Part 4 (1/2)

And, pa, be sure don't forget the eggs for breakfast. I declare since we've moved up here so far from the stores, we nearly starve.”

The colonel waited a second while a glare melted into a smile, and then backed meekly into the arms stretched high to hold his alpaca coat. As he turned toward the group, he was beaming. ”If it were not,”

exclaimed the colonel, addressing the young men with a quizzical smile, ”that there is a lady present--a very important lady in point of fact,--I might be tempted to say, 'I will certainly be d.a.m.ned!'”

And with that the colonel lifted Mrs. Culpepper off her feet and kissed her, then lumbered down the steps and strode away. He paused at the gate to gaze at the valley and turned to look back at the great unfinished house, then swung into the street and soon his hat disappeared under the hill.

As he went Mrs. Culpepper said, ”Let them say what they will about Mart Culpepper, I always tell the girls if they get as good a man as their pa, they will be doing mighty well.”

Then the girls appeared bulging in hoops, and ruffles, with elbow sleeves, with a hint of their shoulders showing and with pink ribbons in their hair. Clearly it was a state occasion. The mother beamed at them a moment, and walked around Molly, saying, ”I told you that was all right,” and tied Ellen's hair ribbon over, while the young people were chattering, and before the boys knew it, she had faded into the dusk of the hall, and the clattering of dishes came to them from the rear of the house. John fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan Culpepper, and then he heard: ”Don't you talk to me, Buck Culpepper, about woman's work. You'll do what I tell you, and if I say wipe dishes--” the voice was drowned by the rattle of a pa.s.sing wagon. And soon the young people on the front porch were so busy with their affairs that the house behind them and its affairs dropped to another world. They say, who seem to know, that when any group of boys and girls meet under twenty-five serious years, the recording angel puts down his pen with, a sigh and takes a needed nap. But when the group pairs off, then Mr. Recorder p.r.i.c.ks up his ears and works with both hands, one busy taking what the youngsters say, and the other busy with what they would like to say. And shame be it upon the courage of youth that what they would like to say fills the larger book. And marvel of marvels, often the book that holds what the boys would say is merely a copy of what the girls would like to hear, and so much of the work is saved to the angel.

It was nine o'clock when the limping boy and the slender girl followed the tall youth and the plump little girl down the walk from the Culpepper home through the gate and into the main road. And the couple that walked behind took the opposite direction from that which they took who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen reached the river and were seated on the mill-dam, where the roar of the falling water drowned their voices, Ellen Culpepper spoke first: ”That looks like them over on the bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob's hat about three feet above her.”

”I guess so,” returned the boy. He was reaching behind him for clods and pebbles to toss into the white foaming flood below them. The girl reached back and got one, then another, then their hands met, and she pulled hers away and said, ”Get me some stones.” He gave her a handful, and she threw the pebbles away slowly and awkwardly, one at a time. There was a long gap in their talk while they threw the pebbles.

The girl closed it with, ”Ma made old Buck wipe the dishes.” Then she giggled, ”Poor Buckie.”

John managed to say, ”Yes, I heard him.” Then he added, ”What does your mother think of Bob?”

”Oh, she likes him fine. But she's glad you're all going away.”

The boy asked why and the girl returned, ”Watch me hit that log.” She threw, and missed the water.

”Why?” persisted the boy.

The girl was digging in a crevice for a stone and said, ”Can you get that out?”

John worked at it a moment and handed it to her with, ”Why?”

She threw it, standing up to give her arm strength. She sat down and folded her hands and waited for another ”why.” When it came she said, ”Oh, you know why.” When he protested she answered, ”Ma thinks Molly's too young.”

”Too young for what?” demanded the boy, who knew.

”Too young to be going with boys.”

There was a long pause, then he managed to say it, ”She's no younger than you were--nor half as old.”

”When?” returned the girl, giving him the broadside of her eyes for a second, and letting them droop. The eyes bewitched the boy, and he could not speak. At length the girl s.h.i.+vered, ”It's getting cold--I must go home.”

The boy found voice. ”Aw no, Bob and Molly are still up there.”

She started to rise, he caught her hand, but she pulled it away and resigned herself for a moment. Then she looked at him a long second and said, ”Do you remember years ago at the Frye boy's party--when we were little tots, and I chose you?”

The boy nodded his head and turned full toward her with serious eyes.

He devoured her feature by feature with his gaze in the starlight. The moon was just rising at the end of the mill-dam behind them, and its light fell on her profile. He cried out, ”Yes, Ellen, do you--do you?”

She nodded her head and spoke quickly, ”That was the time you got your hands stuck in the taffy and had to be soaked out.”

They laughed. John tried to get the moment back. ”Do you remember the rubber ring I gave you?”

She grew bold and turned to him with her heart in her face: ”Yes--yes, John, and the coffee-bean locket. I've got them both in a little box at home.” Then, scampering back to her reserve, she added, ”You know ma says I'm a regular rat to store things away.” She felt that the sudden reserve chilled him, for in a minute or two she said, looking at the bridge: ”They're going now. We mustn't stay but a minute.” She put her hand on the rock between them, and said, ”You remember that night when you went away before?” Before he answered she went on: ”I was counting up this afternoon, and it's six years ago. We were just children then.”

Again the boy found his voice: ”Ellen Culpepper, we've been going together seven years. Don't you think that's long enough?”

”We were just children then,” she replied.