"Good!" cried Granny Moreland, her dark eyes snapping. "I've always said it! I've tried to encourage David in it. And he's just capital at puttin' some of his stuff in shape, and combinin' it in as good medicine as you ever took. This spring I was all crippled up with the rheumatiz until I wanted to holler every time I had to move, and sometimes it got so aggravatin' I'm not right sure but I done it. 'Long comes David and says, `I can fix you somethin',' and bless you, if the boy didn't take the tucks out of me, until here I am, and tickled to pieces that I can get here. This time last year I didn't care if I lived or not. Now seems as if I'm caperish as a three weeks' lamb. I don't see how a man could do a bigger thing than to stir up life in you like that."
"I think this place makes an especial appeal to me, because, shortly before I came, I had to give up my mother. She was very ill and suffered horribly. Every time I see David going to his little laboratory on the hill to work a while I slip away and ask God to help him to fix something that will ease the pain of humanity as I should like to have seen her relieved."
"Why you poor child! No wonder you are lookin' so thin and peaked!"
"Oh I'll soon be over that," said the Girl. "I am much better than when I came. I'll be coming over to trade pie with you before long. David says you are my nearest neighbour, so we must be close friends."
"Well bless your big heart! Now who ever heard of a pretty young thing like you wantin' to be friends with a plain old country woman?"
"Why I think you are lovely!" cried the Girl. "And all of us are on the way to age, so we must remember that we will want kindness then more than at any other time. David says you knew his mother. Sometime won't you tell me all about her? You must very soon. The Harvester adored her, and Doctor Carey says she was the noblest woman he ever knew. It's a big contract to take her place. Maybe if you would tell me all you can remember I could profit by much of it."
Granny Moreland watched the Girl keenly.
"She wa'ant no ordinary woman, that's sure," she commented. "And she didn't make no common man out of her son, either. I've always contended she took the job too serious, and wore herself out at it, but she certainly done the work up prime. If she's above cloud leanin' over the ramparts lookin' down----though it gets me as to what foundation they use or where they get the stuff to build the ramparts----but if they is ramparts, and she's peekin' over them, she must take a lot of solid satisfaction in seeing that David is not only the man she fought and died to make him, but he's give her quite a margin to spread herself on. She 'lowed to make him a big man, but you got to know him close and plenty 'fore it strikes you jest what his size is. I've watched him pretty sharp, and tried to help what I could since Marthy went, and I'm frank to say I druther see David happy than to be happy myself. I've had my fling. The rest of the way I'm willin' to take what comes, with the best grace I can muster, and wear a smilin' face to betoken the joy I have had; but it cuts me sore to see the young sufferin'."
"Do you think David is unhappy?" asked the Girl eagerly.
"I don't see how he could be!" cried the old lady.
"Of course he ain't! 'Pears as if he's got everythin' to make him the proudest, best satisfied of men. I'll own Iwas mighty anxious to see you. I know the kind o' woman it would take to make David miserable, and it seems sometimes as if men----that is good men----are plumb, stone blind when it comes to pickin' a woman.
They jest hitch up with everlastin' misery easy as dew rolling off a cabbage leaf. It's sech a blessed sight to see you, and hear your voice and know you're the woman anybody can see you be. Why I'm so happy when Iset here and con-tem'-plate you, I want to cackle like a pullet announcin' her first egg. Ain't this porch the purtiest place?"
"Come see everything," invited the Girl, rising.
Granny Moreland followed with alacrity.
"Bare floors!" she cried. "Wouldn't that best you?
I saw they was finished capital when I was over, but I 'lowed they'd be covered afore you come. Don't you like nice, flowery Brissels carpets, honey?"
"No I don't," said the Girl. "You see, when rugs are dusty they can be rolled, carried outside, and cleaned.
The walls can be wiped, the floors polished and that way a house is always fresh. I can keep this shining, germ proof, and truly clean with half the work and none of the danger of heavy carpets and curtains."
"I don't doubt but them is true words," said Granny Moreland earnestly. "Work must be easier and sooner done than it was in my day, or people jest couldn't have houses the size of this or the time to gad that women have now. From the looks of tile streets of Onabasha, you wouldn't think a woman 'ud had a baby to tend, a dinner pot a-bilin', or a bakin' of bread sence the flood.
And the country is jest as bad as the city. We're a apin' them to beat the monkeys at a show. I hardly got a neighbour that ain't got figgered Brissels carpet, a furnace, a windmill, a pianny, and her own horse and buggy. Several's got autermobiles, and the young folks are visitin' around a-ridin' the trolleys, goin' to college, and copyin' city ways. Amos Peters, next to us; goes bareheaded in the hay field, and wears gloves to pitch and plow in. I tell him he reminds me of these city women that only wears the lower half of a waist and no sleeves, and a yard of fine goods moppin' the floors.
Well if that don't 'beat the nation! Ain't them Marthy's old blue dishes?"
"Let me show you!" The Girl opened the little cupboard and exhibited the willow ware. The eyes of the old woman began to sparkle.
