“Who’s going to chaperone you children?” she asked Lydia.

“Miss Towne.  The rest kicked, but I like her.”

“You use a good deal of unnecessary slang, my dear,” said Ma.  “Who of the boys and girls are going?”

“Charlie and Kent and Olga and I. Margery’s crazy to go, only her mother hasn’t given in yet.  If she does go, we’ll ask Gustus Bach too.”

Ma Norton looked at Lydia searchingly.  “I didn’t know you had anything to do with Olga or with Margery either, now.”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Lydia, “this is Charlie’s, party!  None of ’em would go on my invitation.  I—­I don’t quite see why, but I don’t have chums like the rest.”

“I wouldn’t let it worry me,” said Ma.  “You’ve never had time to lally-gag.  That’s the secret of it.”

Lydia turned this over in her mind thoughtfully for a moment and the older woman, looking up from her sewing caught on the young face the look of sadness that should not have been there.

“It would be nice for you to have the camping trip, dear,” said Ma.  “You’ve had so little to do with children your own age.  I suppose you’re worrying over the money end?”

Lydia nodded.  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.  Every spring you get some one in to help you clean house.  If you’ll do it in Easter vacation, this year, and let me help, why, that would be a couple of dollars, wouldn’t it?”

Ma Norton looked at the slender little figure and thought of the heavy carpet beating, the shoving of furniture, the cleaning of mattresses that the stout old colored man hustled through for her every spring.  And she thought of the winter’s butter and egg money (nearly forty dollars it amounted to already) that she was saving for new parlor curtains.  Then she recalled the little figure that had nightly trudged two miles delivering milk rather than take Billy’s school books as a gift.  And Ma Norton smiled a little ruefully as she said,

“All right, you can help me instead of old Job and I’ll pay you five dollars.”

“Five dollars for what?” asked Billy.  He had come in the side door, unheeded.

His mother explained the situation.  Billy listened attentively, warming his hands at the stove.

“If I didn’t have so much to do at home,” said Lydia, “I could work here Saturdays and Sundays and earn a little, that way.”

“Well, you wouldn’t, you know,” growled Billy.  Lydia and Ma Norton looked up, startled at his tone.

“For the land’s sake, Billy, why not?” exclaimed Ma.

“Because, Lydia’s getting too big now to do these hired girl stunts.  It was bad enough when she was little.  But folks’ll never forget ’em and always think of her as a hired girl if she keeps on.”

Lydia gasped and turned scarlet.  Ma Norton stared at her son as if she never had seen him before.  Strong and blonde and six feet tall, he seemed suddenly to his mother no longer a boy but a mature man, and a very handsome one at that.  As a matter of fact, although Billy’s gaunt frame was filling out and his irregular features were maturing into lines of rugged strength, he never would be handsome.  He was looking at Lydia now with the curious expression of understanding that she always brought to his gray eyes.