Mrs. Baker laughed pleasantly, as she brought out a chair for Bishop and invited him to sit down. He complied, twirling his riding-switch in his hand. From his position, almost on a level with the floor, he could see the interior of one of the rooms. It was almost bare of furniture. Two opposite corners were occupied by crude bedsteads; in the centre of the room was a cradle made from a soap-box on rockers sawn from rough poplar boards. It had the appearance of having been in use through several generations. Near it stood a spinning-wheel and a three-legged stool. The sharp steel spindle gleamed in the firelight from the big log and mud chimney.
“What's the news from town, Mr. Bishop?” Pole asked, awkwardly, for it struck him that Bishop had called to talk with him about some business and was reluctant to introduce it.
“Nothin' that interests any of us, I reckon, Pole,” said the old man, “except I made that investment in Shoal Cotton Factory stock.”
“That's good,” said Pole, in the tone of anybody but a man who had never invested a dollar in anything. “It's all hunkey, an' my opinion is that it 'll never be wuth less.”
“I did heer, too,” added Bishop, “that it was reported that Craig had set up a little grocery store out in Texas, nigh the Indian Territory. Some thinks that Winship 'll turn up thar an' jine 'im, but a body never knows what to believe these days.”
“That shore is a fact,” opined Pole. “Sally, that corn-bread's a-burnin'; ef you'd use less lamp-oil you'd smell better.”
Mrs. Baker darted to the fireplace, raked the live coals from beneath the cast-iron oven, and jerked off the lid in a cloud of steam and smoke. She turned over the pone with the aid of a case-knife, and then came back to the door.
“Fer the last month I've had my eye on the Bascome farm,” Bishop was saying. “Thar's a hundred acres even, some good bottom land and upland, an' in the neighborhood o' thirty acres o' good wood. Then thar's a five-room house, well made an' tight, an' a barn, cow-house, an' stable.”
“Lord! I know the place like a book,” said Pole; “an' it's a dandy investment, Mr. Bishop. They say he offered it fer fifteen hundred. It's wuth two thousand. You won't drap any money by buyin' that property, Mr. Bishop. I'd hate to contract to build jest the house an' well an' out-houses fer a thousand.”
“I bought it,” Bishop told him. “He let me have it fer a good deal less 'n fifteen hundred, cash down.”