"Isn't this great?" Robert demanded of no one in particular, stretching out his legs to the snapping fire, and receiving a large spark on his knee as a reward.
"Look out there! You have to watch that fire a little. I put in some pine sticks to hurry it a while," cried Rosie. "A big spark flew over acrosst to where Dundee was layin' by the door there a coupler weeks ago and he'd have took fire on his tail if I hadn't happened to be in here."
Dundee, whose pleasure in getting his family back had been beautiful to behold, wagged the great plume of a tail in question and hitched himself along nearer to Bob, thrusting his nose into the empty hand on the boy's knee, as if to say: "I eat cake." Bob gave the collie a generous mouthful. It had no effect except to bring Dundee up one short hitch nearer, and Bob pulled his ear.
"We don't want you cremated, you braw, bonny Scotsman you! But neither can I give you all my cake," he said. "I think this is great, brother Robert. We sat around the fire like this before we went away, for we stayed up till December, you know—or didn't Margery write you?"
"It's much nicer to eat supper this way than it is to have three proper meals a day. Everything tastes so especially good," said Margery, frowning at Bob.
"I always liked to eat a piece at night," said Rosie.
"'Eat a piece' means to take a light lunch, in Madison Countyese," Margery explained in a whisper to Robert.
"But Mahlon always wants to set up and eat—thinks he's gittin' more," Rosie continued. "The thinner a body is the more victuals he seems to eat. My days, I often think to myself it's a lucky thing buckwheat cakes is so indigestible. They give a body a chancet to git something done in the forenoon without havin' Mahlon in and out every coupler minutes askin' when a body's goin' to git dinner over."
"I've eaten a great many pieces—of bread, and cake, and jam," announced Snigs.
"We are going to bed early, dear children," said Aunt Keren. "It may be that we shall be obliged to take a morning train. We can't stay here until Tuesday, because of Bob's business, and the tea room, and I am told by Rosie and Gretta that the road to the station may be impassable by to-morrow afternoon if this snow keeps up. Will you all promise to waken early? All waken together, at the same moment, and waken one another?"