He brought her some water in a tin dipper with a long handle, and she did not make a face, but drank the water gratefully. She determined in her own mind, however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the tumbler the next day, nor the next week, nor for many, many long months.
“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked, when taking over the household from Napoleon Pompey and Diana, who had run the establishment while her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.
“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey, desiring to be all that was polite to his new mistress.
“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?” repeated Olive with persistence.
“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’ afore sun-up,” said Napoleon Pompey concisely.
“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed Olive.
“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.
Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound to get up and prepare the working-man’s breakfast.
“You are not used to that sort of hard work, dearie. We can do very well with cold corn-bread.”
“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,” interrupted his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t have any of the people out here think I am a little fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride as well as other folks. I shall cook your breakfast to-morrow and every day afterwards, and I shall cook it well, see if I don’t.”