Part 9 (2/2)
”Oh, them cookies in the oven!” she shrieked, leaping up and running to the house. She looked back as she reached the kitchen door, however, and smiled with a flushed face. Lime slapped his knee and roared with laughter at his bold stroke.
”Ho! ho!” he laughed. ”Didn't I do it slick? Ain't nothin' green in _my_ eye, I guess.” In an intense and pleasurable abstraction he finished the cookies and the milk. Then he yelled:
”Hey! Merry--Merry Etty!”
”Whadda ye want?” sang the girl from the window, her face still rosy with confusion.
”Come out here and git these things.”
The girl shook her head, with a laugh.
”Come out an' git 'm, 'r by jingo I'll throw 'em at ye! Come on, now!”
The girl looked at the huge, handsome fellow, the sun falling on his golden hair and beard, and came slowly out to him--came creeping along with her hand outstretched for the plate which Lime, with a laugh in his sunny blue eyes, extended at the full length of his bare arm. The girl made a s.n.a.t.c.h at it, but his left hand caught her by the wrist, and away went cup and plate as he drew her to him and kissed her in spite of her struggles.
”My! ain't you strong!” she said, half-ruefully and half-admiringly, as she shrugged her shoulders. ”If you'd use a little more o' _that_ choppin' wood, Dad wouldn't 'a' lost s' much money by yeh.”
Lime grew grave.
”There's the hog in the fence, Merry; what's yer dad goin' t' say”----
”About what?”
”About our gitt'n' married this spring.”
”I guess you'd better find out what _I'm_ a-goin' t' say, Lime Gilman, 'fore you pitch into Dad.”
”I _know_ what you're a-goin' t' say.”
”No, y' don't.”
”Yes, but I _do_, though.”
”Well, ask me, and see, if you think you're so smart. Jest as like 's not, you'll slip up.”
”All right; here goes. Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin'
t' be married?”
”No, sir, we ain't,” laughed the girl, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the plate and darting away to the house, where she struck up ”Weevily Wheat,” and went busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss, at her, and fell to work on his log with startling energy.
Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of anything--but a girl.
Marietta was not only the old man's only child, his housekeeper, his wife having at last succ.u.mbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.
Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming ax into the huge maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man, being a lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for Bacon. He had a nice ”little wad o' money” when he left the camp and started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to him, for, as he said, every cent of that money ”stood fer hard knocks an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my toes curl up.”
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