Part 34 (1/2)

Myrtle spoke a bit wistfully, and Stephen did not tell her he had been urged to come often.

”Yes, off and on,” he replied.

”If you will just let me know when you are going, I will see that you have something to take to him--some bread and pies.”

”He has some chickens there,” said Stephen.

”Has he got a coop for them?”

”Yes, he had one rigged up. He will have plenty of eggs, and he carried up bacon and corn meal and tea and coffee.”

”I am glad of that,” said Myrtle. She spoke with a quiet dignity, but her face never lost its expression of bewilderment and resignation.

The next week Stephen Wheaton carried Myrtle's bread and pies to Christopher on his mountainside. He drove Christopher's gray horse harnessed in his old buggy, and realized that he himself was getting much pleasure out of the other man's idiosyncrasy. The morning was beautiful, and Stephen carried in his mind a peculiar new beauty, besides. Ellen, Christopher's niece, had arrived the night before, and, early as it was, she had been astir when he reached the Dodd house. She had opened the door for him, and she was a goodly sight: a tall girl, shaped like a boy, with a fearless face of great beauty crowned with compact gold braids and lit by unswerving blue eyes. Ellen had a square, determined chin and a brow of high resolve.

”Good morning,” said she, and as she spoke she evidently rated Stephen and approved, for she smiled genially. ”I am Mr. Dodd's niece,” said she. ”You are the minister?”

”Yes.”

”And you have come for the things aunt is to send him?”

”Yes.”

”Aunt said you were to drive uncle's horse and take the buggy,” said Ellen. ”It is very kind of you. While you are harnessing, aunt and I will pack the basket.”

Stephen, harnessing the gray horse, had a sense of shock; whether pleasant or otherwise, he could not determine. He had never seen a girl in the least like Ellen. Girls had never impressed him. She did.

When he drove around to the kitchen door she and Myrtle were both there, and he drank a cup of coffee before starting, and Myrtle introduced him.

”Only think, Mr. Wheaton,” said she, ”Ellen says she knows a great deal about farming, and we are going to hire Jim Mason and go right ahead.”

Myrtle looked adoringly at Ellen.

Stephen spoke eagerly. ”Don't hire anybody,” he said. ”I used to work on a farm to pay my way through college. I need the exercise. Let me help.”

”You may do that,” said Ellen, ”on shares. Neither aunt nor I can think of letting you work without any recompense.”

”Well, we will settle that,” Stephen replied. When he drove away, his usually calm mind was in a tumult.

”Your niece has come,” he told Christopher, when the two men were breakfasting together on Silver Mountain.

”I am glad of that,” said Christopher. ”All that troubled me about being here was that Myrtle might wake up in the night and hear noises.”

Christopher had grown even more radiant. He was effulgent with pure happiness.

”You aren't going to tap your sugar-maples?” said Stephen, looking up at the great symmetrical efflorescence of rose and green which towered about them.

Christopher laughed. ”No, bless 'em,” said he, ”the trees shall keep their sugar this season. This week is the first time I've had a chance to get acquainted with them and sort of enter into their feelings. Good Lord! I've seen how I can love those trees, Mr. Wheaton! See the pink on their young leaves! They know more than you and I. They know how to grow young every spring.”

Stephen did not tell Christopher how Ellen and Myrtle were to work the farm with his aid. The two women had bade him not. Christopher seemed to have no care whatever about it. He was simply happy. When Stephen left, he looked at him and said, with the smile of a child, ”Do you think I am crazy?”

”Crazy? No,” replied Stephen.