Part 6 (2/2)

Dave was his mother's idol, but his utter lack of worldliness, his inability to drive a shrewd bargain sometimes annoyed his father, who was a just, but an undeniably hard man, who demanded a hundred cents for his dollar every day in the year.

Kate, whom the family circle hoped would one day be David's wife, was all blonde hair, blue eyes and high spirits, so that the little blind G.o.d, aided by the Squire's strategy, propinquity and the universal law of the attraction of opposites, should have had no difficulty in making these young people fall in love--but Destiny, apparently, decided to make them exceptions to all rules.

Kate was fond of going to Boston to visit a schoolmate, and the Squire, who looked with small favor on these visits, was disposed to attribute them to Dave's lack of ardor.

”Confound it, Looizy,” he would say to his wife, ”if Dave made it more lively for Kate she would not be fer flying off to Boston every time she got a chance.”

And Mrs. Bartlett had no answer. Having a woman's doubtful gift of intuition, she was afraid that the wedding would never take place, and also having a woman's tact she never annoyed her husband by saying so.

Kate, who had been in Boston for two months, was coming home about the middle of July, and a little flutter of preparation went all over the farm.

Dave had said at breakfast that he regretted not being able to go to Wakefield to meet Kate, but that he would be busy in the north field all day. Hi Holler, the Bartlett ch.o.r.e boy, had been commissioned to go in his stead, and Hi's toilet, in consequence, had occupied most of the morning.

Mrs. Bartlett was churning in the shadow of the wide porch, the Squire was mending a horse collar with wax thread, and fussing about the heat and the slowness of Hi Holler, who was always punctually fifteen minutes late for everything.

”Confound it, Looizy, what's keeping that boy; the train'll get in before he's started. Here you, Hi, what's keeping you?”

The delinquent stood in the doorway, his broad face rippling with smiles; he had spent time on his toilet, but he felt that the result justified it.

His high collar had already begun to succ.u.mb to the day, and the labor involved in greasing his boots, which were much in evidence, owing to the brevity of the white duck trousers that needed but one or two more was.h.i.+ngs, with the accompanying process of shrinking, to convert them into knickerbockers. Bear's grease had turned his ordinary curling brown hair into a damp, s.h.i.+ning ma.s.s that dripped in tiny rills, from time to time, down on his coat collar, but Hi was happy. Beau Brummel, at the height of his sartorial fame, never achieved a more self-satisfying toilet.

The Squire adjusted his spectacles. ”What are you dressing up like that on a week day for, Hi? Off with you now; and if you ain't in time for them cars you'll catch 'Hail Columbia' when you get back.”

”Looizy,” said the Squire, as soon as Hi was out of hearing, ”why didn't Dave go after Katie? Yes, I know about the hay. Hay is hay, but it ought not to come first in a man's affections.”

”You'd better let 'em alone, Amasy; if they're going to marry they will without any help from us; love affairs don't seem to prosper much, when old folks interfere.”

”Looizy, it's my opinion that Dave's too shy to make up to women folks.

I don't think he'll even get up the courage to ask Kate to marry him.”

”Well, I never saw the man yet who was too bashful to propose to the right woman.” And a great deal of decision went into the churning that accompanied her words.

”Mebbe so, mebbe so,” said the Squire. He felt that the vagaries of the affections was too deep a subject for him. ”Anyhow, Looizy, I don't want no old maids and bachelors potterin' round this farm getting cranky notions in their heads. Look at the professor. Why, a good woman would have taken the nonsense out of him years ago.”

Mrs. Bartlett did not have to go far to look at the professor. He was flying about her front garden at that very moment in an apparently distracted state, crouching, springing, hiding back of bushes and reappearing with the startling swiftness of magic. The Bartletts were quite used to these antics on the part of their well-paying summer boarder. He was chasing b.u.t.terflies--a manifestly insane proceeding, of course, but if a man could afford to pay ten dollars a week for summer board in the State of New Hamps.h.i.+re, he could afford to chase b.u.t.terflies.

Professor Sterling was an old young man who had given up his life to entomology; his collection of b.u.t.terflies was more vital to him than any living issue; the Bartletts regarded him as a mild order of lunatic, whose madness might have taken a more dangerous form than making up long names for every-day common bugs.

”Look at him, just look at him, Looizy, sweating himself a day like this, over a common dusty miller. It beats all, and with his money.”

”Well, it's a harmless amus.e.m.e.nt,” said the kindly Louisa, ”there's a heap more harmful things that a man might chase than b.u.t.terflies.”

The stillness of the midsummer day was broken by the sound of far-off singing. It came in full-toned volume across the fields, the high soaring of women's voices blended with the deeper harmony of men.

”What's that?” said the Squire testily, looking in the direction of the strawberry beds, from whence the singing came.

”It's only the berry-pickers, father,” said David, coming through the field gate and going over to the well for a drink.

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