She had not known there were neighbors so near, and she wondered for several days about them before she ventured to say anything to Bart on the subject. Indeed, for some reason which she did not attempt to explain to herself, she felt shy about broaching the matter. Perhaps Bart did not want her to know the people. The thought came to her, as naughty thoughts will come, even to the best of persons, that some handsome young men might be “baching” it out there by themselves, and Bart didn't wish her to make their acquaintance. Bart had flattered her so much that she had actually begun to think herself beautiful, though as a matter of fact she was only a nice little girl with a lot of reddish-brown hair, and a bright pair of reddish-brown eyes in a white face.
“Bart,” she ventured one evening, as the sun, at its fiercest, rushed toward the great black hollow of the west, “who lives over there in that shack?”
She turned away from the window where she had been looking at the incarnadined disk, and she thought she saw Bart turn pale. But then, her eyes were so blurred with the glory she had been gazing at, that she might easily have been mistaken.
“I say, Bart, why don't you speak? If there's any one around to associate with, I should think you'd let me have the benefit of their company. It isn't as funny as you think, staying here alone days and days.”
“You ain't gettin' homesick, be you, sweetheart?” cried Bart, putting his arms around her. “You ain't gettin' tired of my society, be yeh?”
It took some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner, but at length Flora was able to return to her original topic.
“But the shack, Bart! Who lives there, anyway?”
“I'm not acquainted with 'em,” said Bart, sharply. “Ain't them biscuits done, Flora?”
Then, of course, she grew obstinate.
“Those biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about that house, and why you never spoke of it, and why nobody ever comes down the road from there. Some one lives there I know, for in the mornings and at night I see the smoke coming out of the chimney.”