Elsa’s fat form grew quite rigid and her hand ceased its caressing stroke. Not for her to betray the confidence of one who had taken refuge with her.
“Why ask that? What if he has and is? Is he not the old man, already? Even here there is no room for the old. When one is fifty one should die. That would be wisdom.”
“Elsa Winkler, nonsense! That’s not polite for me to say, but it’s true. You’re fifty, yourself, I guess, and you don’t want to die, do you?”
Elsa shivered slightly. “When the right time comes and the usefulness is past. As the Lord wills.”
Jessica laughed and kissed the woman’s cheek, then sprang to the ground, demanding:
“Where is he? For he’s mine, you know. He belongs to Sobrante just as much the sunshine does. If he’d loved us as we love him he’d not have ridden away in the night time just because of one little bit o’ note. Wherever you’ve hidden him you must find him for me, and he’s to go straight away back with me. With us, I mean, for here comes a–a friend of ours; I guess he is. Any way he’s a guest and you must make him a cup of your very best coffee, and Otto must show him his carved clock that he is making. He’s a pleasant gentleman, and so interested in everything, it’s fun to tell him things. In that New York, where he came from, they don’t have much of anything nice. No ostriches, nor mines, nor orange groves. Fancy! and he doesn’t know–he’s only just learning to ride a horse!”
As Mr. Hale now approached, this description ceased and Jessica presented him to her mountain friends:
“This is dear Elsa Winkler, and ‘her man,’ Wolfgang. And Otto–where’s Otto gone? He needn’t be shy. Mr. Hale would like to see the carvings and the knittings, and maybe, go down the shaft. But first of all, he’d like the coffee, Elsa, dear.”
The portly Dutchwoman, whose needles could click as fast as her tongue, now thrust the stocking, at which she had resumed working the moment Jessica left her lap, into her apron pocket and waddled inside the cabin. Already she was beaming with hospitality and calling in harsh chiding to the invisible Otto:
“You bad little boy, where are you at already? Come by, soon’s-ever, and lay the dishes. Here’s company come to the house and nobody but the old mother got a grain of sense left to mind them. Wolfgang! Wolfgang! Hunt the child and set him drawing a tether o’ milk from Gretchen, the goat. Ach! but it shames my good heart when my folks act so foolish, and the Lady Jess just giving the orders so sweet.”