“Wait. Here! Maybe you'd like these.” She took the hand from beneath her apron and extended it toward him. It held a pan heaped with objects flat, brown, and deliciously fragrant. He looked at the pan and its contents uncomprehendingly.
“What's them?” he demanded.
“They're molasses cookies. I've been bakin', and these are some extry ones I had left over. You can have 'em if you want 'em.”
“Why—why, Emeline! this is mighty kind of you.”
“Not a mite,” sharply. “I baked a good many more'n Miss Ruth and I can dispose of, and that poor helper man of yours ought to be glad to get 'em after the cast-iron pound-weights that you and he have been tryin' to live on. Mercy on us! the thoughts of the cookies he showed me this mornin' have stayed in my head ever since. Made me feel as if I was partly responsible for murder.”
“But it's kind of you, just the same.”
“Rubbish! I'd do as much for a pig any day. There! you've got your shirt; now you'd better go home.”
She forced the pan of cookies into his hand and moved off. The lightkeeper hesitated.
“I—I'll fetch the pan back to-morrer,” he called after her in a loud whisper.