were often
cold,--so cold that comfortables and blankets seemed all too few, and
Clover roused with a shiver to think that presently it would be her duty
to get up and start the fires so that Phil might find a warm house when he
came downstairs. Then, before she knew it, fires would seem oppressive;
first one window and then another would be thrown up, and Phil would be
sitting on the piazza in the balmy sunshine as comfortable as on a June
morning at home. It was a wonderful climate; and as Clover wrote her
father, the winter was better even than the summer, and was certainly
doing Phil more good. He was able to spend hours every day in the open
air, walking, or riding Dr. Hope's horse, and improved steadily. Clover
felt very happy about him.

This early rising and fire-making were the hardest things she had to
encounter, though all the housekeeping proved more onerous than, in her
inexperience, she had expected it to be. After the first week or two,
however, she managed very well, and gradually learned the little
labor-saving ways which can only be learned by actual experiment. Getting
breakfast and tea she enjoyed, for they could be chiefly managed by the
use of the chafing-dish. Dinners were more difficult, till she hit on the
happy idea of having Mrs. Kenny roast a big piece of beef or mutton, or a
pair of fowls every Monday. These _pieces de resistance_ in their
different stages of hot, cold, and warmed over, carried them well along
through the week, and, supplemented with an occasional chop or steak,
served very well. Fairly good soups could be bought in tins, which needed
only to be seasoned and heated for use on table. Oysters were easily
procurable there, as everywhere in the West; good brown-bread and rolls
came from the bakery; and Clover developed a hitherto dormant talent for
cookery and the making of Graham gems, corn-dodgers, hoe-cakes baked on a
barrel head before the parlor fire, and wonderful little flaky biscuits
raised all in a minute with Royal Baking Powder.

She also became expert in that other fine art of condensing work, and
making it move in easy grooves. Her tea things she washed with her
breakfast things, just setting the cups and plates in the sink for the
night, pouring a dipper full of boiling water over them. There was no
silver to care for, no delicate glass or valuable china; the very
simplicity of apparatus made the house an easy one to keep. Clover was
kept busy, for simplify as yo