Mis’ Cassie smiled so that she showed the vacant places between her long pointed teeth.
“It’s taking all that thar medicine that’s pearted me up so I can do it,” she said triumphantly. Miss Zillah said no more in the way of warning, but straightway came to terms with Mis’ Cassie. Azalea and Carin, looking from the windows, did not really think this the best site in the world for a schoolhouse.
“I don’t know how it will be with the pupils,” Azalea said, “but I’m afraid the teachers won’t do a thing but look out of the window. Honestly, I’ve never seen such views, and you know, Carin, that first and last I’ve seen something of the mountains.”
“Oh, how I can paint,” Carin sighed happily. “I shall get up early mornings and work before school. Oh, Azalea, anyone could learn to paint up here—a person couldn’t keep from painting.”
“I could,” Azalea had to admit. “You know, Carin, if you were a wicked queen and threatened to cut my head off if I didn’t give you the picture of a cow, I’d send for my friends and relatives and bid them a tearful good-bye, for I’d know my last day had come.”
“Now we’ll go to the house, my dears,” said Miss Zillah. “If that only proves to be anything like as comfortable as the schoolhouse, we shall be fortunate indeed.”
They passed through a grove of maples, and followed a trail once well worn, that led them by way of a little bridge over a cheerfully noisy mountain stream to a little headland from which the mountain shelved abruptly. Here, among towering white pines, and seeming to be almost a part of the earth itself, stood a little cabin of logs. They were square hewn, but so weathered that their color was like that of the tree trunks, and the slope of the roof was as graceful as the sweeping branches of the great pines. The windows were closed with board shutters, and the door—well-made and paneled—was double-locked. Mis’ Cassie, however, was soon able to admit her guests, and they stood for the first time within the little room which was to live, forever after, in the minds of all of them, as a place of peace.
It was a room of good size, divided after a fashion by a huge “rock” chimney with a fireplace on each side of it—an interesting fact which it did not take the delighted girls long to discover. A few simple pieces of furniture stood about the room—some easy chairs, a settee, a table and a clock. Behind the chimney was the bedroom. Here stood two beds, a chest of drawers, some straight-backed chairs, and a wide bench with pail, pitcher, and washbasin. There was nothing more. Nothing more was needed.
“But the kitchen,” said Miss Zillah, turning her gaze reproachfully upon Mis’ Cassie.
“Oh, yes,” said Mis’ Cassie, “sure enough—the kitchen.” She led the way through a door they had not noticed, and there in a lean-to, with a spring bubbling in a “rock house” fairly by the door, was the little work room, with its small cooking stove and its shelves of dishes.