Beyond the work table, on one of the sides of the room, was a cupboard, and next to the cupboard a large window. This was the only window in the house, and it had a sash which would rise and fall. Mary Erskine had made white curtains for this window, which could be parted in the middle, and hung up upon nails driven into the logs which formed the wall of the house, one on each side. Of what use these curtains could be except to make the room look more snug and pleasant within, it would be difficult to say; for there was only one vast expanse of forests and mountains on that side of the house, so that there was nobody to look in.
On the back side of the room, in one corner, was the bed. It was supported upon a bedstead which Albert had made. The bedstead had high posts, and was covered, like the window, with curtains. In the other corner was the place for the loom, with the spinning-wheel between the loom and the bed. When Mary Erskine was using the spinning-wheel, she brought it out into the center of the room. The loom was not yet finished. Albert was building it, working upon it from time to time as he had opportunity. The frame of it was up, and some of the machinery was made.
Mary Erskine kept most of her clothes in a trunk; but Albert was making her a bureau.
Instead of finding it lonesome at her new home, as Mrs. Bell had predicted, Mary Erskine had plenty of company. The girls from the village, whom she used to know, were very fond of coming out to see her. Many of them were much younger than she was, and they loved to ramble about in the woods around Mary Erskine's house, and to play along the bank of the brook. Mary used to show them too, every time they came, the new articles which Albert had made for her, and to explain to them the gradual progress of the improvements. Mary Bell herself was very fond of going to see Mary Erskine,-though she was of course at that time too young to go alone. Sometimes however Mrs. Bell would send her out in the morning and let her remain all day, playing, very happily, around the door and down by the spring. She used to play all day among the logs and stumps, and upon the sandy beach by the side of the brook, and yet when she went home at night she always looked as nice, and her clothes were as neat and as clean as when she went in the morning. Mrs. Bell wondered at this, and on observing that it continued to be so, repeatedly, after several visits, she asked Mary Bell how it happened that Mary Erskine kept her so nice.
"Oh," said Mary Bell, "I always put on my working frock when I go out to Mary Erskine's."
The working frock was a plain, loose woolen dress, which Mary Erskine made for Mary Bell, and which Mary Bell, always put on in the morning, whenever she came to the farm. Her own dress was taken off and laid carefully away upon the bed, under the curtains. Her shoes and stockings were taken off too, so that she might play in the brook if she pleased, though Mary Erskine told her it was not best to remain in the water long enough to have her feet get very cold.
When Mary Bell was dressed thus in her working frock, she was allowed to play wherever she pleased, so that she enjoyed almost an absolute and unbounded liberty. And yet there were some restrictions. She must not go across the brook, for fear that she might get lost in the woods, nor go out of sight of the house in any direction. She might build fires upon any of the stumps or logs, but not within certain limits of distance from the house, lest she should set the house on fire. And she must not touch the axe, for fear that she might cut herself, nor climb upon the wood-pile, for fear that it might fall down upon her. With some such restrictions as these, she could do whatever she pleased.
She was very much delighted, one morning in September, when she was playing around the house in her working frock, at finding a great hole or hollow under a stump, which she immediately resolved to have for her oven. She was sitting down upon the ground by the side of it, and she began to call out as loud as she could,
"Mary Erskine! Mary Erskine!"
But Mary Erskine did not answer. Mary Bell could hear the sound of the spinning-wheel in the house, and she wondered why the spinner could not hear her, when she called so loud.
She listened, watching for the pauses in the buzzing sound of the wheel, and endeavored to call out in the pauses,-but with no better success than before. At last she got up and walked along toward the house, swinging in her hand a small wooden shovel, which Albert had made for her to dig wells with in the sand on the margin of the brook.
"Mary Erskine!" said she, when she got to the door of the house, "didn't you hear me calling for you?"
"Yes," said Mary Erskine.
"Then why did not you come?" said Mary Bell.
"Because I was disobedient," said Mary Erskine, "and now I suppose I must be punished."
"Well," said Mary Bell. The expression of dissatisfaction and reproof upon Mary Bell's countenance was changed immediately into one of surprise and pleasure, at the idea of Mary Erskine's being punished for disobeying her. So she said,
"Well. And what shall your punishment be?"
"What did you want me for?" asked Mary Erskine.
"I wanted you to see my oven."
"Have you got an oven?" asked Mary Erskine.
"Yes," said Mary Bell, "It is under a stump. I have got some wood, and now I want some fire."
"Very well," said Mary Erskine, "get your fire-pan."
Mary Bell's fire-pan, was an old tin dipper with a long handle. It had been worn out as a dipper, and so they used to let Mary Bell have it to carry her fire in. There were several small holes in the bottom of the dipper, so completely was it worn out: but this made it all the better for a fire-pan, since the air which came up through the holes, fanned the coals and kept them alive. This dipper was very valuable, too, for another purpose. Mary Bell was accustomed, sometimes, to go down to the brook and dip up water with it, in order to see the water stream down into the brook again, through these holes, in a sort of a shower.
Mary Bell went, accordingly, for her fire-pan, which she found in its place in the open stoop or shed. She came into the house, and Mary Erskine, raking open the ashes in the fire-place, took out two large coals with the tongs, and dropped them into the dipper. Mary Bell held the dipper at arm's length before her, and began to walk along.
"Hold it out upon one side," said Mary Erskine, "and then if you fall down, you will not fall upon your fire."
Mary Bell, obeying this injunction, went out to her oven and put the coals in at the mouth of it. Then she began to gather sticks, and little branches, and strips of birch bark, and other silvan combustibles, which she found scattered about the ground, and put them upon the coals to make the fire. She stopped now and then a minute or two to rest and to listen to the sound of Mary Erskine's spinning. At last some sudden thought seemed to come into her head, and throwing down upon the ground a handful of sticks which she had in her hand, and was just ready to put upon the fire, she got up and walked toward the house.
"Mary Erskine," said she, "I almost forgot about your punishment."
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "I hoped that you had forgot about it, altogether."