Part 24 (2/2)
”I'm--not--sure.”
He waited as if expecting her to explain herself, and presently she did so.
”I might decide to make my home here,” she went on. ”That is, if I could get some one to help me with the farm.”
There was no intimation of coquetry in the remark; merely simple fact. But the words wrought a miracle in the face of the man beside her.
”Do you like it that much?” he demanded eagerly.
”I love it!”
”Miss Webster has a fine place,” ventured Martin at length.
”Both of them are fine old places.”
He nodded.
”But yours has been kept up better than ours,” continued Lucy. ”You see, Aunt Ellen isn't strong like a man; and besides, she hasn't studied into new ways of doing things as you have. That's the interesting part of farming, I think, to use your brains and make two things grow where only one grew before. If I were a man----”
She broke off, embarra.s.sed by her own girlish enthusiasm.
”What would you do?” inquired Martin eagerly.
”I'd do with our farm what you've done with yours. I'd get new tools, and I'd find out how to use them. It would be fascinating. But a woman can't----”
”She can read just the same.”
”I haven't a man's strength,” returned Lucy, shaking her head gravely.
”It's such a pity.”
”Maybe not.”
The words slipped from his lips before it was possible for him to recover them. He flushed.
”What!” exclaimed Lucy.
”Maybe it's as well for you to stay as you were made,” he explained in a strangely gentle voice.
The girl turned her head away. They had reached the foot of the Webster driveway, and unbidden the horse halted. But as Lucy prepared to climb out of the wagon, the man stayed her.
”I reckon there's some place I could turn round, ain't there, if I was to drive in?” he said recklessly.
”Oh, there's plenty of room,” Lucy answered, ”only hadn't you better drop me here? My--my--aunt is at home.”
”I don't care,” Martin retorted with the same abandon. ”I ain't goin' to have you plod up that long driveway in the broilin' sun--aunt or no aunt.”
He laughed boyishly.
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