A table with a wooden tub and dishes stacked nearby caught Chris's eye. Buckets of water stood beneath the table, and presently Becky Boozer took off a small pot of steaming water from a hook above the fire, poured it in the tub, and dipped cold water from one of the buckets into it.
What a system! Chris thought as he watched Becky busy with her dishes, thinking of the neat white kitchen he knew at home.
Aloud he said: "If you had a little wooden trough that led from that tub out through the window there, you could pull out a bung when you were ready and the water would run outdoors. It would save you carrying that great tub about, when you are in a hurry."
Becky Boozer rested her soapy hands on the edge of the tub and looked at him admiringly over her shoulder.
"I would never have thought it," she said, "by the look of you. Never in this world. You have brains, young lad, that's what you have. A better idea than that I never heard! Indeed, it is just what I have been a-needin' since years, and that simple I might have thought it out myself! I shall set Master Cilley to work on it when he comes. He's right handy with tools, is Ned Cilley."
At this moment a short knock sounded on the back door, and an instant change came over Becky Boozer. It was impossible to imagine that anyone as ponderous as Becky could be coy, but at the sound of the knock, this is what she became. Wiping her hands hastily on one of many petticoats, she pushed and pulled at her hat (which remained immovable), straightened her fichu, and smoothing her dress, she minced her huge bulk to the door with a welcoming smile.
A little man scarcely higher than Becky's barrel waist, with a rolling sea gait and twinkling blue eyes, bounced into the room and strained up on tiptoe toward Miss Boozer's blushing cheek. Chris, behind the opened door, had not yet been perceived.
"Come now, Becky me love!" shouted Cilley the sailor in a good-humored roar, "How can I start the day right 'thout a kiss from my Boozer?"
Becky blushed and simpered and cast down her eyes. "Get along with you, Cilley! What a way to behave," she admonished, delighted and abashed. "See—there's company here."
She pushed her suitor off with an elephantine shove and gestured to Chris.