"It certainly is good to have you back, children," said their father, as he sat with a daughter on each side of him after dinner. They had their mother out on the back porch with them. It was nearly as large as the front one, and she could be moved, couch and all, through a front window with very little trouble. "Now I can have an afternoon off from housekeeping. But I've done well, haven't I, Mary?"

"You certainly have," said Mrs. Merriam, "and it's been hard for you, too. But now that I have my Camp Fire Girls back n.o.body's going to need to do one thing."

"Not a thing!" said Florence. "We've learned ever so many things, mother. We're going to house-keep better'n you ever did!"

The family shouted. It was so like Florence.

"I don't think quite that," said Winona modestly. "But we're going to have a lovely time running things, anyway!"

So next morning the "lovely time" began.

It seemed queer to waken on a mattress instead of on a pine bed; still stranger to hear the alarm-clock go off. Winona did not like alarm-clocks, and she threw a pillow at it before she stopped to think.

But she got up as it told her, for all that, and was downstairs in twenty minutes. She had put on a blue ripplette work-dress, fresh and pretty. It was pleasant to have on a pretty frock instead of the camp uniform.

"There are lots of nice things!" she said to herself st.u.r.dily. "I'm going to enjoy myself every minute, if I have to tie a string to my finger to remind me!"

She found Clay, whose acquaintance she had made the night before, already down. The cereal was in the double boiler and the coffee in the percolator, already.

"Hit ain' much to do fo' breakfast," said he encouragingly. "Ah do it maself, mos'ly." And indeed he proved so expert that all Winona found left her to do was gathering the flowers for the table, and cutting the oranges. Breakfast had more frills than usual, though-Winona had come home prepared for work, and she found some to do. The oranges were loosened back from their skins like grape-fruit, there were finger-bowls with flower-petals floating on top, the cereal dishes had little plates underneath, and even the hot corn-bread, which Winona, by the way, discovered Clay did not know how to make, was stacked in a highly artistic log-cabin pattern. Winona, with a little white ap.r.o.n over her fresh blue dress, sat and poured the coffee importantly. Her father smiled with pleasure, as she sat opposite him, flushed and pretty and dainty.

"Well!" he said. "This is certainly a fine beginning, Winnie! Did you learn all this in the woods?"

Winona colored with pleasure.

"No, I think I knew most of it before I went," she said. "That is, all but the corn-bread-that was an experiment."

"And see!" said Florence. "Flowers in the finger-bowls!"

"But you mustn't work too hard, little daughter," said her father, as he went into the living-room to bid his wife good-bye before he went to business.

Winona followed him closely with her mother's tray. Mrs. Merriam was dressed, and Mr. Merriam had helped her downstairs and to her couch. It had been rather fun to arrange the tray with doilies and the daintiest china. She carried it in as her father came out.

"Good-morning, mother!" she said gayly. "Things are going beautifully, and housekeeping's fun!"

"That's my brave little girl!" said her mother. "But I must warn you, Ray-of-Light, that you'll get over-tired if you try to put on too many tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. The trouble with housekeeping is, you never get a vacation.

It keeps on all day long. Simplify all you can."

Winona laughed. "I refuse to start on your tray!" said she.

She made her mother as comfortable as she could, then went back to the kitchen.

"Now, Clay," she said, "Mrs. Merriam's sent for me to come home to run things. You and I are going to get as much fun out of the work as we can, and do it just as well and as fast as we know how. Aren't we?"

"Yas'm," said Clay doubtfully. "But dey ain' no fun to be got outen washin' dishes," he added with conviction.

Winona looked thoughtful.

"No, I suppose there isn't," she admitted. "But there ought to be. Up at the Camp we got credit for what we did, if it was done right. I wonder--"

"You mean dem credits what folks buys groceries with?" interrupted Clay.

"No," said Winona. "But-I'll tell you, Clay, I have a plan! I'll put a chart up here on the kitchen wall. Every time you get the dishes washed and put away in half an hour, without breaking them, three times a day for a week, you get credit-for fifteen cents. What do you think of that?"

"Ah like it!" said Clay. "But Ah rather have de two cents a day."

"All right," promised Winona rashly. "Now go ahead with the dishes while I put fresh paper on the shelves."

"Don't take it too hard, dear," Mrs. Merriam warned her once more, when Winona ran in, breathless from vigorous bedmaking, to report progress.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Now? Nothing till lunch time. I'm so glad we have dinner at night.

It'll be lots easier to get the hardest meal when it's cooler, and there's been a rest between."

"You dear child!" said her mother, reaching out her hand to Winona where she sat by the sofa. "You're bound to look on the bright side."

"I'm bound to glorify work and be happy," said Winona gayly. "Now, mother, I'd like some money. I'd rather not start with a regular housekeeping allowance till Monday. But right now I want a dish-mop, and a soap-maker, and some new white oil-cloth for the kitchen dresser. Can I have all that?"

"Certainly," said her mother. "Keep the kitchen as spic and span as you can. The fresher the surroundings, the easier it is to work."

So after luncheon, which wasn't much trouble because there was no man to cook for, Winona and Florence went shopping, leaving Clay singing "Ma Honey Man" cheerfully over his dishes. The money their mother had given them bought not only the things Winona went after, but pink and blue chambray for ap.r.o.ns for herself and Florence, and red for Clay.

"The pretty ap.r.o.ns will make it more fun to be in the kitchen-don't you think so, Florence?" asked Winona.

Florence, naturally, thought so, too, and they bought them and made them up before the day was over. Florence asked of her own accord for definite things to do. And an idea came to Winona-that they start a system of home honor-beads.

"Of course they won't really count," she explained to her little sister, "but they'll always be there to remind us of our work."

"That will be lovely!" said Florence, "but what will they be like?"

"Wait and see," said Winona.

That day was all used up making the new long ap.r.o.ns and the mob-caps to match, dainty and Kate-Greenaway looking. But the next morning after the beds were done they went to sit with their mother. She said they could make the beads there with her. Winona ran out into the garden and brought back a handful of flowers that she put in water, and set beside her mother's couch.

"How do you feel, mother?" she asked.

"It doesn't hurt badly at all," said her mother cheerfully.

Winona carried out the tray, and moved about, straightening her mother's room a little more before she sat down to her work.

"You're sure we're not in your way, mother?" she asked.

"Indeed you aren't!" said her mother. "You don't know how lonely I've been with all my children gone. And do let in all the air and sunshine you can, dear. It may be hot later, so that we'll have to shut out the light a part of the day."

"All right," said Winona, doing it. Then she called to Florence.

"Florence, will you get the oil-paints that we use for stencilling?" she asked. "I can borrow them, mother, can't I?"

Mrs. Merriam was perfectly willing, and while Florence was getting the tubes of paints, and the brushes, Winona brought out a jar of ordinary kidney-beans from the kitchen. She spread newspapers on the floor and on the table, and when Florence came back with the paint she set to work.