"Me'n Marthy wus both dead set on gettin' you over heer," Luke said, as he placed a chair for Westerfelt in front of the fire. "Both of us 'low a change will do you good."
Mrs. Bradley sat down in a corner and spread out her ample homespun skirt and began to run the hem of her apron through her fat, red fingers.
"Me'n Luke's been talkin' it over," she said, with some embarrassment; "we 'lowed you mought mebby be willin' to put up with us; we've got a spare room, an' you know about how we live. You've lied unmercifully ef you don't like my cookin'," she concluded, with an awkward little laugh.
"I never lie," he retorted, smiling. "It's been a year since I ate at your house, but I can taste your slice-potato pie yet, and your egg-bread and biscuits, ugh!"
She laughed. "You'll stay, then?"
"I'm afraid not. I've packed up some pieces of furniture—a bed and one thing or other—and I calculated that I'd occupy the room over the stable. I'd like to be near my business. I reckon I can get my meals down at the hotel. I'll stay with you to-night, though; the wagon won't come till to-morrow."
"Well, I'm disappointed, shore 'nough," said Mrs. Bradley. "I had clean forgot the room at the stable, an' I ought to 'a' knowed, too, that Saunders' boys bunked thar. Well, I won't raise no objections; Mis' Boyd, a widow woman, is keepin' the hotel now, and folks say she feeds well an' cheap enough. She's from Tennessee, an's got a good-lookin', sprightly daughter. Nobody knows a thing about 'em; they don't talk much about the'rse'ves. They tuk the hotel when Rick Martin sold out last fall, an' they've been thar ever sence."
Supper was served in the room adjoining the kitchen. After it was over, Westerfelt and his host went back to the sitting-room. Alf, a colored farm-hand, was heaping logs on the old-fashioned dog-irons in the wide fireplace, and a mass of fat pine burning under the wood lighted the room with a soft red glow.
Westerfelt looked round him in surprise. While they were at supper the carpet had been taken up, the floor swept clean, and a number of chairs placed against the wall round the room.
"Marthy's doin's," Bradley explained, sheepishly; "don't hold me accountable; she's arranged to give you a shindig to introduce you to the young folks round about."