The woman turned back to her cooking. Her manner was gravely disapproving, and she had managed to convey a sting which somehow hurt Joan far more than she was willing to admit. Her refusal to undertake the added work was merely churlish and disconcerting, but those other remarks raised a decided anger not untouched by a feeling of shame and hurt. But Joan did not give way to any of these feelings in her reply. She did the only dignified thing possible.
"You need not wait until your dissatisfaction with me overwhelms you, Mrs. Ransford," she said promptly. "I engaged you by the month, and I shall be glad if you will leave me to-day month." Then she added with a shadow of reproach: "Really, I thought you were made of better stuff."
But her attitude had a far different result to what she had expected. She turned to go, preferring to avoid a further torrent of abuse from the harsh old woman, when the spoon flourished in the air as the widow of George D. swung round from her pots with an amazing alacrity.
"You ain't chasin' me out, Miss Joan--ma'm?" she cried aghast, her round eyes rolling in sudden distress. "Why, miss--ma'm, I never meant no harm--that I didn't. Y' see I was jest sore hearin' them sayin' things 'bout you in the camp, an' you a-singin' made me feel you didn't care nuthin'. An' these scallawags a-comin' around a-sassin' you, an' a-kissin' you, sort o' set my blood boilin'. No, miss--ma'm, you ain't a-goin' to chase me out! You wouldn't now, would you?" she appealed. "Jest say you won't, an' I'll have the house turned sheer upside down 'fore you know wher' you are. There, jest think of it. You may need some un to ke'p that scallawag Buck in his place. How you goin' to set about him without me around? I ain't quittin' this day month, am I, miss--ma'm?"
The old woman's abject appeal was too much for Joan's soft heart, and her smiling eyes swiftly told the waiting penitent that the sentence was rescinded. Instantly the shadow was lifted from the troubled face.
"It was your own fault, Mrs. Ransford," Joan said, struggling to conceal her amusement. "However, if you want to stay----Well, I must drive into the camp before dinner, and we'll see about the little room when I return."
"That we will, mum--miss. That we will," cried the farm-wife in cordial relief as Joan hurried out of the room.
* * * * * Joan drew up at Beasley's store just as that individual was preparing to adjourn his labors for dinner. The man saw her coming from the door of his newly-completed barn, and softly whistled to himself at the sight of the slim, girlish figure sitting in the wagon behind the heavy team of horses he had so long known as the Padre's.