"Sure we want you. What do you charge for the mule and driver?"

"Wal, time was when Josephus brought as much as fifty cents a day, but he ain't to say so spry as onct, an' now we uns will be satisfied to git thirty cents, with a feedin' of oats."

"Oats! Who has oats? Not I. The only critter we have eats gasoline. I tell you, son, you feed Josephus yourself and we will feed you and pay you fifty cents a day for your animal. I don't believe a mule could work for thirty cents and keep his self-respect."

"Wal, Josephus an' we uns don't want no money what we uns don' arn," and the little mountain boy flushed a dark red under his sunburned, freckled face.

He was a very ragged youngster of about twelve. His clothes smacked of the soil to such an extent that you could never have told what was their original color. What sleeves there were left in his shirt certainly must once have been blue, but the body of that garment showed spots of candy pink calico, the kind you are sure to find on the shelves of any country store. His trousers, held up by twine, crossed over his wiry shoulders, were corduroy. They had originally been the color of the earth and time and weather had but deepened their tone. His eyes shone out very clear and blue in contrast to the general dinginess of his attire. His was certainly a very likable face and the young men were very much attracted to the boy, first because of his ready wit, shown from his first words, and then because of his quick resentment at the possibility of any one's giving him or his mule money they had not earned.

"Of course, you are going to earn it," rea.s.sured Lewis. "Now you go home and get your mule and as soon as we can cook some dinner for ourselves and satisfy our inner cravings, we will all get to work. You and Josephus can dig and Bill and I will begin to build."

"Please, sir, wouldn't you uns like Gwen to cook for you uns and wash the platters an' sich? She is a great han' at fixin's."

"Gwen! Who is Gwen?"

Another stone slipped from behind the boulder from which the boy had emerged and then a young girl came timidly forth.

"I am Gwen," she said simply.

She was a girl of about fourteen, very slim and straight, with wide grey eyes that looked very frankly into those of the young men, although you felt a timidity in spite of her directness. Her scant blue dress was clean and whole and her brown hair was parted and braided in two long plaits, showing much care and brushing.

"Oh, how do you do, Miss Gwen? I am Lewis Somerville and this is my friend and fellow laborer, Mr. William Tinsley."

The girl made a little old-fashioned courtesy with a quaint grace that charmed the laborers.

"Do you want me to cook and clean for you?"

"Of course we do! What can you cook?"

"I have learned to cook some very good dishes at the Mountain Mission School. Maybe you would not like them, though."

"Of course we would like them! When can you start?"

"When you wish!"

"Well, I wish now," put in Bill. "I never tasted meaner coffee than you made last night except what I made myself this morning, and as for your method of broiling bacon--rotten--rotten!"

The girl followed Lewis to the Englishman's cabin and after being shown the provisions, she said she thought she could manage to get dinner without his a.s.sistance. He showed her how to light the hard alcohol stove which was part of their outfit and then gave her carte blanche with the canned goods and groceries.

Gwen shook her head in disapproval at sight of the pile of dirty dishes left from breakfast. It would take more than West Point training to make men wash dishes as soon as a meal is over. Lewis and Bill had a method of their own and never washed a plate until both sides had been eaten from, and not then until they were needed immediately. Supper had been eaten from the top side; breakfast, from the bottom. There were still some clean plates in the hamper, so why wash those yet?

In an incredibly short time Gwen called the young men to dinner. They lay stretched at their ease on a gra.s.sy slope near the cabin, quite pleased with themselves and their luck in having found a mule to move the dirt and a girl to cook their food all in one morning.

"What do you make of her?" asked Lewis. "She doesn't talk or walk like a mountain girl."

"Mission School!" commented Bill, looking at the slim, erect back of the girl as she went up the hill to the spring. She had refused their offer of help and said she wanted to get the water herself.

"I don't believe Mission School would have her walking that way. Don't you fancy the boy goes to school, too? Look how he slouches."

Just then the boy, whose name was Josh, appeared, leading Josephus.

Surely there never was such a specimen of horse flesh as that mule.

Maud in the comic supplement was beautiful compared to him. His legs had great lumps on them and he was forced to walk with his feet quite far apart to keep from interfering. He was sway backed and spavined and blind in one eye, but there was a kindly expression in his remaining eye that rea.s.sured one. One fore leg was shorter than the other, which gave him a leaning, tumbling look that seemed to threaten to upset his equilibrium at every step.

"Well, G.o.d bless my soul!" exclaimed Lewis. "Is that Josephus?"

"Yes, sir! He ain't so measly as he looks. He kin do a sight of sc.r.a.pin'

an' dumpin'," and the boy reached an affectionate arm up around the old animal's neck. Josephus responded by snorting in his master's ear. "We uns done brought the implee-ment to make Aunty's shawl," pointing to a rusty old road shovel that Josephus had hitched to him.

"Good! as soon as Miss Gwen feeds us, we will see what he can do in the way of fancy work."

Gwen was a born cook and the domestic science that had been so ably taught in the Mission School had developed her talent wonderfully. She had turned up two empty boxes and smoothed some wrapping paper over them. A bunch of mountain laurel glorified an old soup can and made a beautiful centre piece. The coffee was hot and clear and strong; the hoecake brown and crisp on the outside and soft and creamy within, just as a hoecake should be; the bacon vied with the hoecake in crispness, with no pieces limp and none burned. She had opened a can of baked beans and another of spaghetti, carefully following the directions on the cans as how to serve the contents.

"Well, don't this beat all?" said Bill as he sank down by the improvised table.

"But you must come and eat with us, you and Josh," insisted Lewis.

"Oh, no, the table isn't big enough, and, besides, I must go on baking hoecakes."

"Well, Josh, you come, anyhow."

"No, sir, thanky! We uns will wait for Gwen. We uns ain't fitten to sit down with the likes of you uns, all dirty with we uns' meat a-stickin'

through the rags."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lewis, "if you are fit to sit with Miss Gwen, you are fit to sit with us. We don't mind your meat sticking through, and as for being dirty--why don't you wash?"

Gwen gave a laugh of delight. "There now, Josh, what do I tell you all the time? Rags don't make a bit of difference if you are just clean."

"Wal, we uns'll eat with Josephus if we uns has to wash. This ain't no time of the week for washin'." But while the young men were enjoying the very appetizing food, Josh did sneak off to the stream and came back with his face and hands several shades fairer.

That afternoon was a busy one for all on that mountain side. Gwen gave the cabin a thorough cleaning, washed all the dishes and put papers on the shelves that were already in the cabin, unpacked the provisions and placed them with the dishes neatly on the shelves and in the old cupboard that still stood in the corner, left there by the Englishman.

She went back to her home for yeast and made up a sponge, planning to have hot rolls for breakfast.

Josephus showed the mettle of his pasture by sc.r.a.ping and dumping about three times as much dirt in an hour as the two West Pointers had been able to move in a whole morning's work. Josh did very spirited driving, pretending all the time that his steed had to be handled very carefully or he would run away, road-shovel and all.

"How did your mule happen to have one leg shorter than the other?"

teased Lewis.

"Wal, that's a mounting leg. He got that walkin' round the mounting. All critters in the mountings is built that a way. Ain't you an' Mr. Bill there a-planning that there buildin' after we unses' mule, with short legs up the hill an' long legs down?"

Bill almost fell out of the poplar tree where he had climbed to saw off limbs for twenty feet or more. He laughed so loud and long at the way Josh had gotten ahead of his friend in repartee that Gwen came out of the cabin to see what was the matter. Bill's laugh was a very disconcerting thing until you got used to him.

That first day showed much accomplished. The excavating was half done; the post holes were dug and logs cut and trimmed and planted ready for the beams. A load of lumber arrived before sundown and that meant no delay in the to-morrow's work.

Six o'clock found them very tired and hungry but Gwen had supper all ready for them, a great dish of scrambled eggs and flannel cakes. She had brought from home a pitcher of milk that stayed delightfully cool in the mountain spring.

"There'll be b.u.t.termilk to-morrow," she said, blushing with pleasure at the praise the young men bestowed on her culinary efforts.

"Splendid and more splendid!" exclaimed Lewis. "And will you and your brother just come every day and take care of us?"