She brushed up the crumbs, aired the room, and put it in order. She arranged the doilies on the table, one under each plate, with a round of felt under that, laid the silver, put on her mother's tray with the cups and saucers, set the tumblers and napkins around, and the plates with the finger-bowls and fruit-knives, and the bread and butter plates with the spreaders. She filled the salts freshly, and last of all put on a vase of flowers. Then she took the cereal dishes, platter, and plates out to heat in the oven.
She found her mother was getting ready the eggs and other things for breakfast, and she need not help, so she carried into the dining-room the butter balls and put them around; filled the finger-bowls and tumblers with cold water and the coffee-cups with hot; arranged the fruit on the sideboard, and put cream into the pitcher on the tray as well as in another pitcher for the cereal. By the time breakfast was ready she had on her white apron and had washed her hands, and when the family came down she was ready to show them all what a well-trained waitress she was.
"Do sit down with us," her father begged. "You have done so much already!" But Margaret felt a little proud that she knew her waiting lesson so well, and said she would rather not. She really enjoyed moving very quietly around the table, bringing in and taking out things, passing everything to the left, and laying down plates at the right, and generally remembering just what she had been taught.
After all had finished she ate her own breakfast, and found she had been up so long and worked so much that it tasted twice as good as usual. When she had finished she put on her gingham apron again and cleared the table. She took up the crumbs carefully and used the carpet-sweeper all over the rug. She scraped and piled the dishes in nice, neat piles, and, drawing the hot water, she washed and wiped them all nicely, and put them away. She swept the kitchen, wiped off the tables, shut up the range and washed out the dish-towels exactly as her grandmother had taught in the lesson she gave on the kitchen. Then she went up-stairs.
Her grandmother, mother, and aunts had been afraid she would get too tired with such a long day's work as she had planned to do, and they had made their own beds, but they left Margaret's room for her for fear she would be disappointed. She closed the windows first, and while the room warmed she made the bathroom neat, washed and wiped out the tub and scrubbed off the wash-stand.
Her room was put in beautiful order, to her closet and shoe-bag, and she even stopped to put a clean cover on the bureau and dust nicely, to show she had not forgotten a single thing. The halls and parlors had to be thoroughly dusted now, but as none of them needed sweeping it did not take very long, and there was still time to go to market. She got out her jacket and hat, took her pencil, account-book, and kitchen pad, and went out to see what was in the refrigerator. Here she had to stop, for Bridget had gone away in such a hurry she had quite forgotten to wash this out and arrange it properly, so on went the gingham apron again, and out came all the things from the box. She gave it a good scrubbing with warm water and borax, and put in a fresh dish of charcoal before she put back the ice and dishes of food. Then she got her pad again, and with her mother's help, planned the meals and wrote down what she must buy.
The walk to the grocery and meat market was pleasant, and Margaret quite enjoyed ordering the vegetables, chops, fruit, and fish, which were needed, and watched to see if she was getting fresh things and good measure, and wrote down the prices as though she had been an old housekeeper instead of a new one.
When she got back again she found there was an hour until lunch, and she at once wiped off the shelves in the pantry and put fresh papers on them and arranged the tins in a more orderly way than she found them. By the time she had finished her Pretty Aunt came out to help get luncheon, and together they laid the table and got the meal. She put on her waiting-apron again, when it was ready, but this time she sat down with the family because her mother said she must surely be tired.
Her grandmother insisted on helping with the dishes, and watched with pride when afterwards Margaret poured boiling water down the sink after laying a bit of washing-soda over the drain, and scrubbed off all her tables until they shone, and blacked her range until it was like a mirror. "You surely are going to make a wonderful housekeeper!" she said.
Margaret laughed as she took off her apron. "But I just love to do things, grandmother," she replied, as she went up-stairs.