The crank stopped and all of the oil flowed through the funnel while Nan softly turned the leaves of Marston's "Last Harvest."
"Yes, honey, it is beautiful, but you had better read a livelier form of verse or your salad dressing will go back on you."
"Heavens, you are right! I've got 'Barrack Room Ballads' here ready in case I get to dawdling," laughed Nan.
"I want to talk about something very important, Nan. Can you turn your crank and listen?"
"Yes, indeed, but you'll have to talk fast or else I'll get to poking again. You see, I have to keep time."
So Douglas rapidly repeated the conversations she had had with her mother and later with Helen.
"What are we to do? Must I tell Dr. Wright? I am afraid to get them started for fear father will be mixed up in it. He must not know mother wants to go to White Sulphur--he would be sure to say let her go and then he would try to work again before he is fit for it, and he would certainly get back into the same state he was in last spring."
"Poor little mumsy! I was sure she would not understand," and once more the mixer played a sad measure.
"I was afraid she wouldn't," sighed Douglas, "but I did think Helen had been taught a lesson and realized the importance of our keeping within our earnings and saving something, too, for winter."
"Helen--why, she is too young for the lesson she learned to stick. She is nothing but a child."
"Is that so, grandmother?" laughed Douglas, amused in spite of her trouble at Nan's ancient wisdom (Nan being some two years younger than Helen).
"Why, Douglas, Helen has just been play-acting at being poor. She has no idea of its being a permanency," and Nan filled the funnel again with oil and began to turn her crank with vigor.
"But what are we to do? I am not going to White Sulphur and I am not going to make my debut--that's sure. I have never disobeyed mother that I can remember, but this time I shall have to. I don't know what I am to say about the trip to the White. Helen is saying she has helped to earn the money and she means to spend her share giving poor mumsy a little fun after her tiresome long journey on the water. I wish we had never told her we were able to put something in the bank last month. It was precious little and Helen's share would not keep them at White Sulphur more than two or three days. Helen thinks I am stingy and mother thinks I am stubborn and ugly and sunburned--and there's the train with all the week-enders----" and poor Douglas gave a little sob.