He ascribed the older man's hilarity to relief over the completion of a difficult task.

That evening the seven dined together at one end of the long table.

The big room exhaled already the atmosphere of desertion.
"Not much like old times, is she ?" laughed Radway.

"Can't you just shut your eyes and hear Baptiste say, 'Mak' heem de soup one tam more for me'?
She's pretty empty now." Jackson Hines looked whimsically down the bare board.

"More room than God made for geese in Ireland," was his comment.
After supper they even sat outside for a little time to smoke their pipes, chair-tilted against the logs of the cabins, but soon the chill of melting snow drove them indoors.