“Well, Kitty, what can I do?”
“Do—I guess you’d better lift off that pot pretty quick, Miss Forbes, or the ’taters will be all biled to smash!”
Lift off that pot—that great, heavy iron pot! She! Anna! whose delicate hands had never scarcely felt a feather’s weight! Anna was confounded.
“I wish you would do it for me,” she said.
“Well, I guess I aint going to crock my hands when I’m starching the doctor’s shirts!” quoth Kitty, with a toss of her head.
After many awkward attempts, poor Anna at length succeeded in tilting the huge pot from off the hook which held it suspended over the crackling flames, though not without imminent danger of scalding her pretty feet.
“Sakes alive, what a fuss!” muttered the girl, “and a nice grease spot, too, for me to scour up!”
The mildness and patience of Anna, however, at length overcame the stubbornness of Kitty—so true it is that the most obstinate natures will yield to kindness and gentleness. Wiping her sinewy arms upon her apron, which she then took off and threw into a corner, she came forward, evidently rather ashamed of herself, to the assistance of the perplexed young housekeeper.
“I guess, Miss Forbes, if you’ll just set the table in there, before he comes, I’ll do the steak, and peel the ’taters; maybe you aint so much used to this sort of work.”
Anna, gladly yielding up her place, proceeded to prepare the little dining table, which she managed with more tact, yet keeping a watchful, inquiring eye upon the movements of Kitty, that she might be more au fait to business another time. Still the high-bred beauty, as she continued her employment, missed many things which she had always considered indispensable—inquired for silver forks—napkins—and even puzzled poor Kitty’s brain by demanding where the finger-glasses were kept.