really and truly farmhouse,” as Tiny said, back from the road, at the end of a long green lane, shaded by tall, thick pine trees. And, better still, the nearest railway station was five miles away, and a large, old-fashioned stage, by two tall, thin horses, met the morning and evening trains.
The farmhouse was long and low, with a gambrel roof and great dormer windows, and what garrets that combination makes! It was all over the outside—and the inside, too, for that matter—and had faded green . There was a large porch at the front door, with benches at each side, and a small one at the back door, and a wide hall ran straight through the middle of the house, from one porch to the other.
The farm was no make-believe affair of a few acres, with only two or three horses and cows, and a flock of chickens. and grain fields, meadows and “truck-patches,” stretched away on all sides, almost as far as one could see. Twenty cows came every morning and evening to be milked; six horses were to be watered three times a day; at least a hundred solemn black chickens, with white topknots, scratched about the great barn. Turkeys , ducks and geese , and there was even a pair of proud peacocks. In short, Johnny informed Tiny, before they had been there a day, that it was exactly the sort of farm he meant to have when he was grown up; the only difference he should make would be to have the slide down the side of the haymow a little higher, and to turn half the farmhouse into a gymnasium.
Mr. and Mrs. Allen, who owned this land of , and let people live in it for six dollars a week, apiece, were kind, comfortable people, who liked to see their boarders eat , and drink plenty of milk.
They had two tall sunburnt “boys,” who did most of the farm work, except in the very busy season, when three or four “hired men” helped them. And they had two daughters, one a fine, handsome girl, twenty years old, and the other three or four years older, and with no beauty in her face but that of a very sweet and pleasant expression. It was this one, whose name was Ann, who showed the tired travellers to their rooms, on the evening of their arrival, and waited on them while they ate their supper, and brought a of fresh water and a lighted lamp, when she heard Mrs. Leslie tell the children it was bedtime. She seemed surprised, they thought, when Mrs. Leslie gently thanked her.
They found, the next day, that the other daughter was named Julia, and as time went on, and they saw more and more of the daily life on the farm, they could not help noticing that, while Julia did her share of the general work cheerfully and well, it was always Ann who seemed to think of little uncalled-for kindnesses and helps, although she did this so quietly and unobtrusively, that it was some time before they observed it.
Her mother and sister were in the habit of asking her to “just” do this or that, to run upstairs or “down-cellar” for something; her father and the boys nearly always came to her for any chance bit of sewing they wanted done, and even the great watch dog and the sober old yellow cat seemed to take for granted that she should be the one to feed them. And the children saw that to all these calls upon her time and attention she responded not only willingly, but gladly.
Mrs. Allen, good-tempered as she usually was, was sometimes“tried,” as she expressed it, when things “went contrary,” and Julia, although generally in a good humor, and sometimes even , was inclined to be fretful if her wishes and plans were crossed; but the pleasant of Ann’s face was seldom , and before long the children found themselves going to her for help and sympathy in their plans and arrangements, just as her own family did.
“And I tell you, Tiny, she’s first rate!” said Johnny, warmly, one day, when “Miss Ann” had left her sewing to help him find his knife, and had found it, too. “Mrs. Allen’s very kind and nice, and Miss Julia’s thundering—I mean very—pretty, but I do think Miss Ann has one of the pleasantest faces I ever saw, and I’d be willing to lose my knife, and have it stay lost, if I could find out how she manages always to know just what everybody wants, and to do it as if it was what she wanted herself. I’ve three quarters of a mind to ask her. Would you?”
“Why, yes, I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” said Tiny, after thinking a minute; “only I would put in, to please not tell unless she really and truly didn’t mind, for you know she might not like to tell, and yet not like to say so. I’d make her promise t............