Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II.
Come, come! you can’t be layin’ abed this way! It was the second time Debby had called me, and she was growing impatient.
If you’re always this sleepy-headed, I don’t see how you’re goin’ to get along. When I was your age I was always the first one up on the place; and I thought such was probably the case yet, as it was hardly more than daylight. Later I learned, according to Debby’s own statement, that at the age of fifteen she was the personification of industry, thoughtfulness, and stability. Although very tired, I had not been able to sleep much, owing to the heat of the great feather bed, to which I was unaccustomed, and awoke with a throbbing pain in my head. I was almost ready to doubt that Debby had gone to bed at all, so precisely the same did she look as on the night previous, with her skimp gingham skirt and her hair drawn tightly back into a little knot at the crown of her head. I sat up and rubbed my drowsy eyes, listening to her heavy shoes clattering down the bare steps. I arose and dressed slowly, then opened the window-blinds and turned back the bed-covers, as I had always done at home.
You’ve took your time comin’ down; I s'pose you made your bed ? Debby said, as I entered the kitchen. She evidently meant to lose no time in initiating me into my duties.
No; I left it to air awhile, I answered, in surprise. Air, fiddlesticks! politely and sensibly returned Debby.
My bed is always airy enough, and I make it the first thing when I get up; so does anybody with any tidiness about em. Strange to say, I was not so much reproved as impressed with Debby’s strikingly original idea. I made a hearty breakfast off of the sweet steaming hoe-cake, a glass of milk, and some honey. The men hurriedly swallowed their food and we…
