Yes, there it was. It had looked better in the photograph which Mr. Garland had showed to Mr. March than it did in reality. It was a small, unpainted pine house; without any piazza or blinds. The windows were small; the front door was very small; there was no fence between it and the road; and all the ground around it had been left wild. It was really a desolate-looking place. "Why, there isn't any yard!" exclaimed Nelly. "Yard!" said her mother; "why, it is _all_ yard, child. As far as you can see in every direction, it is all our yard." Mrs. March's heart had really sunk within her at the sight of the place. The house was nothing more than she would have called a shanty at home; but she was resolved, no matter what happened to them, never to let her husband see that she found any thing hard. So she spoke cheerfully about the yard; and, as they were getting out of the wagon, she said:-- "How nice and open it is here! See, Robert, the sun is still an hour high, I should think. This is a lovely place." Mr. March shook his head. He did not like the appearance of things. Mrs. Plummer had bustled ahead into the house. In a moment she came back, followed by a man. This was the man who had been left by Mr. Garland in charge of the house, and who was to stay and work for Mr. March. "Bless my eyes!" he exclaimed; "you've took me by surprise. I hain't had no letter from Garland. He said he'd write and let me know when you'd be up. I calculated to have spruced up considerable before you come in. We've bached it here so long 'tain't much of a place for wimmen folks to come to." "Oh, never mind!" said Mrs. March; "Mr."--she hesitated for a name; "I don't think I've heard your name--" "Zeb, ma'am; Zeb's my name. Don't go by any other name since I've been in these mountains," said the man, pulling off his old woollen cap, and making an awkward bow to Mrs. March, whose pleasant smile and voice had won his liking at once. "Never mind, then, Zeb," Mrs. March continued: "we have not come expecting to find things as we had them at home. We shall call it a picnic all the time." "Well, that's about what it is, mum, most generally in this country's fur's I've seen it," said Zeb, thinking at that moment, with a dreadful misgiving, that he had no meat in the house, except salt pork; and no bread at all. He had intended to make some soda biscuit for his own supper. "But she looks like jest one o' them kind that can't abide soda," thought poor Zeb to himself. "An' where in thunder be they all to sleep?" he continued; "Garland might ha' known better than to let six folks come down on me, this way, without any warnin'. 'Twas mighty unconsiderate of him! However, 'tain't none o' my business. I don't keep no hotel."