“You drop pretty easy,” answered ma. But she was not scolding. Ma didn’t waste much time in scolding. There was always a laugh behind her words when she said a thing like that. Jim felt a little cast down. And he wondered if the new girl would think they had to work like that all the time. He looked at her to see how she was taking it, and he found her sweeping with all of her might. True, his mother had to show her how to hold the broom in the right way, and how long to take her strokes, but she seemed to think it was fine to be able to sweep out, and it came over Jim that up to now she probably hadn’t had a house to sweep, and no doubt she liked it.
But all the work seemed worth while when, at last, they sat down at the table together. Ma had chopped up some salt pork in beaten eggs, and had baked some potatoes in the ashes, and made biscuit and a custard pie. And pa had brought in some fresh radishes and mountain honey; so there was a real feast for them.
“This is lots better than a cave,” Azalea said shyly. “It’s lots better than the road too.” She was looking very odd in a dress of ma’s, which was worlds too wide for her, and which they had tied in with an old blue ribbon. Her pretty, birdlike little head came up out of all this cotton stuff like the head of a frightened chicken out of its ruffled feathers.
“We’ve got to get right down to the store, Azalea,” said ma briskly, “and buy some stuff to sew up for you. I can’t endure to have you looking that a-way.”
“Why, ma, couldn’t Molly’s clothes be fixed up to fit Azalea? There might be some changing to do, but you’re so handy you could manage that.”
“I ain’t got a stitch of Molly’s clothes left,” said ma rather sharply. “What do you think I’d be doing? Letting them there good things lie idle when they was needed by others? Molly wouldn’t have liked me to do a thing like that, would she? I gave them all away.”
“Well, they would have come in handy now, ma. Sometimes I think you’re too impulsive. You just go and do whatever comes into your head to do right off quick.”
“So I do, Thomas; so I do. Soon as I laid eyes on you I knew you was the man I wanted to live with for the rest of my natural life, and when you asked me to marry you it didn’t take me a quarter of a second to say yes. Soon as I saw Jimmy there, I knew he was the baby for me. Of course he really was mine, and I’d ’a’ had to put up with him even if I hadn’t liked the kind he was; but it turned out he was the kind to suit me. It was just the same with Azalea there. The minute I laid eyes on her, I yearned over her, and I can tell just as well as if it was proved to me, that she’s going to be a comfort to all of us. Yes, I’m that way, Thomas, mighty impulsive and quick-acting. Now, I’ve just made up my mind that to-morrow we’ll all go down to Lee together and get what we want for Azalea and show the folks what a united family we be.”
“You don’t want to go flaunting Azalea in the faces of folks, do you, ma?” pa protested.
“Well, I don’t know as I’d use the word ‘flaunting,’ pa, if I was in your place. The folks will be just crazy to see what she’s like, and after the stand they took, hustling them show people out of the way and all, and maybe saving your life by doing it, I think the least we can do is to let them see that the girl was worth all the trouble they took.”