"I'll unyoke them at the corner and get supper," she said. "You get into the shade there and lie down and smoke. If I see you move before I call you, I'll go home again."
She drove away before he could protest, but it was, after all, a relief to obey her, and flinging himself down with his back to a cluster of the sheaves, he took out his pipe. It was a little cooler there, and his eyes were closing when a summons reached him across the grain. Getting up with an effort, he walked toward the house, and was hazily astonished when he entered it. Exactly what Lucy had done he could not tell, but the place looked different. For the first time it seemed comfortably habitable. There was a cloth, which was a thing he did not possess, on the table, and his simple crockery, which shone absolutely white, and his indurated ware made a neat display. The provisions laid out on it looked tempting, too; in fact, he did not think that Hall could have found any fault with them, and it presently struck him that they included articles which he did not remember purchasing.
He sat down when Lucy told him to, and it was pleasant to find what he required ready at hand, instead of having to walk backward and forward between the table and the stove. He did not remember what she said, but they both laughed every now and then, and after the meal was over he was content to sit still a while when she bade him. The presence of the girl somehow changed the whole aspect of the room; but he was conscious of a regret that it was she and not another who occupied the place opposite him across his table. It was not Lucy Calvert he had often pictured sitting there. At length he pointed through the doorway to the grain.
"Lucy," he said, "that crop doesn't look by any means as hard to reap as it did an hour ago."
"I guess it's the supper," Lucy suggested cheerfully.
"I don't think it's that exactly, though there's no doubt it's the best meal I've had for a considerable time."
Lucy leaned back in her chair.
"Well," she observed, "it's company you want, and it's quite nice being here. You and I kind of hit it, don't we, Mavy?"
"Of course. We always did," Thorne assented, though there was a hint of astonishment in his tone.
"Then if you'll get rid of Hall—send him off again for something—I'll get supper for you the next two or three evenings."