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 They were accustomed to work and expected to do so all their lives as a matter of course. How else could they use up all the abundant strength and energy that surged each day as from an inexhaustible wellspring into their young bodies? So on the third morning Jerry harnessed up his new team and went forth whistling to plow the land that was to be put into corn. Judith watched him disappear over the brow of the ridge, then went back into the house and washed up the dishes and set the rooms to rights. Having done this she went out again into the sunny dooryard.

She had always disliked the insides of houses. The gloom of little-windowed rooms, the dead chill or the heavy heat as the fire smouldered or blazed, the prim, set look of tables and cupboards that stood always in the same places engaged in the never ending occupation of collecting dust both above and beneath: these things stifled and depressed her. She was always glad to escape into the open where there was light, life, and motion and the sun and the wind kept things clean. So, having done up her morning chores, she went out into the yard and busied herself with building chicken coops out of packing boxes. She worked away happily, unmindful of the passing of time, until she was startled to hear the rattle of harness and Jerry's voice calling "Whoa," to the horses.

"My land, if I hain't clear fergot to put on a single bite o' dinner," she gasped, as she raced into the house and stuffed kindlings into the cold cookstove.

When Jerry came in after unharnessing and feeding the horses, she was frantically beating up cornmeal batter, and the sliced meat was sizzling in the frying pan.

"Didn't I tell you I was no good of a housekeeper," she laughed, as Jerry caught her in his arms and kissed her. "I was a-buildin' chicken coops, an' I done gone clean fergot all about dinner till I heard the harness a-rattlin'. An' I was a-goin' to make you a biled puddin' to-day an' cook some o' that cabbage Aunt Eppie give us. The Pettits has got so much cabbage left over this year they're a-feedin' it to the hawgs. Naow we can't have nothin' but hog meat an' cakes."