"Oh, dear!" and Hal rubbed his tired arms. "I shouldn't think grandmother would know what to do, sure enough! What a host of us there are,—six children!"
"I'm sure I do my best," said Flossy with a pathetic little sniff. "But it's very hard to be an orphan and poor."
"And when there are six of us, and we are all orphans, and all poor, it must be six times as hard," put in Joe with a sly twinkle.
Then he changed Dot from her triumphal position on his shoulder to a kind of cradle in his arms. Her eyelids drooped, and she began to croon a very sleepy tune.
Hal looked out of the window, over to the woods, where the westward sun was making a wonderful land of gold and crimson. Sometimes he had beautiful dreams of that softened splendor, but now they were mercenary. If one could only coin it all into money! There was poor grandmother slaving away, over at Mrs. Kinsey's,—she should come home, and be a princess, to say the very least.
"I guess I'll clear up a bit!" said Hal, coming down from the clouds, and glancing round at the disorderly room. "Granny will be most tired to death when her day's work is done. Flossy, if you wouldn't mind going in the other room."
Flossy gathered up her skirts and her crocheting, and did not take the invitation at all amiss.
Then Hal found the stubby broom, and swept the floor; dusted the mantle, after removing an armful of "trash;" went at the wooden chairs, that had once been painted a gorgeous yellow with green bars; and cleared a motley accumulation of every thing off of the table, hanging up two or three articles, and tucking the rest into a catch-all closet. A quaint old pitcher, that had lost both spout and handle, was emptied of some faded flowers, and a fresh lot cut,—nothing very choice; but the honeysuckle scented the room, and the coxcombs gave their crimson glow to the top of the pyramid.
"Why, Mrs. Betty," said Joe, "you've made quite a palace out of your end of the shoe, and this miserable little Dot has gone to sleep at last. Shall I put her in the cradle, or drop her down the well?"