Part 33 (1/2)

”Cawnsound that foo'--mother, go on up stairs, I'll tell him you've retired.”

”I shall do nothing so dishonorable. Why should you bury me alive? Is it because one friend still comes with no scheme for the devastation of our sylvan home?”

Before John could reply suns.h.i.+ne lighted the inquirer's face and she stepped forward elastically to give her hand to Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew.

When he was gone, Daphne was still as bland as May, for a moment, and even John's gravity was of a pleasant sort. ”Mother, you're just too sweet and modest to see what that man's up to. I'm not. I'd like to tell him to stay away from here. Why, mother, he's--he's courting!”

The mother smiled lovingly. ”My son, I'll attend to that. Ah me!

suitors! They come in vain--unless I should be goaded by the sight of these dear Widewood acres invaded by the alien.” She sweetened like a bride.

The son stood aghast. She lifted a fond hand to his shoulder. ”John, do you know what heart hunger is? You're too young. I am ready to sacrifice anything for you, as I always was for your father. Only, I must reign alone in at least one home, one heart! Fear not; there is but one thing that will certainly drive me again into marriage.”

”What's that, mother?”

”A daughter-in-law. If my son marries, I have no choice--I must!” She floated upstairs.

x.x.xVI.

A NEW s.h.i.+NGLE IN SUEZ

Next day--”John, didn't you rise very early this morning?”

”No, ma'am.”

He had not gone to bed. Yet there was a new repose in his face and energy in his voice. He ate breakfast enough for two.

”Millie, hasn't Israel brought my horse yet?”

He came to where his mother sat, kissed her forehead, and pa.s.sed; but her languorous eyes read, written all over him, the fact that she had drawn her cords one degree too tight, and that in the night something had snapped; she had a new force to deal with.

”John”--there was alarm in her voice--he had the door half open--”are you so cruel and foolish as to take last evening's words literally?”

”That's all gay, mother; 'tain't the parson I'm going after, it's the surveyor.”

He shut the door on the last word and went away whistling. Not that he was merry; as his horse started he set his teeth, smote in the spurs, and cleared the paling fence at a bound.

The surveyors were Champion and Shotwell. John worked with them. To his own surprise he was the life of the party. Some nights they camped. They sang jolly songs together; but often Shotwell would say:

”O Champion, I'll hush if you will; we're scaring the wolves. Now, if you had such a voice as John's--Go on, March, sing 'Queen o' my Soul.'”

John would sing; Shotwell would lie back on the pine-needles with his eyes shut, and each time the singer reached the refrain, ”Mary, Mary, queen of my soul,” the impa.s.sioned listener would fetch a whoop and cry, ”That's her!” although everybody had known that for years the only ”her”

who had queened it over Shotwell's soul was John's own Fannie Halliday.

”Now, March, sing, 'Thou wert the first, thou aht the layst,' an' th'ow yo' whole soul into it like you did last night!”

”John,” said Champion once, after March had sung this lament, ”You're a plumb fraud. If you wa'n't you couldn't sing that thing an' then turn round and sing, 'They laughed, ha-ha! and they quaffed, ha-ha!'”

”Let's have it!” cried Shotwell. ”Paa.s.s tin cups once mo', gen'le_men_!”--tink--tink--