He was following the small woman as he spoke, and, after closing and barring the outer door, the hostess ushered them into such a kitchen as they had never seen before.
A spacious room, in which it seemed as if a hundred persons might have found ample elbow-room, with a yellow, painted floor, on which not a grain of dirt could be seen, and with numerous odd, stiff-looking chairs ranged around the sides at regular intervals. At one end an enormous fireplace, in front of which was a cook-stove actually glittering with polish, and on the mantel behind it an array of shining tins.
As seen from the road, in the gloom, the cottage had not appeared even as large as this kitchen, and because of such fact the boys were more surprised than they otherwise would have been.
Once in the room, where everything was so cleanly that, as Master Plummer afterwards expressed it, "it come near givin' him a pain," the boys stood awkwardly near the door, uncertain as to what might be expected of them.
"You can sit right here while I get you something to eat," and the hostess placed two chairs in front of a small table in one corner of the room.
Master Plummer advanced eagerly, thinking only of the pleasure which was about to be his, when the small lady exclaimed, as if in alarm:
"Mercy on us, child! You're tracking dust all over the floor. Go right back into the entry, and wipe your feet."
Plums failed to see that he had soiled the floor to any extent, but both he and Joe obeyed the command instantly, and while they were engaged in what seemed to them useless labour, the small woman wiped carefully, with a damp cloth, the dusty imprints of their shoes from the floor.
"I never had any experience in my own family with boys," the odd-looking little woman said, half to herself, "and perhaps that's why I don't understand 'em any better; but I never could make out why they should be so reckless with dirt."
"I didn't think my shoes were so dusty when I come in, else I'd taken them off," Joe said, apologetically. "You see, ma'am, we never saw a floor as clean as this one."