“Into the leach, I said. Where else?”
“Oh, I’m up a tree again. I see I don’t even know the A B C of this business. In the old days the leech was a physician. You don’t mean I’m to drown a doctor?”
“This is the leach,” said Kitty, pointing to a large, yellowish, upright wooden cylinder, which rested on some slanting boards, down the surface of which ran a brownish liquid that dripped into a trough.
As Yates stood on a bench with the pail in his hand he saw that the cylinder was filled nearly to the top with sodden wood ashes. He poured in the water, and it sank quickly out of sight.
“So this is part of the soap-making equipment?” he said, stepping down; “I thought the iron kettle over the fire was the whole factory. Tell me about the leach.”
“That is where the hard work of soap making comes in,” said Kitty, stirring the contents of the iron kettle with a long stick. “Keeping the leach supplied with water at first is no fun, for then the ashes are dry. If you put in five more pails of water, I will tell you about it.”
“Right!” cried Yates, pleased to see that the girl’s evident objection to his presence at first was fast disappearing. “Now you’ll understand how energetic I am. I’m a handy man about a place.”
When he had completed his task, she was still stirring the thickening liquid in the caldron, guarding her face from the fire with her big straw hat. Her clustering, tangled fair hair was down about her shoulders; and Yates, as he put the pail in its place, when it had been emptied the fifth time, thought she formed a very pretty picture standing there by the fire, even if she were making soft soap.
“The wicked genii has finished the task set him by the fairy princess. Now for the reward. I want all the particulars about the leach. In the first place, where do you get this huge wooden cylinder that I have, without apparent effect, been pouring water into? Is it manufactured or natural?”
“Both. It is a section of the buttonwood tree.”