" She
didn't usually "work out," but was impelled to this task as much through
curiosity to see the new furniture as from desire to secure the wages.
At once the crowd invaded the living room, and after a glance around
Ethel ordered every bit of the furniture, with the exception of two
antique but comfortable horse-hair sofas, carried away to the barn and
stored in the loft. It did not take long to clear the big room, and then
the Widow Clark swept out and began to scrub the floor and woodwork,
while school-teacher took her men into the right wing and made another
clearing of its traps.
This room interested the girl very much. In it Joe was born and frail
Mrs. Wegg and her silent husband had both passed away. It had two broad
French windows with sash doors opening on to a little porch of its own
which was covered thickly with honeysuckle vines. A cupboard was built
into a niche of the thick cobble-stone wall, but it was locked and the
key was missing.
Upstairs the girl had the rubbish removed for the first time in a
generation. The corded bedstead in the north room was sent to join its
fellows in the barn loft, and Ned Long swept everything clean in
readiness for the scrubbers.
Then, while Widow Clark and Nora cleaned industriously--for the blind
woman insisted on helping and did almost as much work as her
companion--the "men folks" proceeded to the barn and under the
school-teacher's directions uncrated the new furniture and opened the
bales of rugs and matting.
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