"Well, look at it. Not a thing happened to hurt, did it? Lord, Sally Jane, men are the easiest things in the world to handle when you know how."
"You don't give them half enough credit," said Sally Jane dryly. "Scratch a man and you'll catch a savage every time. Beasts!"
"Rats!" remarked Hazel, and gave her head a toss and turned her attention to practical things. "Look at this clean floor! Look at the dirt they tracked in! Oh, the devil! I could swear!"
She fetched a fresh bucket of water and began to scrub the floor anew.
"I'm going," announced Sally Jane. "Once more, Hazel, won't you change your mind and visit with us for a while?"
Hazel shook her head. "I only wish I felt able to. But you don't have to go yet. Stay to supper, do. Let the male parent get his own supper for a change. It won't hurt him. And there'll be a fine old moon to-night about eight."
"I promised Dad French bread for to-night, or I would. I can't disappoint him. So long. Ride over first chance you get."
When Sally Jane was gone, Hazel hurried to finish the scrubbing of the floor. When she had wrung out the last mop rag and hung it to dry behind the stove, she fed the chickens and horses, took the ax and bucksaw, went out to the woodpile and sawed and split a man's size jag of stove wood and kindling.
In the red glory of the sunset she returned to the house with her arms piled high with wood. She made sufficient trips to fill the woodbox, then started a fire in the stove, put on the coffeepot and ground up enough coffee for four cupfuls. She liked coffee, did Hazel Walton.
Bacon and potatoes were sputtering in their respective pans on the stove before it was so dark that she was forced to light the lamp.