rners with that, I'm sure. Tom,
there's a spot as big as a plate you haven't hit. You can't see it in
that light; bend over this way a minute, and you'll find it. That's it!
It would have been a pity to leave it, wouldn't it! Don't miss any more
places, Tom. I haven't many rugs, and the floors will show a good deal."

"I didn't know artists were ever such practical people," confessed Mrs.
Red Pepper Burns, sitting on the edge of a straight-backed old chair in
the small kitchen. The house boasted but four rooms, two below and two
above, with a small enclosure off the kitchen which had been used for a
bedroom in the benighted days when people knew no better, and which
Charlotte had promptly set aside for a dark room.

"Practical? I'm not an artist, as you use the word, but I assure you real
artists are the most practical people in the world. Not one of them but
can make a whistle out of a pig's tail, or a queen's robe out of a sheet
and a blue scarf! What do you think of my light-housekeeping outfit?"

She held up an aluminum skillet which she had just taken from the box she
was unpacking. "Here's everything we can need in the way of cooking
utensils, packed into a foot square, and light as a feather, the whole
thing. My purse was rather light when I had bought it, too." She made a
funny little grimace, then laughed. "But my most trying purchase was my
tin bath! You can't imagine what a hunt I had for it. But I found it at
last in an Englishman's little out-of-the-way shop, and a big tin ewer to
go with it. I'm proud of them now, and emptying the tub once a day is
going to be fine for my muscles."

"You have splendid courage, dear, and I can see you're not afraid of hard
work. I want you to promise me this, though, Charlotte. When you are
specially tired, and there's luncheon or dinner to get, run over and let
us give you a trayful of things. Cynthia always cooks more than we eat,
and then has to contrive to use it in other ways."

Charlotte nodded. "Thank you. Luckily, though I'm poor I'm not proud. By
the way, you haven't an unused kitchen chair, have you? To tell the truth
I forgot several things, and one of them is a chair for the kitchen. I
probably shall not sit down myself, and shall always serve our little
meals in the living-room, but I foresee that I shall have guests here in
the kitchen, and I'd like to be able to offer them a chair. That one
you're sitting in is my very best old split-bottomed, high-backed