"I know how to wash dishes, Aunt Kate." Mary Rose was in a fever to begin. "I washed them for Lena and no one could be more particular than she was. We got our hot water out of a kettle instead of a pipe." She watched with interest the water run steaming from the faucet. "Wouldn't it be grand if Mrs. Bracken had a little girl so we could wash dishes together? I don't mind doing them all by myself a bit, Aunt Kate. I'm glad to do it. I know there's nothing so splendid as a girl being useful. Daddy told me that and Mr. Mann, the minister, and Gladys Evans' grandmother and all the other grown-uppers. But I think the grandest part is to earn George Washington's board. It's splendid to have someone besides yourself to work for," she added with a very adult air.
She sang to herself as she worked, after Aunt Kate had left her.
"Where have you been, Billie boy, Billie boy?
Where have you been, charming Billie?
I've been to see my wife, she's the treasure of my life,
She's a young thing and can't leave her mother."
It was Lena's favorite song and it had many verses. Mary Rose sang them all with gusto.
"If I didn't make a noise I'd be scared of the quiet," she thought. "I never was in a home that was so little like a home. It's because there isn't anything alive in it. There isn't even a Lady Washington geranium." She was astonished that there wasn't, for in Mifflin pots of geraniums and other plants were always to be seen in sunny windows. "It gives you a hollow feeling—not empty for bread and butter but for people," she decided.
Mary Rose had never lived where there were no live things. "Dogs and cats and birds help to make you feel friendly toward all the world. And so do plants. I guess that's true of all the things God made," she thought as she hung up the dish pan on the nail Aunt Kate had pointed out.
She stood in the doorway, looking back at the clean and tidy kitchen with considerable satisfaction. She had done it all herself and it would have pleased even the critical Lena.
A door across the hall opened suddenly and Mary Rose swung around and looked into the curious face of an elderly woman who was almost as broad as she was tall. Her round face wore a scowl and the corners of her mouth turned straight down.
"Good morning," Mary Rose said in the neighborly fashion that was in vogue in Mifflin.
"H-m." The fat lady eyed her over gold spectacles. "Can't Mrs. Bracken get a full-grown girl to do her work? I thought she was against child labor."