“Oh, yes,” he said, whirling around on his chair and resting his arms on its back, “you are seeing to me.”
“Yessir. Dinner’ll be ready in a minute. I couldn’t find a tablecloth, so I took a paper napkin. S’pose you use them to get out of washing, don’t you?”
“I do,” acknowledged the painter. “What—if it isn’t intrusive to ask—are we going to have for dinner?”
“Well, bread ’n’ milk was all you had in the house; but I’d sort of figured it would be that way, so I stopped at Mrs. Neal’s on my way up. I knew you got your butter ’n’ eggs, ’n’ milk there, ’n’ I told her you needed eggs ’n’ butter, ’n’ then, while I was there, I got a slice of ham—their hams are fine—’n’ some fresh pot cheese ’n’ a jar of preserves. Mrs. Neal says she’ll be glad to let us have anything she can spare. I told her to save us a chicken for Sunday. She was real interested about my doing your work.”
“It is interesting,” agreed Archibald.
“Yessir. She said the folks along the Valley were just downright troubled about your living so dirty ’n’ accidental when anybody could see you were used to having things proper. They’d all come up and looked in through the windows when you were away, so they knew how things were. Course they understood about you being an artist ’n’ that that was why, but Mrs. Neal said she’d feel a heap more comfortable, knowing I was seeing to you.”
“I believe I’ll feel more comfortable, myself, after I get over the first shock,” confessed the artist, eyeing with approval the ham and eggs which had just been put upon the table; “but may I ask how you came to undertake seeing to me?”
“Why, I don’t know. I heard folks talking about how shiftless and helpless you were, ’n’ that kind of bothered me; ’n’ then she said yesterday: ‘Pegeen, why don’t you go and take care of that ridikilus orphan up in the shack?’ ’N’ I said, ‘Why, I don’t know.’ ’N’ she said, ‘You need somebody to take care of, ’n’ he certainly needs somebody to take care of him, ’n’ it looks to me like a good combination.’ ’N’ I said, ‘Well, I guess I will.’ So I came, to-day.
“She said she was sure we’d get along finely together. She’s seen you somewhere; ’n’ she said you looked unhappy and neglected but sort of nice, ’n’ as if you’d be a credit to me, after a while.”
“Optimistic soul,” laughed Archibald. “Who is She?”