Mrs. Simmons had dropped in afterwards, to find Janet,
tidy and smiling, with the baby in her arms.
"I'm sure I'm glad to hear it," said Betsy Simmons; "and I hope it'll go on."
"I hope so too," said Janet. "I shouldn't like to go back and live all in a mess again. You haven't been near me for a great while, Mrs. Simmons."
"Well, no; it does seem a good bit," said Mrs. Simmons. "But I haven't had time to spare. Fact is, whenever I can I just go across, and sit with Miss Daisy for an hour, and let Mrs. Davis get out for a little fresh air. She ain't a strong woman, and the nursing's been a long pull upon her. And I'm sure nobody knows how much longer it mayn't go on. How's your husband to-day, Mrs. Humphrey?"
"He's quite well," Janet said; "and he's doing a lot of carpentering. It's wonderful how Jem has took to carpentering lately. He always was a good hand at it, but he used to say it wasn't worth while, and I couldn't get him to do anything. And now he's talking of making all sorts of things. Just look here, he's put up these shelves for me in the corner, so as I might have more room on the dresser. And he's just now making a book-case, and we mean to get it full of books too, in time. I don't see why we shouldn't. And Tommy broke the leg of a chair lately, and Jem got up early next morning and mended it. Why, if I'd asked him a while back—"
"It isn't so very astonishing," said Mrs. Simmons. "Stands to reason, a man don't care to waste his time in ornamenting a pig-stye."
"Oh, Mrs. Simmons, it wasn't a pig-stye," said Janet, rather hurt.
"Well no, my dear, it wasn't," said Mrs. Simmons. "Folks don't spend their whole lives in scouring and scrubbing of a pig-stye, and that's what you did, pretty nearly. But for all your scouring and scrubbing, you didn't get the place clean, Mrs. Humphrey."