Half-A-Dozen Housekeepers

oings of that indefatigable and ingenious bevy of girls during the day. Miss Miranda, their opposite neighbor,

d now they’ve got their uncle. Whatever they find to laugh so over, and where they go to, is more’n I can see. They haven’t done up their dinner dishes, I

around corners and through doors with great ease. Bell avowed confidentially to Patty that morning, when she met her ne

throne made by perching a stool on the dining-table, and being given a large pair of goggles, was requested to serve as dramatic and musical critic for the morning newspapers. Two or three of the boarders from Mrs. Carter’s famous Winter Farmhouse on the hill, the young schoolmaster (a Bowdoin student earning his college course by odd

er round, girlish arms, and its long train, made her such a distracting little prima donna of fifteen, that Hugh Pennell quite laid his boyish heart at her feet. She sang “The Last Rose of Summer” with all the smiles, head-tossings, arch looks, casting down of eyelids, and kissing of finger-tips at the close,

0

t; Pochahontas saving the life of her noble Captain John; Rochester, holding Jane Eyre spellbound by the steely glitter of his eye; and the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers, landing on a stern and rock-bound coast, ably represented by the dining-room table. As Uncle Harry sat on the table he was obliged

Bell and Jo went into the kitchen to put

while the kitchen is warm,” said Jo. “Emma Jane i

Emma Jane herself, I am so

” said Patty, looking in at the door, with a superio

his chopping-knife,” quoth Jo, bringing it dow

’s expression as she stoo

e done some missionary work with her. In ten days I propose to make her stand straight, hold her head up, keep her mouth closed when not occupied in conversation or

teen, but she appears about thirty. Look, Bell, can this hash be safely trusted now to the pear

r it with a clean towel and a platter, and one of us will g

erself on the front side of the bed, a little later. “I have only two things to trouble me. First: my wisdom

t sagely. “Both these misfortunes can’t happen to you, for if your tooth

ith a prodigious yawn, “or she wil

iddle of the night, Jo, who slept next the front side, w

tter, Lilia!”

s just enough to keep me awake, and my temple aches and my cheek,

, on the back of the wash-stand; sh

on it in the dark. Here it is! I’ll bathe my fa

nge under the head of the bed lest she should need them

o joined in the shriek on general principles, and then, blinking in the half-light, looked where Bell pointed. One side of Lilia’s face was swollen, and of a dark, purple color, prese

he asked, sitting up in bed, smoothing

ice began to tremble a

ollen and inflamed, and we’re afraid you are going to be ill, but w

in the mirror, uttered a cry of terror

—or spotted fever—or something dreadful! What shall I do? Bell, you are a doctor’s daughter; do fi

ng of this kind. You, Jo, build the kitchen fire, and, Alice, make a blaze on the hearth i

ty, “and heat blankets; they a

ing me ‘a thing of this kind’ and an ‘emergency.’

to do with it. She put on some of her liniment, and then dropped off to sle

ears. Bell was an authority on sickness, and she said, with an awestruck fa

or why does she have so little pain, and how could her fa

ry deadly,” said Patty, who had heard

feet, or keep her head cold and heat her ‘extremities,’ as father calls them—whether to give her a sweat or keep her dry, or wrap her in blankets, or get the linen s

even worse, now that the room was bright with the glow

nt for Uncle Harry and the Doctor, and now you are sure to be all right, for we’ve take

bathed my face in it last night, and put it under there

ous, blundering goose!” and thereupon she dragged out from beneath the bed valance a pint bottle of violet ink, and then relapsed into a paroxysm of voiceless mirth. Just then the hack door opened, a

s and blankets, disappeared from view, and was endeavoring to force a pillow into her mouth in order to render her shame-faced laughter inaudible. “Are you trying to play a joke on me?” continued he, with as much

—“the fact is—Uncle Harry—we made—a mistake, and so did—Lilia. There were two bottles just alike on

xed into a broad smile

reaming eyes. “All her face, except part of her forehead and one cheek, was covered with enormous dark

tion had taken place. I don’t think Lilia has e

“Don’t hurry, Uncle Harry. Don’t let any thought of

aded cane were heard in the hall, and he thought, as he tried to finish his early morning nap, that it would be

t scrubbed Lilia energetically with hard soap and pumice, and then made molasses

for hauling wood, an hour’s coasting down Brigadier hill, and a trip to the doctor’s for courtplaster and arnica and peppermint and cough lozenges. Then directly after luncheon Bell and Jo made a private and confidential call upon Grandma Win-ship’s pig, leaving with him as evidences of regard several samples of their own cookery. This call they hoped was