he matter with the room?" he said. "Just wait until I've
got busy in it! I'm a paper hanger and a painter, and--"

"You're a dear, too," said Edith.

So on the first of May he moved in, and for some evenings Political
Economy and History and Travel and the rest gave way to anxious cuttings
and fittings of wall paper, and a pungent odor of paint. The old house
took on new life and activity, the latter sometimes pernicious, as when
Willy Cameron fell down the cellar stairs with a pail of paint in his
hand, or Dan, digging up some bricks in the back yard for a border the
seeds of which were already sprouting in a flat box in the kitchen, ran
a pickaxe into his foot.

Some changes were immediate, such as the white-washing of the cellar and
the unpainted fence in the yard, where Willy Cameron visualized, later
on, great draperies of morning glories. He papered the parlor, and
coaxed Mrs. Boyd to wash the curtains, although she protested that, with
the mill smoke, it was useless labor.

But there were some changes that he knew only time would effect.
Sometimes he went to his bed worn out both physically and spiritually,
as though the burden of lifting three life-sodden souls was too much.
Not that he thought of that, however. What he did know was that the food
was poor. No servant had been found, and years of lack of system had
left Mrs. Boyd's mind confused and erratic. She would spend hours
concocting expensive desserts, while the vegetables boiled dry and
scorched and meat turned to leather, only to bring pridefully to the
table some flavorless mixture garnished according to a picture in the
cook book, and totally unedible.

She would have ambitious cleaning days, too, starting late and leaving
off with beds unmade to prepare the evening meal. Dan, home from the
mill and newly adopting Willy Cameron's system of cleaning up for
supper, would turn sullen then, and leave the moment the meal was over.

"Hell of a way to live," he said once. "I'd get married, but how can a
fellow know whether a girl will make a home for him or give him this?
And then there would be babies, too."

The relations between Dan and Edith were not particularly cordial. Willy
Cameron found their bickering understandable enough, but he was puzzled,
sometimes, to find that Dan was surreptitiously watching his sister.
Edith was conscious of it, too, and one evening she broke into irritated
speech.

"I wish you'd quit staring at me, Dan Boyd."