"Sometimes you're rather clever, Jim," Carrie said, meaningly. "But I expect you liked the cooking."
"It was tolerable, but no food I've got was half as good as the trout and bannocks we picked out of the hot spider in a valley of the North. Then there's no drink as refreshing as the tea with the taste of wood smoke I drank from a blackened can."
"It didn't often taste of smoke," Carrie objected.
"Carrie can cook; she owes that to me," Mrs. Winter interposed. "She was ambitious when she was young and declared she had no use for studying things like that, but I was firm."
"I wonder whether she's ambitious now," Jim remarked.
"I've got wise," said Carrie. "I know where I belong."
Mrs. Winter looked at them as if she were puzzled, and Jim knitted his brows.
"I don't know where I belong. That's the trouble, because it may hurt to find out. But how have you been getting on while I was away?"
"Trade's pretty good, thank you," Carrie replied. "We have sold as much sweet truck as I could bake. The groceries have kept Belle hustling."
"Shucks!" said Jim, impatiently, and turned to Jake. "You ought to make your mother sell out."