conscious that they were still on.
Without a word, she took them off and, having given her coat a little
shake and a pat, looked about her for a place to put them. She ended
finally by putting them both on the kitchen chair.

"You ain't terribly talkative for a woman, are you, my girl?"

"I haven't anything to say for the moment," said Nora.

"Well, I guess it's better to have a wife as talks too little than a
wife as talks too much."

"I suppose absolute perfection is rare--in women, poor wretches," she
said in the old ironic tone she had always used toward him while he was
her brother's hired man.

"What's that?" he said sharply.

"I was only amusing myself with a reflection."

He checked an angry retort, and striding over to a nail in the wall,
took off his coat and hung it up. Somehow, he looked larger than ever in
his gray sweater. A sense of comfort and unaccustomed well-being
restored him to good humor. Throwing himself into the rocker, he
stretched out his long legs luxuriantly.

"I guess there's no place like home. You get a bit fed up with hiring
out. Ed was O. K., I reckon, but it ain't like being your own boss."

"I should think it wouldn't be," said Nora quietly.

"Where does that door go?" she asked presently.

"That? Oh, into the bedroom. Like to have a look?"

"No."

"No what?" he said quickly.

Nora turned from the shelf where she had been contriving a place to put
the things they had brought from the town, and looked at him
inquiringly. His face was grave, but a twinkle in his eye betrayed him.
She blushed charmingly to the roots of her hair, but her laugh was
perfectly frank and good-humored. "I beg your pardon. I was so occupied
with arranging my pantry that I forgot my manners. No, _thank you_."

"One can't be too careful about these important things," he said with
rather heavy humor. "When I built this shack," he went on proudly--but
the pride was the pride of possession, not of achievement--"I fixed it
up so as it would do when I got married. Sid Sharp asked me what in hell
I wanted to divide it up in half for, but I guess women like little
luxuries like that."

"Like what?"

"Like having a room to sleep in and a room to live in."

"Here's the bread and butter," said Nora abruptly. "Will you have some
syrup?"

"S-u-r-e." He got up out of the rocking chair and pulling one of the
stools up to the table, sat down.

"The water ought to be boiling by now; what about milk?"