Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/341

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THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
327

evening. “Of course he naturally would be, since I understand that the Germans invented it. I hear he came near losing his entire wheat crop lately. Warren Mead’s cows broke into the field one day last week—it was the very day the Germans captured the Chemang-de-dam, which may have been a coincidence or may not—and were making fine havoc of it when Mrs. Dick Clow happened to see them from her attic window. At first she had no intention of letting Mr. Pryor know. She told me she just gloated over the sight of those cows pasturing on his wheat. She felt it served him exactly right. But presently she reflected that the wheat crop was a matter of great importance and that ‘save and serve’ meant that those cows must be routed out as much as it meant anything. So she went down and ’phoned over to Whiskers about the matter. All the thanks she got was that he said something queer right out to her. She is not prepared to state that it was actually swearing, for you cannot be sure just what you hear over the ’phone; but she has her own opinion, and so have I, but I will not express it for here comes Mr. Meredith, and Whiskers is one of his elders, so we must be discreet.”

“Are you looking for the new star?” asked Mr. Meredith, joining Miss Oliver and Rilla, who were standing among the blossoming potatoes gazing skyward.

“Yes—we have found it—see, it is just above the tip of that tallest old pine.”

“It’s wonderful to be looking at something that happened three thousand years ago, isn’t it?” said Rilla. “That is when astronomers think the collision took place which produced this new star. It makes