"No, but I have so many wonderful things."
"Which you will have all summer to enjoy."
"I am eager to make the acquaintance of the wizard, and I am sure he gets up very early, if he goes to bed at all. Very well, I'll go in. Good-night, Mr. Williams," she called to a tall figure lurking in the shadow of the big barn.
CHAPTER III
A HELPER
Although Miss Elliott fretted over the delay and was impatient to get into her cottage it was not ready until after the middle of June, and then it was a matter of hard work to make it habitable, for there were a thousand and one things to be done, for which no adequate help could be hired and which had to wait the convenience of some volunteer service. Fortunately aunt and niece were comfortably housed at Cap'n Ben's, and could bend all their energies to the business of getting their own dwelling in order. There were frequent trips to Portland shops for such odds and ends as had not been sent with the household goods, and there were many demands upon Ira Baldwin's stock of nails, tacks and such like things, so that his wares fell short of supplying the demand, and many times Miss Elliott was in despair at being unable to get the simple things she required.
She came in one day and threw herself into a rocking-chair, tired out by her struggles with the impossible. "Hereafter I am going to be a fool," she announced. "Fools get so much more done for them than smart people. There is that silly widow who has Hilltop; she can't do a blessed thing for herself, and is always appealing to this one and that in the most languishing way; the consequence is people are so sorry for her helplessness that they drop everything and run when she gets into difficulties. As for me, I might tramp the island over, and no one would budge to 'accommodate' me. I am sick of being 'accommodated.' I want to get hold of some one who wants to work for reasonable wages, and can honestly earn them."
"Poor auntie!" said Gwen sympathetically. "You're all tired out, and I don't wonder. What is the special grievance this time, or are you only growling on general principles?"
"I wanted some one to put up the window shades, and I have traipsed the place over. Each person I questioned told me he couldn't do it but maybe so-and-so would accommodate me, till finally I got desperate, went to the cottage and put up some of the shades myself. It was the most nerve-racking work to make them fit, for a sixteenth of an inch more or less makes such a difference. There are times," she added after a pause, "when I could almost declare profanity to be a necessity."