She paused abruptly and threw her apron over her face. Myles carefully knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid it upon a ledge above the bench, and taking his wife by the arm led her into the house where he might seat her upon his knee with no risk of scandalizing chance spectators. Then he calmly said,—
“The worst of quiet creatures like you, Bab, is that a man never knows the fire’s alight till the house is in a blaze. Now as you, or was it Priscilla Alden, said once of me, ‘A little pot’s soon hot,’ and all the world is forced to know it, but you,—art homesick for the old country, lass?”
“Nay, Myles, there is no home to be sick for; all is changed there; but I would like it better if we had a little holding of our own, and our own cow, and some ducks, and a goose fattening for Michaelmas.”
“But you share the great red cow with Winslow’s folk, and have milk enough for your furmety, sweetheart!” And the grim warrior smiled as tenderly as a mother upon the flushed wet face so near his own. Barbara smiled too, and wiping away the tears sat upright, but was not allowed to leave her somewhat undignified position upon her husband’s knee.
“There, Myles, ’tis past now, and I will be more sensible”—
“Prythee don’t, child! I like thee better thus.”
“Nay, but we’re growing old folk, goodman, and it behooves us to be sober and recollected”—
“Nonsense, nonsense, Bab; there’s no lass among them all that shows so fair a rose upon her cheek, or such a wealth of sunny hair, as my Bab, and as for thine eyes, lass, they are a marvel”—
“Now! now! now! well then, dear, I’ll behave myself, after all that sweet flattery, and—come, let us go out and look at Manomet.”
“Nay. Your longing for a place you may call your own, and have your kine and poultry and all that about you, marries so well with a thought I’ve been turning over and over in my mind for a month or more, that I’ll e’en give it you now, and Manomet and the furmety may wait another ten minutes, or so.”