Part 18 (1/2)
Agatha thought that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in another moment he entered the room. He shook hands with them both.
”You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par,” he said with a smile. ”I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind?”
”I don't,” declared Mrs. Hastings resolutely; ”Allen doesn't, either.
Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?”
”It was the cough cure,” explained Sproatly with a grin. ”I sold a man at Lander's one of the large-sized bottles, and when he had taken some he felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight hours afterward, and when I came across him at the settlement he attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic.
Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognized it. One hung it up in his shanty; the other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. He, however, produced his dollar; he said he felt so much better after what he'd done that he didn't grudge it.”
”I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot,” said Mrs. Hastings. ”Do you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?”
”I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it.” Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little whimsical bow.
”The professional badinage of an unlicensed dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good deal of embarra.s.sment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly characteristic of the Old Country along with her.”
His hostess disregarded the last remark. ”Then if you didn't expect to sell us anything, what did you come for?”
”For supper,” answered Sproatly cheerfully. ”Besides that, to take Miss Rawlinson out for a drive. I told her last night it would afford me considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by Lander's and back.”
”Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile with the kiddies.”
Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed.
”You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education!”
she exclaimed. ”So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first I fancied it was on yours.”
Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. ”If Winifred favors him with her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. He lives near you?”
”No,” said Mrs. Hastings. ”In the summer he lives in his wagon, or under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with Winifred he will have to alter that.”
”But he has only seen her once--you can't mean that he is serious.”
”I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping with the customs of the country if he was.”
A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the wagon when it reappeared from behind the straw-pile, and Mrs. Hastings turned toward the window.
”She has gone with him,” she commented significantly. ”Unfortunately, he has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken it will be a relief to me.”
CHAPTER XII
WANDERERS
Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings. When they were driving over to Wyllard's homestead one afternoon, the older woman pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from their destination, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, plowing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them.
The great sweep of gra.s.ses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed luminously, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, flocks of birds moved up from the south.
”Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set,” she observed. ”He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly.” She glanced toward the place where the teams were hauling unusually heavy plows through the gra.s.sy sod. ”This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him.