10CHAPTER II
The Shotgun Widow
The Widow Huff was burdened with a tray and her eye sought wildly for Virginia but when she glimpsed Wiley moving swiftly towards the door she set down his dinner with a bang. The disrespectful epithet which he had applied to her had been lost in the clatter of plates, but the moment the Widow came into the room she sensed the hair-trigger atmosphere.
“Here!” she ordered, taking command on the instant. “Come back here, young man, and pay me for this dinner! And Virginia Huff, you go out into the kitchen–how many times do I have to speak to you?”
Virginia started and stopped, her resentful eyes on Wiley, a thin smile parting her lips.
“He said─” she began, and then Wiley strode back and slapped down a dollar on the table.
“Yes, and I meant it, too,” he answered fiercely. “There’s your pay–and you can keep your mine.”
“Why, certainly,” responded the Widow without knowing what she was talking about, “and now you eat that dinner!”
11She pointed a finger to the tray of food and looked Wiley Holman in the eye. He wavered, gazing from her to the smiling Virginia, and then he drew up his chair.
“I’ll go you,” he said and showed his teeth in a grin. “You can’t hurt my feelings that way.”