“I am very glad you enjoyed yourself,” said Mrs. Force.
“You bet! And now look into this closet, and see the dried yerbs and roots and berries I have got here. See now!”
“A great store, indeed.”
“All gathered by my own hands, and with the dew on ’em, before the sun was up, and shaken and dried in the shade by me. And now look here at this shelf full of boxes of honey. I ’tended to it all myself. I hived eleven swarms of bees since you have been gone. And I did want to complete the dozen so much. But, Lord! it is always so. Just because I wanted to, they got away while I was at church one Sunday morning. You can’t beat any religion into bees. They didn’t mind breaking the Sabbath no more than a wild Indian. But I’ll more than make up that dozen next season, you bet.”
“You have done admirably well to have saved so many.”
“Think so? Well, now come out into the meat house, and see the barrels of salt pork and beef, all corned by my own hands, and the sugar-cured hams and the smoked tongues. Oh, I tell you!”
Mrs. Force followed her manager out of a back door into a paved yard and across it, to a small detached building of stone, set apart for the purpose to which the able housekeeper had put it.
We cannot follow the two women through all the round of inspection, into the smoke houses, meat houses, poultry yards, etc., but will only add that the lady was gratified by all she saw, and was liberal in commendation of her deputy.
“Now come into the house, and we’ll go upstairs into the linen room, and then up into the garret to look at the carpet and woolen curtains, and blankets and things, laid up in lavender for the summer, and if you find a hole unmended in anything whatsoever, or a patch put on crooked, jest you let me know it, will you, and I’ll go right straight off and consult that same mad doctor I mentioned before, to see if anything’s the matter with my headpiece.”
When the inspection of the house was entirely over Mrs. Force was very earnest in her expressions of satisfaction and gratitude to the faithful and capable manager.