Celia whisked her apron from the basket and put it on. “You can tell him there isn’t a thing I need—except to be left alone,” she added severely, “and I just told him that.”
The young man withdrew—a heavy color rising in his face.
“She didn’t want anything, did she?” said Uncle William casually.
“No.” Manning took up his plane and attacked a piece of board screwed to the bench. Uncle William watched the long, even lunge of the plane and the set of the square shoulders. He moved discreetly away.
In her kitchen, Celia spread the contents of the basket on the white shelf, and settled to her work—like a bird to its nest.... Out in the rooms beyond—amid the swirl of planes and the smell of paint and shavings and clean, fresh wood, they heard a voice singing softly to itself... and against the windows the sleet dashed itself and broke, and the great storm from the east gathered. By and by Uncle William looked into the kitchen. “You couldn’t just go out in the other room, Celia, and fetch me my coat, could ye?” He was standing in his shirt sleeves, looking at her kindly.
She glanced up from her work and paused, “No, Mr. Benslow, I couldn’t—and I do wish you ’d stop acting so.... You’re just—ridiculous!” She lifted a pie and whisked it into the oven and Uncle William retired.
He went for his coat himself and put it on, shrugging his great shoulders comfortably down into it—“If they want to act like that, they ’ll have to get along best way they can,” he muttered to himself.
His face resumed its calm and he strolled from room to room, giving advice and enjoying life. “I do like a big, comfortable storm like this,” he said, standing at the window and looking out across the black-stretched harbor. “Everything snug down there,” he waved his hand to the bleakness, “—and everything going all right up here to your house—going along putty good, that is,” he added conscientiously.
Bodet came and stood beside him, looking out. “It suits me,” he said. “I don’t want anything better than this—except to have the children back,” he added after a minute.
“They ’ll be’long byme-by, Benjy.” Uncle William’s gaze was on the blackened water. “They ’ll be’long—and the little one with ’em.... You ought to have somebody to keep house for you, Benjy—till they come—” He turned and looked at him—“Want me to lend you Celia awhile?” he said craftily, “—just whilst you’re finishing up? She likes it out there—” he nodded to the kitchen. “She likes it fust-rate out there and I don’t mind letting you have her—you can have her just as well as not.” He studied the keen face opposite him.