"Don't take no lip from nobody, Judy. You've allus got a home to come back to," he advised, as he turned the mules' heads toward home.
Judith swung briskly up the flat stone walk, through the chinks of which grass was growing, then around by the little side path to the kitchen door. Here she found Cissy rolling pie crust on a floury baking board. She and Cissy were old acquaintances. Judith sat down by the table and they chatted together till Aunt Eppie came in.
Cissy was a middle-aged woman of spare figure, dull eyes, neatly combed hair and blurred, nondescript features. There was nothing about her to notice or remember. Some explanation for this lack of personality might be found in the fact that she had been working for the Pettits since she was nineteen years old. During that time she had never had as much as a mild flirtation with any man, nor had she ever been further from the Pettits' kitchen than Sadieville. For over twenty years the life of Aunt Eppie's household had been her life. She had gone there a timid young orphan girl; and in the unbroken routine of these twenty years had become a dull middle aged drudge. Each week she had received her dollar, and she was reported to have money "loaned out." Judith looked at her and thought of this report and envied Cissy. Her young mind perceived nothing of tragedy in Cissy's long years of celibacy spent in the routine of a stranger's kitchen. The only thought that passed through her head as she sat there in her radiant youth was: "My, if I only had all that money she's saved, wouldn't I have me nice clothes!"
Aunt Eppie bustled into the kitchen and was pleased to find Judith.
She was a tall, large-featured, bony woman and had a protruding chin and a wrinkled, thin-lipped mouth that shut together with the strong, swift motion of a snapping turtle. The click of her false teeth lent realism to this motion and caused her to strike terror into the hearts of small children toward whom she tried to be affable.
"Well, naow, that's a good gal to come like you said you would," she condescended. "So often these hired hands promises to come an' that's the last you see of 'em. Cissy, you take her up to your room an' show her where to put her things. She might as well sleep with you an' save dirtyin' up two pairs o' sheets, let alone the wear an' tear on 'em. An' after that she can he'p you git the apples ready fer the pies an' shell the peas and scrape the taters fer dinner. An' mind you, scrape an' not peel 'em, Judy, 'cause they're jes new out o' the ground. It's a sin to waste the best o' sech taters by peelin' 'em."
With the adaptability of youth Judith drifted easily enough into the life of the Pettit family. She left most of the indoor work to the patient Cissy and busied herself with the cows, the chickens, the turkeys and the garden, as she had done at home. She and Cissy did most of the work. Aunt Eppie believed herself to be still a hard worker, but in reality she spent most of her time bustling from one place to another bossing the girls, Uncle Ezra, and the farm hands. She was always nosing out all sorts of small, neglected matters and calling them to the attention of the neglecter.
"Ezry, don't you fergit to fix that garden fence this mornin'," she would shout into Uncle Ezra's ear at breakfast. "The hens is a-gittin' in an' a-eatin' into the hearts of all my beets."
"An' Judy, don't fail to coop up all the settin' hens when you gather up the eggs. I don't want to raise no more chicks this year. What with the price of eggs so low it don't hardly pay to feed hens." She sighed heavily. Any mention of money loss, real or fancied, always brought this sigh to her lips.
When she was not busy directing the other members of the household, she read the "Country Gentleman," whose rosy tales of phenomenal success on the farm excited her interest and envy, made log cabin blocks for bedquilts or cut and sewed carpet rags. She already had carpets enough to keep the whole house thoroughly padded for at least a quarter century, but she could not bear to see the rags go to waste.