Part 5 (2/2)
Summer lingers long among the Kentucky hills. Each pa.s.sing day seemed fairer than the last to the Little Colonel, who had never before known anything of country life.
Roses climbed up and almost hid the small white cottage. Red birds sang in the woodbine. Squirrels chattered in the beeches. She was out-of-doors all day long.
Sometimes she spent hours watching the ants carry away the sugar she sprinkled for them. Sometimes she caught flies for an old spider that had his den under the porch steps. ”He is an ogah” (ogre), she explained to Fritz. ”He's bewitched me so's I have to kill whole families of flies for him to eat.”
She was always busy and always happy.
Before June was half over it got to be a common occurrence for Walker to ride up to the gate on the Colonel's horse. The excuse was always to have a pa.s.sing word with Mom Beck. But before he rode away, the Little Colonel was generally mounted in front of him. It was not long before she felt almost as much at home at Locust as she did at the cottage.
The neighbours began to comment on it after awhile. ”He will surely make up with Elizabeth at this rate,” they said. But at the end of the summer the father and daughter had not even had a pa.s.sing glimpse of each other. One day, late in September, as the Little Colonel clattered up and down the hall with her grandfather's spur buckled on her tiny foot, she called back over her shoulder: ”Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow.”
The Colonel paid no attention.
”I say,” she repeated, ”Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow.”
”Well,” was the gruff response. ”Why couldn't he stay where he was? I suppose you won't want to come here any more after he gets back.”
”No, I 'pose not,” she answered, so carelessly that he was conscious of a very jealous feeling.
”Chilluns always like to stay with their fathahs when they's nice as my Papa Jack is.”
The old man growled something behind his newspaper that she did not hear. He would have been glad to choke this man who had come between him and his only child, and he hated him worse than ever when he realized what a large place he held in Lloyd's little heart.
She did not go back to Locust the next day, nor for weeks after that.
She was up almost as soon as Mom Beck next morning, thoroughly enjoying the bustle of preparation.
She had a finger in everything, from polis.h.i.+ng the silver to turning the ice-cream freezer.
Even Fritz was scrubbed till he came out of his bath with his curls all white and s.h.i.+ning. He was proud of himself, from his silky bangs to the tip of his ta.s.selled tail.
Just before train time, the Little Colonel stuck his collar full of late pink roses, and stood back to admire the effect. Her mother came to the door, dressed for the evening. She wore an airy-looking dress of the palest, softest blue. There was a white rosebud caught in her dark hair.
A bright colour, as fresh as Lloyd's own, tinged her cheeks, and the glad light in her brown eyes made them unusually brilliant.
Lloyd jumped up and threw her arms about her. ”Oh, mothah,” she cried, ”you an' Fritz is so bu'ful!”
The engine whistled up the road at the crossing. ”Come, we have just time to get to the station,” said Mrs. Sherman, holding out her hand.
They went through the gate, down the narrow path that ran beside the dusty road. The train had just stopped in front of the little station when they reached it.
A number of gentlemen, coming out from the city to spend Sunday at the hotel, came down the steps. They glanced admiringly from the beautiful, girlish face of the mother to the happy child dancing impatiently up and down at her side. They could not help smiling at Fritz as he frisked about in his imposing rose-collar.
”Why, where's Papa Jack?” asked Lloyd, in distress, as pa.s.senger after pa.s.senger stepped down. ”Isn't he goin' to come?”
The tears were beginning to gather in her eyes, when she saw him in the door of the car; not hurrying along to meet them as he always used to come, so full of life and vigour, but leaning heavily on the porter's shoulder, looking very pale and weak.
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