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 “Aren’t they beautiful! Dirk, aren’t they beautiful!”

Dirk, capering in his excitement at the prospect of the trip before him, shook his head impatiently. “What? I don’t see anything beautiful. What’s beautiful?”

Selina flung out her arms. “The—the whole wagon load. The cabbages.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Dirk. “Let’s go, Mother. Aren’t we going now? You said as soon as the load was on.”

“Oh, Sobig, you’re just exactly like your” She stopped.

“Like my what?”

“We'll go now, son. There’s cold meat for your supper, Jan, and potatoes all sliced for frying and half an apple pie left from noon. Wash your dishes—don’t leave them cluttering around the kitchen. You ought to get in the rest of the squash and pumpkins by evening. Maybe I can sell the lot instead of taking them in by the load. I'll see a commission man. Take less, if I have to.”

She had dressed the boy in his home-made suit cut down from one of his father’s. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat which he hated. Selina had made him an overcoat of stout bean-sacking and this she tucked under the wagon seat, together with an old black fascinator, for though the September afternoon was white-hot she knew that the evenings were likely to be chilly, once the sun, a great crimson Chinese