"Now, Miss Miller, how evasive!" laughed Jane, thinking the teacher was joking. "Dish-washing had nothing to do with your theory on thinking."
"Surely you can't expect me to continue the harangue!" returned Miss Miller, starting for the kitchen with a pile of dishes.
"I want to have you apply the lesson to my particular failure to think right about dish-washing!" laughed Jane, eagerly.
"Yes, yes! We all want to hear just how you can do it!" added the other girls.
"Why, just this, dears. We have had our food to nourish the body that must act at the suggestion of thought, and for this blessing we are grateful; for a weak, or impoverished body does not respond to the command of thought, no matter how willing it may be to act. After filling the receptacle for food one should not give way to lethargy a common fault and inclination. Lethargy forms fat and soft muscles! Express your thanks to your thought and the benefit food gives the body, by obeying whatever dictates thought gives you for the perfect circulation of conditions. The dish-washing is a natural sequence of events following supper. So, I interpret it that thought has this work for us to do which will be sufficient exercise for us after a light supper. The very sense of having done with apparent duties for the night, will give your thought a comfortable relaxation while you sleep. The nagging idea that some work has been slighted or postponed, even though you may not be conscious of its effect upon you, will, nevertheless, cause a mental shrinkage and this in turn will draw your facial muscles into knots, and also cause unpleasant dreams. One who seeks repose with the sense of having completed all of the day's work with as conscientious application as is possible to him, will always find perfect rest in a sleep that renews one's physical being."
"That's enough for one night!" cried Jane, laughingly, placing her hands over her ears and running out to the kitchen.
Miss Miller and the girls laughed as they followed. In less than a minute's time, Jane had a tin pan down on the table and was pouring hot water from a steaming kettle, over the soiled dishes which she had piled in the pan.
Every one was too tired and sleepy to sit on the porch and watch the moon rise over the hill, or listen to the hum of insects, so, provided with a small lamp, each one stumbled up the steep narrow stairway to the floor above.
Even Miss Miller's enjoyment at seeing old mahogany failed to rouse interest in the carved four-posted beds, or high-boys, and the patch-work quilts seemed merely a light covering for weary bodies, while the gaily
colored mats before the beds acted for aching feet, the same purpose any ordinary mat might do.
There were four rooms on the second floor. Two large ones with double beds which were allotted to four of the girls. Zan took her own little room that had a window opening toward the moon, and Miss Miller took the other small room with a single bed in it. Just before the girls dozed off, Miss Miller warned them again that the rising hour was five in the morning.
With this last conscious advice all were soon asleep, some to roam in dreams over the hills and valleys, and some to float in mahogany furniture on the breast of the stream, enjoying the flowers and trees as they were swept past.
CHAPTER THREE DISCOVERY OF THE "THINKERATOR"
She leaped from bed and sighed with happiness at the picture of rural beauty before her. But how could the noise of thrifty chickens reach her when Sherwood's cottage was so far away?
"I must investigate!" murmured Miss Miller, as she quickly dressed and crept downstairs. Out of the back door took another minute and she stood on the kitchen stoop looking eagerly about. From the direction of the carriage-sheds came the sound.
"I must call and say good-morning," said the teacher, and forthwith ran along the path until the out-houses were reached.
There, sure enough, was a scolding hen with a dozen chicks misbehaving with all their might, and a few other sedate hens, intent upon breakfast.
"Bill must have brought them over yesterday. I'm glad for the girls' sake, as it will be part of their education becoming acquainted with all manner of creatures."
Miss Miller cheeped, too, and attracted one of the small yellow balls of down and soon had it cuddled up to her face. The mother-hen, albeit she had been scolding a moment previous, now flew into hysterics at the threatened kidnapping of her chick.
"Poor little mother! Did you think I would rob you of a child?" laughed Miss Miller, as she carefully placed the little chick in the grass. Then, taking a deep breath of fresh morning air, she walked back to the house.
"I suppose the children are tired after yesterday! I must guard myself and not be too critical and severe with them they are still young and only partially developed, both mind and body!"
She reached the kitchen and started preparations for breakfast. While the cereal was boiling and the kettle singing, she gathered a bouquet of flowers from a roundel on the front lawn. These gave fragrance to the table, and by the time the dishes were all placed, the cereal was cooked.