You've lied unmercifully
ef you don't like my cookin'," she concluded, with an awkward little
laugh.
"I never lie," he retorted, smiling. "It's been a year since I ate at
your house, but I can taste your slice-potato pie yet, and your
egg-bread and biscuits, ugh!"
She laughed. "You'll stay, then?"
"I'm afraid not. I've packed up some pieces of furniture--a bed and
one thing or other--and I calculated that I'd occupy the room over the
stable. I'd like to be near my business. I reckon I can get my meals
down at the hotel. I'll stay with you to-night, though; the wagon
won't come till to-morrow."
"Well, I'm disappointed, shore 'nough," said Mrs. Bradley. "I had
clean forgot the room at the stable, an' I ought to 'a' knowed, too,
that Saunders' boys bunked thar. Well, I won't raise no objections;
Mis' Boyd, a widow woman, is keepin' the hotel now, and folks say she
feeds well an' cheap enough. She's from Tennessee, an's got a
good-lookin', sprightly daughter. Nobody knows a thing about 'em; they
don't talk much about the'rse'ves. They tuk the hotel when Rick Martin
sold out last fall, an' they've been thar ever sence.
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