itchen, where she was suddenly
confronted by Wang Kum, the shoe-button-eyed Chinaman who had been in
the service of Mrs. Everett for months before her death. In their first
interview, Mrs. Pennypoker was ignominiously routed and driven from the
field, for Wang Kum ignored her stony gaze, and cheerfully and volubly
chattered to her in a torrent of Pidgin-English which left her no
opportunity for reply; so she withdrew, resolving that her first reform
should be the removal of Wang from office. However, on this question Mr.
Everett was determined; Wang Kum had been their faithful servant, and
knew the ways of their household; moreover, he had been devoted to Mrs.
Everett during her last illness, and in that kitchen Wang Kum should
stay. Defeated in this main object, Mrs. Pennypoker next devoted herself
to the task of civilization, and waged daily warfare with the Chinaman,
in her endeavors to convert him to American ways and dress, and
Calvinistic theology.

"Old lady heap talkee; Wang Kum no care," he used to confide to Louise
Everett, after an unusually long and tedious fray. "Wang min' Miss Lou;
old lady too flesh."

Four years before this time, when the Blue Creek copper mine was opened
and the building of the great smelter had brought to the creek the first
settlers of the mining camp, Mr. Everett had been made superintendent of
the mine, and had brought his family out to be with him. Of his three
children, Louise was now in the first flush of young womanhood, a
pretty, graceful blonde of twenty, who had been educated in an Eastern
school until the sudden death of her mother had called her home to take
charge of the housekeeping, before Mrs. Pennypoker appeared upon the
scene, to relieve her of the care, and act as matron to watch over her
young cousin with an eagle eye. For the past few years, Louise had been
away from home so much of the time that the loss of her mother fell
less heavily upon her than on her young brothers, who had been the
constant companions of the bright, pretty little woman who had devoted
her life to theirs.

Mrs. Pennypoker was scarcely the person to make good their loss; and Ned
and Grant would have had a lonely life, had it not been for motherly
Mrs. Burnam, whose heart was large enough to take in all the children
with whom she came in contact. The Everetts were likable boys, too, just
the companions she would have chosen for Howard and Allie: gay and
mischievous, as every healthy boy sho