`` I tell you it 's a tough job . Mr. Roger might wait for cool weather before he sets people to stumping out elderberries , and that 's a fact . '' `` Why do n't you tell him so ? '' asked Dan . `` It ai n't my business to tell him things , '' retorted Peter . `` I 'm hired to do what I 'm told , and I do it . But I can have my own opinion all the same . It 's going to be a broiling hot day . '' We were all in the orchard , except Felix , who had gone to the post-office . It was the forenoon of an August Saturday . Cecily and Sara Ray , who had come up to spend the day with us -- her mother having gone to town -- were eating timothy roots . Bertha Lawrence , a Charlottetown girl , who had visited Kitty Marr in June , and had gone to school one day with her , had eaten timothy roots , affecting to consider them great delicacies . The fad was at once taken up by the Carlisle schoolgirls . Timothy roots quite ousted `` sours '' and young raspberry sprouts , both of which had the real merit of being quite toothsome , while timothy roots were tough and tasteless . But timothy roots were fashionable , therefore timothy roots must be eaten . Pecks of them must have been devoured in Carlisle that summer . Pat was there also , padding about from one to the other on his black paws , giving us friendly pokes and rubs . We all made much of him except Felicity , who would not take any notice of him because he was the Story Girl 's cat . We boys were sprawling on the grass . Our morning chores were done and the day was before us .
We should have been feeling very comfortable and happy , but , as a matter XXXXX fact , we were not particularly so .
because before by except for in of on while with