“Then I’ll wait on you,” she said, and primmed her mouth into a quasi-humble expression.
“If you do——” his grey eyes dilated.
“Yes.”
Just then Nathan came round from the barn.
“They’ll be here in ten minutes,” said Vashti, and hurried away.
Temperance, flushed with housewifely pride, had the big carving platter ready with the steel beside it. The latter was a concession to appearances, for Temperance always sharpened the knife for Nathan in a peculiar fashion of her own. When Nathan entered she was sharpening it vigorously on the back of the kitchen stove.
“Well,” said Nathan, “here I be; where’s the water?” He had seen the basins upon the apple-tree blocks, where they had stood for time out of mind at the Lansing threshings, but he thought Temperance might be prompted to come and get it for him.
Temperance paused in the sharpening process, but at that moment a tow-head appeared at the door.
“Here ’tis, Mr. Peck,” said Sally, “right here under the shade; fresh water, sweet water, well water. Come up, run up, tumble up, anyway t’ get up; here’s where you gits water. Step up, ladies and gents. Everything inside as represented on the banners, and all without money and without price,” concluded Sally, putting a frosting of the parsonage piety upon the vernacular of the Blueberry Alley dime shows. Mabella, Vashti and Sidney laughed. Temperance resumed her knife-sharpening with a click.