The girl seemed delighted to think he was hungry.
"You wait a minute," she commanded, and her smiling face disappeared from the top of the fence. Brad went to work to keep from catching cold, wondering what she was going to do. She reappeared soon with a fat home-made sausage and a couple of warm biscuits which she insisted upon his taking.
"They're all buttered and--they've got sugar on 'em," she whispered significantly.
"Say, you eat now, while I saw," she commanded, coming around through the gate.
She had put on her fascinator hood, but her hands and wrists were bare. She struggled away on a log, putting her knee on it in a comically resolute style.
"The saw always goes crooked," she said in despair. Bradley laughed at her heartily.
"Say, do you do this for fun?" she asked, stopping to puff, her cheeks a beautiful pink.
"No, I don't. I do it because I'm obliged to."
She threw down the saw. "Well, that beats me; I can't saw, but I can cook. I made them biscuits." She challenged his opinion, as he well knew.
"They're first rate," he admitted, and they were friends. She watched him eat with apparent satisfaction.
"Say, I can't stay here, I'll freeze. Are yeh going to be here till noon?"
"Well, when I whistle you come in and get some grub, will yeh?" Bradley smiled back at her laughing face.
"What's the difference?" she replied. "You jest come in, will yeh?"
"Like fun you will! Honest?" she persisted.
"That's the checker," she said, and disappeared with a click of the tongue.
Bradley worked away in a glow of cheerfulness. It was astonishing how much this little victory over a roguish girl meant to him. He had changed one person's ridicule to friendship, and it seemed to be prophetic of other victories.
The time seemed very short that forenoon. Once or twice Nettie came out to bring some news about the cooking.
"Say, I'm making an apple pie. I'm a dandy on pies and cakes."
"Well, if that ain't the sickest old joke! You'll go without any pie if you get off such a thing again."
But as dinner-time drew on he felt more and more unwilling to go into the kitchen.
He heard her whistle, but he remained at the saw-horse. It would do in the country, but not here. He had no right to go in there and eat.