"I reckon Ann White'll open her eyes when she tastes that to-morrow," she said. "There's nothing like making your own yeast—good hop-yeast. I don't take no account with salt-rising bread; may be sure enough, but hops for me every time."
These audible meditations were interrupted by a tramp's voice at the open door—a forlorn-looking object, asking for something to eat. Mrs. Deans gave him some good advice about idleness, drinking, and begging, and sent him off. Then she turned her face to the bread again, separating the loaves carefully, and wrapping two of them up in clean towels. A verse flitted through her mind about taking the children's bread and giving it to the dogs; it struck her as apposite, but her good memory, strangely enough, failed to recall anything about "a cup of cold water."
"Them tramps!" soliloquized Mrs. Deans. "A likely thing I was goin' to break into the bread for the Lord's table for the like of him!" She was just putting the bread into the tin on the pantry floor, where she kept it, when a sudden thought made her drop the bread and stand upright.
"I declare!" she said. "Henry'll never remember the wine! I forgot to tell him when he went away! What in the world will we do now? Borrow it of Ann White I won't; that's settled. Well, if it don't beat all!"
Henry Deans returned from the Saturday market about three o'clock; Mrs. Deans met him in the yard and asked him, before the horses stopped:
"Did you remember the wine?"
A slow smile crept over Henry Deans' face. He pulled up his horses deliberately.
"Did you remember the wine?" asked his wife again.
"Yes, I remembered it," he answered, still smiling slowly.
"Well," said Mrs. Deans, "why didn't you say so at first? I've just been nearly out of my mind a-worrying about it all day. Where is it? Hand it here and I'll take it in."