CHAPTER XVI
EAST AND WEST
When Miranda Bailey heard the news she announced her determination of coming over to the Three Star to prepare for the visitors.
"I reckon my reputation'll stand it," she said, "seein' I'm older than two of you an' the third is still a married man. That spineless governess'll be writin' back to the Keith woman about everything she sees, eats, sits or sleeps on. Pedro's cookin' is enough to give any easterner dyspepsy. The whole house wants reddin' up, it ain't been swept proper fo' a year."
Abashed, the partners gave her full sway. They lived on the porch in their spare waking moments, they ate cold victuals, and the lives of Pedro and Joe were made miserable. But the ranch-house was scoured from top to bottom. Miranda's car brought over curtains for the windows, flowers for the window-sills, odds and ends that made the place look homely, cheerful, inviting. Pedro was given lessons at the stove that he at first took sulkily but, being praised and his wages raised, took pride in.
"He'll do," vouchsafed Miranda at last, the evening before the arrival. "He's no hand at cookies or doughnuts an' never will be, but I'll bring them over from time to time. He can make a pie an' biscuit an' he can broil meat. I've taught him to mash his pertaters with milk 'stead of water an' to put butter in his hot cakes. I'm stayin' over till supper ter-morrer to see everything has a good staht."
"She's stayin' over to git a good look at the Nicholson party," Sam said to Mormon. "All this ain't jest for Molly."
"There's nothin' between Miss Mirandy an' myse'f," replied Mormon with dignity. "She's a wonderful housekeeper."
"She sure is. Me, I'm so I'm afeard to come into my own house, it's so golderned clean. If that third wife of yor'n...."