What needed to be done was, it transpires, quite a lot. They were mostly cleaning, with all the construction going on there was a constant struggle to keep the parts of the house that weren't being worked on livable with the dust that was constantly being stirred up. So the next few hours were focused on that, the labour was not hard but it was constant and involved quite a lot of time on their knees. Betsy showing Ruth a clever trick where she ties some wadded-up cloth to her knees to act as pads to stop them from aching while scrubbing and dusting.