She did not speak--speech was impossible before that tableful of men--but Bud went out feeling as though she had told him that her contempt for Lew was beyond words, and that his rheumatism brought no pity whatever.
Wednesday passed, Thursday came, and still there was no chance to speak a word in private.

The kitchen drudge was hedged about by open ears and curious eyes, and save at meal-time she was invisible to the men unless they glimpsed her for a moment in the kitchen door.
Thursday brought a thunder storm with plenty of rain, and in the drizzle that held over until Friday noon Bud went out to an old calf shed which he had discovered in the edge of the pasture, and gathered his neckerchief full of mushrooms.

Bud hated mushrooms, but he carried them to the machine shed and waited until he was sure that Honey was in the sitting room playing the piano--and hitting what Bud called a blue note now and then--and that Lew was in the bunk-house with the other men, and Dave and old Pop were in Pop's shack.

Then, and then only, Bud took long steps to the kitchen door, carrying his mushrooms as tenderly as though they were eggs for hatching.
Marian was up to her dimpled elbows in bread dough when he went in.
Honey was still groping her way lumpily through the Blue Danube Waltz, and Bud stood so that he could look out through the white-curtained window over the kitchen table and make sure that no one approached the house unseen.
"Here are some mushrooms," he said guardedly, lest his voice should carry to Honey.

"They're just an excuse.