"All right. We'll have everything ready here in a few minutes."

They returned to work, dusting and scrubbing. The girls with their banter put death into the background as an obscure and infrequent incident of old age.

Sarah again studied the road down the Coolly.

"Well there! I see a team coming up the Coolly now; wonder if it's Emmy."

"Looks more like Bill Gray's team," said one of the girls, looking slyly at Sarah, who grew very red.

"Oh, you're too sharp, ain't you?"

It was perfectly ridiculous (to the young people) to see these middle-aged lovers courting like sixteen-year-olds, and they had no mercy on either Bill or Sarah.

Bill drove up in leisurely way, his horses steaming, his wagon-wheels loaded with mud. Mrs. Gray was with him, her jolly face shining like the morning sun.

"h.e.l.lo, folkses, are you all here?"

"Good morning, Mrs. Gray," said the Deacon, approaching to help her out.

"h.e.l.lo, Bill, nice morning."

Bill looked at Sarah for a moment. "Bully good," he said, leaving his mother to scramble down the wagon-wheel alone--at least so far as he was concerned, but the Deacon stood below courageously.

Mrs. Gray cried out in her loud good humor: "Look out, Deacon, don't git too near me--if I should fall on you there wouldn't be a grease spot left. _There!_ I'm all right now," she said, having reached ground without accident. She shook her dress and looked briskly around. "Wal, what you done, anyway? Emmy's folks come yet?"

"No, but I guess that's them comin' now. I hope Ike won't come, though."

Mrs. Gray stared at the Deacon. "Why not?"

"Well, he's just sure to make a fuss," said Jack, "he's so afraid he won't get his share."

Bill chewed on a straw and looked at Sarah abstractedly.

"Well, what's t' be done?" inquired Mrs. Gray, after a pause.

"Can't do much till Emmy gets here," said Sarah.

"Oh, I guess we can. Bill, you put out y'r team, we won't get away 'fore dinner."

The men drove off to the barn, leaving the women to pick their way on chips and strips of board laid in the mud, to the safety of the chip-pile, and thence to the kitchen, which was desolately littered with utensils.

Deacon a.s.sumed command with the same alertness, and with the same sunny gleam in his eye, with which he directed the funeral a few days before.

"Now, Bill, put out your team and help Jack and me pen them hogs. Women folks 'll git things ready here."

Emma came at last, driven by Harkey's brother and his hired man. They were both brawny fellows, rude and irritable, and the Deacon lifted his eyebrows and whistled when he saw them drive in with a lumber wagon.

The women swarmed out to greet Emma, who was a thin, irritable, feeble woman.

"Better late than never. Where's Ike?" inquired Mrs. Gray.

"Well, he--couldn't git away very well--he's got t' clean up some seed-oats," she answered nervously. After the men drove off, however, she added: "He thought he hadn't ought to come; he didn't want to cause no aidgewise feelin's, so he thought he hadn't better come--he'd just leave it to you, Deacon."

The Deacon said, "All right, all right! We'll fix it up!" but he didn't feel so sure of it after that, though he set to work bravely.

The sun, growing warmer, fell with pleasant gleam around the kitchen door and around the chip-pile where the hens were burrowing. The men worked in their shirt-sleeves.

"Well, now, we'll share the furniture an' stuff next," said the Deacon, looking around upon his little interested semicircle of spectators.

"Now, put Emmy's things over there and Serry's things over here. I'll call 'em off, and, if they's no objection, you girls can pa.s.s 'em over."

He cleared his throat and began in the voice of one in authority:--

"Thirteen pans, six to Emmy, seven to Serry;" then hastened to add: "I'll balance that by giving the biggest of the two kittles to Emmy.

Rollin' pin and cake board to Serry, two flat-irons to Emmy, small tub to Emmy, large one to Serry, balanced by the tin water pail. Dozen clo'se-pins; half an' half, six o' one, half-dozen t'other," he said with a smile at his own joke, while the others actively placed the articles in separate piles.

"Stove to Serry, because she has the house, bureau to Emmy."

At this point Mrs. Gray said, "I guess that ain't quite even, Deacon; the bureau ain't worth much."

"Oh, no, no, that's all right! Let her have it," Emma protested nervously.

"Give her an extry tick, anyway," said Sarah, not to be outdone in magnanimity.

"Settle that between ye," said the Deacon.

He warmed to his work now, and towels, pans, crockery, brooms, mirrors, pillows, and bedticks were rapidly set aside in two groups on the soft soil. The poverty of the home could best be seen in the display of its pitiful furniture.

The two nieces looked on impa.s.sively, standing side by side. The men came to move the bureau and other heavy things and looked on, while the lighter things were being handed over by Mrs. Gray and the girls.

At noon they sat down in the empty kitchen and ate a cold snack--at least, the women took seats, the men stood around and lunched on hunks of boiled beef and slices of bread. There was an air of constraint upon the male portion of the party not shared by Mrs. Gray and the girls.

"Well, that settles things in the house," beamed the Deacon as he came out with the women trailing behind him; "an' now in about two jerks of a dead lamb's tail, we'll git at the things out in the barn."

"Wal, we don't know much about machines and things, but I guess we'd better go out and keep you men from fightin'," said Mrs. Gray, shaking with fun; "Ike didn't come because he didn't want to make any trouble, but I guess he might just as well 'a' come as send two such critters as Jim 'n' Hank."

The women laughed at her frankness, and in very good humor they all went out to the barn-yard.

"Now, these things can't be laid out fast as I call 'em off, but we'll do the best we can."

"Let's try the stawk first," said Jim.

The women stood around with shawls pinned over their heads while the division of the stock went forward. The young men came often within chaffing distance of the girls.

There were nine shotes nearly of a size, and the Deacon said, "I'll give Serry the odd shote."

"Why so?" asked Jim Harkey, a sullen-faced man of thirty.

"Because a shote is hard to carry off and I can balance--"

"Well, I guess you can balance f'r Em 'bout as well as f'r Serry."