Jewel | Page 6

home for us both, upstairs in the barn chambers, but perhaps you can see now that it isn't all sacrifice, that perhaps I'm glad of an excuse to get out of the house, where things are so different from what they used to be, and to have a cosy home with my own boy. Now then, 'Zekiel," coaxingly, these words recalling her boy's responsibilities, "look over there once more and tell me which of those is the spider."
"Zekiel dropped the harness and laid his hand gently on his mother's forehead. "There isn't anything there, dear mother," he said soothingly.
"Zeke!" she exclaimed, jerking away with a short reluctant laugh.
" 'Mother, dear mother, come home with me now,' " he roared sentimentally, so that Essex Maid lifted her beautiful head and looked out in surprise. "Remember Fanshaw, and put more water in it after this," he added, dropping his arm to his mother's neck and capturing her with a hug.
" 'Zekiel!" she protested. " 'Zekiel!"
CHAPTER II
THE CHICAGO LETTER
The mother was still laughing and struggling in the irresistible embrace when both became aware that a third person was regarding them in open-mouthed astonishment.
" 'Zekiel, let me /go/!" commanded the scandalized woman, and pushed herself free from her tormentor, who forthwith returned rather sheepishly to his buckles.
The young man with trim-pointed beard and mirthful eyes, who stood in the driveway, had just dismounted from a shining buggy. Doubt and astonishment were apparently holding him dumb.
The housekeeper, smoothing her disarranged locks and much flushed of face, returned his gaze, rising from her chair.
"I couldn't believe it was you, Mrs. Forbes!" declared the newcomer. "Fanshaw isn't--" He looked around vaguely.
"No, he isn't, Dr. Ballard," returned Mrs. Forbes shortly. "He forgot to rub down Essex Maid one evening when she came in hot, and that finished him with Mr. Evringham."
The young doctor's lips twitched beneath his mustache as he looked at 'Zekiel, polishing away for dear life.
"You seem to have some one else here--some friend," he remarked tentatively.
"Friend!" echoed the housekeeper with exasperation, feeling to see just how much Zeke had rumpled her immaculate collar. "We looked like friends when you came up, didn't we!"
"Like intimate friends," murmured the doctor, still looking curiously at the big fair-haired fellow, who was crimson to his temples.
"I don't know how long we shall continue friends if he ever grabs me again like that just after I've put on a clean collar. He's got beyond the place where I can correct him. I ought to have done it oftener when I had the chance. This is my boy 'Zekiel, Dr. Ballard," with a proud glance in the direction of the youth, who looked up and nodded, then continued his labors. "Mr. Evringham has engaged him on trial. He's been with horses a couple of years, and I guess he'll make out all right."
"Glad to know you, 'Zekiel," returned the doctor. "Your mother has been a good friend of mine half my life, and I've often heard her speak of you. Look out for my horse, will you? I shall be here half an hour or so."
When the doctor had moved off toward the house Mrs. Forbes nodded at her son knowingly.
"Might's well walk Hector into the barn and uncheck him, Zeke," she said. "They'll keep him more'n a half an hour. That young man, 'Zekiel Forbes,--that young man's my /hope/." Mrs. Forbes spoke impressively and shook her forefinger to emphasize her words.
"What you hoping about him?" asked 'Zekiel, laying down the harness and proceeding to lead the gray horse up the incline into the barn.
"Shouldn't wonder a mite if he was our deliverer," went on Mrs. Forbes. "I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and he can afford the luxury of a wife brought up the way Eloise Evringham has been. That's right, Zeke. Unfasten the check- rein, though the doctor don't use a mean one, I must say. I only hope there's a purgatory for the folks that use too short check-reins on their horses. I hope they'll have to wear 'em themselves for a thousand years, and have to stand waiting at folks' doors frothing at the mouth, and the back of their necks half breaking when the weather's down to zero and up to a hundred. That's what I hope!"
'Zekiel grinned. "You want 'em to try the cold place and the hot one too, do you?"
"Yes I do, and to stay in the one