contract
money comes in. We might as well keep the coin in the family. I'll feel
easier, because you won't get drunk and jump the job in a pinch. What do
you say?"

She said the only possible thing to say under the circumstances. But she
did not say it with pleasure, nor with any feeling of gratitude. It was
hard work, and she and hard work were utter strangers. Her feet ached
from continual standing on them. The heat and the smell of stewing meat
and vegetables sickened her. Her hands were growing rough and red from
dabbling in water, punching bread dough, handling the varied articles of
food that go to make up a meal. Upon hands and forearms there stung
continually certain small cuts and burns that lack of experience over a
hot range inevitably inflicted upon her. Whereas time had promised to
hang heavy on her hands, now an hour of idleness in the day became a
precious boon.

Yet in her own way she was as full of determination as her brother. She
saw plainly enough that she must leave the drone stage behind. She
perceived that to be fed and clothed and housed and to have her wishes
readily gratified was not an inherent right--that some one must foot
the bill--that now for all she received she must return equitable value.
At home she had never thought of it in that light; in fact, she had
never thought of it at all. Now that she was beginning to get a
glimmering of her true economic relation to the world at large, she had
no wish to emulate the clinging vine, even if thereby she could have
secured a continuance of that silk-lined existence which had been her
fortunate lot. Her pride revolted against parasitism. It was therefore a
certain personal satisfaction to have achieved self-support at a stroke,
insofar as that in the sweat of her brow,--all too literally,--she
earned her bread and a compensation besides. But there were times when
that solace seemed scarcely to weigh against her growing detest for the
endless routine of her task, the exasperating physical weariness and
irritations it brought upon her.

For to prepare three times daily food for a dozen hungry men is no mean
undertaking. One cannot have in a logging camp the conveniences of a
hotel kitchen. The water must be carried in buckets from the creek near
by, and wood brought in armfuls from the pile of sawn blocks outside.
The low-roofed kitchen shanty was always like an oven. The flies swarmed
in their tens of thousands. As the men sweated with axe an