"Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times
one."

So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound
Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table.
She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and
geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want
a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke;
if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must _build_ one,
just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked
together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting
great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of
us,--and some of the best of us, perhaps,--have got to stay at home
awhile and do.

"It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while
to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another.
'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town
meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm _sure_ there's
need of them for reorganizing _parlor_ meetings. They are getting to
be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have
grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the
position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think
so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see
to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,--right up,
respectful,--Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!"

Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West
Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that.