The grass waved to their stirrups, and the pigweed stood rank up to the very door.
Inside, a gray film of dust had accumulated on everything, and the rooms were oppressive with the musty odors that gather in a closed, untenanted house. But apart from that it stood as they had left it thirteen months before. No foot had crossed the threshold. The pile of wood and kindling lay beside the fireplace as Bill had placed it the morning they left.
"'Be it ever so humble,'" Bill left the line of the old song unfinished, but his tone was full of jubilation. Between them they threw wide every door and window. The cool evening wind filled the place with sweet, pine-scented air. Then Bill started a blaze roaring in the black-mouthed fireplace—to make it look natural, he said—and went out to hobble his horses for the night.
In the morning they began to unpack their household goods. Rugs and bearskins found each its accustomed place upon the floor. His books went back on the shelves. With magical swiftness the cabin resumed its old-home atmosphere. And that night Bill stretched himself on the grizzly hide before the fireplace, and kept his nose in a book until Hazel, who was in no humor to read, fretted herself into something approaching a temper.
"You're about as sociable as a clam," she broke into his absorption at last.
He looked up in surprise, then chucked the volume carelessly aside, and twisted himself around till his head rested in her lap.
"Vot iss?" he asked cheerfully. "Lonesome? Bored with yourself? Ain't I here?"
"Your body is," she retorted. "But your spirit is communing with those musty old philosophers."
"Oh, be good—go thou and do likewise," he returned impenitently. "I'm tickled to death to be home. And I'm fairly book-starved. It's fierce to be deprived of even a newspaper for twelve months. I'll be a year getting caught up. Surely you don't feel yourself neglected because I happen to have my nose stuck in a book?"
"Of course not!" she denied vigorously. The childish absurdity of her attitude struck her with sudden force. "Still, I'd like you to talk to me once in a while."