She spun around and scurried into the house. We hastily finished our meal and prepared sleeping quarters in the hay mow.
Then, as darkness fell, the old man ushered us into the neat living room. The soft rays from a large lamp glimmered on the walnut furniture and illumined the family groups upon the walls. Braided rugs, round and oval, were scattered about the floor and a cheerful blaze in an open-front stove radiated a pleasant welcome in the chill of evening. In a few moments our hostess was extracting all the details of our journey with the neatness and skill of long experience.
After a while Dan rose with a sigh of weariness. “Come, Ethel, we’d better hit the hay. I’ve got to work to-morrow, you know.”
“Hay—hit the hay! No such a thing. Go right into the spare room and make yourselves uncomfortable.” Sarah Jane rushed to open the bedroom door.
I explained our plans for roughing it and said we should rest very comfortably in the hay mow.
“Dear me, dear me, you should always put off till to-morrow what you can get out of doing to-day. You can do aplenty of roughing it when you get to Wyoming. Go on to bed now and enjoy a good spring mattress while you have the chance.”
Daylight came all too soon, with Sarah Jane summoning us to a breakfast of cornmeal mush and cream, fried perch, buckwheat cakes with maple syrup and cups of amber coffee.
“Let me know if you find anything that I can do to help along. I’d like to be of more use in the world than I can be hibernating here,” she called after us as we pedalled down the lane.
I can still see her merry smile as she leaned over the gate, vigorously waving her sunbonnet in farewell.
FIVE