"No," said Holly Belle, "the bread's in the oven, an' there's pork an' cabbage cooking. I've got to get the potatoes peeled right away, or dinner'll be late."
Miss Billy reached for a kitchen apron that hung on a nail. "Well, I'll bathe the babies," she said: "I think that will make them feel better. Then I'll sweep up for you, and help with the dinner."
"You're awful good," said Holly Belle simply. Her eyes looked heavy, and her shoulders had a pathetic droop. "Jinny, if yer through with the dishpan, give it to Miss Billy to wash the twins in, and then go down to the store and fetch a pound of butter."
Miss Billy bathed the babies in a tiny pantry, away from the scorching blast of the cook stove, and clad them in clean, dark calico slips. Ginevra came with the butter, and was despatched with the twins in their carriage to the shady north side of the Lee house. Order slowly evolved from chaos. The kitchen was swept, the pantry put to rights, and Miss Billy, crimson in the face, and with her collar quite wilted, was preparing to set the table.
"Don't you think—Holly Belle," she suggested, "that it might be better to move the table into the other room? It's much cooler in there."
"We never have," answered Holly Belle dubiously. "We've always eat in the kitchen."
"Well, we'll try it this time, anyway,—and if your mother objects we'll not do it again. It's so hot in here, Holly Belle, it's positively dangerous! And as you can't take the stove out, it seems as though you would have to take yourselves out, that's all."
"I've been thinking," she went on, as she went back and forth from the table to the pantry, "that instead of having the children in the neighbourhood spend every Saturday morning with me, as they have been doing, I shall have them come every morning for two hours. That would help you, wouldn't it, Holly Belle? And I can just as well do it through the vacation. You could send the babies before nine, and I'd bathe them and be ready for the rest at nine o'clock.
"This child-garden, Holly Belle, is going to resolve itself into an Improvement Club. Every member who is old enough must pledge himself to one half-hour's service a day in keeping clean his own yard and alley, and the street in front of his house. The weeds must be kept down, the cesspools disinfected, and the garbage disposed of. Then another half hour might be pledged to household duties,—such as washing and wiping dishes, bringing in wood, carrying water, and making beds. They'll all subscribe to the conditions, I know, for the sake of sharing in the pleasures of the child-garden."