"Me too is worse, lots worse. Shows what an afterthought I am. Life's an awful thing for a girl."
"I'll bet it is. For you especially. This is the first time I ever came here that some one else wasn't here ahead of me. Usually a feller has to fight his way through a whole herd in order to say good evening to you."
Hazel put her head on one side and looked at him demurely. "They come to see Uncle Tom."
"Which is why they spend all their time talkin' to you."
Hazel smiled. "I feed 'em. I'm a good cook, if I do say it myself. Stay to dinner, William?"
"Not after that," he told her firmly. "I don't want another meal here long's I live."
"Just you let me catch you sloping out before dinner's over and done with, and I'll never speak to you again as long as I live. Besides, I want you to go fill the waterbucket for me in about ten minutes, and after dinner I need some help in the chicken-house, and Uncle is busy this afternoon. So you stay and be mother's li'l helper, Bill, won't you?"
"Putting it thataway," said Bill, "what can a poor man do?" Here he licked his lips cat fashion and added "Is that cake for dinner?"
"Of course not, you simple thing. Here it is half-past eleven and the cake not even mixed yet. I've got a dried-peach pie though. It's outside cooling. And there'll be fried ham, Bill, and corn fritters—the batter's all ready in that blue bowl. Lima beans, too, the last you'll see this year."
"I saw some young ones for another crop on the vines when I came through the garden," said Billy, who was no farmer.