XII
THE little room was shining-clean. The window shone, the stove shone, and the boards of the floor were sand-white. Uncle William, standing in the door, looked at them cautiously. Then he looked down at his feet and wiped them on a piece of sacking spread on the step. “Clean enough to eat off of,” he said, stepping carefully on to the white floor.
The girl at the sink nodded, the little curls bobbing about her face. “I’ve been scrubbing,” she said.
“I should say you had!”—He stepped forward gingerly. “You’ve done a lot to it.”—He was looking about vaguely, as if to find a place to put his feet down.
The girl’s look relaxed subtly. “I thought you ’d like to have it clean—I wanted to do it the way you like?” She was looking at him a little wistfully—“You do like it, don’t you?”
“It’s just right, Celia—I shouldn’t know anybody ’d lived in it—ever. You ain’t seen Juno anywheres round, have you!”
A subdued look flitted in the girl’s face. “She went off when I began to beat the lounge. I saw her flying over the rocks—I had to beat it hard, you know?”
“‘Twas kind o’ dusty, wa ’n’t it?” said Uncle William, looking at it affectionately. “I’ve been meaning to do it myself—but when I was thinkin’ and settin’ on it, I couldn’t do it and when I wa ’n’t settin’ on it, I wa ’n’t thinkin’ about it.” He moved toward the sink.
“I’ve put your washing-duds outside,” said Celia, “your wash-basin and towel and soap and things—out by the door, you know.” She motioned him off.
Uncle William stopped and looked at her. “That’s the way Harr’et has ’em,” he said. “How ’d you come to think of that, Celia?”