My step-mother's appearance, too, was a constant offence to my beauty-loving eye,--with her lank, tall figure, round which clung those narrow skirts of "bit" calico, dingy red or dreary brown,--her feet shod in the heavy store-shoes which were brought us from Catlettsburg by the returning flat-boat men,--her sharp-featured face, the forehead and cheeks covered with brown, mouldy-looking spots, the eyes deep-set, with a livid, dyspeptic ring around them, and the lips thin and pinched,--the whole face shaded by the eternal sun-bonnet, which never left her head from early sunrise till late bedtime (no Sandy woman is ever seen without her sun-bonnet). All these were perpetual annoyances to me; they made me discontented without knowing why; they filled me with disgust, a disgust which my respect for her good qualities could not overcome. And then our life, how dreary! The rising in the cold, gray dawn to prepare the breakfast of corn-dodgers and bacon for my father and his men,--the spreading the table-cloth, stained with the soil-spots of yesterday's meal,--the putting upon it the ugly, unmatched crockery,--the straggling-in of the unwashed, uncombed men in their coarse working-clothes, redolent of the week's unwholesome toil,--their washings, combings, and low talk close by my side,--the varied uses to which our household utensils were put,--the dipping of dirty knives into the salt and of dirty fingers into the meat-dish,--all filled me then, and fill me now, with loathing. There was a relief when the men left the house; but then came the dreary "slicking-up," almost more disgusting, in its false, superficial show of cleanliness, than had been the open carelessness of the workmen. But there was no time for rest; my step-mother's sharp, high-pitched voice was heard calling, "Janet!" and I followed her to the garden to dig the potatoes from the hills or to the cornfield to pull and husk the three dozen ears of corn which made our chief dish at dinner. Then came the week's washing, the apple-peeling, the pork-salting, work varied only with the varying season, until the blowing of the horn at twelve brought back the men to dinner, after which came again the clearing up, again the day's task, and again the supper.