Part 11 (2/2)
”If Bob says so, it's as good as done already,” replied Willie rea.s.suringly. ”He's a great one with tools. Why, if he was to stay in Wilton, he'd be cuttin' me all out. So you an' he have been gettin'
acquainted, eh, while I was gone? That's right. I want he should know what nice folks we've got in Wilton 'cause it's his first visit to the Cape, an' if he don't like us mebbe he'll never come again.”
”I thought Mr. Morton had visited other places on Cape Cod,” observed Delight, darting a mischievous glance at the abashed young man opposite.
”No, indeed!” blundered Willie. ”He ain't been nowheres. Somebody's got to show him all the sights. Mebbe if you get time you'll take a hand in helpin' educate him.”
”I should be glad to!”
Notwithstanding the prim response and her unsmiling lips, the young man had a discomfited presentiment that she was laughing at him, and even the farewell she flashed to him over her shoulder had a hectoring quality in it that did not altogether restore his self-esteem.
”Who is she?” he gasped, when he had watched her out of sight.
”That girl? Do you mean to say you don't know--an' you a-talkin' to her half the mornin'?” demanded the old man with amazement. ”Why, it never dawned on me to introduce you to her. I thought of course you knew already who she was. Everybody in town knows Delight Hathaway, an' loves her, too,” he added softly. ”She's Zenas Henry's daughter, the one he brought ash.o.r.e from the _Michleen_ an' adopted.”
”Oh!”
A light began to break in on Bob's understanding.
”It's Zenas Henry's motor-boat we're tinkerin' with now,” went on Willie.
”I see!”
He waited eagerly for further information, but evidently his host considered he had furnished all the data necessary, for instead of enlarging on the subject he approached the bench and began to inspect the model.
”I s'pose, with her bein' here, you didn't get ahead much while I was gone,” he ventured, an inflection of disappointment in his tone.
”No, I didn't.”
”I didn't accomplish nothin', either,” the little old man went on.
”Jan warn't to home; he'd gone fis.h.i.+n'.”
His companion did not reply at once.
”I don't quite get my soundin's on Jan,” he at length ruminated aloud.
”Somethin's wrong with him. I feel it in my bones.”
”Perhaps not.”
”There is, I tell you. I know Janoah Eldridge from crown to heel, an'
it ain't like him to go off fis.h.i.+n' by himself.”
”I shouldn't fret about it if I were you,” Bob said in an attempt to comfort the disquieted inventor. ”I'm sure he'll turn up all right.”
Had the conversation been of a three-master in a gale; of buried treasure; or of the ultimate salvation of the d.a.m.ned, the speaker would at that moment have been equally optimistic.
The universe had suddenly become too radiant a place to harbor calamity. Wilton was a paradise like the first Eden--a garden of smiles, of dimples, of blus.h.i.+ng cheeks--and of silver buckles.
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