Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/187

 rows he went away at once to hoe the sweet corn, so that conversation was impossible.

They labored in silence for a long time until it began to grow too dark to see clearly.

"I will not stop before he does," Betsey told herself, rather nettled at his uncordial behavior; "he will think I am shirking if I do."

The fresh green lettuce heads had grown huge and compact like gigantic roses and filled, heaping full, the big basket he had set beside her. She went on thinning them out, pulling chance weeds, clipping the long stalks, determined to make no move until the unapproachable Michael suggested it. She thought much of David as she worked there in the dusk. Had he done well or had chance gone against him? Would he come soon to report how things were or would his return be so late that she would have to wait until morning to hear how he had fared. With a little good luck he should have got through famously but, somehow, good luck had not lately seemed to be the order of the day.

"I am beginning to be just like Michael," she reproved herself severely when she reached this point in her meditations. It was fortunate that she did not speak aloud for there was the old gardener himself, just behind her.

She thought that he had come to bid her stop