“If it only wouldn’t storm so,” said Mrs. Argenter.  “Mrs. Jeffords says there will be a freshet.  The roads will be all torn up.  We shall never be able to get home.”

“O yes, we shall,” said Sylvie, cheerily; putting down the wonder that arose obtrusively in her own mind as to where the home would be that they should go to.

“Did Mrs. Jeffords tell you about last year’s freshet?  And the apples?”

“She said they had an awful flood.  The brooks turned into rivers, and the rivers swallowed up everything.”

“O, she didn’t get to the funny part, then?” said Sylvie.  “She didn’t tell you about the apples?”

“No.  I think she keeps the funny parts for you, Sylvie.”

“May be she does.  She isn’t sure that you feel up to them, always.  But I guess she means them to come round, when she tells them to me.  You see they had just been gathering their apples, in that great lower orchard,—­five acres of trees, and such a splendid crop!  There they were, all piled up,—­can’t you imagine?  A perfect picture!  Red heaps, and yellow heaps; and greenings, and purple pearmains, and streaked seek-no-furthers.  Like great piles of autumn leaves!  Well, the flood came, and rose up over the flats, into the lower end of the orchard.  They went down over night, and moved all the piles further up, The next day, they had to move them again.  And the next morning after that, when they woke up, the whole orchard was under water, and every apple gone.  Mr. Jeffords said he got down just in time to see the last one swim round the corner.  And when the flood had fallen,—­there, half a mile below, spread out over the meadow, was three hundred barrels of apple sauce!”

Mrs. Argenter laughed a feeble little expected laugh; her heart was not free to be amused with an apple-story.  No wonder Mrs. Jeffords kept the funny parts for Sylvie.  Mrs. Argenter quenched her before she could possibly get to them.  But was Sylvie’s heart free for amusement?  What was the difference?  The years between them?  Mrs. Jeffords was a far older woman than Mrs. Argenter, and had had her cares and troubles; yet she and Sylvie laughed like two girls together, over their work and their stories.  That was it,—­the work!  Sylvie was doing all she could.  The cheerfulness of doing followed irresistibly after, into the loops and intervals of time, and kept out the fear and the repining.

“There was nothing that chippered you up so, as being real driving busy,” Mrs. Jeffords said.

Mrs. Argenter sat in her low easy-chair, watched away the time, and worried about the time to come.  It left no leisure for a laugh.

Perhaps the hardest thing that Sylvie did through the day, was the setting to work to “chipper” her mother up.  It was lifting up a weight that continually dropped back again.

“Do they think this rain will ever be over?” asked Mrs. Argenter, turning her face toward the dripping panes again.