the dishes.

"Do you want me to--help?" he asked at last, a little wistfully.

Mrs. Holly, with a dubious glance at the boy's brown little
hands, shook her head.

"No, I don't. No, thank you," she amended her answer.

For another sixty seconds David was silent; then, still more
wistfully, he asked:--

"Are all these things you've been doing all day 'useful labor'?"

Mrs. Holly lifted dripping hands from the dishpan and held them
suspended for an amazed instant.

"Are they--Why, of course they are! What a silly question! What
put that idea into your head, child?"

"Mr. Holly; and you see it's so different from what father used
to call them."

"Different?"

"Yes. He said they were a necessary nuisance,--dishes, and
getting meals, and clearing up,--and he didn't do half as many
of them as you do, either."

"Nuisance, indeed!" Mrs. Holly resumed her dishwashing with some