Part 18 (1/2)
”Yes, it is,” Randy had agreed. ”I am getting tremendously fond of her. I have named her 'Little Sister.'”
”Oh, Randy, you haven't.”
”Yes, I have. She has such confiding ways. I never believed that cars had human qualities, Becky.”
”They are not horses of course.”
”Well, they have individual characteristics. You take the three cars in our barn. The Packard reminds one of that stallion we owned three years ago--blooded and off like the wind. The Franklin is a grayhound--and Little Sister is a--duck----”
”Mr. Dalton's car is a--silver s.h.i.+p----”
”Oh, does he call it that?” grimly.
”So----”
”Was it your own--poetic--idea?”
”Yes.”
”And you called Little Sister a duck,” she groaned. ”And when my little duck swims in the wake of his silver s.h.i.+p, and he laughs, do you laugh, too?”
There was a dead silence. Then she said, ”Oh, Randy----”
He made his apology like a gentleman. ”That was hateful of me, Becky.
I'm sorry----”
”You know I wouldn't laugh, Randy, and neither would he.”
”Who?”
”Mr. Dalton.”
”Wouldn't what?”
”Laugh.”
He hated her defense of young Apollo--but he couldn't let the subject alone.
”You never have any time for me.”
”Randy, are you going to scold me for the rest of our ride?”
”Am I scolding?”
”Yes.”
”Then I'll stop it and say nice things to you or you won't want to come again.”
Yet after that when he saw her in Dalton's car, her words would return to him, and gradually he began to think of her as sailing in a silver s.h.i.+p farther and farther away in a future where he could not follow.
Little Sister was a great comfort in those days. She gave him occupation and she gave him an income. He was never to forget his first sale. He had not found it easy to cry his wares. The Paines of King's Crest had never asked favors of the country folk, or if they had, they had paid generously for what they had received. To go now among them saying, ”I have something to sell,” carried a sting. There had been nothing practical in Randy's education. He had no equipment with which to meet the sordid questions of bargain and sale.