Part 7 (1/2)
”And yet you expect me to sympathize with your umbrella--”
”Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed Miss Upton suddenly; for now the tinted, pearly pink cloud of the Barrys' apple-orchard came in view.
The house was a brick structure with broad verandas, set back among well-kept lawns and drives, and its fine elm trees were noted. Mrs.
Barry was reclining in a hammock-chair under one of them as the car drove in, and she rose and came to meet the guest. Miss Mehitable thought she looked like a queen as her erect, graceful figure moved across the lawn in the long silken cape that floated back and showed its violet lining.
”It's perfectly beautiful here to-day,” she said as the hostess greeted her; ”but, oh, Mrs. Barry, I suppose I'm a fool to ever believe Ben”--the speaker cast a glance around at her escort--”but you won't let him have a zebra, will you? They're the most dangerous animals. He says you're goin' to give him--”
”My dear Miss Upton,” Mrs. Barry laughed, ”I do need a scolding, I know.
I've allowed myself to be talked into something crazy--crazy. It's much worse than a zebra, but you know what a big disappointment Ben had last year--flapping his wings and aching and longing to go across the sea while Uncle Sam obstinately refused to let him go over and end the War?
All dressed up and no place to go! Poor Benny!” Mrs. Barry glanced at her son, laughing. ”He did need some consolation prize, and anyway he persuaded me to let him have an aeroplane.”
”Mrs.--_Barry_!” returned Miss Mehitable, and she gazed around at Ben with wide eyes.
”I'm such a bird, you see,” he explained.
”Well,” said the visitor after a pause, drawing her suspended breath, ”I'm glad I can talk to you before you're killed.”
”Oh, not so bad as that,” said Mrs. Barry. ”He is at home in the air, you know, and he a.s.sures me they will soon be quite common. Come up on the veranda, Miss Upton. I'm going to hide you and Ben in a corner where no one will disturb you.”
”What a big place for you to live in all alone,” observed Mehitable as they moved toward the house, and Ben drove the car to the garage.
”Yes, it is; but I'm so busy with my chickens and my bees I'm never lonely. I'm quite a farmer, Miss Upton. See how fine my orchard is this year? I tell Ben that so long as he doesn't light in my apple-trees we can be friends.”
”I think you're awful venturesome, Mrs. Barry!”
That lady smiled as they moved up the steps to the veranda, the black and violet folds of her s.h.i.+mmering wrap blowing about her in lines of beauty that fascinated her companion.
”What else can the mother of a boy be?” she returned. ”Ben has been training me in courage ever since he was born; apparently the prize-ring or the circus would have been his natural field of operations; so I have chained him down to the law and given him an aeroplane so he can work off his extra steam away from the publicity of earth.”
At last the hostess withdrew, and Miss Upton found herself alone with her embryo lawyer in a sheltered corner of the porch where the vines were hastening to sprout their curtaining green, and a hammock, comfortable chairs, a table and books proclaimed the place an out-of-door sitting-room.
”Your mother is wonderful,” she began when her companion had placed her satisfactorily and had stretched himself out in a listening att.i.tude, his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes on hers.
What eyes they were, Miss Upton thought. Clear and light-brown, the color of water catching the light in a swift, sunny brook.
”She is a queen,” he responded with conviction.
”A pity such a woman hasn't got a daughter,” said Miss Mehitable tentatively.
”I'm going to give her one some day.” A smile accompanied this.
”Is she picked out?”
Ben laughed at his companion's anxious tone. ”You seem interested in my prospects. That's the second time you have seemed worried at the idea.
No, she isn't picked out. I'm going to hunt for her in the stars. Why?
Have you some one selected?”
”Law, no!” returned Miss Upton, flus.h.i.+ng. ”It is a--yes, it is a girl I've come to talk to you about, though.” The visitor stammered and grew increasingly confused as she proceeded. ”I thought--I didn't know--the girl needs somebody--yes, to--to look after her and I thought your mother bein'--bein' all alone and the house so big, she might have some use for a--young girl, you know, a kind of a helper; but Charlotte says the girl would fall in love with you and--and--” Miss Upton paused, drawing her handkerchief through and through her hands and looking anxiously at her companion who leaned his head back still farther and laughed aloud.