Fred and Artie and Ward said they could do the outdoor work, and they went at it with a will. Though before that they found that their shoes were so stiff it wasn’t easy to get them on. But Mrs. Wicks brought out some grease and showed them how to rub it in, and that made the leather pliable again. Fred did the girls’ shoes for them, and Margy was especially grateful, for she loved to be comfortable and she had been dreading to put on her stiffened shoes.
The three girls washed and dried the dishes, swept and straightened up the kitchen, made the beds and watered the geranium that Mrs. Wicks said couldn’t be killed, for no matter how cold the kitchen was, it lived, winter after winter, if protected by a paper at night.
“I wish you’d come and live with me all winter,” the old lady said, when Ward brought in six eggs he had found in the henhouse and Fred and Artie reported that a path had been swept out to the mail-box. “I like company. One of my nieces comes to stay with me part of the time, and she’s coming the day after New Year’s. But she isn’t young like you.”
Fred asked about the barn in which they had stayed, and Mrs. Wicks told them that the place had once been a prosperous farm.
“The house burned down one summer, and the people farmed it for a time, living in the barn and using it as a house,” she said. “Then they sold the place and moved away, and the new owner never did anything with it. One by one the outbuildings fell to pieces, and they say one good wind will blow the barn over, if it gets it in the right corner.”
“There’s rats in it!” shuddered Margy. “I was sitting on the floor last night, waiting for Fred to come back, and a horrid rat ran right across my lap!”
“She let out a yell that could be heard in River Bend,” said Ward, grinning. “And then she rushed outdoors and wouldn’t come back. Fred found her standing in the snow, crying.”
“Well, I’d cry, too, if a rat ran over me,” said Jess, stoutly. “Ugly, horrid things!”
Mrs. Wicks got out her box of patchwork and showed the gay-colored patches to her visitors. Like many lonely old ladies, she was fond of telling stories about her girlhood, and with a brand new audience the temptation was too great to be resisted.
“You girls don’t sew patchwork nowadays, do you?” she asked, smiling.