It was impossible to retain gloomy forebodings while Alfy’s cheerful tongue was running on at this rate, and as she left the living-room for the kitchen at the rear both Lady Gray and Helena were laughing, partly at their own awkwardness at the tasks assigned them as well as at her glib remarks.
“I never set a table in my life!” cried Helena, in glee.
“And I never sliced a loaf of bread!” said Gray Lady; “though I’ll admit it is time I learned. Indeed, I’ve never had a home, you know, and I’m looking forward to my housekeeping as eagerly as a child to her playhouse.”
“I’m wondering what the landlady will say, when she finds how we’ve invaded her pantry,” continued Helena, carefully arranging the coarse stone-china upon the oilcloth covered tables. She had begun very reluctantly but found that the labor was a delightful relief from worry, and, with the good sense she possessed, now went on with it as painstakingly as if she expected a fashionable and critical company. Indeed, her first table-setting, copied, as near as she could remember, from the careful appointments of her own mother’s board, was to be an object lesson to others besides herself.
For presently there was the sound of voices in the kitchen; Alfaretta’s, of course, with another equally gay and girlish.
Mattie Roderick had slept lightly. She had been excited over the arrival of the Ford party in the first place, and doubly so from the later events of the night. So as she lay sleepless and listening, she heard the rattle of cooking things in the kitchen below and soon the odor of frying. With a little grumble she got up and put on the few garments she had discarded.
“It can’t be near morning yet. I don’t see what’s set Ma to cooking, ’less they’re on the road back and nigh starved. One thing I know! I shan’t marry no tavern-keeper! It’s nothin’ but fry, roast, bake, an’ bile, the hull endurin’ time. I’m goin’ to quit and go east fur as Denver, anyhow, soon’s I get my age. I’d like to look same’s them girls do, and they ain’t no prettier ’n me. It’s only their clothes makes ’em look it, and as for that Molly, they call her, that’s rid off on Chiquita, she’s just as plain and folksy as get out! So’s the red-headed one with the high-falutin’ name, out of that song Pa sings about the ‘blue Juniata’ and ‘bright Alfaretta,’ or some such trash. Them boys—Well, they hain’t took no notice o’ me yet—but I can show ’em a thing or two. I bet I can shoot better than any of ’em. I bet, if they don’t hurry off too early to-morrow, I’ll get up a match and teach ’em how a Colorado girl can hit the bull’s-eye every time!”
With these ambitious reflections the inn-keeper’s daughter arrived at the kitchen and the presence of the red-headed girl in it, instead of the portly form of her mother.
“What on earth does it mean?” demanded Mattie, scarcely believing her own eyes.
It didn’t take Alfy long to explain, and she added the warning: