The kitchen itself was a place to take comfort in. By a table sat fat black Chloe, seeding raisins, when she was not asleep. Before another table stood Sally Madeira, her brown, round arms bared to the elbow, flapping cake batter with a wooden paddle. With her sense of eternal fitness the girl was a fine housekeeper as easily as she was a sweet singer and a good horsewoman. She had kept the past beautifully intact in the old brick-floored room. Overhead hung strings of red peppers, streaks of scarlet on the heavy black rafters. Little white sacks of dried things, peas and beans and apples, depended from hooks. Against the walls were quaint old tin safes, their doors gone, their shelves covered with dark blue crockery. The tin and brass stuff shone brightly. On a low shelf stood a great piggin of water, a fat yellow drinking gourd sticking out of it. The whole picture was a kitchen pastel, delicately toned, a kitchen of the long ago, Sally Madeira fitting into it exquisitely, re-establishing the stately domesticity of an old regime by her fine adaptability and appreciation.

 

Chloe brought the raisins over to Miss Madeira at last, and let them drop slowly into the crock, watching carefully for stray bits of stem.

 

"Simlike nowadays ef he teef go agin a hardness spile he tas' fuh de cake," she said anxiously.

 

"We do have to humour his poor appetite, don't we, Chloe? Never mind, he'll be better soon, I hope."

 

"Whut madder wid he, Miss Sally, innyhow, Honey?"

 

"Just overwork, I think, Chloe. Works all the time; in the office now, bent double over his desk."

 

The darky shuffled restlessly on her flat feet. "Simlike to me he pester'd. I d'n know. Miss Sally, who else gwine eat dishyer cake tumorreh, Honey?"

 

"I'm not expecting any company at all, Chloe. Father isn't really well enough to care to talk to people."

 

"Miss Honey, simlike de house gittin' mighty lonesome nowadays. Taint like it uster be."

 

"Do you feel it, Chloe? Do you know I've grown to like it better quiet." The girl's voice was wistful, she let the batter trickle recklessly while she gazed off out of the window. Then she sighed and began to beat the batter very hard.

 

"Miss Honey-love?"

 

"Yes, Chloe."

 

"That tha' Mist' Steerin' aint ben come no mo' fuh gre't while, air he?"

 

"No."

 

"Samson he say he gwine ride down by Redbud this evenin'."

 

"Well, Chloe, I'm sorry that I can't send an invitation to your favourite, but I'm afraid Father isn't well enough--oh, there's Piney, Chloe!"

 

The boy had come up the bridle-path slowly, his mission weighting him and making him languid. At the latticed porch he jumped to the ground, turned the pony's nose into the grass and came into the kitchen.

 

"Howdy, Miss Sally. Hi, Chloe. Cand I have a drink, please'm, Miss Sally?"

 

He drank long and greedily from the gourd dipper, so long that Sally Madeira turned to him laughingly at last. "Well, Piney, son, got Texas fever?" she began, and then, being quick of wit, saw at once that the boy's pallor, his thirst, his absorption meant something especial. "I'm glad you came, Piney," she went on capably, and gave the batter paddle to Chloe. "I've been wanting to see you all day to have a little talk with you. Let's go out under the crab-apple tree."

 

She took off the great apron and led the way from the kitchen, the boy following her with dragging feet. Under the crab-apple tree she drew him down upon a bench beside her. The orchard blooms shut them in close. The stillness was unbroken save for the warm sibilant droning of the insect life in the air. The shadows on the orchard grass were like lace-work.

 

"Now, Piney, lad," began Miss Madeira at once, "what's the trouble?" Her voice sounded strong, maternal, to Piney, who had been wondering how he was to tell her, calling himself a fool for having undertaken to tell her, reminding himself that he couldn't for the life of him begin. Here, suddenly, the girl was making it easier for him, showing him that the way to begin was to begin.

 

"I wouldn' tell you the trouble ef I could he'p it, Miss Sally," he said pleadingly, his hands shut about his knees, his eyes beseeching as a fawn's. "Ef they wuz inny way to make things come aout rat lessen I told, I ............