“There’s David and Goliath,” said Ander. “Rachel named them dogs. She’s great on Bible names, is Rachel—too danged great,” he finished in a lower key.
Gloss opened the door and stepped inside. Mrs. Declute turned slowly from the table and a smile spread across her flour-streaked face.
“Oh, you dear,” she said, pounding forward and implanting a resounding smack on the girl’s rosy cheek. “You little dear, to come just now of all times, when I most wanted to see you.”
Mrs. Declute smiled again and a bit of powder fell from her face. It was a big matronly face, with big-heartedness written clean across it, and real kindness gleaming in its large black eyes. She was a big woman, “nigh two hundred and thirty,” as Ander put it.
“Where are the babies?” asked Gloss, sitting down on a stool and glancing about the small room.
“Sleepin’ like angels, th’ troublesome little good-fer-nothin’s,” smiled the woman fondly. “Moses is just that troublesome I think sometimes I’ll have to tie him up. Only this mornin’ he upsot the cradle and spilt little Martha out on the floor ker-bump. Give my life if I wasn’t so provoked I could have beeched him if he hadn’t been just gettin’ over th’ jaundice.”
“Ander tells me that you are thinkin’ of havin’ a loggin’,” said Gloss. “Is there anythin’ I could help you to do, Mrs. Declute?”
“Just what I was wantin’ to see you about,” cried the beaming woman, sitting down and wiping her face with her apron. “Thought first as I’d run across to Totherside and ask widder Ross to come over. Then I thought about her havin’ that teacher boardin’ there, and I didn’t want to put her out any. Fine cook is the widder, but somehow I can’t think as anybody can cook meats and sarve ’em up quite like you, Glossie. I’m fixin’ up some dried-apple pies. Sent over to Bridgetown this mornin’ by Jim Peeler for the dried-apples. Guess he’ll be along soon.”
“He’s comin’ right now,” called Declute from the door. “I’ll go along and give him a hand, I guess. He’s got some tobaccer for me—leastways I hope he has; I sent for some.”
“Ain’t that a man for you?” winked Mrs. Declute. “Ain’t that a man, though? Glossie, my dear, don’t you ever marry a man; don’t you ever do it. You’ll be sorry all the days of your life if you do. Even I am almost sorry sometimes, an’ Ander’s an exception of a man. There ain’t no other like him. And sakes alive, he’s bad enough, dear knows.”