“Far’s I’m concerned you can,” said Mr. Tidd, “but you better ask your ma. She sort of looks after such things. I guess she looks after everything; and, Mark, when you ask her see if she knows where my shoes are. I swan I couldn’t find ’em this mornin’ when I came out—couldn’t find hide nor hair of ’em. It does beat all how things get lost.”
Mrs. Tidd was dusting the parlor when we went in, and had a cloth tied around her hair. She was just flying around, poking behind things and into corners and going as fast as if she had to have it all done in two minutes.
“Ma,” Mark says, poking his head through the door, “can I go campin’ with the fellers?”
“No,” says Mrs. Tidd, without turning her head. Then she stopped a second and felt of her hair. “What’s that you say?”
Mark asked her again, and we chipped in and explained.
“Was ever such a boy!” she said to herself. “Here I got all the cleanin’ and dustin’, and bread in the oven. Will you be careful and cover up good at night and not get into any mischief?”
Mark nodded.
“What you going to have to eat?”
I told her we’d bake potatoes and have fish and one thing another.
“You sha’n’t do no sich thing—gain’ without proper food!” And off she flew to the kitchen and got a basket in a jiffy. Into it she put a big chunk of ham, and a loaf of bread and some butter, and a whole pie and half a chocolate cake, and what was left of a pot of baked beans. “There,” says she, “I guess that’ll keep you from starvin’.”