"I suppose it would take forever to make a fire in that," said Billie, indicating the stove and thinking longingly of hot steak and potatoes, "even if they have any coal."
"Here's plenty of coal," said Mrs. Gilligan, who had been finding things out in her own practical and efficient way, "and here is plenty of wood and old newspapers to start it going. Indeed and we're not going to have any cold supper," she added, while in imagination the girls already were sniffing the aroma of broiling steak. "Not after that long ride an' cheerful conversation!"
With the prospect of supper, and a hot supper, so close at hand, the girls could laugh at the gloomy stories of the old driver.
"We'll help," cried Laura. "Come on, girls, let's see if we can find enough dishes to set the table."
So they went gayly to work, setting the table and peeling potatoes, which
Mrs. Gilligan proceeded to fry, and enjoyed themselves immensely.
"Shall we eat in the kitchen?" asked Violet, pausing with a pile of plates in her hand. "Or shall we be very proper and eat in the dining-room?"
"Oh, the kitchen's a lot more cheerful," said Billie, shivering a little in spite of herself as she thought of the dark, rather dreary room just the other side of the door.
"Besides, what we want we want in a hurry," said Laura, taking the dishes from Violet and setting them decidedly on the table. "To-morrow will be time enough to put on airs. Just now all I want to do is to eat!"
While they were waiting for the supper to cook and after they had done as much as they could toward its preparation, the girls looked about the kitchen and the gloomy dining room a bit. The latter room was dark and cheerless, and they wondered that any one should have selected it for a dining room. The woodwork was all of black walnut, and there was much of it, the window frames and door frames being heavy and ornate and the room being wainscoted with the same dark wood. The room was large, too, and there were windows at one end only, and that toward the north.
"Oh, come! let us get out of here," finally cried Laura, grabbing each of the other girls by an arm and running with them out into the more cheerful kitchen.