Grandpa Si’s entrance interrupted the story. The old man was surprised to find company in the kitchen. “Wall, wall, I swan to glory!” He took off his straw hat and rubbed his forehead with his big red bandanna handkerchief. “If ’tisn’t my helper come so soon. Harry-lad, it’s good for sore eyes to see you lookin’ so young, like there wa’n’t no sech thing ahead as old age.”
Harold shook hands heartily as he exclaimed with his usual enthusiasm: “Old age! Indeed, sir, I don’t believe in it. All I have to do is to look at you and Grandma Sue to know that it doesn’t exist.” Then turning toward the young visitor, he continued: “Silas Warner, may I make you acquainted with Charles Gale?” The weather-bronzed face wrinkled into even a wider smile as the old man held a hand toward the young stranger.
“Wall, now, you’re a size bigger’n our little Lenora here, ain’t you? Tut, tut. We’ve allays boasted about how big we can grow things down here in Californy, but I reckon Dakota’s got us plumb beat. Harry, you’ll have to eat a lot to catch up with your friend.”
That youth laughingly replied that he was afraid that eating a lot would make him grow round instead of high. The old man good naturedly commented, “Wall, Harry-lad, you ain’t so much behind or below whichever ’tis, not more’n half a head, an’ you may make that up. Though ’tain’t short you be now.”
Then he began to sniff, beaming at his spouse, whose cheeks, from the heat of baking, were as ruddy as winter apples. “Ma,” he said, wagging his head from side to side and smacking his lips in anticipation, “that there smell oozin’ out of the oven sort of hits the empty spot. Cream gravy on that thick yellar cornmeal bread! Wall, boys, if there’s rich folks with finer feed ’n that I dunno what ’tis.”
He was washing at the sink pump as he talked.
“Neither do I,” Harold agreed as he sprang to help Jenny place the chairs around the table. Their eyes met and Harold found himself remembering that this lovely girl was own sister to his adopted sister. What relation then was he to Jenny? But before this problem could be solved, Grandma Sue was placing the two plates of cornbread on the table and Jenny had skipped to the stove to pour the steaming gravy into its pitcher-like bowl.
Charles led Lenora to her place, although she protested that she really could walk alone. Harold leaped to the head to draw Grandma Sue’s chair out, and then Jenny’s, while Charles did the same for his sister. Then the merry meal began. Grandpa Si told all that had happened during the day to Susan, as was his custom. Never an evening meal was begun without that query, “Wall, Si, what happened today. Anythin’ newsy?”
It didn’t matter how unimportant the event, if it interested the old man enough to tell it, he was sure of an interested listener. Indeed, two, for Jenny having been brought up to this evening program, was as eager as her grandmother to hear the chronicalings of the day, which seldom held an event that a city dweller would consider worth the recounting.
“Wall, I dunno as there’s much, ’cept Pete says the lemon crop over on that ranch whar you lived when you was a gal, Ma, is outdoin’ itself this year. Tryin’ to break its own record, Pete takes it. He’s workin’ over thar mornin’s and loafin’ arternoons, lest be he can pick up odd jobs like fence-mendin’.” Then, when the generous slices of corn bread had been served and were covered with the delicious cream gravy, there was not one among them who did not do justice to it and consider it a rare treat. After the first edge of hunger was appeased, the old man asked what kind of a year ranchers were having in Dakota. This answered, he smiled toward the frail girl. “Lenora,” he said, “yo’ ain’t plannin’ to pull out ’f here soon, air yo’? It’ll be powerful lonely for Jenny-gal, her havin’ sort of got used to havin’ a sister.” Then, turning to the smiling Charles, the old man said facetiously: “Ma an’ me sort o’ wish you an’ your Pa didn’t want Lenora. We’d like to keep her steady. Wouldn’t we, Ma?” The old woman nodded, “I reckon we would, but there’s others have the first right an’ we’ll be thankful for two weeks more.”