“And see!” said Florence. “Flowers in the finger-bowls!”
“But you mustn’t work too hard, little daughter,” said her father, as he went into the living-room to bid his wife good-bye before he went to business.
Winona followed him closely with her mother’s tray. Mrs. Merriam was dressed, and Mr. Merriam had helped her downstairs and to her couch. It had been rather fun to arrange the tray with doilies and the daintiest china. She carried it in as her father came out.
“Good-morning, mother!” she said gayly. “Things are going beautifully, and housekeeping’s fun!”
“That’s my brave little girl!” said her mother. “But I must warn you, Ray-of-Light, that you’ll get over-tired if you try to put on too many trimmings. The trouble with housekeeping is, you never get a vacation. It keeps on all day long. Simplify all you can.”
Winona laughed. “I refuse to start on your tray!” said she.
She made her mother as comfortable as she could, then went back to the kitchen.
“Now, Clay,” she said, “Mrs. Merriam’s sent for me to come home to run things. You and I are going to get as much fun out of the work as we can, and do it just as well and as fast as we know how. Aren’t we?”
“Yas’m,” said Clay doubtfully. “But dey ain’ no fun to be got outen washin’ dishes,” he added with conviction.
“No, I suppose there isn’t,” she admitted. “But there ought to be. Up at the Camp we got credit for what we did, if it was done right. I wonder——”
“You mean dem credits what folks buys groceries with?” interrupted Clay.
“No,” said Winona. “But—I’ll tell you, Clay, I have a plan! I’ll put a chart up here on the kitchen wall. Every time you get the dishes washed and put away in half an hour, without breaking them, three times a day for a week, you get credit—for fifteen cents. What do you think of that?”
“Ah like it!” said Clay. “But Ah rather have de two cents a day.”
“All right,” promised Winona rashly. “Now go ahead with the dishes while I put fresh paper on the shelves.”
“Don’t take it too hard, dear,” Mrs. Merriam warned her once more, when Winona ran in, breathless from vigorous bedmaking, to report progress. “What are you going to do now?”
“Now? Nothing till lunch time. I’m so glad we have dinner at night. It’ll be lots easier to get the hardest meal when it’s cooler, and there’s been a rest between.”