“I’m so glad you are here, too, though,” I whispered back. “I can’t think of my housewarming now, without you.”
She coloured rosily, and moved to the piano, where, by some right instinct, she began to play Stephen Foster.
“’Old Kentucky Home!’ By jinks, Marthy, do yer hear thet? Remember how I courted you, with the Salem Cadet Band a-playin’ thet tune out on the bandstand, an’ us in the shadder of a lilac bush?”
Martha Temple blushed like a girl. “Hush up, Bert,” she laughed. But she went over and sat on the arm of the Morris chair beside him, and I saw his big, brown, calloused hand steal about her waist. My own instinct was to go to the piano, and I followed it, bending over the player and whispering close to her ear:
“You’ve touched a chord in their hearts,” I said, “that you couldn’t have reached with Bach or Mozart. Don’t stop.”
“The old dears,” she whispered back. “I’ll give them ’The Old Folks at Home.’”
She did, holding the last chord open till the sound died away in the heart of the piano, and the room was still. Then suddenly she slipped into “The Camptown Races,” and Bert, with a loud shout of delight, began to beat out the rhythm on Martha’s ample hip, for his arm was still about her.
“By cricky,” he cried. “I bet thet tune beats any o’ these new-fangled turkey trots! Speakin’ o’ turkey trots, Marthy, you and me ain’t been to a dance in a year. We mus’ go ter the next one.”
“Do you like to dance?” asked Miss Goodwin, coming over to the settle.
“Wal, now, when I was young, I was some hand at the lancers,” he laughed. “Used ter drive over ter Orville in a big sleigh full o’ hay, an’ hev a dance an’ oyster stew to the hotel thar. Sarah Pillig wuz some tripper in them days, too.”