Harry's great desire now was to find a way to help Rob. She looked round the vast expanse of untilled acres; neither her hand nor her brain was yet capable of attacking that work. She turned and surveyed the inside of the tent, and the spirit of all her New England ancestors rose up in protest within her. Gazing helplessly at the dishes of half-eaten food, the piles of canned goods, the eggs and butter heaped under the table because there was no other place for them, she saw in her mind her New England home, with its cellars, cupboards, storerooms, and pantries. Of all the housekeeping necessities for which this chaotic tent cried to her, it cried loudest for a pantry. Who could keep house without a pantry?
What, she wondered, had Mrs. Robinson done for a pantry when she had started housekeeping in her one-room "shack"? Harry's thoughts shifted to the ranch house, and the Robinsons' cheerful slapdash way of doing the day's work. She remembered helping Vashti bring in the butter and milk from the side-hill cellar.
A cellar! Laughing, Harry ran down to the garden. She came back with the shovel and grub hoe, and went on to the stream where the bank rose steeply on the other side into the slope of the hill.
At first her enthusiasm made the work seem easy. It was fun to drag the stones from the bank, to tear out roots and bushes, and gradually to see a cave shape itself. Of course it would be only a miniature cave, just large enough to hold a wooden packing box on end; but she could keep there butter and eggs and milk, and perhaps a few dishes.
Before she realized it the sun was low, the pigs were squealing for their supper, and her hands were badly blistered.
Well along in the afternoon of the next day, Harry was still digging bravely at her cellar. It was not enthusiasm now, but determination, that kept her at her task. She stood in the water and chopped doggedly at the roots. Sometimes she stopped to wipe her hot face on her sleeve, or to give her hair another twist.
"About a dozen shovelfuls," she said suddenly aloud, "and it will be finished."
"What'll be finished?"
"Oh!" With a cry Harry whirled round and faced Rob, who stood on the opposite bank grinning with amusement at the muddy, disheveled young person before him.
"Rob! You mean thing! How you scared me! When did you come? I didn't hear you."