The coming of the spring made a vast difference to the comfort of the little house on the prairie. There seemed so much more room to move now, for the children were out from morning to night, not even coming indoors to eat if they could only get their food given to them out-of-doors. The work of the house could much of it be done outside also. Tom Ellis had fitted up a bench and a table on the veranda, and here the washing of dishes and the washing of clothes, with many other similar activities, could be carried on—which lessened the work in no small degree.
Another horse had been bought to help with the spring ploughing and seeding, and when the corn was all in, Tom bought a side-saddle from a man who had no further use for it, and insisted on Grace going out for rides with him. He would have taken Bertha also, but she was not good at that sort of locomotion, and greatly preferred being left at home to look after the house and the children in the long quiet evenings, while Tom and Grace went for long expeditions among their own crops or those of their widely scattered neighbours. Then, with the cares of the day all done, and the children asleep or at play, Bertha enjoyed herself in her own way, working at the book which was to make her famous, as she fondly hoped, or merely dreaming dreams.
She was sitting so one evening, when the twins and Noll were safe in bed, while Dicky and Molly worked hard at making a flower garden in one corner of the paddock, which they had dug up and were planting with wild columbine, common blue violets, early milk vetch, and silver weed, which she had helped them to dig up and bring home earlier in the evening. It was getting late, but Bertha had not noticed it; indeed, she was oblivious to most things just then, except the very pleasant dreams in which she was indulging, of being able to earn enough money by literature to keep her from the necessity of doing anything else. Her arms ached with breadmaking, washing, and ironing, and all the other activities of the prairie day, where, if one does not do the work with one’s own hands, it has to go undone. Then up sauntered Dicky, his spade over his shoulder, while Molly trailed limply along behind.
“We’re about done, Bertha, put us to bed,” said the small boy, dropping in a heap on the floor, because he was quite too tired to stand up any longer.
“Very well, I will bath Molly while you eat some supper, and then you can bath yourself, because you are a man, or soon will be,” said Bertha, coming out of her dreams with an effort, and thinking how delightful it would be for her when these minor worries such as bathing children and that sort of thing were lifted from her.
“Oh, I had rather go to bed as I am to-night, and I can’t be very dirty, for I had a dreadful big wash yesterday,” sighed Dicky, who had rolled over on to his back, and was surveying the rising moon with a very sleepy gaze.
Bertha laughed. “I wonder what the sheets would be like to-morrow if you went to bed as you are,” she said, as she picked up Molly—that being the quickest way of getting the little girl into the house. “Suppose you get your buttons all undone while you are waiting, and then it won’t take you so long.”
By the time Molly’s bedtime toilet was complete, the little evening prayer said, and the child had trotted off to bed, Dicky was fast asleep on the veranda floor, and Bertha had to undress him and put him into the water before he roused at all; even then he was almost asleep again before she could get him into bed.
“Oh dear, why could he not have kept awake a little longer!” she exclaimed, going back to her dreaming, only to find the spell broken, and that a strange restlessness had taken possession of her which would not let her even sit still.
“I wonder when Grace and Tom are coming home?” she said to herself, as the twilight, grey and mysterious, crept over the prairie. A flock of birds flew shrilling overhead, and then there was silence unbroken and profound.