Jewel | Page 4

and I'm sure if
handsome is as handsome does, you'll fill it better every way, even if he
/was/ a fashionable English coachman. Mrs. Evringham was so pleased
with his style she tried to have him kept even after he'd taken too much
for the second time; but Mr. Evringham valued his horses too highly
for that, I can tell you."
"Thought the governor was a widower still," remarked Ezekiel as his
mother drew forward a battered chair and dusted it with the huge apron
that covered her neat dress. She seated herself close to her boy.
"Of course he is," she returned with some asperity. "Why should he get
married with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house for
Mr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that time
he's never found his beef overdone or a button off his shirts."
"Humph!" grunted Ezekiel. "He looks as if he wouldn't mind hanging
you to the nearest tree if he did. I heard tell once that there was a cold
hell as well as a hot one. Think says I, when the governor was looking
me over the other day, 'You've set sail for the cold place, old boy.' "
"Zeke Forbes, don't you ever let me hear you say such a thing again!"
exclaimed Mrs. Forbes. "Mr. Evringham is the finest gentleman within

one hundred miles of New York city. When a man has spent his life in
Wall Street it's bound to show some in his face, of course; but what
comfort has that man ever known?"
"Pretty scrumptious place he's got here in this park, I notice," returned
the new coachman.
"Yes, he has a breath of fresh air before he goes to the city and after he
gets back every day. Isn't that Essex Maid of his a beauty?" Mrs.
Forbes cast her eyes towards the stalls where the shining flanks of two
horses were visible from her seat by the wide-open doors of the barn.
"His rides back there among the hills,"--Mrs. Forbes waved her hand
vaguely toward the tall trees waving in the spring sunshine,-- "are his
one pleasure; and he never tires of them. You will find the horses here
something different to groom from those common grocery horses in
Boston."
"Oh, I don't know," drawled 'Zekiel, teasingly.
"Then you'd better know, young man," emphatically. "And, Zeke,
what's the names of those carriages?" pointing with sudden energy at
two half shrouded vehicles.
"How many guesses do I get?"
"Guessing ain't going to do. Do you know, or don't you?"
"Know? Why," leniently, "bless your heart, mother, don't you s'pose I
know a buggy and a carryall when I see 'em?"
"Oh, you poor benighted grocery boy!" Mrs. Forbes raised her hands.
"What a mercy I mentioned it! Imagine Mrs. Evringham hearing you
ask if she'd have the buggy or the carryall! 'Zekiel," solemnly, "listen to
me. That tall one's a spider, and the other's a broom. There! Do you
hear me? A /spider/ and a /broom/!"
Ezekiel's merry eyes met the anxious ones with a twinkle.

"Who'd have thought it!" he responded.
"Now then, Zeke," anxiously, "it's my responsibility. I recommended
you. I want you should say 'em off as glib as Fanshaw did. Now then,
which is which?"
"Mother, didn't you tell me that the late lamented was not a
prohibitionist?"
"Fanshaw drank like a fish, if that's what you mean."
"Well, just because he saw things in this barn you needn't expect me to!
Poor chap! Spiders and brooms! He must have been glad to go."
Mrs. Forbes' earnest expression did not change. " 'Zekiel, don't you
tease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success of
this that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I woke up
this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I've
scarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw you
except for a few weeks in the summer time. Now I've got you again!"
"I ain't the only thing you've got again," grinned 'Zekiel, "if you're
going to see things, same as Fanshaw did."
Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and the
brougham. "Be a good boy, Zeke," coaxingly, "and don't forget now,
because Mrs. Evringham is a great stickler--and a great sticker, too,"
added Mrs. Forbes in a different tone.
"Who /is/ the old woman, if the governor isn't married?" asked Ezekiel
with not very lively interest. "She don't seem popular with you."
"I'll tell you who she is," returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone.
"she's just what I say--a sticker and an interloper."
"H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after
mamma," soliloquized the youth aloud.