Leffingwell’s wife, a powerful woman, as large as her husband, and with a pleasant face, gave Dick a large hand and a friendly grasp.
“It’s a good night to be indoors,” she said. “Supper’s ready, Seth. Will you an’ the stranger set?”
She had placed the pine table in the middle of the room, and Dick noticed that it was large enough for five or six persons. He put his saddle bags and blankets in a corner and he and the man drew up chairs.
He had seldom beheld a more cheerful scene. In a great fireplace ten feet wide big logs roared and crackled. Corn cakes, vegetables, and two kinds of meat were cooking over the coals and a great pot of coffee boiled and bubbled. No candles had been lighted, but they were not needed. The flames gave sufficient illumination.
“Set, young man,” said Leffingwell heartily, “an’ see who’s teeth are sharper, yourn or mine.”
Dick sat down gladly, and they fell to. The woman alternately waited on them and ate with them. For a time the two masculine human beings ate and drank with so much vigor that there was no time for talk. Leffingwell was the first to break silence.
“I kin see you growin’,” he said.
“Growing?”
“Yes, growin’, you’re eatin’ so much, you’re enjoyin’ it so much, an’ you’re digestin’ it so fast. You are already taller than you was when you set, an’ you’re broader ‘cross the chest. No, ’tain’t wuth while to ‘pologize. You’ve got a right to be hungry, an’ you mustn’t forget Ma’s cookin’ either. She’s never had her beat in all these mountains.”
“Shut up, Seth,” said Mrs. Leffingwell, genially, “you’ll make the young stranger think you’re plum’ foolish, which won’t be wide of the mark either.”
“I’m grateful,” said Dick falling into the spirit of it, “but what pains me, Mrs. Leffingwell, is the fact that Mr. Leffingwell will only nibble at your food. I don’t understand it, as he looks like a healthy man.”
“‘Twouldn’t do for me to be too hearty,” said Leffingwell, “or I’d keep Mandy here cookin’ all the time.”
They seemed pleasant people to Dick, good, honest mountain types, and he was glad that he had found their house. The room in which they sat was large, apparently used for all purposes, kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and bedroom. An old-fashioned squirrel rifle lay on hooks projecting from the wall, but there was no other sign of a weapon. There was a bed at one end of the room and another at the other, which could be hidden by a rough woolen curtain running on a cord. Dick surmised that this bed would be assigned to him.
Their appetites grew lax and finally ceased. Then Leffingwell yawned and stretched his arms.
“Stranger,” he said, “we rise early an’ go to bed early in these parts. Thar ain’t nothin’ to keep us up in the evenin’s, an’ as you’ve had a hard, long ride I guess you’re just achin’ fur sleep.”
Dick, although he had been unwilling to say so, was in fact very sleepy. The heavy supper and the heat of the room pulled so hard on his eyelids that he could scarcely keep them up. He murmured his excuses and said he believed he would like to retire.
“Don’t you be bashful about sayin’ so,” exclaimed Leffingwell heartily, “’cause I don’t think I could keep up more’n a half hour longer.”
Mrs. Leffingwell drew the curtain shutting off one bed and a small space around it. Dick, used to primitive customs, said good-night and retired within his alcove, taking his saddle bags. There was a small window near the foot of the room, and when he noticed it he resolved to let in a little air later on. The mountaineers liked hot rooms all the time, but he did not. This window contained no glass, but was closed with a broad shutter.
The boy undressed and got into bed, placing his saddle bags on the foot of it, and the pistol that he carried in his belt under his head. He fell asleep almost immediately and had he been asked beforehand he would have said that nothing could awake him before morning. Nevertheless he awoke before midnight, and it was a very slight thing that caused him to come out of sleep. Despite the languor produced by food and heat a certain nervous apprehension had been at work in the boy’s mind, and it followed him into the unknown regions of sleep. His body was dead for a time and his mind too, but this nervous power worked on, almost independently of him. It had noted the sound of voices nearby, and awakened him, as if he had been shaken by a rough hand.