Wanza came to the shop later in the afternoon and I convinced her that the construction of a fireless cooker was a bagatelle to a skilled craftsman such as I considered myself to be. Her face flamed with the fire of her enthusiasm. She caught my hand, and cried:
“You’re a fixing man, all right! You sure are.”
I had never seen her blue eyes so softly grateful before. They were like humid flowers. Her voice was full and low. Her hand pressed my hand, and clung. Seeing her thus moved I stammered:
“Why, I seem to be a sort of Jack of all trades. A Jack of all trades is master of none, usually.” Her face was very close to mine, and what with her strange witchery and her appealing wistfulness I might have said more; but as I gazed at her my senses untangled, and I locked my lips. I shook my head at her, and I smiled a little deprecatingly and loosed my hand as she murmured: “I think you’re just grand—just grand! You’re kind as kind can be. Oh, Mr. David Dale, you sure are a good, good fellow!”
“All of this because I am going to try to turn out some sort of fireless cooker,” I remonstrated.
“You’re always trying to do something—for somebody—trying to help along—that’s it. It ain’t so much just this.”
Wanza was rather incoherent as she turned and walked out of the shop. And someway instead of her words of commendation heartening me they left me dejected. But the cooker was a success. A stout box, lined with asbestos, a receptacle of tin, and sawdust for packing turned the trick. And the corned-beef and cabbage that Wanza, the conjurer, straightway evolved from this crude contrivance left nothing to be desired.
The chicken Wanza cooked one day soon after was so unusually succulent that we decided at once to ride to the village before supper and carry Captain Grif a generous portion.
“He’ll relish a bit of chicken after so much pork and corn bread, and such living. I can warm it up on the stove for him, and stir up some biscuits, while you and him are having a game of chess on the porch,” Wanza announced.
Accordingly we rode away over the ploughed field together at about five o’clock, Mrs. Olds watching us dourly from the kitchen doorway, and Joey yelling after us: “I’ll see to Bell Brandon while you’re away.”