Part 16 (2/2)
The Wilbur twin said, ”Very well, I thank you,” striving instinctively to make his own voice as deep as Juliana's.
The girl winked at him brazenly as they pa.s.sed on.
”Gypsies!” she called, exultantly, and Juliana swept him with a tolerant smile.
Dave Cowan watched them along the path to the ridge above the camp. Here they paused in most intelligible pantomime. Patricia Whipple wished to descend to the very heart of the camp, while Juliana could be seen informing the child that they were near enough. To make this definite she sat upon the bole of a felled oak beside the path while Patricia jiggled up and down in eloquent objection to the untimely halt. Dave read the scene and caressed his thick moustache with practiced thumb and finger. His glance was sympathetic.
”The poor old maid!” he murmured. ”All that Whipple money, and she has to be just a small-towner! Say, I bet no one has ever kissed that old girl since her mother died! None of these small-town hicks would ever have the nerve to. Yes, sir; any one's got a right to be sorry for that dame. If she had a little enterprise she'd branch out from here and meet a few people.”
”Yes, sir,” said Wilbur. ”But that girl wants to go down to the camp.”
This was plain. Patricia still danced, while Juliana remained firmly seated.
”I could go take her down,” he continued.
”Why don't you?” said his father, again stroking the golden moustache in sympathy for the unconscious Juliana.
So it befell that the Wilbur twin shyly approached the group by the felled tree, and the watching father saw the two children, after a moment's hesitancy on the part of Juliana, disappear from view over the crest of the ridge. Dave continued to loll by the stile and to watch the waiting Juliana, thinking of gypsies and the pure joy of wandering. He began to repeat some verses he had lately happened upon, murmuring them to a little ma.s.s of white clouds far off against the blue of the summer sky, where the pale bronze moon lonesomely hung. He liked the words and the moon and gypsies joyously foot-loose, and he again grew sympathetic for Juliana's small-town plight. He felt a large pagan tolerance for those warped souls pent in small towns.
After twenty minutes of this he faintly heard a call from Juliana, sent after the children below her. He saw her stand to beckon commandingly and watch to see if she were obeyed. Then she turned and came slowly back up the path that would lead to the stile. Again Dave absently murmured his verses. Juliana approached the stile, walking briskly now.
She was halted by surprising speech from this rather cheaply debonair creature who looked so nearly like a gentleman and yet so plainly was not.
”Wanted to be off with 'em, didn't you?” Dave was saying brightly; ”off and over the edge of the world, all foot-loose and free as wind, going over strange roads and lying by night under the stars.”
”What?” demanded Juliana sharply.
She studied the fellow's face for the first time. He was preening his yellow moustache and flas.h.i.+ng a challenge to her from half-shut eyes.
”Small-towners bound to feel it,” he continued, unconscious of any sharpness in Juliana's ”What!” ”They want to be off and over the edge of things, but they don't dare--haven't the nerve. You'd like to, but you don't dare. You know you don't!”
Juliana almost smiled. The fellow's face, as she paused beside him at the stile, was set with sheer impudence, yet this was not wholly unattractive. And amazingly he now broke into verse:
We, too, shall steal upon the spring With amber sails flown wide; Shall drop, some day, behind the moon, Borne on a star-blue tide.
He indicated the present moon with flouris.h.i.+ng grace as he named it.
Juliana did not gasp, but it might have been a gasp in one less than a Whipple. But the troubadour was not to be daunted. Juliana didn't know Dave Cowan as cities knew him.
Enchanted ports we, too, shall touch; Cadiz or Cameroon; Nor other pilot need beside A magic wisp of moon.
Again he gracefully indicated our lunar satellite, and again Juliana nearly gasped.
”Of course, you felt it all, watching those people. I don't blame you for feeling wild.”
Juliana lifted one of her stout tan boots toward the stile, and Dave with doffed cap extended a hand to a.s.sist her through. Juliana, dazed beyond a Whipple calm for almost the first time in her thirty years, found her own hand perforce upon his.
”You poor thing!” concluded Dave with a swift glance to the ridge where the children had not yet appeared.
<script>