husk corn for the neighbors until
Christmas, as she had done the year before; but grandmother saved her from
this by getting her a place to work with our neighbors, the Harlings.

II

GRANDMOTHER often said that if she had to live in town, she thanked God
she lived next the Harlings. They had been farming people, like ourselves,
and their place was like a little farm, with a big barn and a garden, and
an orchard and grazing lots,--even a windmill. The Harlings were
Norwegians, and Mrs. Harling had lived in Christiania until she was ten
years old. Her husband was born in Minnesota. He was a grain merchant and
cattle buyer, and was generally considered the most enterprising business
man in our county. He controlled a line of grain elevators in the little
towns along the railroad to the west of us, and was away from home a great
deal. In his absence his wife was the head of the household.

Mrs. Harling was short and square and sturdy-looking, like her house.
Every inch of her was charged with an energy that made itself felt the
moment she entered a room. Her face was rosy and solid, with bright,
twinkling eyes and a stubborn little chin. She was quick to anger, quick
to laughter, and jolly from the depths of her soul. How well I remember
her laugh; it had in it the same sudden recognition that flashed into her
eyes, was a burst of humor, short and intelligent. Her rapid footsteps
shook her own floors, and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever
she came. She could not be negative or perfunctory about anything. Her
enthusiasm, and her violent likes and dislikes, asserted themselves in all
the every-day occupations of life. Wash-day was interesting, never dreary,
at the Harlings'. Preserving-time was a prolonged festival, and
house-cleaning was like a revolution. When Mrs. Harling made garden that
spring, we could feel the stir of her undertaking through the willow hedge
that separated our place from hers.

Three of the Harling children were near me in age. Charley, the only
son,--they had lost an older boy,--was sixteen; Julia, who was known as the
musical one, was fourteen when I was; and Sally, the tomboy with short
hair, was a year younger. She was nearly as strong as I, and uncannily
clever at all boys' sports. Sally was a wild thing, with sunburned yellow
hair, bobbed about her ears, and a brown skin, for she never wore a hat.
She raced all over town on one roller skate, often cheated at "keeps," but