"It is!"
"Pooh," said Gram. "It's Allan written on the card and it's Allan I'll call him. Have a tart, Allan."
She gave him a crisp-baked tart filled with jelly. Bud meant to refuse it, for he neither asked for nor wanted favors. But a boy's hunger asserted itself and he accepted it, mumbled his thanks and began to eat it, looking around the kitchen as he did.
He noticed only that it was much smaller than the kitchen at the orphanage and that the huge, old-fashioned wood-burning range, the wooden cupboards, the pantry off the kitchen and the worn furniture and scuffed linoleum looked shabby in comparison with the antiseptic, modern appointments of the orphanage kitchen.
Bud finished the tart and, stealing a glance into the adjoining living room, saw a mounted buck's head peering glassily back at him. Hastily he wiped his hands on his trousers and looked away.
"Do you think you'll like it here?" Gram asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Bud said dutifully.
"Will you have another tart?"
"No, ma'am."
"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am," Gramps mimicked. "That all they taught you to say at that there orphanage?"