Part 9 (2/2)
she finished with conviction.
”Who is Shad Wells----?”
”My cousin, Shadrack E. Wells. He was triplets. The other two died.”
”Shad,” mused Peter.
”Sounds like a fish, doesn't it? But he isn't.” And then more slowly, ”Shad's all right. He's just a plain woodsman, but he doesn't know anything about making the trees grow,” she put in with prim irony.
”You'll be his boss, I guess. He won't care much about that.”
”Why?”
”Because he's been runnin' things in a way. I hope you get along with him.”
”So do I----”
”Because if you don't, Shad will eat you at one gobble.”
”Oh!” said Peter with a smile. ”But perhaps you exaggerate. Don't you think I might take two--er--gobbles?”
Beth looked him over, and then smiled encouragingly.
”Maybe,” she said, ”but your hands don't look over-strong.”
Peter looked at his right hand curiously. It was not as brown as hers, but the fingers were long and sinewy.
”They are, though. When you practice five hours a day on the piano, your hands will do almost anything you want them to.”
A silence which Peter improved by s.h.i.+fting his suitcase. The weight of it had ceased to be amusing. And he was about to ask her how much further Black Rock was when there was a commotion down the road ahead of them, as a dark object emerged from around the bend and amid a whirl of dust an automobile appeared.
”It's the 'Lizzie',” exclaimed Beth unemotionally.
And in a moment the taxi service of Black Rock was at Peter's disposal.
”Carburetor trouble,” explained the soiled young man at the wheel briefly, without apology. And with a glance at Peter's bag--
”Are you the man for McGuire's on the six-thirty?”
Peter admitted that he was and the boy swung the door of the tonneau open.
”In here with me, Beth,” he said to the girl invitingly.
In a moment, the small machine was whirled around and started in the direction from which it had come, bouncing Peter from side to side and enveloping him in dust. Jim Hagerman's ”Lizzie” wasted no time, once it set about doing a thing, and in a few moments from the forest they emerged into a clearing where there were cows in a meadow, and a view of houses. At the second of these, a frame house with a portico covered with vines and a small yard with a geranium bed, all enclosed in a picket fence, the ”Lizzie” suddenly stopped and Beth got down.
”Much obliged, Jim,” he heard her say.
Almost before Peter had swept off his hat and the girl had nodded, the ”Lizzie” was off again, through the village street, and so to a wooden bridge across a tea-colored stream, up a slight grade on the other side, where Jim Hagerman stopped his machine and pointed to a road.
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