The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.
The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron. Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.
"I do hope you 'ain't gone an' turned that whole steer into perforated paper, Enoch, even ef 'tis Bible-texted over."
Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked over the mottoes:
"A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES."
"A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD."
"BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS—"
She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at Enoch's plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and now at the bowl of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep warm.
"Don't know ez it would hurt 'im any ef I'd thicken that gruel up into mush. He's took sech a distaste to soft food sense he's got that new set."
She rose as she spoke, poured the gruel back into the pot, sifted and mixed a spoonful of meal and stirred it in. This done, she hesitated, glanced at the pile of mottoes, and reflected. Then with a sudden resolve she seized the milk-pitcher, filled a cup from it, poured the milk into the little pot of mush, hastily whipped up two eggs with some sugar, added the mixture to the pot, returned the whole to the yellow bowl, and set it in the oven to brown.