"Who's out there?" Mrs. Potter called sharply. "I got a gun in here, and I ain't afraid to use it. If you 're a tramp, you'd better git!"
"It's Peter Lane," Peter called, loud enough to be heard above the wind. "I want to buy a couple of eggs off you, Mrs. Potter."
The door opened the merest crack and Mrs. Potter peered out. She did not have a gun, but she held a stove poker. When she saw Peter she opened the door wide. It was a brusk welcome.
"Of all the shiftlessness I ever heard of, Peter Lane," she said angrily, "you beat all! Cormin' for eggs this time of night when your boat's been in the cove nobody knows how long. I suppose it never come into your head to get eggs until you got hungry for them, did it?"
Peter closed the door and stood with his back to it. At all times he feared Mrs. Potter, but especially when he gave her some cause for reproof.
"I had some company drop in on me unexpected, Mrs. Potter," he said apologetically. "If I hadn't, I wouldn't have bothered you. I hate it worse'n you do."
"Tramps, I dare say," said the widow. "You 're that shiftless you'd give the shoes off your feet and the food out of your mouth to feed any good-for-nothing that come camping on you. You don't get my good eggs to feed such trash, Peter Lane! Winter eggs are worth money."
"I thought to pay for them," said Peter meekly. "I wouldn't ask them of you any other way, Mrs. Potter."
"Well, if you 've got the money I suppose I've got to let you have them," said the widow grudgingly. "Eggs is worth three cents apiece, and I hate to have 'em fed to tramps. How many do you want to buy?" Peter shifted from one foot to another uncomfortably. "Well, now, I'm what you might call a little short of ready money tonight," he said. "I thought maybe I might come over and saw some wood for you tomorrow--"
"And so you can," said Mrs. Potter promptly, "and when the wood is sawed they will be paid for, in eggs or money, and not until it is sawed. I'm not going to encourage you to run into debt. You 're shiftless enough now, goodness knows."
Peter tried to smile and ignored the accusation.
"There couldn't be anything fairer than that," he said. "Nobody ought to object to that sort of arrangement at all. That's real business-like. Only, there's a small boy amongst the company that dropped in on me and he's only about so high--" Peter showed a height that would have been small for an infant dwarf. "He's a real nice little fellow, and if you was ever a boy that high, and crying because you wanted something to eat--"