"I? Oh I emulated the example of 'The old person of Crewd' who said
"'We use sawdust for food.
It's cheap by the ton
And it nourishes one,
And that's the main object of food.'
I munched a handful of some sort of new breakfast straw, but it wasn't very satisfying, and I was just going in to get a cup of brother Jameson's coffee. I told him to put my name in the pot. Come on in and have some too."
Throwing open the dining-room door she began a series of breezy introductions that set them all to laughing and swept away every vestige of formality.
Both Lloyd and Kitty protested against taking a single mouthful at that hour, but the young host poured out a cup of very muddy coffee with such a beaming smile, and the little bride offered a very bitter cup of tea in competition, with a merry insistence so like Gay's, that they could not refuse.
"It's going to be lovely," Kitty managed to whisper under cover of the bustle of bringing in more hot water. "They're almost as harum-scarum and hap-hazard as Gay herself, and 'brother Jameson' looks as if he might be the 'Gibson man's' youngest brother."
"These 'babes in the wood' would have perished but for me," began Gay, who was rattling along as if she were wound up. "I was the robin who came to the rescue. I went over to Stumptown bright and early—you see I remembered the short cut through the woods—and as luck would have it, found some one willing to come, at the very first house where I inquired. (But she can't come till nearly noon, hence this disorderly feasting and rioting.) Ca'line Allison was swinging on the gate, with her finger in her mouth. I didn't know her, but she remembered me, and complimented me by asking if I'd done brought my fiddle along. I think I'll engage her for the summer for my little maid-in-waiting. She's as quick as a monkey and would look so cunning diked up in a cap and apron. What's that rhyme Betty made about her when she was flower-girl at her own mother's wedding? Oh by the way, where is Betty? Why didn't she come with you?"
"For the good reason that we didn't know we were coming heah ourselves when we left home," answered Lloyd. "Betty went on to Commencement with all the rest of the family, but it was hard for her to tear herself away from her beloved writing. We hadn't been back at Locust half an houah this mawning till she was at it again."
"Betty is Mrs. Sherman's god-daughter," explained Gay in an aside to her brother-in-law. "The one who I told you is such a genius. She's writing a book." Then turning to Lloyd. "It isn't that same old one she was at work on at school, is it?"
"No, it's something she began last fall. Mothah wanted her to make her début in Louisville when she was through school, just as I am going to do next wintah, but Betty begged to be allowed to stay in the country. She said she'd nevah be a brilliant success socially, but that she'd do her best to be a credit to the family in some other way."