CHAPTER XVII
"I hope Isita comes early," said Harry on the morning of the Fourth as she dried the breakfast dishes. "The nearer dinner time it gets the more things there are to be done at once."
"I've seen you turn out pretty good feed all by yourself, when a bunch of people have come in unexpectedly," said Rob, who, in honor of the holiday, was dawdling about for fully ten minutes instead of hurrying back to the field. "Those surveyors, now, that lost their way and stayed overnight. Pretty good grub, I say, was what you gave them."
"This is a different matter," said Harry, trying not to show her pleasure at Rob's praise. "This is a dinner party, you no savvy?"
"I see. In other words, you want the grub fit to eat off that hundred-and-sixty-l'even-piece semiporcelain, rose-sprigged, twelve-dollar-ninety-cents et cetery, et cetery, dinner set that we bought out of the mail-order catalogue,—how long ago?—and that's been settin' in the cupboard ever since."
Rob dodged the flapping dishcloth with which Harry chased him outdoors. "All right!" he called back. "I'm going to tell 'em about that first pie you tried to make!"
"You'll be sorry if you do," she warned him.
She was still smiling at the remembrance of those first days in the new country when she saw the calico-clad figure of Isita coming along the ditch bank.
"It's awfully good of you to help me out to-day!" Harry exclaimed as the girl came up the path. "I couldn't possibly have done it all alone."