Amos Burr crossed to the stove and turned his dripping back to the heat.
"Gimme a rubbin' down, Sairy Jane," he pleaded, and his daughter took a dry cloth and began mopping off the water.
Marthy Burr placed an iron on the stove and took one off.
"Whar'd you git dinner, Nick?" she inquired suddenly.
"At the judge's."
"What did they have?" demanded Jubal from the hall, ceasing the clatter of the churn. "Golly! Wouldn't I like a bite of something!"
"I shouldn't mind some strange cookin', myself," said Marthy Burr, shaking her head at one of the children who had come into the kitchen with muddy feet. "I ain't tasted anybody else's vittles for ten years, an' sometimes I feel my mouth waterin' for a change of hand in the dough."
She took one of her husband's shirts from the pile of freshly dried clothes, spread it on the ironing-board, and sprinkled it with water. Then she moistened her finger and applied it to the iron.
Amos Burr looked up from before the stove, where he still sat drying.
"You're a man now, Nick," he said slowly, as if the words had been revolving in his brain for some time and he had just received the power of speech.