This job was sure going to take a long time.   Probably have to finish it up tomorrow.  

I looked up as I heard the tractor.  

Mama was driving the tractor and Davey and Papa were sitting high on top of the hay bales on the wagon.   Davey waved to me as Mama pulled the tractor and wagon up to the back of the barn.   They already had their first load of bales to stack in the barn.  

"I been working here for an hour and I've only got one board done," I thought.   "The wood seems to soak up the paint and I have to do it twice in the same spot!"  

Just then Mrs. Klemmer pulled up in her blue car.   She was putting lipstick on her lips as she pulled to a stop.  

I could see Ellen sitting in the back seat, craning her neck up to see why her mother had stopped.  

Mrs. Klemmer opened the car door and stepped out.  

"Emma, you sure are hard at work."  

Yes I am," I said.   "My Papa gave me this chore to do today while he's out baling hay.   I am doing it to help my Papa.   Does Ellen want to stay and help me for awhile?"  

Mrs. Klemmer smiled and shook her head.   "Ellen and I are driving over to Mrs. Baxter's.   We are going to take a little swim in their pool this afternoon."  

I knew all about the Baxter's pool.   Most of the neighbor's thought it was, what did Papa call it?   "A tom-fool thing to put a cement hole in your backyard and fill it with precious water!"  

After the Baxter's had the pool put in, they invited all the neighbor's over for a cook-out and a swim.  

I thought it was heavenly to swim in that clean, blue water.   All I ever got to swim in was the pond back in the woods and that was taking a chance.   The pond had turtles and frogs and sometimes a snake swimming on the surface and blood suckers on the bottom.   Not very ofen, but once in awhile, those suckers stuck on my legs and feet.  

Blood suckers are like short, fat worms, but they stick to your body and suck your blood out.   The only way to get them off is to sprinkle salt on them and if you don't have a salt shaker handy, you gotta pick them off, one-by-one.  

Yuck! It made my skin creepy just to think about it.  

"Well, I was just stopping by to ask your mother if you could go with us, but I guess not." said Mrs. Klemmer.  

"Naw, Mama's helping Papa and Davey bale hay," I said.

I don't think Mrs. Klemmer understood about farming.   Her husband didn't have cows or sheep or any animals on their farm.   He plowed the fields and put in corn and wheat, but not hay because he didn't need it to feed animals, since he didn't have any.  

Mrs. Klemmer never had to help her husband out in the fields.   Ellen never had chores to do, she just played with dolls all the time or sat on their front porch and read books.  

"Well, all right Dear, we'll come by to visit another day," said Mrs. Klemmer as she slammed the car door and started to drive off.  

Ellen stuck her tongue out at me as they drove away.  

"Ppfftt," I said as I stuck my tongue out at her too.  

"I don't even like her anymore," I mumbled to myself.  

The last time I was down to her house, she wouldn't let me touch her toys.   When we went outside to play in her sandbox, she took up almost all the room and Mrs. Klemmer had to come out and divide the box in half with a stick laid across the sand.   Then Ellen started cyring and yelling that she didn't want me to make a sand castle because I was using water and getting the sand all wet.  

"How in the world are you supposed to make a good sand castle without water?" I wondered out loud.   "You gotta get the sand wet so you can let it drip off your fingers and make high points on the tops of the turrest.   Such a baby!"