I was shivering with weariness, and my wet feet wanted to get to a stove at once. I did not feel so much like talking some one to death as I had a while back.
By way of passing the time, the Patriarch showed me his cane. “Pre-sen-ted at the last old set-tel-ers’ picnic because I have been the pres-i-dent of the old-settlers’ association for ten years. Young man, why don’t you carry a cane?”
“Why should I?”
“Won’t it help you to keep off dogs?”
I replied, “A housekeeper, if she is in a nervous condition, is apt to be afraid of a walking-stick. It looks like a club. To carry something to keep off dogs is like carrying a lightning-rod to keep off lightning. I encounter a lot of barking and thunder, but have never been bitten or blasted.”
And while I was thus laboring for the respect of the Patriarch, the daughter-in-law stepped into the golden circle of the lantern light. She had just come from the milking. I shall never forget those bashful gleaming eyes, peering out from the sunbonnet. Her sleeves were rolled to the shoulder. Startling indeed were those arms, as white as the foaming milk.
She set down the bucket with a big sigh of relaxation. She pushed back the sunbonnet to get a better look. The old man addressed her in an authoritative and confident way, as though she were a mere adjunct, a part of his hospitality.
“Daugh-ter, here is a good young man—he Looks like a good young man, I think a stew-dent. You see he has books in his pock-et. He wants a night’s lodging. Now, if he is a good young man, I think we can give him the bed in the spare room, and if he is a bad young man, I think there is enough rope in the barn to hang him before daylight.”
“Yes, you can stay,” she said brightly. “Have you had supper?”
It is one of the obligations of the road to tell the whole truth. But in this case I lied. The woman was working too late.