Part 21 (1/2)
”Well, perhaps he had,” she said, ”but that was quite different.”
”How different?” queried Hugh John.
”Well, that was only dogs and Billy Blythe,” said Cissy, somewhat shamefacedly; ”that doesn't count, and besides I like it. Doing good has got to be something you don't like--teaching little brats their duty to their G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers, or distributing tracts which only make people stamp and swear and carry on.”
”Isn't there something somewhere about helping the fatherless and the widow?” faltered Hugh John. He hated ”talking good,” but somehow he felt that Cissy was doing herself less than justice.
”Well, I don't suppose that the fox-terrier's pa does much for him,”
she said gaily; ”but come along and I'll 'interjuce' you to your ally Billy Blythe.”
So they walked along towards the camp in silence. It was a still, Sunday-like evening, and the bell of Edam town steeple was tolling for the six o'clock stay of work, as it had done every night at the same hour for over five hundred years. The reek of the burgesses'
supper-fires was going up in a hundred pillar-like ”pews” of tall blue smoke. Homeward bound humble bees b.u.mbled and blundered along, drunk and drowsy with the heady nectar they had taken on board--strayed revellers from the summer-day's Feast of Flowers. Delicate little blue b.u.t.terflies rose flurriedly from the short gra.s.s, flirted with each other a while, and then mounted into a yet bluer sky in airy wheels and irresponsible balancings.
”This is my birthday!” suddenly burst out Hugh John.
Cissy stopped short and caught her breath.
”Oh no--it can't be;” she said, ”I thought it was next week, and they aren't nearly ready.”
Whereat Cissy Cartar began most incontinently and unexpectedly to cry.
Hugh John had never seen her do this before, though he was familiar enough with Prissy's more easy tears.
”Now don't you, Ciss,” he said; ”I don't want anything--presents and things, I mean. Just let's be jolly.”
”Hu-uh-uh!” sobbed Cissy; ”and Janet Sheepshanks told me it was next week. I'm sure she did; and I set them so nicely to be ready in time--more than two months ago, and now they aren't ready after all.”
”What aren't ready?” said Hugh John.
”The bantam chickens,” sobbed Cissy; ”and they are lovely as lovely.
And peck--you should just see them peck.”
”I'd just as soon have them next week, or the next after that--rather indeed. Shut up now, Ciss. Stop crying, I tell you. Do you hear?” He was instinctively adopting that gruff masculine sternness which men consider to be on the whole the most generally effective method of dealing with the incomprehensible tears of their women-kind. ”_I_ don't care if you cry pints, but I'll hit you if you won't stop! So there!”
Cissy stopped like magic, and a.s.sumed a distant and haughty expression with her nose in the air, the surprising dignity of which was marred only by the recurring spasmodic sniff necessary to keep back the moisture which was still inclined to leak from the corners of her eyes.
”I would indeed,” said Hugh John, like all good men quickly remorseful after severity had achieved its end. ”I'd ever so much rather have the nicest presents a week after; for on a regular birthday you get so many things. But by next week, when you've got tired of them all, and don't have anything new--that's the proper time to get a present.”
”Oh, you _are_ nice,” said Cissy impulsively, coming over to Hugh John and clasping his arm with both her hands. He did not encourage this, for he did not know where it might end, and the open moor was not by any means the ivy-grown corner of the stable. Cissy went on.
”Yes, you are the nicest thing. Only don't tell any body----”
”I won't!” said Hugh John, with deepest conviction.
”And I'll give you the mother too,” continued Cissy; ”she is a perfect darling, and won a prize at the last Edam show. It was only a second, but everybody said that she ought by rights to have had the first.
Yes, and she would have got it too--only that the other old hen was a cousin of the judge's. That wasn't fair, was it?”