Serena’s floor was not scrubbed, but my fireplace was neat once more, and my house shone with her occasional presence. Ben returned to week-day rags, but his Sunday trousers were always ready. Lonie lolled at home and picked the banjo, lazy indeed, but a vestal in no danger of perjure. Len found “satisfaction,” with Serena’s chair touching his in the firelight. He would grow thin again on coffee and untasted beans, but his smile would endure. Little Ross was happy with his mother’s arms waiting at any time. Of all the children he was the one that showed no improvement during Serena’s period of reformation. He might die of malnutrition, but tragedy--is it not the commonplace of life? And happiness the rare fortune? I questioned Serena for the hundredth time about the boy’s diet. Oh, yes, he was eating eggs right along. But this time I was not satisfied with a meagre affirmative. “How many does he eat?” “I don’t keep no count. He goes to the nest when he hears a hen cackle. You told me the fresher they was the better they was, an’ I told him he could have ’em soon as they’s laid. He brings ’em in, gits him a spoon o’ grease, an’ cleans the ashes off the fire-shovel an’ cooks ’em on it right then.” “But he can’t get them soft that way.” “Oh, he kain’t eat ’em soft like you showed me how to fix ’em, jelly all through. They make him sick thataway. I thought it wuz better fer him to eat a hard egg than no egg at all. He cooks ’em till they couldn’t be no harder ’thout burnin’ up. An’ he takes enough of ’em. I kain’t look around, seems like, ’thout seein’ him cookin’ one. He’s drinkin’ milk, too, only he ain’t had none sence yisterday ’cause we’ve been out o’ coffee, barrin’ the grounds I boiled over fer Len.” “What has coffee to do with it?” “He kain’t take milk less’n it’s about haf coffee. He learned to drink coffee when he was a baby, an’ he won’t take milk at all ef I don’t mix it up good with coffee. Then he’ll drink a lot of it. Yes, he takes plenty milk an’ eggs, but I kain’t see its heppin’ him a bit. He rolls about all night, an’ talks in his sleep, an’ gits up a-frettin’ till we kain’t stand him. I have to take him on my lap an’ nuss him like a baby ’fore he’ll quiet down. Len’s always sayin’, ‘Reenie, fer the Lord’s sake, take the pore little feller,’ an’ as soon as he gits on my lap he thinks he’s all right. An’ him ten year old. Ef the big uns git to be babies again I don’t know what I’m goin’ to do. I kain’t git on with my work a-settin’ backside to it all the time.” But no one could smile in Serena’s heavenly way and at the same time be sincerely pining to get on with her work.