Don't worry
about it--give your mind no more uneasiness on that subject. I'll
bring the hot water."
She did not know very much, but she was delighted to learn, and she
was very strong. Whatever Euphemia told her to do, she did
instantly with a bang. What pleased her better than anything else
was to run up and down the gang-plank, carrying buckets of water to
water the garden. She delighted in out-door work, and sometimes
dug so vigorously in our garden that she brought up pieces of the
deck-planking with every shovelful.
Our boarder took the greatest interest in her, and sometimes
watched her movements so intently that he let his pipe go out.
"What a whacking girl that would be to tread out grapes in the
vineyards of Italy! She'd make wine cheap," he once remarked.
"Then I'm glad she isn't there," said Euphemia, "for wine oughtn't
to be cheap."
Euphemia was a thorough little temperance woman.
The one thing about Pomona that troubled me more than anything else
was her taste for literature. It was not literature to which I
objected, but her very peculiar taste. She would read in the
kitchen every night after she had washed the dishes, but if she had
not read aloud, it would not have made so much difference to me.
But I am naturally very sensitive to external impressions, and I do
not like the company of people who, like our girl, cannot read
without pronouncing in a measured and distinct voice every word of
what they are reading.
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