Part 35 (1/2)
Mrs. Ferry's letter, arriving on the thirteenth, made Sally smile with the lilt of its lines:
”Come, Sally dear, the spring is here, the air is mild and warm; showers happen by, but cause no sigh, they're needed on the farm. The garden waits, and stirs, and shakes the sleep from out its eyes, and gently sets the violets to blooming in surprise. The gra.s.s grows green, a lark is seen, a robin calls ”It's Spring!” And everywhere, in earth and air, rejoices everything. We want you near, we need you here to share each day's delights; so hasten home, come soon, dear, come, _we miss you so o' nights_!”
”Sweet little lady,” the girl, thought affectionately, ”to take the trouble to think it out in rhyme for me.”
On the sixteenth of the month a rather interesting coincidence occurred; letters from Donald Ferry and from Jarvis Burnside arrived on that day.
Sally studied the superscriptions with interest, wondering what the handwriting might have indicated to her of the character of the writers, had she known nothing of either. Opening the envelopes, she laid the sheets side by side.
Jarvis wrote a rather small but very black and regular hand, the result being serried rows marching like a regiment down the page, the hand of the man who is accustomed to do everything in an orderly and masterful way, and who can no more allow his words to straggle over a sheet of paper than he can permit his books to stand upside down upon the shelf, or the affairs of his every-day life to fall into confusion. Ferry wrote a more das.h.i.+ng hand, the penmans.h.i.+p of the man whose ideas flow faster than his pen can put the words upon paper, and who cares less about the appearance of his page than for what can be fixed there before it shall escape him. This letter, therefore, appeared less easy to read than the other, and this may have been why Sally attacked it first:
”Dear Lady Of The Garden (it began whimsically):
”I am sure that no one has told you--and that no one will tell you unless I do--that the chickweed is looking exceedingly fresh and spring-like between the box-borders. Further--a patch of small white violets is to be discovered in the sunny spots beyond the sweet pea trellis. I have a bunch of them pinned on my coat at this moment, purloined by my own hand, and smelling like spring itself. The daffodils are gorgeous, and a small blue flower which gives forth a modest and un.o.btrusive odour all its own is to be found in clumps in several places.
”Alec tells me he has written you all about the progress of the early spring work, but you may possibly be still more interested in the human culture going on upon Strawberry Acres, in which he is bearing an important part. To-day he and Burnside, protected by blue jeans and looking highly disreputable, have been spraying the apple orchard. A disagreeable job it looks to be, from the standpoint of cleanliness, although a necessary one. But whenever I appeared, as an interested spectator on the scene, Alec was toiling away with the greatest good humour, which did not fail him when the apparatus suddenly stopped working properly, and had to be nursed and tended through at least the final third of the operation.
”I believe your brother Max is beginning to long to leave the bank and to begin his life upon the farm. In spite of his somewhat satirical comments upon the probable folly of Alec's having taken this step, I am confident he himself would like to try it. Another spring will see him burning his bridges, or I am no prophet.
”No one, Miss Sally, could be thrown, as your brothers are with such a fellow as Jarvis Burnside, without being stimulated to action. He is the most thoroughly alive recent college graduate I know of in any line of work. It's a refres.h.i.+ng sight to me, to see a man with all the instincts for a literary life, but handicapped by the necessity for taking care of his eyesight, throw himself with such ardour into labour which would have seemed the very last he would have been likely to care for. On my word, I don't know when I admire him most--when, in his careful dress he sits down to his books and journals in the evening, getting Alec to read aloud to him when he has reached the limit of safety for his own eyes, talking to the lad in a way to wake the boy up--as he is most certainly doing--or when I see him at such a job as he tackled to-day, putting into it the care and precision of your true scientist and experimenter with intent to get the full result of the best directed effort possible. Wherever you put him, he's a man worth knowing--and I'm glad I know him and have him for a friend.”
”I like to hear one man praise another like that,” commented Sally to herself, as having finished the letter, which recounted briefly what Mrs.
Ferry and Janet were doing and conveyed messages from both, she turned back to re-read the whole. Then she took up Jarvis's letter, wondering if he might chance to refer to Donald Ferry in as high terms as those in which he had himself been mentioned.
Jarvis had a crisp, clear style of composition all his own. The letter was not a long one, but it brought the writer vividly before his reader:
”DEAR SALLY:
”One of the apple-wood fires you like so well is blazing on the hearth.
Across the table, in the lamplight, sits Alec absorbed in a column of experiences in strawberry culture contributed by experts from all parts of the country. You may not readily believe me, but in a quite upright position on the end of the couch, where the firelight illumines the page, Max is deep in a concise and practical treatise on the same subject. Bob stands on the hearth rug, drying out, after a run home from the Ferry cottage through a brisk shower. So you have us. Is it a satisfactory picture?
”According to Alec you have been told all our plans for the season, and Ferry said to-day that he meant soon to write you precisely what is happening in your garden. If he does you will have a masterpiece of a description, for he's a writer of distinction. He's everything else that's worth while as well, by the way--the finest ever. I never liked a man so well with so good reason. Other men say the same sort of thing of him, but I fancy I am getting to know and appreciate him better then most.
”Before I forget it--Joanna wishes me to state that she has spoken for a kitchen garden which shall contain parsley, summer-savoury, lettuces, radishes, and mint. With Bob's help she has even concocted a small hot-bed in which she will begin operations at once. These subjects having been disposed of, you may forgive me for becoming slightly personal.
”Do you know that you haven't answered my last letter? I had one sheet from you in January, one in early March, and a post-card a week ago. The post-card was very attractive, but it hardly took the place of a letter.
Was it intended to do so?
”But you are coming home soon, and you must expect to answer these questions for me then. I a.s.sure you there are long arrears for you to make up with us all, in one way and another. Bob is counting the days till your return. Max has reached the limit of his patience. Alec declares this thing must never happen again. Joanna--but it would be a breach of confidence to reveal Joanna's feelings. ”There's na luck aboot the hoose,” she is confident, with its mistress away.
”As for me--do you care to know how I feel about your coming home? But I would rather tell you that than write it. You have kept me at arm's length all winter. Won't you just bend your rigid little elbow a trifle at the joint when you shake hands with me the first of May?
”As ever I am
”Yours, JARVIS.”
It remained for Max to put the crowning touch to Sally's rather complicated thoughts about going home, with the following characteristic communication: