othing in it but the fireplace, a little table with the Bible,
the Catechism, and a copy of Burns's poems on it, and three chairs.
The kitchen was a different matter: There were the beds, and they were
hard for a small girl to manage, and the cupboard with its shelves of
dishes. There were three stools, and a big chair for the Shepherd, and
the great chest where the clothes were kept, and besides all these
things there was the wag-at-the-wall clock on the mantel-shelf which
had to be wound every Saturday night. If you want to know just where
these things stood, you have only to look at the plan, where their
places are so plainly marked that, if you were suddenly to wake up in
the middle of the night and find yourself in the little gray house,
you could go about and put your hand on everything in it in the dark.

Jock stayed with the cow as long as he dared, and went back to
the house only when he knew he couldn't postpone his tasks any
longer. Jean was sweeping the doorstep as he came slowly up the
hill.

"Come along, Grandfather," she called out, her brow sternly
puckered in front and her curls bobbing gaily up and down behind.
"A body'd think you were seventy-five years old and had the
rheumatism to see you move! Come and work the churn a bit. 'Twill
limber you up."

Jock knew that arguments were useless. His father had told him,
girl's work or not, he was to help Jean, so he slowly dragged
into the house and slowly began to move the dasher up and down.

"Havers!" said Jean, when she could stand it no longer. "It's
lucky there's a cover to the churn else you'd drop to sleep and
fall in and drown yourself in the buttermilk! The butter won't be
here at this rate till to-morrow, when it would break the Sabbath
by coming!"

She seized the dasher, as she spoke, and began to churn so
vigorously that the milk splashed up all around the handle. Soon
little yellow specks began to appear; and when they had formed
themselves into a ball in the churn, she lifted it out with a
paddle and put it in a pan of clear cold water. Then she gave
Jock a drink of buttermilk.

"Poor laddie!" she said. "You are all tired out! Take a sup of
this to put new strength in you, for you've got to go out and
weed the garden. I looked at the potatoes yesterday, and the
weeds have got the start of them already."

"If I must weed the garden, give me something to eat too," begged
Jock. "This milk'll do no more than slop around in my insides to