Chase dismounted. "Can my horse be put up? Just call some one, will you?"
"Well, Isrul Porter, who works here, has gone home," answered Mrs. Crumb. "Arter Mis' Chase and Miss Dolly got yere, I sent Isrul arter their pony, what they'd lef' in the woods more'n two miles off, an' he 'lowed, Isrul did, that he'd take him home with him for the night when he found him, bekase the Porters's house is nearer than our'n to the place where he was lef'. An' Dave, he ain't workin' ter-day; he's ailin' a little. But I kin see to yer hoss."
"Show a light and I'll do it myself," Chase answered, amused at the idea of his leaving such work to a woman.
Portia returned to the kitchen, and came back with a burning brand of pitch-pine, which gave out a bright flare. Carrying this as a torch, she led the way to the stable, Chase following with the horse. "Your mare, she's in yere erready," said the farmer's wife, pointing to Kentucky Belle.
Then, as they went back to the house by the light of the flaring brand, she asked whether she should go up and wake Ruth.
"Yes, and I'll go along; which room is it? Hold on, though; are you sure my wife's asleep?"
"When I went up the minute before you come, she was, an' Miss Dolly too."
"Well, then, I guess I won't disturb 'em just yet," said Chase, and he went with Portia to her kitchen, where she brought forward her rocking-chair for his use. "What time did they get here?" he inquired.
Portia, seating herself on a three-legged stool, told what she knew. As she was finishing her story there came a growl from the dark end of the long room, the end where the loom stood. "It's only Dave wakin' up," she explained, and she hastened towards her husband. But as she did so he roared "Coffee!" in impatient tones, and, hurrying back, she knelt down and blew up the fire. "I'm comin', Dave; it's all ready," she called. Then as she continued to work the bellows quickly she went on in a low voice to Chase: "He'll stay awake now fer an hour or two. An' he'll be talkin', an' takin' on, p'raps. Mebbe you'd ruther set in the best room for a whilst? There's a fire; an' the stairs mount right up from there to the room where yer wife's asleep, so you kin go up whenever you like. Relse you might lay down yourself, without disturbin' 'em at all till mawnin'. There's a good bed in the best room; none better."
"Coffee!" demanded the farmer a second time, and Portia quickly took the cup, which stood waiting with sugar and cream already in it, and lifting her pot from the coals, poured out the odorous beverage, the strong coffee of Rio. Though she had an intense desire to be left alone with "Dave," now that his precious waking-time had come, her inborn sense of hospitality would never have permitted her to suggest that her guest should leave her, if she had not believed with all her heart that her best room was really a bower of beauty; she even had the feeling that she ought to urge it a little, lest he should be unwilling to "use it common." Chase, perceiving that she wished him to go, went softly out, and, entering the bower, closed the door behind him. The fire was low. He put on some pitch-pine splinters, and added wood; for, in spite of his water-proof coat (which was now hanging before the fireplace in the kitchen), his clothes were damp. He lifted the logs carefully, so as not to waken the sleepers above; then he sat down and stretched out his legs to the blaze. In spite of Portia's assertion that his wife was "all right," he was very uneasy; he could scarcely keep himself from stealing up to get a look at her. But sleeplessness had been for so long one of her troubles that he knew it was far wiser to let her rest as long as she could. One thought pleased him; it had pleased him since the moment he heard it: her stealing off for a ride at dawn simply to tease Dolly. That certainly looked as if she must be much stronger than she had been when he left her. It was an escapade worthy of the days when she had been the frolicking Ruth Franklin. On the other hand loomed up the results of this freak of hers, namely, her having been out so long in the storm. Portia's expression, "pretty well beat when she first come"—that was not encouraging. Thus he weighed the possibilities, sitting there with his chair tilted back, his eyes fixed on the reviving flame. He knew that he could not sleep until he had seen her. Portia's "best bed," therefore, did not tempt him. In addition, he wished to wait for the carriage, in order to contrive some sort of shelter for it, and to assist in putting up the horses, since there was no one else to do it. After a while, with his hands clasped behind his head, he moved his chair a little and looked vaguely round the room. Everything was the same as when he had paid his former visit there during the excursion which he had made over the Great Smoky Mountains with the Franklins and poor Jared. The red patch-work quilt was spread smoothly over the bed; the accordion was on the mantel-piece, flanked by the vase whose design was a pudgy hand holding a cornucopia; on the wall was the long row of smirking fashion-plates. This means of entertainment, however, was soon exhausted, and after a while he took some memoranda from his pocket, and, bending forward towards the fire, began to look them over.