CHAPTER VI.
NUISANCES, NECESSARY AND OTHERWISE For some time after dinner, that first day, David watched Mrs.Holly in silence while she cleared the table and began to wash the dishes.
"Do you want me to--help ?" he asked at last, a little wistfully.
Mrs.Holly, with a dubious glance at the boy's brown little hands, shook her head.
"No, I don't.

No, thank you," she amended her answer.
For another sixty seconds David was silent; then, still more wistfully, he asked:-- "Are all these things you've been doing all day 'useful labor' ?" Mrs.Holly lifted dripping hands from the dishpan and held them suspended for an amazed instant.
"Are they--Why, of course they are! What a silly question! What put that idea into your head, child ?" "Mr.Holly; and you see it's so different from what father used to call them." "Different ?" "Yes.

He said they were a necessary nuisance,--dishes, and getting meals, and clearing up,--and he didn't do half as many of them as you do, either." "Nuisance, indeed!" Mrs.Holly resumed her dishwashing with some asperity.

"Well, I should think that might have been just about like him." "Yes, it was.

He was always that way," nodded David pleasantly.