She looked, somehow, already as if she belonged with the
place. She sat upon the doorstone and hemmed small muslin curtains which
were to go in the bedrooms upstairs, and Martha, Winifred, and Ellen,
seeing this, sent for their sewing materials and helped her, while the
daylight lasted.
Burns, looking on, hands in pockets, suddenly observed, "We fellows ought
to be doing something for her. What do you say to every man going for
a scythe and cutting the grass? No lawn mower can tackle a tangle like
this."
Macauley groaned. "Why begin to be neighbourly at such a pace? Cutting
this grass is going to be no easy task."
But Chester and Burns had already started across the street, and Macauley
was obliged to follow. By the time darkness fell the front yard had been
cropped into at least a semblance of tidiness, and Charlotte was offering
her thanks to three warm gentlemen, and regretting that she had not been
keeping house long enough to have any refreshment to offer them.
"Come over when we are settled, and Granny and I will have some sparkling
Southern beverages for you," she promised.
"You are coming over to sleep, child," Ellen said, as the time for
departure arrived, and Charlotte showed signs of closing up her small
domain.
"Not at all. I mean to have the fun of spending my first night in my new
home," Miss Ruston declared, and held to her decision, in spite of the
arguments and entreaties of the women and the assertions of the men that
she would be afraid.
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