"Hungry are you? That is right. Here, come into the kitchen with me and have something to eat straight away, for we shan't have supper until the milking is done and the creatures seen to for the night. It will take another hour or more, and you have had no dinner."
Rumple followed his hostess into the kitchen, which was canvas-walled like the best parlour, but many sizes larger and so much more comfortable that Rumple decided it looked really beautiful, while the smell of new-baked bread and cakes made a fragrance very delightful to a hungry boy.
There was a wood fire smouldering on a great open fireplace, and raking the embers open the good woman put a toasting fork into Rumple's hands and bade him toast scones for himself. He was invited to put the butter on for himself also, and there was milk to drink in a big mug close beside him. So the next half-hour passed pleasantly enough.
But when his hunger was satisfied Rumple began to worry about the others and started for the cowyard once more in order to see if any news of the wagon had arrived. Truth to tell, he was feeling very guilty because of all the trouble he was giving, for he knew that Rupert and Nealie would be very worried and anxious concerning him, and the journey would be delayed also.
He had discovered that the woman who had found him lying in the road and had brought him home was a Mrs. Warner, that her husband was away from home that day on business, and that all the people moving about the cowyard were the sons and daughters of the house, with the exception of an old black fellow who had only one eye.
The milking was over and the cows had all been turned into the home paddock for the night, but now a strange humming noise made itself heard on the quiet air.
"Why, what is that?" asked Rumple as one of the young Warners passed him, bowed under the weight of two heavy pails of sour milk for the poultry.
"That is the separator. Do you want to see it at work?" asked the boy, with a friendly grin. He was a few years older than Rumple and scorched to a berry-brown by the sun.
"What is a separator?" demanded Rumple, whose knowledge of farming was of a rather antiquated description, Beechleigh being about twenty years behind the times.
"It is the thing that parts the cream from the milk. Go into the dairy and have a look at it," said the youth, nodding his head in the direction of a long, low shed that had been built into the side of the hill, and which was so covered with creepers that it looked almost like a part of the bank.