it; as 'tis, she stays below and superintends Dan while he does it. If
godliness wants to stay next to cleanliness when she's around it has
to keep on the jump. I always buy shirts two degrees heavier'n I need,
'cause I know she'll have 'em scrubbed thin in a fortni't. When it comes
to _real_ Domestic Science, Caroline, Abbie ain't in the back row of the
primer class, now I tell you."

Miss Baker had planned that her young guest should sit in state, with
folded hands, in the parlor. She seemed to consider that the proper
conduct for a former member of New York's best society. She was shocked
when the girl volunteered to help her about the house.

"Course I sha'n't let you," she said. "The idea--and you company! Got
more help than I know what to do with, as 'tis. 'Lisha was determined
that I should hire a girl to wash dishes and things while you was here.
Nothin' would do but that. So I got Annabel Haven's daughter, Etta G.
There's fourteen in that family, and the land knows 'twas an act of
charity takin' one appetite out of the house. Pay her fifty cents a day,
I do, and she's out in the kitchen makin' believe wash windows. They
don't need washin', but she was lookin' out of 'em most of the time, so
I thought she might as well combine business with pleasure."

But Caroline refused to sit in the parlor and be "company." She insisted
upon helping. Miss Baker protested and declared there was nothing on
earth to be done; but her guest insisted that, if there was not, she
herself must sit. As Abbie would have as soon thought of attending
church without wearing her jet earrings as she would of sitting down
before dinner, she gave in, after a while, and permitted Caroline to
help in arranging the table.

"Why, you do fust-rate!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "You know where
everything ought to go, just as if you'd been settin' table all your
life. And you ain't, because 'Lisha wrote you used to keep hired help,
two or three of 'em, all the time."

Caroline laughed.

"I've been studying housekeeping for almost a year," she said.

"Studyin' it! Why, yes, now I remember 'Lisha wrote you'd been studyin'
some kind of science at college. 'Twa'n't settin' table science, I
guess, though. Ha! ha!"

"That was part of it." She explained the course briefly. Abigail
listened in amazement.

"And they teach that--at school?" she demanded. "And take money for it?
And call it _science_? My land! I guess I was brought up in a scientific