Mrs. Markham was not stingy with regard to her table; that was always loaded with the choicest of everything, while many a poor family blessed her as an angel.  But the articles she ate were mostly the products of their large, well-cultivated farm; they did not cost money directly out of her hand, and it was the money she disliked parting with, so she talked and dickered, and beat the Camden merchant down five cents on a yard, and made him cut it a little short, to save a waste, and made him throw in the thread and binding and swear when she was gone, wondering who “the stingy old woman was.”  And yet the very day after her return from Camden “the stingy old woman” had sent to her minister a loaf of bread and a pail of butter, and to a poor sick woman, who lived in a leaky cabin off in the prairie, a nice, warm blanket for her bed, with a basket of delicacies to tempt her capricious appetite.

In due time the carpet had been made, Melinda Jones sewing up three of the seams, while Andy, who knew how to use the needle almost as well as a girl, claimed the privilege of sewing at least half a seam on the new sister’s carpet.  Adjoining Richard’s chamber was a little room where Mrs. Markham’s flour and meal and corn were kept, but which, with a little fitting up, would answer nicely for a bedroom, and after an amount of engineering, which would have done credit to the general of an army, Melinda succeeded in coaxing Mrs. Markham to move her barrels and bags, and give up the room for Ethelyn’s bed, which looked very nice and inviting, notwithstanding that the pillows were small, and the bedstead a high poster, which had been in use for twenty years.  Mrs. Markham knew all about the boxes, as she called them.  There was one in Mrs. Jones’ front chamber, but she had never bought one, for what then would she do with her old ones—­“with them laced cords,” so greatly preferable to the hard slats, which nearly broke her back the night she slept on some at a friend’s house in Olney.

Richard was fond of books, and had collected from time to time a well-selected library, which was the only ornament in his room when Melinda first took it in hand; but when she had finished her work—­when the carpet was down, and the neat, white shades were up at the windows; when the books which used to be on the floor and table, and chairs, and mantel, and window sills, and anywhere, were neatly arranged in the very respectable shelves which Andy made and James had painted; when the little sewing chair designed for Ethelyn was put before one window, and Richard’s arm-chair before the other, and the drab lounge was drawn a little into the room, and the bureau stood corner-ways, with a bottle of cologne upon it, which John had bought, and a pot of pomade Andy had made, and two little pink and white mats Melinda had crocheted, the room was very presentable.  Great, womanish Andy was sure Ethelyn would be pleased, and rubbed his hands jubilantly over the result of his labors,