"It's grand to ask me to it."
"Ach, we don't mind you. You're just like one of the family, abody
might say. We won't fix like for company, eat in the room or anything
like that."
"Well, I hope not. I'm no company. Let's eat in the kitchen and have
everything just as you do when the family's alone."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Landis. "That will be more homelike."
Mary helped to set the table in the big kitchen.
"Shall I lay the spoons on the table-cloth like we did when Isabel was
here?" she asked her mother.
"Better put them in the spoon-holder," Amanda told her. "I'm no
company."
"I'm glad you ain't. I don't like tony company like that girl was. She
put on too much when she talked. And she had the funniest cheeks! Once
she wiped her face when it was hot and pink came off on her
handkerchief."
Amanda laughed and kept smiling as she helped the child set the table
for supper. Later she offered her services to Mrs. Landis. Martin,
coming in from the dusty road, found her before the stove, one of his
mother's gingham aprons tied around her waist, and turning sweet
potatoes in a big iron pan.
"Why, hello!" he said, pleasure written in his face. "Katie ran to meet
me and said I couldn't guess who was here for supper. Has Mother got
you working? Um," he sniffed, "smells awful much like chicken!"
"Ach," his mother told him, "you just hold your nose shut a while! You
and your pop can smell chicken off a mile. But you dare ring the supper
bell, Martin, before you go up-stairs to wash, so your pop and the boys
can come in now and get ready, too."
Soon the savory, smoking dishes were all placed on the big table in the
kitchen and the family with their guest gathered for the meal.
"Ain't I dare keep my coat off, Mom?" asked Mr. Landis, his face
flushed from a long hot day in the fields.
"Why, yes, if Amanda don't care."
"Why should I? Look at my cool dress! Take your coat off, Martin. I
never could see why men should roast while we keep comfortable."
As Martin stripped the serge coat off he thought of that other dinner
when coats were kept on and dinner eaten in "the room" because of the
presence of one who might take offense if she were expected to share
the plain, every-day ways of the family. What a fool he had been! Their
best efforts at style and convention must have looked very amateurish
and incomplete to her--what a fool he had been!
"Ah, that looks good!" Mr. Landis said after he had said grace and
everybody waited for the food to be passed. "Now we'll just hand the
platter around and let everybody help themselves, not so, Mom?"