"I was thinkin'--" interposed Cyrus, mildly; but his wife swept past him, and took the road.
"I dunno's there's any use in gittin' a real dinner, jest you an' me, an' you not workin' either. Folks say there's more danger of eatin' too much'n too little. Gilman Lane, though, he kep' eatin' less an' less, an' his stomach dried all up, till 'twa'n't no bigger'n a bladder. Look here, you! I shouldn't wonder a mite if you'd got some o' them stomach troubles along with your cold. You 'ain't acted as if you'd relished a meal o' victuals for nigh onto ten days. Soon as I git my hands out o' the flour, I'll look in the doctor's book, an' find out. My! how het up I be!" She wiped her hands on the roller towel, and unpinned the little plaid shawl drawn tightly across her shoulders, Its removal disclosed a green sontag, and under that manifold layers of jacket and waist. She was amply protected from the cold. "I dunno's I ought to ha' stirred up rye'n' Injun," she went on, returning to her vigorous tossing and mixing at the table. "Some might say the steam was bad for your lungs. Anyhow, the doctor's book holds to't you've got to pick out a dry climate, if you don't want to go into a decline. Le' me see! when your Aunt Mattie was took, how long was it afore she really gi'n up? Arter she begun to cough, I mean?"
"I dunno," he said, hastily. "I never kep' the run o' such things."
But Mirandy, pouring her batter into the pan, heeded him no more than was her wont.
"I s'pose that was real gallopin' consumption," she said, with relish." I must ask Sister Sarah how long 'twas, next time I see her. She set it down with the births an' deaths."
Cyrus was moved to some remonstrance. He often felt the necessity of asserting himself, lest he should presently hear his own passing-bell and epitaph.
"I guess you needn't stop steamin' bread for me! I ain't half so stuffed up as I was yisterday!"
Mrs. Pendleton clapped the loaf into the pot, wrinkling her face over the cloud of steam that came puffing into it.
"There!" she exclaimed. "Now perhaps I can git a minute to se' down. I ain't bound a shoe to-day. My! who's that out this weather?"
The side door was pushed open, and then shut with a bang. A vigorous stamping of snow followed, and the inner door swung in to admit a woman, very short, very stout, with a round, apple-cheeked face, and twinkling eyes looking out from the enveloping folds of a gray cloud.