It looked cheery enough when I came in. It should have been painted as an "Interior in Old Chicago." The room was large with a great fireplace at one end, the logs had been chinked in with plaster and then plastered over again, quite roughly to be sure. Every spring and fall mother whitewashed it. Now it was rather smoky. Dan and I had put up a kind of dresser on one side, shelves braced up by side brackets and a curtain hung over them. Our chairs had tough reed grass bottoms, braided in a fashion learned from the Indians. There were several gun racks, and some trophies of hunting. On one side was a roomy settle that did duty as a bed, with dried grass pillows and cured skins, some quite valuable. Mother had two candles lighted on the table, and they shed a sort of weird light around. She was warming up some chicken potpie, and there was a great plate of brown bread and white, and another of gingerbread and an appetizing sauce of wild grapes.
Mr. Gaynor had stopped at the bench and washed face and hands with a great flourish of enjoyment. Now he sniffed at the savory fragrance with the eagerness of a hungry man.
"Jest draw up," said mother, nodding to a chair. But she placed one for the Little Girl and would have lifted her in it, only she slipped by with the litheness of a fairy.
"What is your name, Sissy?"
"Ruth—Ruth Gaynor," was the gentle reply.
"And I am John Gaynor from old Massachusetts. I've wondered along the route what evil spirit enticed me to leave the State where I was born, but somehow luck turned against me, and the farm was a bed of rocks, as one may say—worn-out land. There's to be a great wheat-growing country out here, folks say, and bread is one of the things that doesn't seem to go out of fashion. Jerusalem! but there's a sight of folks growing up all the time. When the world gets full I s'pose it'll have to come to an end, for if it is full of folks, stands to reason there won't be no room for wheat growing."
"Laws a' massy, I never thought of that," said mother. "But ther's wars and plagues an' what not. Sissy, you ain't eating no supper."
"I'm eating slow, tastes so good," returned Ruth gravely, looking up with shining eyes.
There was a sudden rush and howl and she started in terror, turning pale.
"It's them dratted boys," explained mother, going to the door. "Boys—" one or two of them had a resounding cuff—"you air worse'n a pack of wolves! Now jes' wash up in some sort o' quiet or you'll get your father's horsewhip. An' then go straight to bed. Go round 'tother way."