when we get a little ahead we can start again in Chicago. Only think
of these eight rooms and an acre of ground, three-fourths in grapes,
for six dollars a month! Ain't it inspiriting? I've seen you at
picnics eating with your fingers, drinking from a leaf-cup, making
all kinds of shifts and enjoying all the straits. Now we can play
picnicking here--play that we are camping out, and that one of these
days, when we've bagged our game, we're going home to Chicago. Now,
we'll set the table;" and he began moving the dishes, pans and bundles
off the pine table on to chairs and the floor.

"Isn't this sweet," said Mrs. Lively, "eating in the kitchen and
without a tablecloth?"

"We'll have a dining-room to-morrow, and a tablecloth," said the
doctor cheerfully.

Thanks to his friend Harrison's letters, Dr. Lively readily obtained
credit for imperative family necessities. If ever anybody merited
success as a cheerful worker, it was our doctor. He did the work of
ever-so-many men, and almost of one woman. Pray don't despise him when
I tell you that he kneaded the bread, to save Mrs. Lively's back; that
he did most of the family washing--that is, he did the rubbing, the
wringing, the lifting, the hanging out--and once a week he scrubbed.
When he wasn't "doing housework" he was in his office, busy, not with
patients, but in writing articles for magazines and papers. Then
he set to work upon a book, at which he toiled hopefully during the
dreary winter, for he was almost ignored as a physician, although
there seemed to be considerable sickness. He heard of the other doctor
riding all night. Indeed, if one could believe all that was said, this
physician never slept. True, this man was not a graduate of medicine.