some carpenter. This saw has a kind of affinity feeling to my hand," said
Matthew, as he put his foot on one end of the plank and began to make the
saw fly through the wood like a silver knife through fluffy cake. If saws
were the only witnesses, the superiority of men over women would be
established in very short order. "And say, Ann, I wish you would be
thinking what you are going to charge for a half interest in this business.
Law and real estate look slow to me after these returns right before my
eyes," he added, as he stopped to move the pearl treasures farther out of
the way of a possible flying plank.

"I'm going to give you one of them to take home with you, Matt," I
answered, with a most generous return of his appreciation of these
foundation pebbles of my family fortune. Then I went to appeal to Rufus for
the whitewash.

"They's a half barrel uf lime and a bucket and bresh in the corner uf the
barn what Mas' Adams made me git, he did; but it's fer the hawgs and can't
be wasted on no chickens," he said, answering my very courteous request
with a great lack of graciousness.

"The chickens will pay it back to the hogs, Rufus," I answered airily as I
ran back to the barn, eager for the fray.

And a gorgeous fray it was, with Matthew whistling and directing and
pounding and having the time of his very frivolous life.

Now, of course, nobody in these advanced times thinks that it is not
absolutely possible, even easy, for a woman to live any kind of
constructive life she chooses entirely without assistance from a man, but
she'll get to the place she has started for just about a year after she