Amanda looked up with serious wonder at Mrs. Babcock, who was laughing shrilly.  Mrs. Green, too, was smiling, and Adoniram chuckled.

“For the land sakes, Amanda Pratt!” gasped Mrs. Babcock, “you don’t s’pose that cat is goin’ to stint herself to a saucer a day?  Why, she’ll eat half of it all up before night.”

Amanda stood up in the carriage.  “I’ve got to go back, that’s all,” said she.  “I ain’t goin’ to have that cat starve.”

“Land sakes, set down!” cried Mrs. Babcock.  “She won’t starve.  She can hunt.”

“Abby’ll feed her, I know,” said Mrs. Green, pulling gently at her companion’s arm.  “Don’t you worry, Mandy.”

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t worry about a cat with claws to catch mice in warm weather,” said Mrs. Babcock, with a sarcastic titter.  “It’s goin’ to be a dreadful hot day.  Set down, Mandy.  There ain’t no use talkin’ about goin’ back.  There ain’t any time.  Mis’ Green an’ me ain’t goin’ to stay to home on account of a cat.”

Amanda subsided weakly.  She felt strange, and not like herself.  Mrs. Babcock seemed to recognize it by some subtle intuition.  She would never have dared use such a tone toward her without subsequent concessions.  Amanda had always had a certain dignity and persistency which had served to intimidate too presuming people; now she had lost it all.

“I’ll write to Abby, jest as soon as I get down there, to give the cat her milk,” whispered Mrs. Green soothingly; and Amanda was comforted.

The covered wagon rolled along the country road toward the railroad station.  Adoniram drove, and the three women sat up straight, and looked out with a strange interest, as if they had never seen the landscape before.  The meadows were all filmy with cobwebs; there were patches of corn in the midst of them, and the long blades drooped limply.  The flies swarmed thickly over the horse’s back.  The air was scalding; there was a slight current of cool freshness from the dewy ground, but it would soon be gone.

“It ain’t goin’ to rain,” said Mrs. Babcock, “there’s cobwebs on the grass, but it’s goin’ to be terrible hot.”

They reached the station fifteen minutes before the train.  After Adoniram had driven away, they sat in a row on a bench on the platform, with their baggage around them.  They did not talk much; even Mrs. Babcock looked serious and contemplative in this momentary lull.  Their thoughts reached past and beyond them to the homes they had left, and the new scenes ahead.

When the whistle of the train sounded they all stood up, and grasped their valises tightly.  Mrs. Green looked toward the coming train; her worn face under her black bonnet, between its smooth curves of gray hair, had all the sensitive earnestness which comes from generations of high breeding.  She was, on her father’s side, of a race of old New England ministers.

“Well, I dunno but I’ve been pretty faithful, an’ minded my household the way women are enjoined to in the Scriptures; mebbe it’s right for me to take this little vacation,” she said, and her serious eyes were full of tears.