Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/184

 it and tunefully relate the fortunes of the heroine within.

But the only person in sight was obviously impossible of such classification. Though she was chopping wood, and chopping it very well, though she wore what is sometimes called a Mother Hubbard wrapper and a stiff, clean blue-checked apron, she was not in the least a peasant. Her figure was tall and spare, her hair gray and drawn into an uncompromising knot, her face wrinkled and shrewd, her eyes soft, and full of the experience that middle-age brings to the native American woman who has lived all her life in the sparsely-settled country districts.

Her face relaxed at sight of her visitors. "How d'ye do?" she called cheerfully, "ma want anything?"

"I don't believe so," Caroline returned sociably, "I've just come up, that's all."

"I thought maybe your ma was worried about them shirt-waists, but she needn't be: I'll have 'em back by Friday, sure. It'll be all I can do, though—he's on the rampage these days, and I've got my hands full, I tell you."