"I can take most of the burden off you now. You know I learned a good deal about illness when I was with Doctor Faraday."
"Yes, you'll be a comfort, I know, but you're going back again as soon as your father begins to mend, ain't you?"
Dorinda shook her head with a smile, which, she told herself, looked braver than it felt. "No, I'm not going back. I'd sooner stay here and try to make something out of the farm. A thousand acres of land ought not to be allowed to run to broomsedge like an old field."
"Heaven knows we've tried, daughter. Nobody ever worked harder than your father, and whatever came of it?"
"Poor Pa. I know, but he came after the war when there wasn't any money or any labourers."
She told of the money Doctor Faraday would lend her, and of the hotel in Washington which would take all the butter she could make. "But it must be as good as the best," she explained, with a laugh. "I'm going over to Green Acres to buy seven Jersey cows. Seven is a lucky number for me, so I am going to start with it."
"You'll have to have some help, then."
"Not at first. Of course I'll need a boy for the barnyard, but I am going to do the milking and all the work of the dairy myself. You can help me with the skimming until we get a separator, and when Fluvanna isn't waiting on Pa, she can lend a hand at the churning."
Mrs. Oakley shook her head drearily. "You haven't tried it, Dorinda."
"I know I haven't, but I'm going to. I learned a lot in the hospital, and the chief thing was that it is slighting that has ruined us, white and black alike, in the South. Hasn't Fluvanna got a brother Nimrod that I could hire?" she asked more definitely.