"Better get into your grey," he said, looking anywhere but into her eyes. "I'll be ready for you in fifteen minutes."
"Oh, Jim!"
That was all. She dropped her darning on the table and fled ecstatically to the bedroom. And big Cockney Aikens picked up the ball of darning wool and kissed it furtively.
By the time he was back from the stables with a lively team hitched to a buggy, she was almost dressed, and a suitcase stood packed outside the bedroom door. He drew a second suitcase from beneath the bed and began to fill it with his ranch clothes. She watched him, surprised.
"Why, Jim, what are you taking those for?"
He muttered something about going to do some riding perhaps, and snapped the catches, hurrying out with the suitcase to the buggy.
Mary bustled to the kitchen and began to lay various tins on the table. A side of bacon she wrapped up and suspended from a hook in the ceiling. When she was finished she stood back and struck off a list on her fingers:
"Bacon, flour, cheese, oatmeal, matches—there, I forgot the matches again."
He laughed.
"Lord, Mary, you're still expecting visitors to this corner of the moon!"