"Mehitable, the short-cake is done. Will you speak to Mr. Windsor?" called Dora from within; and Kitty entered, saying,—
"How nice the tea-table looks!-just like home, Dora; the old India china and all."
"It is home, Kit-cat. Here is Karl, and here is little Sunshine. Come, friends, and let us sit down to our first meal in the new house," said Dora: and Kitty, subduing a little feeling of fallen dignity, seated herself at the side of the table; leaving the head for Dora, who colored a little, but took it quietly.
CHAPTER XXIX.
LIFE AT OUTPOST.
AND now began for each member of the family at Outpost a new and active life.
Kitty, who, young as she was, had already achieved reputation as a notable housekeeper, found quite enough to attend to in domestic matters, and, with Mehitable's help and counsel, soon had all the interests and nearly all the comforts of New-England farm-life established in her Western home. Even the marigolds her mother had always raised as a flavoring to broths; and the catnip, motherwort, peppermint, and tansy, grown and dried as sovereign remedies in case of illness; and the parsley, sage, and marjoram, to be used in various branches of cookery,—flourished in their garden-bed under Kitty's fostering care; while poor Silas Ross was fairly worried, in spite of himself, into digging and roofing an ice-cellar in the intervals of his more important duties.
"Now we'll see, another summer, if we can't have some butter that's like butter, and not like soft-soap," remarked Kitty complacently, when the unhappy Silas announced his task complete.
"And now I hope I can sleep in my bed o' nights without hearing
'Ice-house, ice-house!' till I'm sick o' the sound of ice," muttered
Silas, walking away.
It is not to be averred, however, that all this thrift was established without much commotion or many stormy scenes; and, not unfrequently, Mehitable Ross announced to her husband that "she wouldn't stan' it nohow, to be nosed round this way by a gal not so old as herself!" And Kitty "declared to gracious" that she "never saw such a topping piece as that Hitty Ross since she was born;" and, if "folks undertook to work for other folks, they ought to be willing to do the way they were told;" and she'd "rather do the whole alone than keep round after that contrary creature, seeing that she didn't get the upper-hands as soon as her back was turned!"