me.
What was it? Will you step in?"

Claire buttoned the child's rompers before she spoke. Then:

"Mr. Kloh, I want to be perfectly honest with you. I've had word from
your wife. She's unhappy, and she loves and admires you more than any
other man in the world, and I think she would come back--misses the
child so."

The man wiped his reddened hands. "I don't know---- I don't wish her no
harm. Trouble was, I'm kind of pokey. I guess I couldn't give her any
good times. I used to try to go to dances with her, but when I'd worked
late, I'd get sleepy and---- She's a beautiful woman, smart 's a whip,
and I guess I was too slow for her. No, she wouldn't never come back to
me."

"She's out in front of the house now--waiting!"

"Great Caesar's ghost, and the floor not scrubbed!" With a squawk of
anxiety he leaped on the scrubbing-brush, and when Milt and Dlorus
appeared at the door, Mr. Kloh and Miss Claire Boltwood were wiping up
the kitchen floor.

Dlorus looked at them, arms akimbo, and sighed, "Hello, Johnny, my,
ain't it nice to be back, oh, you had the sink painted, oh, forgive me,
Johnny, I was a bad ungrateful woman, I don't care if you don't never
take me to no more dances, hardly any, Willy come here, dear, oh, he is
such a sweet child, my, his mouth is so dirty, will you forgive me,
Johnny, is my overcoat in the moth-balls?"

When Mr. Kloh had gone off to the mill--thrice returning from the gate
to kiss Dlorus and to thank her rescuers--Claire sat down and yawningly
lashed off every inch of Dlorus's fair white skin:

"You're at it already; taking advantage of that good man's forgiveness,
and getting lofty with him, and rather admiring yourself as a
spectacular sinner. You are a lazy, ignorant, not very clean woman, and
if you succeed in making Mr. Kloh and Willy happy, it will be almost too
big a job for you. Now if I come back from Seattle and find you
misbehaving again----"

Dlorus broke down. "You won't, miss! And I will raise chickens, like he
wanted, honest I will!"

"Then you may let me have a room to take a nap in, and perhaps Mr.
Daggett could sleep in there on the sofa, and we'll get rested before we
start back."

Both Milt and Dlorus meekly followed the boss.

It was noon before Milt and Claire woke, and discovered that Dlorus had
prepared for them scrambled eggs and store celery, served on an almost
clean table-cloth. Mr. Kloh came home for lunch, and while Dlorus sat on
his lap in the li