“Can you do it?”
“Yes; I’ve helped my father mend the thatch a hundred times.”
“Some time let’s make a little house, just as they do there, and you make a straw roof.”
“Well, so we will. They make houses there mostly of stone, and we can get plenty of stones, on the island. They make bee-hives there of straw.”
At dinner-time Captain Rhines said, “Wife, you must tell Ben whether you will let him have one of the girls.”
“Indeed, if you are going on there to work, I’ve a good mind to go, too; I ought to know how to keep house by this time.”
“You never said a better thing, wife; you know how much Ben thinks of his mother; he would be in ‘kingdom come.’”
“Well, you are going away this winter, and if I thought the girls could get along—”
“Get along, mother! we’ll get along first rate,” was the unanimous response.
“But then there’s the soap; I was thinking of making soap this week.”