"You're welcome to try,"—the girl slipped her arm out of the coil of rope,—"but I don't b'lieve you can, unless you drill a hole in a boulder, an' wedge the stake in."
Parker led away the cow, mooing with maternal solicitude, and Idy returned to the house. When she reached the kitchen door, she turned and called between the ringing blows of the axe,—
"Oh, Mr. Lowe, mother says won't ye come to dinner?"
"You bet!" answered Parker warmly.
Mrs. Starkweather sat on the doorstep picking a chicken, which seemed to develop a prodigious accession of leg and neck in the process. She had the set, impervious face of a nervous invalid, and her whole attitude, the downward curve of her mouth, and the elevation of her brows, were eloquent of injustice. The clammy, half-plucked fowl in her hand seemed to share her expression of irreparable injury. She allowed her daughter to climb over her without moving, and when Parker appeared she wiped one long yellow hand on her apron, and gave it to him in a nerveless grasp.
"I hope you'll excuse me fer not gettin' up," she drawled; "I guess you c'n get a-past me. Idy, come an' set a rocker fer Mr. Lowe."
"I've got my hands in the dough," called her daughter hilariously, from the pantry; "Mr. Lowe'll have to set on his thumb till I get these biscuits in the pan."
Parker's head swam. The domestic familiarity of it all filled him with ecstasy. He got himself a chair, and inquired solicitously concerning Mrs. Starkweather's health.
"Oh, I'm just about the same," complained his hostess; "not down sick, but gruntin'. Folks that's up an' down like I am don't get nigh as much sympathy as they 'd ought. I tell Starkweather, well folks like him an' Idy ain't fittin' comp'ny fer an inv'lid."
"Mr. Starkweather's lookin' better 'n he did," said Parker, listening rapturously to the thumps of the rolling-pin in the pantry. "I think this climate agrees with 'im."