“I got tired o’ bein’ hitched to the bedpost; that’s all. But I want to talk farm. It’s a great thing for a woman to run a place like this and I want you to tell me all about it.”
He examined and cross-examined her as to the joys and sorrows of dairying. She replied good-naturedly to most of his questions and parried the others.
“Of course, I’m not going to tell you how much I lose a year! Please keep it a dark secret, but I’m not losing anything; and besides, I’m having a mighty good time.”
“Well,” he warned her, “don’t let it put you in a hole. The place may be a leetle too fancy. You don’t want to make your butter too good; your customers won’t appreciate it.”
“You preach what you never practiced,” laughed Nan. “Your rule at the store was to give full measure.”
“Well, I guess I held trade when I got it,” he admitted.
“I’ve been adding another department to the farm,” said Mrs. Copeland. “I started it early in the summer in the old farmhouse back there that was on the place when father bought it. Real homemade canned fruit, pickles, and so on. I’ve set up four girls who’d found life a hard business, and they’re doing the work with a farmer’s wife to boss them. It’s my business to sell their products. I’ve interested some of the farmers’ daughters, and they come over and help the regulars on busy days. We’re having a lot of fun out of it.”
Farley was immensely interested. Nan had not in a long time heard him talk so much or so amiably; he praised and continued to praise Mrs. Copeland’s enterprise and success; for he had satisfied himself fully that she was successful. He clearly liked her; her quiet humor, her grace and prettiness. In his blunt way he told her she was getting handsomer all the time. She knew how to talk to men of his type and met him on his own ground.
He began telling stories and referred to Old Sam Copeland half a dozen times, quite unconscious that the sometime daughter-in-law of Old Sam was sitting before him. Nan grew nervous, but Mrs. Copeland met the situation with perfect composure.
Finally, when they were about to leave, Eaton appeared. He had walked over from the Country Club merely, he protested, to refresh himself at Mrs. Copeland’s buttermilk fountains. He addressed himself cordially to Farley, whose liking for him was manifest in a brightening of the old man’s eyes. It was plain that Eaton and Mrs. Copeland were on the friendliest terms; they called each other by their first names without mincing or sidling.