When I awoke the next morning, I heard a church clock striking five. I rose and made my simple toilet in less time than I could have done it even a year later. I went down into the kitchen, which was the room Mrs. Greenough occupied most of the time, and made a fire in the stove. I had done everything I could find to do when the landlady came down.
"You are quite handy about house, Phil," said she, with a cheerful smile.
"I ought to be. I used to keep house at the clearing. I can cook and wash."
"What can you cook?"
"I can boil potatoes, bake or roast them; I can fry and boil bacon, and I can bake bread. We didn't have so many things to work with as you do here."
"Can you make pies and cake?"
"No; we never had those things at the clearing until Mrs. Gracewood came there."
"They were rich folks, you said."
"Yes; they have plenty of money; but it did not do them much good out in the woods. I should like to hear how Mrs. Gracewood is."