“Oh, Katy! What have you been doing all morning?”
“Well, mum, I scroobed my kitchen, and—and——”
“And I did a little head work in the liberry, that is, I——”
“Oh, Katy, did you clean the living room, clean it well?”
“Well, mum, yez can wait and see if it schoots yez,” and Katy beat a hasty retreat to warn the cleaners that the mistress was about to descend.
The room presented a very different appearance to what it had before the girls rolled up their sleeves. The slanting afternoon sun would seek out no dusty corners now; everything was spick and span. The books no longer had to be beaten and blown before you dared open them, and they stood in neat and orderly rows; the walls held no decorations in the shape of Irishman’s curtains now; the picture glass shone, as did the window panes; the rugs were out in the back yard sunning after a vigorous beating and brushing from Thelma, whom Billie called “the powerful Katrinka.”
The floor, being the one part of the room that Katy had put some licks on, did not need anything more serious than a dusting after everything else was done.
“Katy, you might bring in the rugs now as we have done everything else,” suggested Billie. Katy went out into the back yard and bundled up the rugs. Molly, seeing her from an upper window, smiled her approval.
“I believe she is going to do very well,” she said to herself. “She seems to be trying, and she is so fond of Mildred.”