"Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the kitchen door! I won't get nothin' with you on that side o' me."
"Oh, that's too thin! I see what you're—"
"No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it." This from gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter.
"Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that?"
"She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do."
"Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way," said Bill.
"Don't get off that drive! It's too old," criticised Shep, passing the milk-jug.
Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy, and taken one, two! Corn cakes went into great jaws like coal into a steam-engine. Knives in the right hand cut meat and scooped gravy up. Great, muscular, grimy, but wholesome fellows they were, feeding like ancient Norse, and capable of working like demons. They were deep in the process, half-hidden by steam from the potatoes and stew, in less than sixty seconds after their entrance.
With a shrinking from the comments of the others upon his regard for Agnes, Will assumed a reserved and almost haughty air toward his fellow-workmen, and a curious coldness toward her. As he went in, she came forward smiling brightly.
"There's one more place, Will." A tender, involuntary droop in her voice betrayed her, and Will felt a wave of hot blood surge over him as the rest roared.