"and twist the head off that dominicker chicken.
Pick some flat beans too, there's a mess still hanging
on the poles. Go in, Mr. Makimmon."

He was ushered into the ceremonious, barely-furnished,
best room. There was a small rag carpet
at the door, with an archaic, woven animal, and
at its feet an unsteady legend, "Mary's Little
Lamb"; but the floor was uncovered, and the walls,
sealed in resinous pine, the pine ceiling, gave the
effect, singular and depressing, of standing inside a
huge box.

"It's mortal cold here," Mrs. Crandall truthfully
observed; "the grate's broken. If you wouldn't
mind going out into the kitchen--"

In the kitchen, from a comfortable place by the
fire, Gordon watched her deft preparations for an
early supper. Crandall appeared with the picked
dominicker, and sat rigidly before his guest.

"I don't quite make out," he at last essayed,
"how you expect your money, what you want out of
it."

"I don't want anything out of it," Gordon replied
with an almost bitter vigor; "leastways not
any premium. I said you could pay me when you
liked. I'll deed you the farm, and we'll draw up
a paper to suit -- to suit crops."

The apprehension in Alexander Crandall's face
turned to perplexed relief. "I don't understand,"

[[302]]

p301 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p302w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p303

v?