"Well, I don't think there's anything much better than baked beans. Do you?" "Well, not when you git 'em _good_," the woman admitted. "_Ril_ good." "And what's the matter with a piece of mince pie?" "I don't see's there's any great deal. Hot?" "Every time." "I _thought_ so," said the woman. "We have it both ways, but I'd as soon eat a piece of I don't know what as a piece o' _cold_ mince pie." "We have mince pie right along at our house," said the young man. "But I guess if I was to eat a piece of it cold, my wife would have the doctor round inside of five minutes." The woman laughed as if for joy in the hot mince-pie fellowship established between herself and the young man. "Well, I guess she need to. Nothin' else you want?" She brought the beans and coffee, with a hot plate, and a Japanese paper napkin, and she said, as she arranged them on the table before the young man, "Your pie's warmin' for you; I got you some rolls; they're just right out the oven; and here's some the best butter I ever put a knife to, if I _do_ say so. It's just as good and sweet as butter can be, if it _didn't_ come from the Northwick place at a dollar a pound." "Well, now, I should have thought you'd have used the Northwick butter," said the young man with friendly irony. "You know the Northwick butter?" said the woman, charmed at the discovery of another tie. "Well, my wife likes it for cooking," said the young man. "We have a fancy brand for the table." The woman laughed out her delight in his pleasantry. "Land! I'll bet you grumble at it, too!" she said, with a precipitate advance in intimacy which he did not disallow. "Well, I'm pretty particular," said the young man. "But I _have_ to be, to find anything to find fault with in the way _my_ wife manages. I don't suppose I shall be able to get much more Northwick butter, now." "Why not?" "Why, if he was killed in that accident--" "Oh, I guess there ain't anything to that," said the woman. "I guess it was some other Northwick. Their coachman--Elbridge Newton--was tellin' my husband that Mr. Northwick had stopped over at Springfield to look at some hosses there. He's always buyin' more hosses. I guess he must have as much as eighty or ninety hosses now. I don't place any dependence on that report." "That so?" said the young man. "Why, what did that fellow mean, over at the drug store, just now, by his getting out for Canada?" "What fellow?" "Little slim chap, with a big black moustache, and blue eyes, blue and blazing, as you may say." "Oh,--Mr. Putney! That's just one of his jokes. He's always down on Mr. Northwick." "Then I suppose he's just gone up to Ponkwasset about the trouble there." "Labor trouble?" "I guess so." The woman called toward an open door at the end of the room, "William!" and a man in his shirt sleeves showed himself. "You heard of any labor trouble to Mr. Northwick's mills?"