How they entertained one another during that next hour, Nettie did not know. Eyes and brain were occupied in the kitchen. Jerry came, presently, but reported that they were getting on all right in the front room, and he believed he could do better service in the kitchen; so he set the table with a delicate regard for nicety which Nettie had been taught at Auntie Marshall's, and which she knew he had not learned at Mrs. Job Smith's. Sarah Jane was rigidly clean, but never what Nettie called "nice."
"We'll take the table in the front room," decreed Nettie as she surveyed it thoughtfully for a few minutes. "It is very warm out here, and they will like it better to be quite alone; we can put all the dishes on, with the leaves down, and set them in their places in a twinkling, after we have lifted it in there. Won't that be the way, mother?"
"Land!" said Mrs. Decker, withdrawing her head from the oven, whither it had gone to see after the new-fashioned potato balls, "I should think they could eat out here; you may depend they never saw so clean a kitchen at old Ma'am Turner's. But it is hot here, and no mistake; and I should not know what to do with myself while they was eating. Please yourself, child, and then I'll be pleased. I'm going to save one of these potatoes for your pa; I never see anything in my life look prettier than they do."
Mrs. Decker's tones told much plainer than her words, that she liked Nettie's idea of putting the table in the front room for Norm's company. She would not have owned it, but her mother-heart was glad over a "fuss" being made for her Norm.
So the table went in; Jerry at one end, and Nettie at the other. They hushed a loud laugh by their entrance, but Jerry went immediately over to Rick Walker to show a new-fashioned knife, and Nettie's fingers flew over the table, so by the time the knife had been exhausted, she was ready to vanish.
Confess now that you would like to have had a seat at that table when it was ready. A platter of smoking fish, done to the nicest brown, without drying or burning; a bowl of lovely little brown balls, each of them about the size of an egg, a plate of very light and puffy-looking Johnny-cake, and to crown all, coffee that filled the room with such an aroma as Ma'am Turner perhaps dreamed of, but never certainly in these days smelled. Mrs. Job Smith at the last minute had sent in a pat of genuine country butter, and Sate had flown to the grocery for a piece of ice with which to keep it in countenance.
Jerry set the chairs, and Nettie poured the coffee, and creamed and sugared it, and then slipped away.
She knew by the looks on the faces of the guests, that they were astonished beyond words, and she knew that Norm was both astonished and pleased. There was another supper being made ready in the kitchen. Mrs. Decker had herself tugged in the box which had been lately set up as a washbench, and spread the largest towel over it, and was serving three lovely fish, and a bowl of potato balls for "Decker" and herself.
"I guess I'm going to have company too," she said to Nettie, her face beaming. "Your pa has gone to wash up, and I thought seeing there was only two chairs, and two plates left, you wouldn't mind having him and me sit down together, for a meal, first."
"Yes, I do mind," said Nettie; "I think it is a lovely plan; I'm so glad you thought of it, and Jerry and I will keep watch that they have everything in the other room, while you eat." If you are wondering in your hearts where those important beings, Sate and Susie, were at this moment, I should have told you before, that Sarah Jane had a brilliant thought, but an hour before, and carried them out to tea. So all the Decker family were visiting that evening, save Nettie, and I think perhaps she was the happiest among them all. Every time she heard a burst of fresh fun from the front room, she laughed, too; it was so nice to think that Norm was having a good time in his own home, and nothing to worry over.