I made
nearly three dollars for you. Let's pull up along the road
and have a bite to eat."
He guided Pegasus to one side of the road, and then showed me
how to light the swinging lamp that hung under the skylight.
"No use to light the stove on a lovely evening like this," he
said. "I'll collect some sticks and we can cook outside. You
get out your basket of grub and I'll make a fire." He
unhitched Pegasus, tied her to a tree, and gave her a nose bag
of oats. Then he rooted around for some twigs and had a fire
going in a jiffy. In five minutes I had bacon and scrambled
eggs sizzling in a frying pan, and he had brought out a pail
of water from the cooler under the bunk, and was making tea.
I never enjoyed a picnic so much! It was a perfect autumn
evening, windless and frosty, with a dead black sky and a tiny
rim of new moon like a thumb-nail paring. We had our eggs and
bacon, washed down with tea and condensed milk, and followed
by bread and jam. The little fire burned blue and cozy, and
we sat on each side of it while Bock scoured the pan and ate
the crusts.
"This your own bread, Miss McGill?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "I was calculating the other day that I've
baked more than 400 loaves a year for the last fifteen years.
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