WINNIE'S VOLUNTEERS
OR the first few days after Miss Wright's arrival it seemed that the proverb, "Many hands make light work" was to be the household motto. Winnie was fairly swamped with offers of help and "Miss Trudy" as she had asked Winnie to call her, and the three girls vied with each other as to which should be the most industrious.
"For I want to be useful, Winnie," said Aunt Trudy, a winning sincerity in her kind voice. "Only tell me what to do, because I don't want to interfere with your daily schedule."
"And Sarah and I will make the beds and dust," promised Rosemary, looking up from copying music.
"I'll run all your errands," chirped Shirley and was promptly rewarded with a hug.
Winnie was a shrewd and practical general, as her answers proved. A less experienced person would have made a vague reply, put off the offers with a promise to "let you know when I need you" or politely told them "not to bother." Not so Winnie.
"Well, I'll tell you, Miss Trudy," she said capably, "I don't mind saying if you'll plan the meals, you'll be taking a load off my shoulders. I can cook and I can serve and I can keep things hot when the doctor is late as he'll be many a time; but unless I can have the three meals a day printed right out and hung on my kitchen door, I'm lost-like. It drives me wild to have to figure out what we should eat, when it's nothing at all, to my way of thinking, to cook it."
"I'll be glad to plan the menus," Aunt Trudy assured her. "Home I write out the meals for the whole week every Saturday morning; I'll do that for you without fail, Winnie."
"Thank you ma'am," Winnie replied. "Now Rosemary, if you want to help, you answer the telephone. I can't abide to be called away from my baking and sweeping to tell folks where the doctor is, or why he isn't here. I don't always get messages straight, so you take 'em and when you're not home, let Sarah do it."