The lonely, hungry, aching wait was over.
Constant familiarity with the house had mercifully dulled the occupant's appreciation of its natural deterioration and the effects of his neglect, so when he finally straightened his aching back and regarded the results of his heroic efforts, it seemed to him that everything shone like new and that the place was as neat and as clean as on the day "Bob" went away.

Probably Hercules thought the Augean stables were spotless and fragrant when he had finished with them.

And perhaps they were, but Tom Parker was no demigod.

He was just a clumsy old man, unaccustomed to indoor "doings," and his eyes at times during the last few days had been unaccountably dim--as, for instance, while he was at work in Barbara's chamber.
He did not sleep much on the night before the girl's arrival.

He sat until late with the framed photograph of Barbara's mother on his knee, and tried to tell the dead and gone original that he had done his best for the girl so far, and if he had failed, it was because he knew nothing about raising girls and--nature hadn't cut him out to be a father, anyhow.