observed, severely, "if you would only remember that theworld is hungry, you would eat your crusts."
"I ate crusts for twenty years," said Aggie, "because I'd been raised tobelieve they would make my hair curl. But I've come to a time of lifewhen my digestion means more to me than my looks. And since I've had thetrouble with my teeth----"
"Teeth or no teeth," said Tish, firmly, "eating crusts is a patrioticduty, Aggie."
She was clearly disinclined to explain about the farm, but on beingpressed said she had sent the tenants away because they kept pigs, whichwas absurd and she knew it.
"Isn't keeping pigs a patriotic duty?" Aggie demanded, glancing at meacross the table. But Tish ignored the question.
"What about the church?" I asked.
Tish has always given the farm money to missions, and is thereforeHonorary President of the Missionary Society. She did not replyimmediately as she was pouring milk over her cornstarch at the time, butHannah, her maid, spoke up rather bitterly.
"If we give the heathen what we save on the table, Miss Lizzie," shesaid, "I guess they'll do pretty well. I'm that fed up with beans thatmy digestion is all upset. I have to take baking soda after my meals,regular."
Tish looked up at her sharply.
"Entire armies fight on beans," she said
"Yes'm," said Hannah. "I'd fight on 'em too. That's the way they make mefeel. And if a German bayonet is any worse than the colic I get----"
"Leave the room," said Tish, in a furious voice, and finished hercornstarch in silence.
But she is a just woman, and although firm in her manner, she isnaturally kind. After dinner, seeing that Aggie was genuinelydisappointed about the excursion to the farm, she relented and observedthat we would go to the farm as usual.
"After all," she said, "chestnuts are nourishing, and might take theplace of potatoes in a pinch."
Here we heard a hollow groan from the pantry, but on Tish demanding itsreason Hannah said, meekly enough, that she had knocked her crazy bone,and Tish, with her usual magnanimity, did not pursue the subject.
There was a heavy frost that night, and two days later Tish called me upand fixed the following day for the visit to the farm. On looking back,I am inclined to think that her usual enthusiasm was absent, but wesuspected nothing. She said that Hannah would put up the luncheon, andthat she had looked up the food value of chestnuts and that it wasenormous. She particularly requested that Aggie should not bake a cakefor the picnic, as has been her custom.
"Cakes," she said, "are a reckless extravagance. In butter, eggs andflour a single chocolate layer cake could support three men at thefront for two days, Lizzie," she said.
I repeated this to Aggie, and she was rather resentful. Aggie, I regretto say, has rather a weakness for good food.
"Humph!" she said, bitterly. "Very well, Lizzie. But if she expects meto go out like Balaam's ass and eat dandelions, I'd rather starve."
Neither Aggie nor I is inclined to be suspicious, and although wenoticed Tish's rather abstracted expression that morning, we laid it tothe fact that Charlie Sands had been talking about going to the AmericanAmbulance in France, which Tish opposed violently, although she was morethan anxious to go herself.
Aggie put in her knitting bag the bottle of blackberry cordial withoutwhich we rarely travel, as we find it excellent in case of chilling, orindigestion, and even to rub on hornet stings. I was placing thesuitcase, in which it is our custom to carry the chestnuts, in the backof the car, when I spied a very small parcel. Aggie saw it too.
"If that's the lunch, Tish," she said, "I don't know that I care to go."
"You can eat chestnuts," said Tish, shortly. "But don't go on myaccount. It looks like rain anyhow, and the last time I went to the farmin the mud I skidded down a hill backwards and was only stopped byrunning into a cow that thought I was going the other way."
"Nonsense, Tish," I said. "It hasn't an idea of raining. And if thelunch isn't sufficient, there are generally some hens from the Knowlesplace that lay in your barn, aren't there?"
"Certainly not," she said stiffly, although it wasn't three months sinceshe had threatened to charge the Knowleses rent for their chickens.
Well, I was puzzled. It is not like Tish to be irritable without reason,although she has undoubtedly a temper. She was most unpleasant on theway out, remarking that if the Ostermaiers's maid continued to pare awayhalf the potatoes, as any fool could see around their garbage can, shethought the church should reduce his salary. She also stated flatly thatshe considered that the nation would be better off if some one woulduncork a gas bomb in the Capitol at Washington, in spite of the factthat my second cousin, once removed, the Honorable J. C. Willoughby,represents his country in its legislative halls.
It is always a bad sign when Tish talks politics, especially since theincome tax.
Although it had no significance for us at the time, she did not put hercar in the barn as she usually does, but left it in the road. The housewas closed, and there was no cool and refreshing buttermilk with whichto wash down our frugal repast, which we ate on the porch, as Tish didnot offer to unlock the house. Frugal repast it was indeed, consistingof lettuce sandwiches made without butter, as Tish considered that bothbutter and lettuce was an extravagance. There were, of course, alsobeans.
Now as it happens, Aggie is not strong and requires palatable as well assubstantial food to enable her to get about, especially to climb trees.We missed her during the meal, and I saw that she was going toward thebarn. Tish saw it also, and called to her sharply.
"I am going to get an egg," Aggie replied, with gentle obstinacy. "I amstarving, Tish, and I am certain I heard a hen cackle. Probably one ofthe Knowles's chickens----"
"If it is a Knowles's chicken," Tish said, virtuously, "its egg is aKnowles's egg, and we have no right to it."
I am sorry to relate that here Aggie said: "Oh, rats!" but as sheapologized immediately, and let the egg drop, figuratively, of course,peace again hovered over our little party. Only momentarily, however,for, a short time after, a hen undoubtedly cackled, and Aggie got upwith an air of determination.
"Tish," she said, "that may be a Knowles's hen or it may be onebelonging to this farm. I don't know, and I don't give a--I don't care.I'm going to get it."
"The barn's locked," said Tish.
"I could get in through a window."
I shall never forget Tish's look of scorn as she rose with dignity, andstalked toward the barn.
"I shall go myself, Aggie," she said, as she passed her. "You wouldprobably fall in the rain barrel under the window. You're no climber.And you might as well eat those crusts you've hidden under the porch, ifyou're as hungry as you make out you are."
"Lizzie," Aggie hissed, when Tish was out of hearing, "_what is in thatbarn?_"
"It may be anything from a German spy to an aeroplane," I said. "Butit's not your business or mine."
"You needn't be so dratted virtuous," Aggie observed, scooping a hole inthe petunia bed and burying the crusts in it. "Whatever's on her mind isin that barn."
"Naturally," I observed. "While Tish is in it!"
Tish returned in a short time with one egg, which she placed on theporch floor without a word. But as she made no effort to give Aggie thehouse key, and as Aggie has never learned to swallow a raw egg,although I have heard that they taste rather like oysters, and slip downin much the same way, Aggie was obliged to continue hungry.
It is only just to record that Tish grew more companionable afterluncheon, and got into a large chestnut tree near the house by climbingon top of the hen house. We had always before had the farmer's boy to dothe climbing into the upper branches, and I confess to a certainnervousness, especially as Tish, when far above the ground, decided totake off her dress skirt, which was her second best tailor-made, andclimb around in her petticoats.
She had to have both hands free to unhook the band, and she very nearlyoverbalanced while stepping out of it.
"Drat a woman's clothes, anyhow," she said. "If we ha
d any sense we'dwear trousers."
"I understand," I said, "that even trousers are not easy to get out of,Tish."
"Don't be a fool, Lizzie," she said tartly. "If I had trousers on Iwouldn't have to take them off. Catch it!"
However, the skirt did not fall clear, but caught on a branch far out,and hung there. Tish broke off a small limb and poked at it from above,and I found a paling from a fence and threw it up to dislodge it. Butit stuck tight, and the paling came down and struck Aggie on the head.Had