The old lady laughed heartily.  “Ain’t we happy, George, you and me?  I’ve tried all my own, and they won’t let me have one bit of my own way.  Out at Edward’s—­he’s a lawyer at Regina—­I tried to get them all to go to bed at half-past ten—­late enough, too, for decent people—­and didn’t Edward’s wife get real miffed over it?  And then I went to Tom’s —­he’s a doctor down at Winnipeg, but he’s all gone to politics; he was out night after night makin’ speeches, and he had a young fellow lookin’ after his practice who wouldn’t know a corn from a gumboil only they grow in different places.  Tom’s pa and me spent good money on his education, and it’s hard for us to see him makin’ no use of it.  He was nice enough to me, wanted me to stay and be company for Edith, but I told him he should try to be company for Edith himself.  Well, he didn’t get elected—­that’s one comfort.  I believe it was an answer to prayer.  Maybe he’ll settle down to his doctorin’ now.  Then I went to Bert’s, and I soon saw I could not stay there.  Just as soon as I saw your little bit in the paper, I says, ‘The Lord has opened a door!’ I gave Maud a hint that I would clear out some day and go where I would be let work, and the dear child says to me, ’Grandma, if I ever get a house of my own you can come and live with me, and you can do every bit of the work, and everyone will have to do just what you say; they’ll have to go to bed at sundown if you say so.’  Maud’s the best one I have belongin’ to me.  She’ll give them a hint that I’m all right.”

But Shaw was apprehensive.  He knew who Bert was, and he had uncomfortable visions of Mr. Albert Harris driving up to his door some day and demanding that Mrs. Peter Harris, his mother, immediately come home with him; and the fear and dread of former housekeepers swept over George Shaw’s soul.  No, he would not give her up!  Of course, there were times when he thought she was rather exacting, and when he felt some sympathy for Edward’s wife forgetting “miffed.”

When she was with him about a week she announced that he must have a daily bath!  “It is easier to wash you than the bed-clothes, that’s one reason,” she said, “and it’s good for you besides.  That’s what’s wrong with lots of young boys; they git careless and dirty, and then they take to smoking and drinking just natcherally.  A clean hide, mind you, is next to a clean heart.  Now go along upstairs; everything is ready for you.”

Henceforth there was no danger of the hoops falling off the tub, for it was in daily use, and, indeed, it was not many nights until George Shaw looked forward with pleasure to his nightly wash.

The old lady’s face glowed with pleasure as she went about her work, or sat sewing in the shade of the house.  At her instigation Shaw had put up a shed for his machinery, which formerly had littered the yard, and put his wood in even piles.

The ground fell away in a steep ravine, just in front of the house, and pink wild roses and columbine hung in profusion over the spring which gushed out of the bank.  Away to the east were the sand-hills of the Assiniboine—­the bad lands of the prairie, their surface peopled with stiff spruce trees that stand like sentries looking, always looking out across the plain!