Corbett went over to see her new neighbor two or three days after.
In response to her knock on the rough lumber door, a thin little voice
called to her to enter, which she did.
On the bare floor stood an open trunk from which a fur-trimmed pale
pink opera cloak hung carelessly. Beside the trunk in an attitude of
homesickness huddled the young woman, hair dishevelled, eyes red. Her
dress of green silk, embroidered stockings and beaded slippers looked
out of place and at variance with her primitive surroundings.
When Mrs. Corbett entered the room she sprang up hastily and apologized
for the untidiness of her house. She chattered gaily to hide the
trouble in her face, and Mrs. Corbett wisely refrained from any
apparent notice of her tears, and helped her to unpack her trunks and
set the house to rights.
Mrs. Corbett showed her how to make a combined washstand and clothes
press out of two soap boxes, how to make a wardrobe out of the head of
the bed, and set the twin sailors at the construction of a cookhouse
where the stove could be put.
When Mrs. Corbett left that afternoon it was a brighter and more
liveable dwelling. Coming home along the bank of Black Creek, she was
troubled in mind and heart for her new neighbor.
"This is June," she said to herself, "and wild roses are crowdin' up to
her door, and the meadow larks are sittin' round all over blinkin' at
the sun, and she has her man with her, and she ain't tired with the
work, and her hands ain't cracked and sore, and she hasn't been there
long enough to dislike the twins the way she will when she knows them
better, and there's no mosquitoes, and she hasn't been left to stay
alone, and still she cries! God help us! What will she do in the long
drizzle in the fall, when the wheat's spoilin' in the shock maybe, and
the house is dark, and her man's away--what _will_ she do?"
Mrs.
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