“I’ve heard you speak of him, Hen,” observed the girl.
“Well, thar was Kellup, as smart a young feller as you’d find in a day’s ride, livin’ with his wife an’ kids in what he called a flat. Be-lieve me! It was some perpendicular to git into, an’ no flat.
“When we gits inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around like he was proud of it (By jo! I’d be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in it, ’twas so small) an’ says he: ‘What d’ye think of the ranch, Hen?’
“‘Ranch,’ mind yeh! I was plumb insulted. I says: ‘It’s all right—what there is of it—only, what’s that crack in the wall for, Kellup?’
“‘Sufferin’ tadpoles!’ yells Kellup—jest like that! ‘Sufferin’ tadpoles! That ain’t no crack in the wall. That’s our private hall.’
“Great jumping Jehosaphat!” exclaimed Hen, roaring with laughter. “Yuh don’t wanter git inter no place like that in New York. Can’t breathe in the house.”
“I guess Uncle Starkweather lives in a little better place than that,” said Helen, after laughing with the old foreman. “His house is on Madison Avenue.”
“Don’t care where it is; there natcherly won’t be no such room in a city dwelling as there is here at Sunset Ranch.”
“I suppose not,” admitted the girl.
“Huh! Won’t be room in the yard for a cow,” growled Big Hen. “Nor chickens. Whatter yer goin’ to do without a fresh aig, Snuggy?”