The Yankee temperament is occasionally depressing! I went outdoors again, eating my doughnuts as I walked, and strolled into the vegetable garden to survey the staked rows which denoted beets and peas. Then I went down the slope into my little stand of pines, into the cool hush of them, and unconsciously my brain relaxed in the bath of their peace, and for ten minutes I lay on the needles, neither asleep nor awake, just blissfully vacant. Then I returned to my scooping, marvellously rested. I scooped till three o'clock, led the horse back to the barn, got a shovel and rake, and began to spread my terrace. As this south end of my house (and accordingly my big south room) was but thirty-three feet long, the task was not very severe, particularly as the upper, or western, end, did not require much grading. I built the terrace out about twelve feet from the wall, stamped up and down on it to pack it, and raked it smooth. I realized that it would settle, of course, and I should need more earth yet upon it before it was sown down to grass, or, if I could afford it, bricked; but in order to hold the bank, I got some grass seed and planted the edge, and also got a couple of planks to stretch from the south door across the terrace and down to the lawn, until I could build my proposed brick path and steps. It was six o'clock when I had finished. Palm-sore and weary, I drank a great tin dipperful of water from my copper pump in the kitchen, took a last look at Hard's bookcase, which had already been built out the required five feet into the room along the line of the old partition, fourteen inches wide to hold books on both sides, tried the doors to see that they were locked, and tramped up the dusty road to supper. Mrs. Temple was beaming when I came down from my bath. "Why so happy?" said I. "Well," said she, "in the first place, I've got you the housekeeper I want." "By which I infer that she's the one _I_ want, too?" I asked. "Of course," said Mrs. Temple, on whom irony had no effect. "She's Mrs. Pillig, from Slab City, and she's an artist in pies." "Go on; you interest me strangely!" I cried. "Is her husband dead, and has she got a small boy?" (Here I winked at Bert.) "Pillig ain't dead, worse luck," said Mrs. Temple, "but he's whar he won't trouble you. I guess Peter won't trouble you none, neither. He's a nice boy, and he'll be awful handy round the place." "Peter Pillig!" I exclaimed. "There ain't no such animal! If there is, Dickens was his grandfather. How old is Peter?" "Peter's eleven," Mrs. Bert replied. "He's real nice and bright. His mother's brought him up fine. Anyhow, she was a Corliss." "But, eugenically speaking, Peter may have a predisposition to follow in father's footsteps, which I infer led toward the little green swinging doors," I protested. "Speakin' U. S. A., tommyrot!" said Mrs. Temple. "Anyhow, it's the door o' the drugstore in this town. They sell more'n sody water down to Danforth's."