They let her go, and we did as she had requested. But never, so long as I live, shall I forget the sight that greeted us as we stared through that window.
The cabin was bare, save for a folding cot bed, a candle on a shelf, a box for a chair and an old cooking stove with some utensils on it. And lying on the cot, in a dressing gown over her nightdress, was Will’s Emmie. She was scowling frightfully, and when Tish opened the door she nearly jumped down her throat.
“Do you know what time it is?” she demanded furiously. “And that I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast?”
“I left you plenty for all day,” Tish told her. “And you know you can get plenty more if you decide to come home.”
“I’m not walking back, if that’s what you mean,” Emmie snapped.
“Very well, but you are walking to this cookstove if you want any supper,” Tish said, and sat down on the box. “If you could run a half mile you can walk ten feet.”
I think Will would have broken away then and there, but Charlie Sands took hold of him. And the next minute Emmie got off that cot and walked across the room. She was in a frightful humor, for she slapped a frying pan onto the stove, opened the package, and said: “Bacon again! I hope I never see another pig!” and began to cook a meal for herself in a most able-bodied but infuriated manner.
And she ate bread and butter over the stove while the meat was frying!
Tish only spoke once while this was going on.
“It’s a pity poor Will can’t see you now,” she said.