"Tut! Tut! dearie." Susan Warner sank down in Grandpa's armed chair to wipe her warm face and rest while her beloved Jenny made lemonade. "It wouldn't do to wear that dress to meetin' if it's goin' to make me vain."
How the girl laughed as she squeezed the juicy lemons that grew on the big tree close to the back porch. Nearly all the year round that tree was laden with blossoms, green and ripe fruit at the same time. "The most obliging kind of tree," Jenny had often said. "It provides a perfume, delicious lemon pies and a refreshing drink whenever its owners wish."
"There now, Granny Sue, if only we had ice to clink in it as Miss Dearborn has we'd think that we were rich folks, but it's real nice as it is." The girl drank her share with a relish.
"That was mighty good tastin'," Susan Warner commented. "I wish your Grandpa could have a drink of it. He's cultivatin' close to the high hedge. That's a hot place when the sun is beatin' down the way it has been all day. Couldn't you carry a little pailful over to him, dearie?"
"Of course I can and will, Mrs. Susan Warner, if you will promise me one thing." The girl gazed down into the smiling face of the old woman. "I have my suspicions that you're trying to get rid of me so that you may iron the lavender dress. Is that the truth?"
"Maybe 'tis," was the smilingly given confession, "but if you'll let me iron that one while you're gone, you can do Grandpa's best shirt when you come back."
Filling a quart pail with the lemonade, Jenny snatched her garden hat from its nail by the door and skipped away, although she had to walk more carefully when the ploughed ground was reached. "It makes me think of Robert Burns, and how, in far-away Scotland, his plough turned over the home nest of a poor little old field mouse," she thought. "Oh, how glad, glad I am that Miss Dearborn is teaching me to love poetry. I can just see that tender-hearted young poet leaning over, ever so sorry because he had destroyed the little creature's home and telling it not to be frightened.
"'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa' sae hasty Wi' bick'ring brattle. I wad be laith to rin and chase thee Wi' murd'ring prattle.'"