Lucinda had a good many fears about coming to live with Mrs. March. She had never been a servant; but she wanted to be married to Billy as much as he wanted to be married to her, and she thought if she could earn good wages and lay all the money up, they could be married sooner.
"I shall like them well enough, I dare say," said Lucinda; "but I don't know how I'll stand being ordered round."
"Ordered round!" said Billy, in a scornful tone. "I tell you they ain't the orderin' round kind; they're the reel genuwine fust-class folks; an' genuwine fust-class folks don't never order nobody to do nothing: I tell you I shouldn't stand no orderin' any more'n you would. Mr. March he always sez to me, 'We'd better do so and so,' if there's anything he wants done; 'n' he works 's hard as I do, any day, 'n' Miss March she's jest like him. You'll see how 'twill be. I ain't a mite afeared."
After the paint was dry, they nailed up the vines; and Billy added to them some pine boughs with great clusters of green cones on them which were beautiful. Then they unpacked the boxes of furniture; and Billy showed Lucinda how to put up the chintz curtains in the sitting-room, and the white ones in the bedrooms, and, when it was all done, it looked so pretty that Billy could not help saying:—
"Don't you wish it was our house, Luce?" He always called her Luce for short. "Can't take time for no three-storied names 'n this country," said Billy; "two's too many."
Lucinda blushed a little, and said:—
"We can make ours just as pretty some day, Billy."
"That's so, Luce," said Billy: "you'll get lots o' idees out o' Miss March. She's what I call a reel home-y woman. I hain't never seen nobody I've took to so since I left hum."
When everything was ready, the house and the barns and sheds all in order, and the whole enclosure raked over and made as tidy as possible, Billy said:—
"Now, we'll jest keep 'em waitn' one more day. You make up a lot o' your best bread, and churn some butter; 'n' I'll go over to Pine's and pick two or three gallons o' raspberries. They're just ripe to pick now, 'n' this is the last chance I'll get. Then you 'n' Miss March can preserve 'em. I know she wants some. I heard her say so when we was a comin' up Hardscrabble Canyon."