I explained that the apricots were of my preparation.
“Indeed!” said she, and returned to Tommy, who had been telling her of his ranch, his potatoes, his horses. “And do you punch cattle, too?” she inquired of him.
“Me?” said Tommy, slightingly; “gave it up years ago; too empty a life for me. I leave that to such as like it. When a man owns his own property”—Tommy swept his hand at the whole landscape—“he takes to more intellectual work.”
“Lickin' postage-stamps,” Mr. McLean suggested, sourly.
“You lick them and I cancel them,” answered the postmaster; and it does not seem a powerful rejoinder. But Miss Peck uttered her laugh.
“That's one on you,” she told Lin. And throughout this meal it was Tommy who had her favor. She partook of his generous supplies; she listened to his romantic inventions, the trails he had discovered, the bears he had slain; and after supper it was with Tommy, and not with Lin, that she went for a little walk.
“Katie was ever a tease,” said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. “She'll get used to the ways of this country quicker than our little school-marm,” said he.
Mr. McLean said very little, but read the new-arrived papers. It was only when bedtime dispersed us, the ladies in the cabin and the men choosing various spots outside, that he became talkative again for a while. We lay in the blank—we had spread on some soft, dry sand in preference to the stable, where Taylor and Tommy had gone. Under the contemplative influence of the stars, Lin fell into generalization.
“Ever notice,” said he, “how whiskey and lyin' act the same on a man?”
I did not feel sure that I had.