Neither ever opened mouth in reply.
Jerome worked fast in his magnanimous concession to his mother's will, and had accomplished considerable when his sister opened the kitchen window, thrust out her dark head, and called in a voice shrill as her mother's, but as yet wholly sweet, with no harsh notes in it: "Jerome! Jerome! Dinner is ready." Jerome whooped in reply, dropped his spade, and went leaping down the hill.

When he entered the kitchen his mother was sitting at the table and Elmira was taking up the dinner.

Elmira was a small, pretty girl, with little, nervous hands and feet, and eager black eyes, like her mother's.

She stretched on tiptoe over the fire, and ladled out a steaming mixture from the kettle with an arduous swing of her sharp elbow.

Elmira's sleeves were rolled up and her thin, sharply-jointed, girlish arms showed.
"Don't you know enough, without being told, to lift that kettle off the fire for Elmira ?" demanded Mrs.Edwards of Jerome.
Jerome lifted the kettle off the fire without a word.
"It seems sometimes as if you might do something without being told," said his mother.