"Certainly very doubtful of it. It is the dog immolation. I saw one instance myself and met a man who had come from the southwest. He has passed them at intervals of a day's journey; always the same sort. The wretched little dog, fastened just above the ground, the nose pointing straight this way and the fire beneath." "Oh, Gaspar, it's dreadful!" "That they are discouraged? Kit, you don't mean that?" "No. No, no! You know better. But that they are such--such heathen!" Another voice broke in upon them: "Heathen! Heathen, you say? Well, if ever you was right in your life, you're right now. I never saw such folks. Here I've been cookin' and cooking till I'm done clean through myself; and in there's come another lot, just as hungry as t'others. Dear me, dear me! Why in the name of common sense couldn't I have stayed back there in the woods, and not come trapesing to Chicago to turn head slave for a lot of folks that act as if I'd ought to be grateful for the chance to kill myself a-waitin' on them. And say, Gaspar Keith, have you heard the news? When did you get home?" It was Mercy, of course, who had rushed excitedly into the house, yet had been able to rattle off a string of sentences that fairly took her hearers' breath away, if not her own. But Kitty was at her side at once, tenderly removing the great sun-bonnet from the hot gray head and offering a fan of turkey wings, gayly decorated with Indian embroideries of beads and weavings. "No, Kit. No, you needn't. Not while I know myself; there ain't never no more red man's tomfoolery going to be around me! Take that there Indian contraption away. I'd rather have a decent, honest cabbage-leaf any day. I'm beat out. My, ain't it hot!" "Yes, dear, it is awfully hot. Sit here in the doorway, in this big chair, and get what little breeze there is. Here's another fan, which I made myself; plain, good Yankee manufacture. Try that. Then, when you get cooled off, tell us your 'news.'" "Cooled off? That I sha'n't never be no more; not while I've got to cook for all creation." "Mother Mercy, Mother Mercy! You are a puzzler. You won't let the people go anywhere else than to your house as long as there's room to squeeze another body in; and----" "Ain't it the tavern?" "Of course. But people who keep taverns usually take pay for entertaining their guests." "Gaspar Keith! You say that to me, after the raisin' I gave you? The idee! When not a blessed soul of the lot has got a cent to bless himself with." "But I have cents, plenty of them; and I want you to let me bear this expense for you. I insist upon it." "Well, lad, I always did think you was a little too sharp after the money. But I didn't 'low you'd begrudge folks their _blessings_, too." "Blessings? Aren't you complaining about so much hard work, and haven't you the right? I know that no private family has cared for so many as you have, and----"