covers," said Mrs. Holt, indicating these, "and there is a
good stove I take out in summer to make more room, and set up as soon
as it gets cold, and that is a wood box."

She pointed out a shoe box covered with paper similar to that on the
walls.

Kate examined the room carefully, the bed, the closet, and tried the
chairs. Behind the girl, Mrs. Holt, with compressed lips, forgetting
Adam's presence, watched in evident disapproval.

"I want to see the stove," said Kate.

"It is out in the woodhouse. It hasn't been cleaned up for the winter
yet."

"Then it won't be far away. Let's look at it."

Almost wholly lacking experience, Kate was proceeding by instinct in
exactly the same way her father would have taken through experience.
Mrs. Holt hesitated, then turned: "Oh, very well," she said, leading
the way down the hall, through the dining room, which was older in
furnishing and much more worn, but still clean and wholesome, as were
the small kitchen and back porch. From it there was only a step to the
woodhouse, where on a little platform across one end sat two small
stoves for burning wood, one so small as to be tiny. Kate walked to
the larger, lifted the top, looked inside, tried the dampers and drafts
and turning said: "That is very small. It will require more wood than
a larger one."

Mrs. Holt indicated dry wood corded to the roof.

"We git all our wood from the thicket across the way. That little
strip an' this lot is all we have left of father's farm. We kept this
to live on, and sold the rest for town lots, all except that gully,
which we couldn't give away. But I must say I like the trees and birds
better than mebby I'd like people who might live there; we always git
our wood from it, and the shade an' running water make it the coolest
place in town."

"Yes, I suppose they do," said Kate.

She took one long look at everything as they returned to the hall.

"The Trustee told me your terms are four dollars and fifty cents a
week, furnishing food and wood," she said, "and that you allowed the
last teacher to do her own washing on Saturday, for nothing. Is that
right?"

The thin lips drew more tightly. Mrs. Holt looked at Kate from head to
foot in close scrutiny.

"I couldn't make enough to pay the extra work at that," she said. "I
ought to have a dollar more, to really come out even. I'll have to say
five-fifty this fall."

"If that is the case, good-bye," said Kate. "Thank you very