“Everything nice,” she said. “You never saw a better dinner than the girls have brought out for you. What do you say to fried chicken, and new potatoes, and green peas, with pie and doughnuts to top off, and lots of other good things thrown in extra?”
The young man smacked his lips and sent a devouring glance around the room. “Say!” he repeated. “Why, I say it’s enough to make a fellow feel like John Ridd and thank the Lord for the room there is in him. When are you going to give us a chance at all that?”
“When the bell rings, of course,” said Kate Northmore, looking up at him with a saucy glance from the meal she was sifting. “You didn’t expect to get anything to eat now, I hope.”
“Oh, not anything much,” said the young man, helping himself to a doughnut from a plate which stood within easy reach. “I just looked in to tell you that while you’re getting, you’d better get us a plenty. We’re a fearful hungry crowd, and there won’t be much left over; but if there should be, it might come in handy to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” repeated Kate, letting the meal which was whirling under her hand fall level in the pan. “You don’t mean that there’s any danger of your being here to-morrow, do you?”
The young man brushed the chaff from the shoulders of his blue flannel shirt, and set his straw hat a little further on the back of his head before he answered. Kate’s “To-morrow” had put a complete pause on the talk of the room, and every woman there was looking at him anxiously.
“Well, I wouldn’t really say that there’s any need of worrying about it yet” he said, lowering his voice to a confidential tone; “but you see the men have heard that you and Esther are such stunning good cooks that—well, of course, I don’t want to give ’em away, but I don’t know as you can blame ’em any for wanting to make the work hold out so as to get in an extra meal or two here, if they can. That’s all.”
There was a shout at this, and Mrs. Elwell said reproachfully, “Now, Morton, quit your fooling. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to come scaring the girls with your talk about to-morrow? Why, we thought the machine had broken down, or something of that sort.”
He did look a little conscience-smitten just then, as Esther, who had caught some hint of excitement in the dining room, where she was setting the table, appeared in the doorway, looking really troubled. Kate was facing him with a different expression.
“Well, since you’re so anxious about to-morrow, Mort Elwell, you needn’t eat any more of those doughnuts,” she said, snatching up the plate toward which his hand was moving a second time, and setting it out of his reach. “We may want them, you know.”