“Well,” said ma, looking in at the door of the cabin, “If this here place don’t look like a hurricane’d struck it! Azalea, you and me’ll have to straighten things up. We can change our dresses and freshen up afterward.” “Being a girl’s hard luck,” thought Jim. “Me and pa can sit on the front porch I reckon, while the women folks tidy.” But he was mistaken. “Here you, Jim,” called his mother in her most businesslike tones, “bring up fresh water from the spring. Pa, I’d like some more wood, please. Azalea, you can be sweeping out. I’ll get over hot water for the dishes. I thought you promised me, pa, that you’d keep the dishes washed!” “Didn’t I do it then?” said pa despairingly. “I washed and washed and Jim wiped and wiped till we about dropped.” “You drop pretty easy,” answered ma. But she was not scolding. Ma didn’t waste much time in scolding. There was always a laugh behind her words when she said a thing like that. Jim felt a little cast down. And he wondered if the new girl would think they had to work like that all the time. He looked at her to see how she was taking it, and he found her sweeping with all of her might. True, his mother had to show her how to hold the broom in the right way, and how long to take her strokes, but she seemed to think it was fine to be able to sweep out, and it came over Jim that up to now she probably hadn’t had a house to sweep, and no doubt she liked it. But all the work seemed worth while when, at last, they sat down at the table together. Ma had chopped up some salt pork in beaten eggs, and had baked some potatoes in the ashes, and made biscuit and a custard pie. And pa had brought in some fresh radishes and mountain honey; so there was a real feast for them. “This is lots better than a cave,” Azalea said shyly. “It’s lots better than the road too.” She was looking very odd in a dress of ma’s, which was worlds too wide for her, and which they had tied in with an old blue ribbon. Her pretty, birdlike little head came up out of all this cotton stuff like the head of a frightened chicken out of its ruffled feathers. “We’ve got to get right down to the store, Azalea,” said ma briskly, “and buy some stuff to sew up for you. I can’t endure to have you looking that a-way.” “Why, ma, couldn’t Molly’s clothes be fixed up to fit Azalea? There might be some changing to do, but you’re so handy you could manage that.” “I ain’t got a stitch of Molly’s clothes left,” said ma rather sharply. “What do you think I’d be doing? Letting them there good things lie idle when they was needed by others? Molly wouldn’t have liked me to do a thing like that, would she? I gave them all away.” “Well, they would have come in handy now, ma. Sometimes I think you’re too impulsive. You just go and do whatever comes into your head to do right off quick.”