"It's a long way off from everybody else," observed the older sister, in a doubtful tone. "But I don't believe we shall be disturbed."
"Nonsense!" cried 'Phemie. "Let's have supper. I'm starved to death."
She swung the blackened old tea-kettle over the blaze, and moved briskly about the room laying the cloth, while Lyddy got out crackers and cheese and opened a tin of meat before she brewed the comforting cup of tea that both girls wanted.
However, they _were_ alone--half a mile from the nearest habitation--and if nothing else, they could not help secretly comparing their loneliness with the tenement in the city from which they had so recently graduated.
'Phemie was very bold--until something really scared her--and then she was quite likely to lose her head altogether. Lyddy was timid by nature, but an emergency forced her courage to high pressure.
They both, however, tried to ignore the fact that they were alone in the old house, far up on the mountainside, and a considerable distance from any neighbor.
That was why they chattered so all through supper--and afterward. Neither girl cared to let silence fall upon the room.
The singing of the kettle on the crane was a blessing. It made music that drove away "that lonesome feeling." And when it actually bubbled over and the drip of it fell hissing into the fire, 'Phemie laughed as though it were a great joke.
"Such a jolly thing as an open fire is, I declare," she said, sitting down at last in one of the low, splint-bottomed chairs, when the supper dishes were put away. "I don't blame Grandfather Phelps for refusing to allow stoves to be put up in his day."
"I fancy it would take a deal of wood to heat the old house in real cold weather," Lyddy said. "But it _is_ cheerful."
"Woo-oo! woo-oo-oo!" moaned the wind around the corner of the house. A ghostly hand rattled a shutter. Then a shrill whistle in the chimney startled them.
At such times the sisters talked all the faster--and louder. It was really quite remarkable how much they found to say to each other.
They wondered how father was getting along at the hospital, and if Aunt Jane would surely see him every day or two, and write them. Then they exchanged comments upon what they had seen of Bridleburg, and finally fell back upon the Pritchetts as a topic of conversation--and that family seemed an unfailing source of suggestion until finally 'Phemie jumped up, declaring: