Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/90

80 Bob was willing; indeed he needed clean collars himself, and had reached the decision that there was only one way to get them. Inquiry had established the fact that there was no laundry in Flame City, and the genus washwoman was practically unknown.

Betty went in to get her middy blouse, and Bob pumped pail after pail of water and carried it to the barn. One pump supplied the whole farm, house and barns. The two cows, three horses, and the pigs and chickens were watered thrice daily by the patient Ki.

Cold water was not the only difficulty Betty encountered when she came to the actual washing. The soap would not lather, and a thick white scum formed on the water when she tried to churn up a suds.

"Hard," said Bob laconically. "Got to have something to put in to soften it. Borax is good; know where there is any?"

Betty remembered having seen a box of borax on the kitchen shelf, and Bob volunteered to go for it. When he returned with it, he brought the news that there was a peddler at the back door with a bewildering "assortment of everything," Bob said.

"Put a lot of this in," he directed, handing the box to Betty, who obediently shook in half the contents. "Now we'll put the stuff to soak, and