Part 20 (1/2)
”Yes, mum.”
”Don't you think you could get the dining room cleaned while I am attending to the baby?”
”Yes, mum, if yez can schpare me.”
”Oh, I think I can. But, Katy, before you go hand me that basket. And, Katy, perhaps you had better wash out this flannel skirt. I am so afraid she might run short of them. You can empty the water now--and, Katy, please hold the baby's hand while I tie this ribbon, she is such a wiggler--and, Katy--a little boiled water now for her morning tipple.
She must drink lots of water to keep in good health.”
”Yes, mum, and how aboot breakfast for yez, mum?”
”Oh, I forgot my breakfast! Of course I must eat some breakfast. I'll come down to it.”
”Oh, no, mum! And let me be after bringing it oop to yez, mum,” insisted the wily Katy, who was anxious for the youthful house cleaners to accomplish their dark and secret mission without interruption. Not only was it great fun, a huge joke, in fact, for her to be paid fifty cents to let others do her work, but it meant that since others were doing it, she would not have to, and she could have just that much more time for ”scroobing” and resting. A tray was accordingly got ready and Molly found she had a little more appet.i.te than the morning before; also, that Katy's food was really a little better.
”Your coffee is better this morning, Katy,” she said, believing that praise for feats accomplished but egged on the servitor to other and greater effort.
”Yes, mum, so the master said.”
”Poor Edwin,” thought Molly, ”how I have neglected him. I must do better. But if I don't wake up, I don't wake up. If I could only get a little nap in the day time. Mother always wanted me to take one, but how can I? The living room must be cleaned to-day.” She felt weary at the thought. Accustomed as she was to being out of doors a great deal, she really needed the fresh air.
”As soon as luncheon is over, we must get busy with the cleaning. I wish we might have done it in the forenoon, but I am afraid it is too late.”
”Yes, mum, it's too late!” and Katy indulged in such a hearty giggle that her mistress began to think perhaps she was feeble-minded as well as inefficient.
”Is the table in the dining room cleared off, Katy, so you can set it for luncheon?”
”No, mum, it is not!”
”Oh, Katy! What have you been doing all morning?”
”Well, mum, I scroobed my kitchen, and--and----”
”And what?” demanded Molly.
”And I did a little head work in the liberry, that is, I----”
”Oh, Katy, did you clean the living room, clean it well?”
”Well, mum, yez can wait and see if it schoots yez,” and Katy beat a hasty retreat to warn the cleaners that the mistress was about to descend.
The room presented a very different appearance to what it had before the girls rolled up their sleeves. The slanting afternoon sun would seek out no dusty corners now; everything was spick and span. The books no longer had to be beaten and blown before you dared open them, and they stood in neat and orderly rows; the walls held no decorations in the shape of Irishman's curtains now; the picture gla.s.s shone, as did the window panes; the rugs were out in the back yard sunning after a vigorous beating and brus.h.i.+ng from Thelma, whom Billie called ”the powerful Katrinka.”
The floor, being the one part of the room that Katy had put some licks on, did not need anything more serious than a dusting after everything else was done.
”Katy, you might bring in the rugs now as we have done everything else,”
suggested Billie. Katy went out into the back yard and bundled up the rugs. Molly, seeing her from an upper window, smiled her approval.
”I believe she is going to do very well,” she said to herself. ”She seems to be trying, and she is so fond of Mildred.”
”Come on, girls, we must hurry and get off! Molly will be down stairs any minute now and she must not see us,” and Thelma unwound the towel from her head and took off her ap.r.o.n.