“And me like a lump o’ lumber on th’ hearthstone,” I muttered impatiently.
“We’st know more than we do now when father comes back. I’ll have some hot potato cakes, with plenty of butter. Th’ price tea’s at it’s like dissolving pearls in wine, as I’ve read those pagan Romans used to do; but all th’ same, father’st have his dish of tea to-night, if I’ve to break into that pound my aunt Keziah brought me on my first birthday, though she did say it was not to be broken into till my wedding day. Then when father’s got his wet shoon off, an’ had his tea, and got his pipe nicely going, see if I don’t get it all out of him.”
“You’re like that lady of high quality I read about, Ruth. She boasted she could always keep her husband in a good humour. ‘How do you do it?’ someone asked. ‘I feed the brute,’ was her recipe.”
“And quality or no quality, that lady was none bout sense,” opined Ruth. “Nine times out of ten the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“But a parson’s heart!” I protested.
“Why, now, who should know them better nor me?” retorted Ruth. “Don’t I have to do for ’em when they have their monthly conferences at th’ Pole. If there’s one set o’ men more than another with a weakness for hot muffins and plenty of butter it’s parsons, an’ Baptist parsons at that.”
Well, now, whether it was the influence of the tea or the potato-cake or the snug comfort of my little bedroom, to which my father brought his pipe, I know not. But this is certain, that no sooner had Ruth handed him his long churchwarden, and the weed had attained an assured glow, and Ruth had nestled up to his knee, seated on a little hassock with her steel knitting needles glinting in the fire’s rays as they threaded warp and weft for my winter “comforter,” or neck muffler, than my father began:
“Well, old Mother Sykes of Burnplatts has gone at last. She’s been failing this while back. I scarce expected her to last so long.”
“Dead!” I cried. “Mother Sykes dead!”
My father nodded gravely.