Amanda laughed and kept smiling as she helped the child set the table for supper. Later she offered her services to Mrs. Landis. Martin, coming in from the dusty road, found her before the stove, one of his mother’s gingham aprons tied around her waist, and turning sweet potatoes in a big iron pan.
“Why, hello!” he said, pleasure written in his face. “Katie ran to meet me and said I couldn’t guess who was here for supper. Has Mother got you working? Um,” he sniffed, “smells awful much like chicken!”
“Ach,” his mother told him, “you just hold your nose shut a while! You and your pop can smell chicken off a mile. But you dare ring the supper bell, Martin, before you go up-stairs to wash, so your pop and the boys can come in now and get ready, too.”
Soon the savory, smoking dishes were all placed on the big table in the kitchen and the family with their guest gathered for the meal.
“Ain’t I dare keep my coat off, Mom?” asked Mr. Landis, his face flushed from a long hot day in the fields.
“Why, yes, if Amanda don’t care.”
“Why should I? Look at my cool dress! Take your coat off, Martin. I never could see why men should roast while we keep comfortable.”
As Martin stripped the serge coat off he thought of that other dinner when coats were kept on and dinner eaten in “the room” because of the presence of one who might take offense if she were expected to share the plain, every-day ways of the family. What a fool he had been! Their best efforts at style and convention must have looked very amateurish and incomplete to her--what a fool he had been!
“Ah, that looks good!” Mr. Landis said after he had said grace and everybody waited for the food to be passed. “Now we’ll just hand the platter around and let everybody help themselves, not so, Mom?”
“Yes, that’s all right. Start the potatoes once, Martin. Now you must eat, Amanda. Just make yourself right at home.”