GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks—take it by and large. I didn't care how many I had to feed in the daytime—what's ten or fifteen more when you're up and around. But to get up—after sixteen hours on your feet—I was willin', but my bones complained some.
SMITH: But did you—keep a tavern?
GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a tavern when houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a country is to go on ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks know. Why, I never went to bed without leaving something on the stove for the new ones that might be coming. And we never went away from home without seein' there was a-plenty for them that might stop.
SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food?
GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always wanted to know. She made a kind of bread I never had before—and left a-plenty for our supper when we got back with the ducks and berries. And she left the kitchen handier than it had ever been. I often wondered about her—where she came from, and where she went, (as she dreams over this there is laughing and talking at the side of the house) There come the boys.
(MR FEJEVARY comes in, followed by SILAS MORTON. They are men not far from sixty, wearing their army uniforms, carrying the muskets they used in the parade. FEJEVARY has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform is empty. SILAS MORTON is a strong man who has borne the burden of the land, and not for himself alone—the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as MR FEJEVARY goes up to GRANDMOTHER MORTON.)
SILAS: How do, stranger?
FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton?
GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed—and don't expect to be.
SILAS: (letting go of the balloons he has bought) Where's Ira? and Madeline?