I thought he was a funny man, but I liked him, too.
When Sam came in from the stable, Mrar and I went to the kitchen and saw him cook supper. For one of the baskets was jam-full of vittles. He heated a roasted turkey, and made oyster soup and mashed potatoes and chopped cabbage. There were preserves the Whizzer called Scotch, and hot rolls, and jelly, and cold chicken, and little round cakes that melted in your mouth, and pickles, and nuts, and oranges; and we put the cand’ed honey on the table. The coffee smelt like Thanksgiving. Sam waited on us, and I eat till I’s ashamed. We never expected to have such a dinner in mother’s house any more.
When Mrar and I got down and begun to toss our oranges, the Whizzer told Sam to clear the things away and have his supper in the kitchen, and then to fix the beds as comfortable as he could. I’d made up my mind even if the Whizzer did travel ahead that Mrar and m’d stay there all night. Aunt Ibby’s would think we were at cousin Andy Sanders’s, and cousin Andy Sanders’s would think we were at aunt Ibby’s.
He sat in mother’s big chair before the fire and I felt willing. If it had been uncle Moze in the chair I wouldn’t felt willing. When a stick broke on the dog-irons we piled on more wood, and the clock ticked and struck nine, and I wished we’s never going away from there again. Mrar and I played and jumped, and he was blind man, and we had solid fun till we’s tired out. I showed him my books, for I never took one to uncle Moze’s. The boys there make you give up everything, and they lick their dirty thumbs to turn leaves.
Mrar and I stood and looked into the glass doors of the bookcase like we used to when the fire made them like a looking-glass, and there were our faces, hers round and wide between the eyes, and curly-headed; and mine long, and narrow between the eyes, and my hair in a black roach.
I told the Whizzer she better have a bed made down by the fire, considering the blankets and comforts were most all out a-visiting, and he guessed so, too; and Sam helped me bring lots of quilts and a feather tick from my old room to fix up the lounge with. Sam went into the kitchen and slept by the stove.
Then I undressed Mrar, and heard her prayers after I tucked her in. She’s six years old, and dressed herself before mother died, all but hooking up. I hooked her up, and sometimes she’d swell out for mischief when she ought to swell in. But now I tended to her entirely because she missed her mother. The Whizzer acted like he saw something in the fire, but when Mrar was asleep and I sat down by him, he pushed up my roach, and he says:
“You’re a very fatherly little fellow, Steele Pedicord.”
It put me in mind to ask him if he’s Sam’s father, but he laughed out loud at the notion.
“Sam’s smaller than you and he minds so well,” says I. “And I never saw a man that was so handy at girl’s work.”