Part 5 (1/2)
Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it.
Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged robins, was looking.
Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him.
”Gee!” he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, ”I've nearly sprained my tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin, and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'm goin' to drift pretty p.r.o.nto--I can't stand visitin'.”
”Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?” inquired Wallie, formally.
”I'm glad they's a West,” Pinkey replied, cryptically.
”You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?”
”Yep--Wyomin'.”
”Er--by the way”--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--”what did she mean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?”
Pinkey moved uneasily.
”Could you give me the precise significance?” persisted Wallie.
”I could, but I wouldn't like to,” Pinkey replied, drily
”Oh, don't spare my feelings,” said Wallie, loftily, ”there's nothing _she_ could say would hurt them.”
”If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'.”
”I trust so,” Wallie responded with dignity.
”I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon,” Pinkey observed.
Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded:
”It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?”
”I can't say as to that,” replied Pinkey, judicially, ”but she meant you were a 'perfect lady'.”
”It's more than I can say of her!” Wallie retorted, reddening.
Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder.
He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored him.
”Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come West and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'.
S'long, feller!”
Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Now he knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along with his indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life as he had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotony of it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer so the winter would be a repet.i.tion of the many winters he had spent in Florida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migrate with the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer.
They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while they babbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and their doings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when they had finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him as he reviewed it. Why couldn't he and Aunt Mary do something different for the winter? By George! he would suggest it to her!
He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately.