“There’s good folks unperfessed,” interposed the stranger; “but I dunno but a near Christian is better nor a spendthrift one as fetches up at the poorhouse.”
“Right you air!” said Silas, almost affably feeling he had an advocate.
The stranger was tall and bony, with a thin, wrinkled face bronzed by wind and weather, with a goatee and mustache of pale brown hair, and a sparse growth of the same above a high bald forehead; his eyes were a faded brown, too, and curiously wistful in expression. His clothing was worn and poor, his hands work-hardened, and he stooped slightly. When the meal was ready he drew up to the table, Maria plying him with food.
“Would you rather have coffee?” she asked.
“Now you’ve got me, marm, but land! tea’ll do.”
“I should think it would,” snarled Silas; but his grumbling was silenced in the grinding of the coffee mill. When the appetizing odor floated from the stove, Silas sniffed it, and his stomach began to yearn. “You put in a solid cup full,” he muttered, trying to worry himself into refusing it.
“We want a lot,” laughed Maria.
“Set up an’ eat,” called the stranger cheerily; “let’s make a banquet; it’s Chrismus Eve!”
“That ham do smell powerful good,” muttered Silas, unconsciously drawing his chair up to the table, where the stranger handed him a plate and passed the ham. Maria went on frying eggs, as if, thought her husband, “they warn’t twenty-five cents a dozen,” and then ran down into the cellar, returning panting and good-humored with a pan of apples and a jug of cider; then into the pantry, bringing a tin box out of which she took a cake.
“That’s pound cake, M’ri,” cried Silas, aghast, holding his knife and fork upraised in mute horror. She went on cutting thick slices, humming under her breath.