“They didn’t show much spirit, did they?” asked pa in rather a disappointed voice.
“Not much. But if they’d showed more you might have been punctured full of holes by this time. I reckon it’s better for your health the way it is.”
“Like as not; like as not,” said pa. “You ’light, Dick, and spend the night. Me and Jim’s bunking together, so you can sleep in Jim’s bed.”
“I reckon you-all are wanting ma,” said Dick. And this time pa showed no resentment.
“I reckon we be,” he admitted.
So, the next day, about noon, down the steep trail walked Pa McBirney with a forked stick in his hand. Behind him came ma, who had had enough of “sitting” and was ready to go to work again. After her came Azalea, whose feet seemed fairly to touch the rocks and bound off again, and whose little head turned this way and that with a birdlike way of trying to see and hear all that there was to be seen and heard. Last of all came Jim, his arms full of laurel blossoms.
“Well,” said ma, looking in at the door of the cabin, “If this here place don’t look like a hurricane’d struck it! Azalea, you and me’ll have to straighten things up. We can change our dresses and freshen up afterward.”
“Being a girl’s hard luck,” thought Jim. “Me and pa can sit on the front porch I reckon, while the women folks tidy.” But he was mistaken.
“Here you, Jim,” called his mother in her most businesslike tones, “bring up fresh water from the spring. Pa, I’d like some more wood, please. Azalea, you can be sweeping out. I’ll get over hot water for the dishes. I thought you promised me, pa, that you’d keep the dishes washed!”
“Didn’t I do it then?” said pa despairingly. “I washed and washed and Jim wiped and wiped till we about dropped.”