“Now, now, Benny, be good, or Ma’ll send you to bed without your supper,” the little old lady spoke as if he were a naughty child of three. “You mustn’t mind him, Sally. He won’t hurt you. I hope you’ll like it here on the farm. It’s real pretty in the summertime.” The two nondescript hired men had taken their places, slipping into their chairs silently and apologetically. David Nash had changed his blue work shirt and “jeans” trousers for a white shirt, dark blue polka-dotted tie, and a well-fitting but inexpensive suit of brown homespun. Sally, squeezed between the vague little old grandmother and the vacant-eyed half-wit, beyond whom the two hired men sat, found herself directly across from David Nash, beside whom Pearl Carson sat, her chair drawn more closely than necessary. “My, you look grand, Davie!” Pearl confided in a low, artificially sweet voice. “My cold’s lots better. Papa’ll let us drive in to the city to the movies if you ask him real nice.” It was then that Sally Ford, who had experienced so many new emotions that day, felt a pang that made every other heartache seem mild by comparison. And two girls, one a girl alone in the world, the other pampered and adored by her family, held their breath as they awaited David Nash’s reply. “Sorry, but I can’t tonight,” David Nash answered Pearl Carson’s invitation courteously but firmly. “It would be ’way after nine when we got to town, and we wouldn’t get back until nearly midnight—no hours for a farm hand to be keeping. Besides, I’ve got to study, long as I can keep awake.” “You’re always studying when I want you to take me somewhere,” Pearl pouted. “I don’t see why you can’t forget college during your summer vacation. Go get some more hot biscuits, Sally,” she added sharply. Except for Pearl’s chatter and David’s brief, courteous replies, the meal was eaten in silence, the hungry farmer and his hired men hunching over their food, wolfing it, disposing of such vast quantities of fried steak, vegetables, hot biscuits, home-made pickles, preserves, pie and coffee that Sally was kept running between kitchen and dining room to replenish bowls and plates from the food kept warming on the stove. In spite of her own hunger she ate little, restrained by timidity, but after her twelve years of orphanage diet the meal seemed like a banquet to her.