Volume I Part 63 (1/2)
Rossitur, drily, ”for the thing is done. I have engaged him.”
Not another word was spoken.
Mr. Rossitur went out after breakfast, and Mrs. Rossitur busied herself with the breakfast cups and a tub of hot water ? a work she never would let Fleda share with her, and which lasted in consequence long enough, Barby said, to cook and eat three breakfasts. Fleda and Hugh sat looking at the floor and the fire respectively.
”I am going up the hill to get a sight of aunt Miriam,” said Fleda, bringing her eyes from the fire upon her aunt.
”Well, dear, do. You have been shut up long enough by the snow. Wrap yourself up well, and put on my snow-boots.”
”No, indeed!” said Fleda. ”I shall just draw on another pair of stockings over my shoes, within my India-rubbers ? I will take a pair of Hugh's woollen ones.”
”What has become of your own?” said Hugh.
”My own what? Stockings?”
”Snow-boots.”
”Worn out, Mr. Rossitur! I have run them to death, poor things! Is that a slight intimation that you are afraid of the same fate for your socks?”
”No,” said Hugh, smiling in spite of himself, at her manner ?
”I will lend you anything I have got, Fleda.”
His tone put Fleda in mind of the very doubtful pretensions of the socks in question to be comprehended under the term ? she was silent a minute.
”Will you go with me, Hugh?”
”No, dear, I can't; I must get a little ahead with the wood while I can; it looks as if it would snow again, and Barby isn't provided for more than a day or two.”
”And how for this fire?”
Hugh shook his head, and rose up to go forth into the kitchen.
Fleda went too, linking her arm in his, and bearing affectionately upon it; a sort of tacit saying, that they would sink or swim together. Hugh understood it perfectly.
”I am very sorry you have to do it, dear Hugh; oh, that woodshed! If it had only been made ?”
”Never mind ? can't help it now ? we shall get through the winter by and by.”
”Can't you get uncle Rolf to help you a little?” whispered Fleda; ”It would do him good.”
But Hugh only shook his head.
”What are we going to do for dinner, Barby?” said Fleda, still holding Hugh there before the fire.
”Aint much choice,” said Barby. ”It would puzzle anybody to spell much more out of it than pork and ham. There's plenty of them. _I_ sha'n't starve this some time.”
”But we had ham yesterday, and pork the day before yesterday, and ham Monday,” said Fleda. ”There is plenty of vegetables, thanks to you and me, Hugh,” she said, with a little reminding squeeze of his arm. ”I could make soups nicely, if I had anything to make them of!”
”There's enough to be had for the catching,” said Barby. ”If I hadn't a man-mountain of work upon me, I'd start out and shoot or steal something.”
”_You_ shoot, Barby!” said Fleda, laughing.