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“She won’t hear a word you say.”

“I’ll make her hear.”

“They won’t come a step.”

“You see.”

The Whitmans kept bees, and their honey was the celebrated luxury of the neighborhood. Ruth got a jar of clear white honey out of the closet, put it under her shawl, and was off. First, though, she instructed Serena to go out in the garden and dig a good supply of parsnips and clean them for the next day’s dinner.

It was a mile to the Wigginses’, and it took Ruth over an hour to accomplish her errand and return. When she got home she found Serena getting supper, and her father was washing his hands out in the shed; her mother had not returned. On the kitchen sink lay a tin pan with four or five muddy parsnips. Serena looked up eagerly when her sister entered. “They coming?” said she.

“Yes, they are,” replied Ruth, with a triumphant smile.

But Serena walked over to the sink and extended her arm with a tragical gesture towards the parsnips. “Well, you’ve gone and done it now, Ruth Whitman,” said she. “There’s every single parsnip that’s fit to eat that I could find in the garden.”

“H’m! I guess I can find some.”

“No, you can’t; they’ve rotted. I heard mother say to-day she was afraid they had. More’n half those father brought in this morning weren’t good for anything. When mother finds out that all the Wigginses are coming, and there’s just five parsnips for dinner, I don’t know what she will do; I don’t know but it will kill her. And she’s asked Uncle Caleb and Uncle Silas over, too.”

Ruth gave a desperate glance at the parsnips. “I said we were going to have parsnip stew,” said she, “Mrs. Wiggins had been crying; she looked dreadful tired out; and Sammy had just bumped his head, and there was a great lump over one eye. She took the honey, and said she’d be real happy to come if they could have the horse, and old Mrs. Wiggins acted dreadful tickled.”

“The Wigginses have got parsnips,” said Serena. “I heard Mrs. Wiggins say they’d got a splendid lot, she expected, but they hadn’t dug any yet.”

Ruth looked at her sister. “Serena!”

“What?”

“I’m going to send over and buy some of the Wigginses’ parsnips.”

“Ruth!” But it seemed to Serena as if there was a flash of red and green light through the room, and Ruth had gone. Serena gave a little gasp, and stood looking.

“What’s the matter?” asked her father, coming in–an old man in checkered shirt sleeves, yet with a certain rustic stateliness about him.

“Oh, nothing,” said Serena; and she fell to slicing the bread for supper.

While her father had gone to the well to draw a pail of water Ruth came in, breathless, but rosy with daring and triumph. Ben White, Mrs. White’s grown-up son, was going to drive over to the Wigginses and buy some parsnips; his mother was to have some, and Ruth a noble portion for the next day’s stew.

Serena dropped into a chair and giggled feebly; the humor, of it was so forcible that it seemed to fairly rebound in her face. “Ask the Wigginses to dinner to have a parsnip stew, and then–buy their own parsnips for it!” she gasped.

Ruth did not laugh at all; she saw nothing but the seriousness of the situation. “Mind you don’t tell mother till after it’s all over,” said she. “I don’t want her to know where those parsnips came from till after the Wigginses have gone, she’ll be so upset. I’m just going to tell her how I carried the honey over there, and how they’re coming. I do hope Ben will bring the parsnips before mother gets home.”

“Suppose Ben should bring ’em in when mother was here,” chuckled Serena.

“I told him to shy into the shed with ’em,” replied Ruth, severely. “Hush! father’s coming, and we’d better not say anything to him till afterwards.”