"Hello, Rowena," I answered. "I'm just breathin' my last!"
All the hands began yelling at us.
"No sparkin' here!"
"None o' them love pinches, Rowena!"
"I swan to man if that Dutchman ain't cuttin' us all out!"
"Quit courtin' an' pass them molasses, sweetness!"
"Mo' po'k an' less honey, thar!"--this from a Missourian.
"Magnus, your pardner's cuttin' you out!"
I do not need to say that all this hectoring from a lot of men who were most of them strangers, almost put me under the table; but Rowena, tossing her head, sent them back their change, with smiles for everybody. She was as pretty a twenty-year-old lass as you would see in a day's travel. No longer was she the ragged waif to whom I had given the dress pattern back toward Dubuque. She was rosy, she was plump, her new calico dress was as pretty as it could be, and her brown skin and browner hair made with her dark eyes a study in brown and pink, as the artists say.
It was two or three days before I had a chance to talk with her. She had changed a good deal, I sensed, as she told me all about her folks. Old Man Fewkes was working in the vegetable garden. Celebrate was running a team. Surajah was working on the machinery. Ma Fewkes was keeping house for the family in a little cottage in the corner of the garden. I went over and had a talk with them. Ma Fewkes, with her shoulder-blades almost touching, assured me that they were in clover.