“Well!” The woman drew her hands from the big dish-pan and dried them on her apron as she looked them over doubtfully. “Pete Womack goes crazy every year at picking-time. He's filled the house, barn, and yard with hooting and singing gals and boys, and furnished nobody to wait on 'em but me. The gals all say they are too fagged out at night to lay their hands to cooking or dish-washing, and yet, if you'll just listen and watch, you'll see that they are all able to gallivant with the men about the yard. Six couples met here for the first time last summer and got married. They say there's some progress being made right now between three or four, an' picking's just set in. I tell Pete he ought to start a marrying-agency and take out a license to preach, so he can tie 'em on the spot and collect two fees. Some of 'em are respectable and mean all right, but Pete is so anxious to get his crop off on time that he's got women in that bunch that--to _look_ at 'em--Well, it ain't any of _my_ business! I ain't set up as a judge, and as the saying is, I won't throw no stones. But you say you are hungry, and I don't see how I could give you a thing hot at this time of night. My fires are out, and--” “Hot!” Dick shouted. “Why, I've got such a big storage capacity that I'd be afraid to take it hot. It might generate steam and explode.” The woman laughed. “Well, you _must_ be hungry,” she said. “Come on in the dining-room and I'll lay it out in a minute. There is plenty of cold stuff. I cook a lot ahead. You have to feed pickers like kings or they won't stay. It won't take long to heat the coffee. But I reckon you want to wash and wipe. You'll find pans and water on the shelf in the entry, and a clean towel on the roller. I'll be ready when you are.” “I'll see about that, old lady,” Dick challenged her, as he made a dash for the near-by water-shelf. Two minutes later the two wanderers sat down at a long, improvised table, made of unplaned planks, in the dining-room. In the light of a guttering home-made tallow dip the farmer's wife spread before them the best meal that famished men ever feasted on. They saw roast chicken with dressing, fried chicken with cream gravy, country-smoked ham in a great platter of eggs; butter, hard and cold, from the spring-house; great, snow-capped pound-cakes, biscuits, apple-sauce, jellies, jams, cold buttermilk, and hot coffee. “I don't know where I'm going to bunk you boys,” Mrs. Womack said, in a motherly tone, as she stood behind their chairs, and, with unsuppressed delight, watched them eat. “The women and gals have got every bed in the house; and every spot on the floor, even to the kitchen, has been staked off by the men.” “What's the matter with the barn?” Dick mumbled, with his mouth full. “I wouldn't want a better place this time of year than a sweet-smelling bed of fresh hay or fodder.”