Part 42 (2/2)
”No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'.”
”Then why----”
”'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will send me one by an angel----”
Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.
”Speaking of angels,” Norman cried, laughing.
”I have an order for you,” Barbara said, quickly.
Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed before Barbara.
”What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with that ocean of blossoming peach trees stretching up the slope until it kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist.”
She looked at him with amazement.
”I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't understand.”
Norman took the note from her white fingers.
”Because I'm laughing?”
”Yes.”
”Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching, preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself----”
Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's eyes.
”So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to be rescued by such a hand.”
He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.
”Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees,” he said, leading her toward the orchard. ”I want to tell you about a vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals.”
They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering with the electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green valley with orange trees flas.h.i.+ng their golden fruit.
”What a glorious world!” Barbara cried.
”Yes,” he answered with a sigh, ”a world of endless beauty in which after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in such a world angels only could live.”
”Must we despair because one man or woman proves false,” she asked.
”No,” he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his seat by her side.
”I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day--visions as old as the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new.”
He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.
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