“What! And we’ve ridden twenty miles from the railroad because we couldn’t find anything fit to eat there.”
“It’s tougher the furtherer in ye git,” said Granny Joslin. “Ye orter see Hell-fer-Sartin, Ma’am. Ye’re from the North, I reckon?”
The young woman nodded.
“Well, I reckon Granny Williams will take ye in, like enough. She’s got another furrin womern in thar now.”
“Oh, all right—that will be fine. Do you know what her rates are?”
“Rates, Ma’am?”
“How much she charges by the day, or maybe longer.”
The old lady looked at her silently for some time, but at length answered with a certain calm dignity of her own.
“I don’t reckon nobody would charge ye nothin’ fer what ye et while ye was in here, Ma’am,” said she. “Ye’d be welcome.”