"Then I got some canned tomatoes—they're always good with bacon. Out under my straw pile I got some potatoes that ain't froze so very bad anyways, and you know spuds is always good. I didn't bring no more flour, because I had plenty. I can make all sorts of bread, ma'am—flapjacks, or biscuits, or even sour dough—even dough-gods. I ain't so strong when it comes to making the kind of bread you put in the oven."
"Why, I can make that—I know I can do that!" she said, pleased at the thought.
"We'll start in on that to-morrow," said he. "I'll just cook you one meal—as bad as I can, ma'am—so as to show you how bad I needed a housekeeper out here."
The chuckle in his tones was contagious, so that she almost laughed herself. "All right," said she.
She heard him bustling around here and there, rattling pans, stumbling over sticks of wood on the floor.
"Haven't you any chickens?" she asked.
"No, ma'am, I ain't got around to it. I was a-going to have some."
"I'd like awfully well to have some chickens. Those little yellow things, in my hands——"
"We can get plenty, ma'am. I can drive out just a leetle ways, about forty miles, to where the Mormons is at, and I can get plenty of 'em, even them yeller ones."
"Where is the dog? Haven't you got a dog?"