“I get so desperately tired of it all,” she said. “Pone and fry and coffee, coffee and fry and pone. Nowhere to sleep but in the room where we can see the sky through the rafters. Nothing to do but to listen to Hannah Maria’s incessant chatter. It may amuse you, Tina, to talk to her and to Cynthia Thompson and Laura Van Dorn, when they come in, but as for me I get tired of them. I enjoy Lolita much more. She is really entertaining and far more lovable. Besides we teach each other many things.” So off Alison would go to spend the morning with Lolita, while Christine would turn her attention to whatever she could find to occupy her. The place was not very attractive, she was forced to agree with Alison, and though she expostulated with her sister upon her frequent abscondings, she did not blame the girl.
The house certainly had no claim to either comfort or beauty. The main room, about twenty feet square, served as living-room, bedroom and dining-room. The kitchen, a small log structure, stood some yards to the rear of the house. The family table-ware, the stock of groceries and all wearing apparel found place in the living-room. A great canopy bed, which both Christine and Alison shared with Hannah Maria, filled a large space in one corner, a table stood in the middle of the floor, several chairs seated with untanned deer-skin were pushed against the wall haphazard; over the mantelpiece hung a rifle, powder-horn, and pouches; a bureau held its place as general receptacle for anything which could not be poked away elsewhere. A Bible occupied one end of the mantel; on the other end was a Connecticut clock supporting a card to which was pinned a flashy breastpin. On state occasions, such as funerals and weddings, Hannah Maria wore the pin.
It was not the home of elegance, but there was easy content and rough kindliness of the truest sort. If both Christine and Alison had elected to spend the remainder of their mortal existences under Bud’s roof, they would have been as cordially welcome as if they were members of the family. Indeed, it was because any other arrangement would have given offense that they were obliged to accept this ready hospitality. Fortunately it was mild weather, and, unless a norther drove every one within doors to seek the fire, the gallery was the gathering place for all, and here, on a pallet, Bud was wont to sleep in summer. The Haleys’, being the centre of neighborhood news, was seldom passed by those going up or down the road, and the gallery was usually occupied by half a dozen persons during the greater part of the day, for even if Hannah Maria had gone forth on some charitable errand, incidental to gathering news, Bud would be at home; or if Bud were away Hannah Maria would be found surrounded by the hounds and shooing off chickens from her untidy flower-beds, but ready to smile a welcome to whomever should ride up.
The lock of hair had been sent by a safe hand to Ira, and every day some of the boys managed to bring a report of Louisa. “Old Cy has some scheme in his head,” Bud told the girls. “I don’t know jest what. I think he’d send Pike about his business if he dared. As for Jabe he’s easier managed; he wants Lou, but he’s divided between his desire for her and his love of his money-bags, so he’ll only come up to the scratch when it’s now or never.”
Hannah Maria, softly plump and comfortable, nodded approvingly from her rocking-chair. She considered that Bud was a person of marked perspicuity and his opinions those of great weight. She was a great lover of the romantic and was continually seeking out sentimental motives. Christine’s sad little story interested her deeply and she would talk for hours upon the possibility of Steve’s return. It must be said that her cheerful optimism was a good thing for Christine who, from constant brooding and from being much alone, was in danger of becoming morbid. Alison was a very much less interesting companion to Hannah Maria, for Alison laughed at her sentimentalities, refused to talk of love affairs, and though Hannah Maria declared it was unnatural in a girl nearly seventeen to fight shy of love-making, Alison insisted that she was not yet ready for anything of the kind.
“The very idear of it,” said Hannah Maria, as Alison vanished from the house one day. “I never see a young gal so sot agin love stories.”
Christine smiled. “She isn’t so indifferent as she seems. She thinks a lot about such things, but they are all imaginary ones so far. She hasn’t met her knight yet.”
“Maybe she has, an’ maybe she hain’t,” said Hannah Maria. “There’s young Van Dorn thinks a mighty heap of her an’ he mought be jedge some day.”
“That some day is a long way off yet,” returned Christine. “I am glad Alison is in no haste. She seems such a child.”
“Laws, Tiny, when gals is so skeerce they git married dreadful airly, an’ sixteen’s the age fer most of ’em to be pickin’ out their husbands. You don’t want her to be a old maid.”