Pay her fifty cents a day,
I do, and she's out in the kitchen makin' believe wash windows. They
don't need washin', but she was lookin' out of 'em most of the time, so
I thought she might as well combine business with pleasure."
But Caroline refused to sit in the parlor and be "company." She insisted
upon helping. Miss Baker protested and declared there was nothing on
earth to be done; but her guest insisted that, if there was not, she
herself must sit. As Abbie would have as soon thought of attending
church without wearing her jet earrings as she would of sitting down
before dinner, she gave in, after a while, and permitted Caroline to
help in arranging the table.
"Why, you do fust-rate!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "You know where
everything ought to go, just as if you'd been settin' table all your
life. And you ain't, because 'Lisha wrote you used to keep hired help,
two or three of 'em, all the time."
Caroline laughed.
"I've been studying housekeeping for almost a year," she said.
"Studyin' it! Why, yes, now I remember 'Lisha wrote you'd been studyin'
some kind of science at college. 'Twa'n't settin' table science, I
guess, though. Ha! ha!"
"That was part of it." She explained the course briefly. Abigail
listened in amazement.
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