Part 23 (1/2)

Was he real, or had I imagined him? ”My name is Kate,” I answered. ”My husband would be ever so pleased to make you welcome. But he's away.”

”And are you lonely?”

”Not now.” Somehow the pain and fear were gone as though they dared not stay in the serene presence of this dear old saint. ”Are you sure,” I ventured, ”that you're not a--”

”Fairy? Believe me, dear lady, I'm a very commonplace little person.

”A humble admirer of yours, one Tearful George, has been kind enough to bring me here in his buck-board, which has complaining wheels, a creaky body, and such a wheezy horse. He, Tearful George I mean, contracted for seventy-five dollars to bring me to paradise and back; but as we creaked our pa.s.sage through that weird black forest, I feared my guide had taken the pathway which leads to the other place. I confess, the upper forest frightened me, and now, having come to paradise, I don't want to go back.” He sighed. ”George,” he added, ”is making camp up yonder. Mrs.

Smith, will you laugh at me very much if I tell you a fairy tale? It's quite a nice one.”

”Oh, do!” I begged.

”Well,” he began, ”you know where the three birch trees are all using a single pool as their mirror?”

Of course these were the Three Graces. Mrs. O'Flynn and I had known for months past that the spot was haunted.

”Each of them,” said my visitor, ”seems to think the others quite superfluous.”

That was true. I asked him if any one was there.

”A lady, yes.”

”That's the minx,” I whispered. ”She's a fairy. But don't tell my husband. You know he laughs at me for being so superst.i.tious.”

”Indeed. Fact is, Mrs. Smith, she was bathing, and George insisted, most stupidly I think, on watering his horse at that pool. I mounted guard, with my back turned, of course, and tried to persuade the good man to water his horse elsewhere. He couldn't see any sanguinary lady in the rosy pool, and you know the poor fellow has but a very meager choice of words. He reviled me, and my progenitors, and if you'll believe me, my dear mother was not at all the sort of person George described. He made me feel so plain, too, with his candor about my personal appearance. And all that time, while George made my flesh creep with his comments, the lady in the pool was splas.h.i.+ng me. I'm still quite damp.”

”Did the horse see?”

”Do horses wink, Mrs. Smith? Do they smile? Can they blush? The Graces shook their robes above our heads, the squirrels gossiped, the rippled pool caught glints from the rising sun, and a flight of humming-birds came whirring, as though they had been thrown in George's face. Them sanguinary birds, he said, was always getting in the ruddy way. As to the old horse, he kicked up his heels and pranced off sidewise down the glen, and the man followed, rumbling benedictions.”

I explained that my dear husband can not see the minx, that my servant dare not look.

”I doubt,” said Father Jared, with regret, ”that very few fairies nowadays are superst.i.tious enough to believe in us poor mortals.”

For that I could have kissed him.

”They used,” the dear old man went on, ”to believe in our forefathers, but there is a very general decline of faith. It is not for us to blame them. What fairy, for example, could be expected to believe in Tearful George? He chews tobacco.”

”Oh, tell me more about her. Did she speak to you? She's fearfully dangerous. We had a ranch-hand here who went quite fey, possessed, I think. I'm frightened of her now.”

”She thinks,” he retorted, ”that you're a wicked woman.”

”Me?”

”Yes, you. She said you would run away, and you did. I am to tell you that's very unwise.”

”Please tell the minx to mind her own business.”