“I dunno. We can ask. Jiminy! I haven’t had a piece of real apple pie for a coon’s age,” said Terry. “We’re in luck, anyhow. We might have had to go clear to end o’ track without eating.”
“‘Home cooking’ restaurant sounds good to me. But you can’t always tell. Sometimes those names are frauds—they don’t pan out. Golly, I’d like to sit down to regular home cooking again, by women like my mother.”
“Or like mine. So would I,” agreed Terry. “Men cooks are all right, but it doesn’t seem to come natural to ’em. Now a woman, she just slings stuff together and you never know how it’s going to taste except it’ll taste exactly right.”
“That is, if she’s like our mothers,” George persisted.
All Cheyenne was ringing with the sound of busy hammering, as scores of men labored with might and main to put up still more buildings. It certainly was a lively place. They stowed their horses in the Square Deal, and on foot found the Home Cooking restaurant.
“Doesn’t look much,” George criticized, when they inspected it from the outside.
“’Bout the same as the rest of ’em, only smells kind of good.” And Terry sniffed.
The Home Cooking restaurant was of canvas walls boarded part way up, and corrugated sheet-iron roof painted red, and seemed brand new. A large square canvas sign hung up in front, with the name on it. The front door was ajar. Through it there wafted those odors that had made Terry sniff. Inside there was hammering and voices.
“Gee, I do smell pie—or something,” George declared, wrinkling his nose as he drew long breaths. “Shall we try it?”
“Sure. Come on. We’re not afraid of women, even if we aren’t washed up.”