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Why, it was only since they had got Fo Wung that there had been any vegetables. And the climate though the short winter had been pleasant enough as a whole was abominable. The long summer heat, the flies and the mosquitoes! What had she not suffered the first summer after her marriage! And now the hot weather was coming again.
The grey light which Buck Daniels saw that morning, hardly brightened as the day grew, for the sky was overcast with sheeted mist and through it a dull evening radiance filtered to the earth. Wung Lu, his celestial, slant eyes now yellow with cold, built a fire on the big hearth in the living-room.
Wung Lu had brought in a lamp a large lamp with a circular wick that cast a bright, white light but Kate had turned down the wick, and now it made only a brief circle of yellow in one corner of the room.
The laughter and cheers from the house were the sweetest of music in the ears of Doctor Randall Byrne; the most sounding sentences of praise from the lips of the most learned of professors, after this, would be the most shabby of anticlimaxes. He waved his arm back to a group standing in front of the house Buck Daniels, Kate, the lantern-jawed cowboy, and Wung Lu waving his kitchen apron.
While Chinese Wung lighted the hall gas and busied himself with their hats and bags, Psyche Bines came down the stairs to greet them. Never had her youthful freshness so appealed to her brother. The black gown she wore emphasised her blond beauty. As to give her the aspect of mourning one might have tried as reasonably to hide the radiance of the earth in springtime with that trifling pall.
"You won't like it a mite. I tried it myself thirty years ago. I'll jest camp here until you do come back. My! but you'll be glad to get here again." "Why not have Billy Brue come stay with you," suggested Mrs. Bines, who was hurting herself with pictures of the old man's loneliness, "in case you should want a plaster on your back or some nutmeg tea brewed, or anything? That Wung is so trifling."
"Have you seen Dan?" she asked of the cook. "Wung Lu make nice fire," grinned the Chinaman. "Misser Dan in there." She thought for an instant. "Is breakfast ready, Wung?" "Pretty soon quick," nodded Wung Lu. "Then throw out the coffee or the eggs," she said quickly. "I don't want breakfast served yet; wait till I send you word."
But on Wednesday afternoon, coming like a race-horse wung out we sighted a dory and two men in it signalizing. Astray they were, and we took 'em aboard, and all that night we stood by. And warn't it chafing? Oh, no! Daylight came thick and we waited for it to clear, keeping the horn goin'. It lifted and we got another dory, but it was late afternoon then.
"Serve breakfast now, Wung," she commanded, and at once the gong was struck by the cook. Before the long vibrations had died away the guests were gathered around the table, and the noisy marshal was the first to come. He slammed back a chair and sat down with a grunt of expectancy.
A look from the more fashionable daughter, as with a swinging sweep she passed on into the parlor, silenced the mother on the subject of hoops, and thinking her guests must necessarily be thirsty after their walk she brought them a pitcher of water, asking if they'd "chuse it clear, or with a little ginger and molasses," at the same time calling to Betsy Jane to know if them windows was "wung" off!
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