“Lettice looks right good,” she declared, “and, dear me, why shouldn’t she, with nothing on her mind at all but what comes to every woman? When I had my last Rutherford was down with the influenza, the youngest was taken with green-sickness, and we had worked out all our pay at the store in supplies. You’re fixed nice here,” she added without a trace of envy in her tired voice. “I suppose that’s Mrs. Hollidew in her shroud. We have one of James—he died at three—sitting just as natural as life in the rocker.”
“Where’s Rose?” he asked.
“In the kitchen, helping Mrs. Caley. I wanted to ask that nothing be said before Rose of Lettice’s expecting. We’ve brought her up very delicate; and besides there’s a young man paying her attention, it’s not a fitting time—she might take a scare. I had promised to bring Barnwell K. the next time.”
They could hear from without the boy and the hysterical yelping of General Jackson. “That dog won’t bite?” Mrs. Berry worried. Gordon, patently indignant, replied that the General never bit. “Barnwell might cross him,” she answered; and, moving to the door, summoned her offspring. It was the sturdy individual who had burst into a wail at Clare’s funeral, his hair still bristling against a formal application of soap.
“C’m on in, doggy,” he called; “c’m in, Ginral. I wisht I had a doggy like that,” he hung on his mother’s knees lamenting the absence from their household of a General Jackson. “Our ol’ houn’ dog’s nothing,” he asserted.
Lettice, worn by her visitor’s rapid monotone, the stir and clatter of young shoes, remarked petulantly, “Gordon paid two hundred dollars for that single dog; there ought to be something extra to him.”
Mrs. Berry received this item without signal amazement; it was evident that she was prepared to credit any vagaries to the possessors of Pompey Hollidew’s fabulous legacy.
“Just think of that!” she exclaimed mildly; “I’ll chance that dog gets a piece of liver every day.”
Rose, from the door, announced supper. She was an awkward girl of seventeen, with the pallid face and blank brown eyes of her father, and diffident speech. Gordon faced Lettice over her figured red cloth; on one side Barnwell K. sat flanked by his mother and Simeon Caley, on the other Rose sat by an empty chair, the place of the now energetically employed Mrs. Caley. The great, tin pot of coffee rested at Lettice’s hand, and, before Gordon, a portentous platter held three gaunt, brown chickens with brilliant yellow legs stiffly in air. Between these two gastronomic poles was a dish of heaped, quivering poached eggs, the inevitable gravy boat, steaming potatoes and a choice of pies. Gordon dismembered the chickens, and, as the plates circled the table, they accumulated potatoes and gravy and eggs. Barnwell K., through an oversight, was defrauded of the last item, and proceeded to remedy the omission. He thrust his knife into the slippery, poached mass. At best a delicate operation, he erred, eggs slipped, and a thick yellow stream flowed sluggishly to the rim of the plate. His mother met this fault of manner with profuse, disconcerted apologies. She shook him so vigorously that his chair rattled. Simeon Caley lifted the heavy coffee pot for Lettice.
Mrs. Caley’s service was abrupt, efficient; she set down plates of hot bread with a clatter; she rattled the stove lids from without, and complained of General Jackson, faithfully following her every movement.