"Why--by marrying him, I suppose," answered Carley, as if weighing a
problem.

"That has been the universal feminine point of view for a good many years,"
replied Glenn, flourishing a flour-whitened hand. "But it never served the
women of the Revolution or the pioneers. And they were the builders of the
nation. It will never serve the wives of the future, if we are to survive."

"Glenn, you rave!" ejaculated Carley, not knowing whether to laugh or be
grave. "You were talking of humble housewifely things."

"Precisely. The humble things that were the foundation of the great nation
of Americans. I meant work and children."

Carley could only stare at him. The look he flashed at her, the sudden
intensity and passion of his ringing words, were as if he gave her a
glimpse into the very depths of him. He might have begun in fun, but he had
finished otherwise. She felt that she really did not know this man. Had he
arraigned her in judgment? A flush, seemingly hot and cold, passed over
her. Then it relieved her to see that he had returned to his task.

He mixed the shortening with the flour, and, adding water, he began a
thorough kneading. When the consistency of the mixture appeared to satisfy
him he took a handful of it, rolled it into a ball, patted and flattened it
into a biscuit, and dropped it into the oven he had set aside on the hot
coals. Swiftly he shaped eight or ten other biscuits and dropped them as
the first. Then he put the heavy iron lid on the pot, and with a rude
shovel, improvised from a flattened tin can, he shoveled red coals out of
the fire, and covered the lid with them. His next move was to pare and
slice potatoes, placing these aside in a pan. A small black coffee-pot half