"Oh, my, how pretty!" and she clasped her hands in delight. Across the road was the deep hollow of the river. She was in one of a line of cottages following its bank, and across the river were fields and hills, now a soft, hazy picture in the rain. But the sun would shine, fine days would come—what an ideal place for a home! and her heart swelled with thankfulness, and she forgot the cross old man in the room behind her.
The cross old man would have given the world to have turned her out of his house at that very minute, but his night of sleeplessness and raging temper had given him a fierce headache, a bad taste in his mouth, and such a helplessness of limbs that he could not turn in bed.
'Tilda Jane fortunately did not know that if he could have commanded his tongue he would have ordered her into the street, but she saw that there was something wrong with him, and as she stood in his doorway, she said, pityingly, "I guess you're sick; I'll make you some breakfast," and she vanished in the direction of the wood-shed.
He heard her chopping sticks, he heard the brisk snapping of the fire and the singing of the teakettle. He heard her breaking eggs—two eggs when he never cooked more than one at a time! He opened his mouth to protest, but only gave utterance to a low roar that brought Poacher, who happened to be the only one in the kitchen, into his room to stare gravely and curiously at him.
She made an omelet, she toasted bread, she steeped him a cup of tea—this slip of a girl. She had evidently been taught to cook, but he hated her none the less as she brought in a tray and set it beside his bed.
He would not touch the food, and he gave her a look from his angry eyes that sent her speedily from the room, and made her close the door behind her.
"I guess he'd like to gimme a crack with them crutches," she reflected, soberly, "I'd better keep out of his way till he's over it. Reminds me o' the matron's little spells."
If she had been a petted darling from some loving home, she would have fled from the cottage in dismay. As it was, although she suffered, it was not with the keenness of despair. All her life she had been on the defensive. Some one had always found fault with her, some one was always ready to punish her. Unstinted kindness would have melted her, but anger always increased her natural obstinacy. She had been sent here to take care of this old man, and she was going to do it. She was too unconventional, and too ignorant, to reflect that her protective attitude would have been better changed for a suppliant one in entering the old man's domain.
However, if she had meekly begged the privilege of taking care of him, he would have sent her away, and as she was given neither to hair-splitting nor introspection, but rather to the practical concerns of life, she calmly proceeded with her task of tidying the house without reference to future possibilities.