Part 26 (2/2)
”So do I, but we must land at Queenstown. We must put Sir Tom under the sod at that little castle out from Sligo. Then we can do Holland and Belgium, and have a week or ten days in London.”
”That will be enough. I do hope Johnson will take good care of my flowers; it's the very most important time, you know, and if he neglects them--”
”He won't neglect them, Polly; even if he does, they can be easily replaced. But the hay harvest, now, that's different; if they spoil the timothy or cut the alfalfa too late!”
”Bother your alfalfa! What do I care for that? Kate's coming out with the babies, and I'm going to put her in full charge of the gardens.
She'll look after them, I'm sure. I'll tell you another bit of news: Jim Jarvis is bound to go with us, Jack says, and he has asked if we'll let him.”
”How long have you had that up your sleeve, young woman? I don't like it a little bit! That is why you talked so like an oracle a little while ago! What does Jane say?”
”She doesn't say much, but I think she wouldn't object.”
”Of course she can't object. You sick a big brute of a man on to a little girl, and she don't dare object; but I'll feed him to the fishes if he worries her.”
”To be sure you will, Mr. Ogre. Anybody would be sure of that to hear you talk.”
”Don't chaff me, Polly. This is a serious business. If you sell my girl, I'm going to buy a new one. I'll ask Jessie Gordon to go with us and, if Jack is half the man I take him to be, he'll replenish our stock of girls before we get back.”
”Who is match-making now?”
”I don't care what you call it. I shall take out letters of marque and reprisal. I won't raise girls to be carried off by the first privateer that makes sail for them, without making some one else suffer. If Jarvis goes, Jessie goes, that's flat.”
”I think it will be an excellent plan, Mr. Bad Temper, and I've no doubt that we can manage it.”
”Don't say 'we' when you talk of managing it. I tell you I'm entirely on the defensive until some one robs me, then I'll take what is my neighbor's if I can get it. If it were not for my promise to Sir Tom, I wouldn't leave the farm for a minute! And I would establish a quarantine against all giants for at least five years.”
”You know you like Jarvis. He is one of the best.”
”That's all right, Polly. He's as fine as silk, but he isn't fine enough for our Jane yet.”
CHAPTER LX
”I TOLD YOU SO”
It may be the limitless horizon, it may be the comradery of confinement, it may be the old superst.i.tion of a plank between one and eternity, or it may be some occult influence of s.h.i.+p and ocean; but certain it is that there is no such place in all the world as a deck of a transatlantic liner for softening young hearts, until they lose all semblance of shape, and for melting them into each other so that out of twain there comes but one. I think Polly was pleased to watch this melting process, as it began to show itself in our young people, from the safe retreat of her steamer chair and behind the covers of her book.
I couldn't find that she read two chapters from any book during the whole voyage, or that she was miserable or discontented. She just watched with a comfortable ”I told you so” expression of countenance; and she never mentioned home lot or garden or roses, from dock to dock.
It is as natural for a woman to make matches as for a robin to build nests, and I suppose I had as much right to find fault with the one as with the other. I did not find fault with her, but neither could I understand her; so I fretted and fumed and smoked, and walked the deck and bet on everything in sight and out of sight, until the soothing influence of the sea took hold of me, and then I drifted like the rest of them.
No, I will not say ”like the rest of them,” for I could not forgive this waste of s.p.a.ce given over to water. In other crossings I had not noted the conspicuous waste with any feeling of loss or regret; but other crossings had been made before I knew the value of land. I could not get away from the thought that it would add much to the wealth of the world if the mountains were removed and cast into the sea. Not only that, but it would curb to some extent the ragings of this same turbulent sea, which was rolling and tossing us about for no really good reason that I could discover. The Atlantic had lost much of its romance and mystery for me, and I wondered if I had ever felt the enthusiasm which I heard expressed on all sides.
”There she spouts!” came from a dozen voices, and the whole pa.s.senger list crowded the port rail, just to see a cow whale throwing up streams of water, not immensely larger than the streams of milk which my cow Holsteins throw down. The crowd seemed to take great pleasure in this sight, but to me it was profitless.
I have known the day when I could watch the graceful leaps and dives of a school of porpoises, as it kept with easy fin, alongside of our ocean greyhound, with pleasure unalloyed by any feeling of non-utility. But now these ”hogs of the sea” reminded me of my Chester Whites, and the comparison was so much in favor of the hogs of the land, that I turned from these spectacular, useless things, to meditate upon the price of pork. Even Mother Carey's chickens gave me no pleasure, for they reminded me of a far better brood at home, and I cheerfully thanked the n.o.ble Wyandottes who were working every third day so that I could have a trip to Europe. To be sure, I had European trips before I had Wyandottes; to have them both the same year was the marvel.
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