"You're not starting right with a man," Mary cautioned. "You wait
on him hand and foot. You'll spoil him if you don't watch out.
It's him that ought to be waitin' on you."

"He's the bread-winner," Saxon replied. "He works harder than I,
and I've got more time than I know what to do with--time to burn.
Besides, I want to wait on him because I love to, and because . . .
well, anyway, I want to."



CHAPTER II

Despite the fastidiousness of her housekeeping, Saxon, once she
had systematized it, found time and to spare on her hands.
Especially during the periods in which her husband carried his
lunch and there was no midday meal to prepare, she had a number
of hours each day to herself. Trained for years to the routine of
factory and laundry work, she could not abide this unaccustomed
idleness. She could not bear to sit and do nothing, while she
could not pay calls on her girlhood friends, for they still
worked in factory and laundry. Nor was she acquainted with the
wives of the neighborhood, save for one strange old woman who
lived in the house next door and with whom Saxon had exchanged
snatches of conversation over the backyard division fence.

One time-consuming diversion of which Saxon took advantage was
free and unlimited baths. In the orphan asylum and in Sarah's
house she had been used to but one bath a week. As she grew to