Birdie heard the door open, and raised a pair of startled eyes at the intruder. It was not that such visits were out of order, or even uncommon, but they generally occurred after pre-arrangement, which gave her the opportunity of “fixing herself right.”
With a wild grab she scrambled her material, and the pattern, so that its identification would be quite impossible to male eyes, and hugged it in her arms. Turning swiftly she thrust it into the cupboard, and slammed the door. But she had no resentment at the interruption. Toby was quite a new visitor, and, well––the more the merrier.
She turned to him all smiles, and Toby returned her welcome something sheepishly. He cut a quaint figure with his broad, ungainly shoulders supporting his rather pumpkin face. Then his arms were a little too long and terminated in two “leg-of-mutton” hands.
“Evenin’, Birdie,” he said bashfully. “Guess you were sewin’?”
“Guess again,” cried the girl readily, her eyes dancing at the contemplation of a few moments’ badinage with a new candidate for her favors.
“Well, you wa’an’t playin’ the pianner.”
But Birdie was quite equal to the best efforts of her candidates.
“My, but ain’t you slick?” she cried, allowing her smiling gaze to remain looking straight into his face in a way she knew never failed to confuse her admirers on Suffering Creek. She watched till the sturdy man’s eyes turned away, and knew that he was groping for an adequate retort. This effect was the result of practice with her, a practice she thoroughly enjoyed.
The “leg-of-mutton” hands fumbled their way into the tops of Toby’s trousers, and, with a sudden self-assertion, which fitted him badly, he lurched over to the table, beyond which Birdie was standing. It was his intention to seat himself thereon, but his tormentor had not yet reached the point where she could allow such intimacy.
“Say, I ain’t ast you to sit around,” she said, with an alluring pout. “Men-folk don’t sit around in a lady’s’ parlor till they’re ast. ’Sides, the table’s fixed fer breakfast. And anyway it ain’t for settin’ on.”