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a while it was very dismal and lonely in the Pippinger household. Bill continued to send the children to school and made shift to do the housework as best he could in his slovenly male fashion. When the little Pippingers got home from school in the gathering dusk of the gray winter afternoon, there was no mother briskly baking fragrant cookies or frying corn cakes and sizzling strips of sowbelly. The untidy kitchen, already in twilight, was usually empty, with Bill choring about the barn or away doing a day's work somewhere in the neighborhood. If he happened to be in the kitchen, he sat hunched over the stove in a half stupor, his quid of tobacco in his cheek, his eyes fascinated by the gleams of fire that could be seen through the open sliding draught in front. The twins, now become the housekeepers of the family, would bustle about, polish the lamp chimney and light the lamp, brush the ashes from the stove and the hearth with the turkey feather duster, sweep up the floor and get together the evening meal. Judith helped, but only under direction. She had to be told to run and fetch the side of bacon, to get out the mixing bowl and big spoon for the corn cake batter, and to wash the milk strainer, which Bill had not washed clean in the morning. Elmer and Craw generally went with their father to help milk and do up the barn chores; and Judith went too whenever she could slip away from the twins.

On Saturdays the twins, with Judith's somewhat reluctant help, cleaned house thoroughly, repairing with feminine housewifely zeal the ravages of a week of slipshodness. They polished the stove, scrubbed the table and the floor, dusted the shelves, swept the bedrooms, beat the dust out of the rag mats, and hung out the bedding to air. Sometimes when they were busily at work, Bill would come into the kitchen, glance about and ask, "Where's your—?" then leave the question