Part 7 (1/2)
”How many of them?”
”I don't know. Three or four, I guess.”
It was evident that Lucy was quite indifferent to the fate of the unlucky engineers.
”Mercy on us!” Ellen gasped.
”But their carelessness caused the death of the other men. It was only fair.”
”So that's the way you settle things in the West?”
”Yes. At least, they did then.”
The mountain-bred girl obviously saw nothing amiss in this swift-footed justice.
”And where did your mother come in?” asked her aunt.
”Why, you see, Grandfather Duquesne afterward made Dad the boss of the mine, and when Mother, a girl of sixteen, came home from the California convent, where she had been at school, she saw him and fell in love with him. Grandfather Duquesne made an awful fuss, but he let her marry him.”
Lucy threw back her head with one of her rippling laughs.
”He had to,” she added merrily. ”Mother'd have married Dad anyway.”
Ellen studied the tea grounds in the bottom of her cup thoughtfully.
How strange it was to picture Thomas the hero of a romance like this! She had heard that once in his life every man became a poet; probably this was Thomas's era of transformation.
Her reverie was broken by the gentle voice of Lucy, who observed:
”And that's what I'd do, too.”
”What?” inquired Ellen vaguely. In her reverie about Thomas she had lost the connection.
”Marry the man I loved no matter what anybody said. Wouldn't you?”
”I--I--don't know,” stammered Ellen, getting to her feet with embarra.s.sment at having a love affair thrust so intimately upon her.
”Mebbe. I must go back now to Tony an' the weedin'. When you get cleared up round here, there's plenty of mendin' to be done. You'll find that hamper full of stockin's to be darned.”
After Ellen had gone out, Lucy did not rise immediately from the table, but sat watching the clouds that foamed up behind the maples on the crest of the nearby hill. A glory of suns.h.i.+ne bathed the earth, and she could see the coral of the apple buds sway against the sky. It was no day to sit within doors and darn socks. All Nature beckoned, and to Lucy, used from birth to being in the open, the alluring gesture was irresistible.
With sudden resolve she sprang up, cleared away the confused remnants of the meal before her, dashed to her room for a scarlet sweater, and fled into the radiant world outside.
She followed the driveway until it joined the road, and then, after hesitating an instant, turned in the direction of the Howe farm. A mischievous light danced in her brown eyes, and a smile curved her lips.
The road along which she pa.s.sed was bordered on either side by walls of gray stone covered with s.h.i.+ny-leaved ivy and flanked by a checkerboard of pastures roughly dotted with clumps of hardback and boles of protruding rock. Great brakes grew in the shady hollows, and from the woods beyond came the cool, moist perfume of moss and ferns.
The girl looked about her with delight. Then she began to sing softly to herself and jingle rhythmically the coins in her pocket.
It was nearly a quarter of a mile to the Howes' gate, and by the time she reached it, her swinging step had given to her cheek a color that even the apple orchard could not rival.