k.

"I thought cattlemen never had milk?"

"Well, they don't generally, but mother makes us milk a cow. Now, I'll
do this cooking if you want me to, but I reckon you won't enjoy seein'
me do it. I can't make biscuits, and we're all out o' bread, as I say,
and Hosy's sinkers would choke a dog."

"Oh, I'll cook if you'll get some water and keep a good fire going."

"Sure thing," he said, heartily, taking up the water-pail to go to the
spring. When he came back Jennie was dabbling the milk and flour. He
stood watching her in silence for some minutes as she worked, and the
sullen lines on his face softened and his lips grew boyish.

"You sure know your business," he said, in a tone of conviction. "When I
try to mix dough I get all strung up with it."

She replied with a smile. "Is the oven hot? These biscuit must come out
just right."

He stirred up the fire. "A man ain't fitten to cook; he's too blame long
in the elbows. We have an old squaw when mother is home, but she don't
like me, and so she takes a vacation whenever the old lady does. That
throws us down on Hosy, and he just about poisons us. A Mexican can't
cook no more'n an Injun. We get spring-poor by the time the old lady
comes back." Jennie was rolling at the dough and did not reply to him.
He held the door open for her when she was ready to put the biscuit in
the oven, and lit another bracket-lamp in order to see her better.

"Do you know, you're the first girl I ever saw in this kitchen."

"Am I?"

"That's right." After a pause he added: "I'm mighty glad I didn't get
home to eat Hosy's supper. I want a chance at some of them biscuit."

"Slice this bacon, please--not too thick," she added, briskly.

He took the knife. "Where do you hail from, anyway?" he asked,
irrelevantly.

"From the coast," she replied.

"That so? Born there?"

"Oh no. I was born in Maryland, near Washington."

"There's a place I'd like to live if I had money enough. A feller can
have a continuous picnic in Washington if he's got the dust to spare, so
I hear."

"Now you set the table while I make the omelette."

"The how-many?"

"The omelette, which must go directly to the table after it is made."

He began to pile dishes on the table, which ran across one end of the
room, but found time to watch her as she broke the eggs.

"If a feller lives long enough and keeps his mouth shut and his eyes
open he'll learn a powerful heap, won't he? I've seen that word in the
news