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Page 26
"No," rejoined Carley.
"How do you expect to please your husband?"
"Why--by marrying him, I suppose," answered Carley, as if weighing a
problem.
"That has been the universal feminine point of view for a good many years,"
replied Glenn, flourishing a flour-whitened hand. "But it never served the
women of the Revolution or the pioneers. And they were the builders of the
nation. It will never serve the wives of the future, if we are to survive."
"Glenn, you rave!" ejaculated Carley, not knowing whether to laugh or be
grave. "You were talking of humble housewifely things."
"Precisely. The humble things that were the foundation of the great nation
of Americans. I meant work and children."
Carley could only stare at him. The look he flashed at her, the sudden
intensity and passion of his ringing words, were as if he gave her a
glimpse into the very depths of him. He might have begun in fun, but he had
finished otherwise. She felt that she really did not know this man. Had he
arraigned her in judgment? A flush, seemingly hot and cold, passed over
her. Then it relieved her to see that he had returned to his task.
He mixed the shortening with the flour, and, adding water, he began a
thorough kneading. When the consistency of the mixture appeared to satisfy
him he took a handful of it, rolled it into a ball, patted and flattened it
into a biscuit, and dropped it into the oven he had set aside on the hot
coals. Swiftly he shaped eight or ten other biscuits and dropped them as
the first. Then he put the heavy iron lid on the pot, and with a rude
shovel, improvised from a flattened tin can, he shoveled red coals out of
the fire, and covered the lid with them. His next move was to pare and
slice potatoes, placing these aside in a pan. A small black coffee-pot half
full of water, was set on a glowing part of the fire. Then he brought into
use a huge, heavy knife, a murderous-looking implement it appeared to
Carley, with which he cut slices of ham. These he dropped into the second
pot, which he left uncovered. Next he removed the flour sack and other
inpedimenta from the table, and proceeded to set places for two--blue-enamel
plate and cup, with plain, substantial-looking knives, forks, and spoons.
He went outside, to return presently carrying a small crock of butter.
Evidently he had kept the butter in or near the spring. It looked dewy and
cold and hard. After that he peeped under the lid of the pot which
contained the biscuits. The other pot was sizzling and smoking, giving
forth a delicious savory odor that affected Carley most agreeably. The
coffee-pot had begun to steam. With a long fork Glenn turned the slices of
ham and stood a moment watching them. Next he placed cans of three sizes
upon the table; and these Carley conjectured contained sugar, salt, and
pepper. Carley might not have been present, for all the attention he paid
to her. Again he peeped at the biscuits. At the edge of the hot embers he
placed a tin plate, upon which he carefully deposited the slices of ham.
Carley had not needed sight of them to know she was hungry; they made her
simply ravenous. That done, he poured the pan of sliced potatoes into the
pot. Carley judged the heat of that pot to be extreme. Next he removed the
lid from the other pot, exposing biscuits slightly browned; and evidently
satisfied with these, he removed them from the coals. He stirred the slices
of potatoes round and round; he emptied two heaping tablespoonfuls of
coffee into the coffee-pot.
"Carley," he said, at last turning to her with a warm smile, "out here in
the West the cook usually yells, 'Come and get it.' Draw up your stool."
And presently Carley found herself seated across the crude table from
Glenn, with the background of chinked logs in her sight, and the smart of
wood smoke in her eyes. In years past she had sat with him in the soft,
subdued, gold-green shadows of the Astor, or in the sumptuous atmosphere of
the St. Regis. But this event was so different, so striking, that she felt
it would have limitless significance. For one thing, the look of Glenn!
When had he ever seemed like this, wonderfully happy to have her there,
consciously proud of this dinner he had prepared in half an hour, strangely
studying her as one on trial? This might have had its effect upon Carley's
reaction to the situation, making it sweet, trenchant with meaning, but she
was hungry enough and the dinner was good enough to make this hour
memorable on that score alone. She ate until she was actually ashamed of
herself. She laughed heartily, she talked, she made love to Glenn. Then
suddenly an idea flashed into her quick mind.
"Glenn, did this girl Flo teach you to cook?" she queried, sharply.
"No. I always was handy in camp. Then out here I had the luck to fall in
with an old fellow who was a wonderful cook. He lived with me for a while.
. . . Why, what difference would it have made--had Flo taught me?"
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