Miss Gibbie Gault | Page 7

the sill. Again her eyes swept sky and field, now glancing at the lawn of velvet green, now at the upturned earth on the left, the or hard on the right, the thread of water in the distance winding lazily in and out at the foot of low hills, and now at the sun, well up from the soft dawning of another day, and suddenly she stretched out her arms.
"God," she said, "God, I am so glad--so glad!"
For some minutes she knelt, her chin in the palms of her hands, her gaze wandering down the road to the little town less than a mile away, and presently she laughed again as if at some dear memory. It was so good to be among the old loved things, the straggling streets and shabby houses, the buttercups and dandelions, and the friends of other days. It was good, and out loud she said again: "I am so glad."
"Your bath, mein Fraulein."
She got up; the soft gown falling from bare shoulders stirred in the light breeze. She pulled the ribbons from the long braids of hair, and coiled them round her head, but she did not leave the window.
"All right, I'll be there in a minute." Then: "Hedwig?"
"Yes, mein Fraulein."
"Do you think I could have the day to myself? I have something important to do, and I can't do it if constantly interrupted. If any one comes, could you keep me from knowing it?"
"I think so, mein Fraulein."
The shadow of a smile hovered a moment on Hedwig's lips. "Does that mean all and everybody, or--"
"Everybody! Of course not Miss Gibbie, but everybody else. I shall not be at home, you see. I will be down in the orchard, and if Miss Gibbie comes bring her there, but never, never let any one else come there, Hedwig."
"I understand, mein Fraulein."
The door was closed quietly, and the girl now standing in front of her mirror looked into it first with unseeing eyes, then suddenly with critical ones.
"You must look you best to-night, Mary Cary. You don't want to go to that meeting. You don't like to do a lot of things you've got to do if you're to be a brave lady, but Martha knows nothing is accomplished by wanting only, and Martha is going to make you talk to those men to-night." She leaned closer to the mirror. "I wonder how you happened to have light eyes when you like dark ones so much better, and brown hair when black is so much prettier? You should be thankful you don't have to use curlers, and that you have plenty of color, but every now and then I wish you were a raging beauty, so men would do what you want."
Her brow ridged in fine upright folds as if thinking, then she turned, nodding her head in decision. "I will ear that white embroidered mull to-night. It is so soft and sweet and silly, and men like things like that."
Some hours later, household duties having been attended to, fresh flowers cut and the stable visited, the little vine-draped shelter made of saplings, stripped of branch but not of bark, and canvas-covered on the top, was the point of destination; but first she stood on the front porch and looked up and down the sandy road which could be well seen from the hilltop. No sign of life upon it, she turned and went through the hall to the back porch and down the steps to the orchard, in one hand writing-materials, in the other pieces of stale bread for the birds; and as she walked she hummed a gay little tune to whose rhythm she unconsciously kept step.
Many of the trees were old and bent and twisted in fantastic shapes-- some were small and partly dead, but most were fit for some festival of the gods; and as she went in and out among them, her feet making but slight impression on the moist springy soil, grass-grown and sprinkled with petals, pink and white, she stopped now and then and touched first one and then the other, for a swift moment laid her cheek on the rough bark as if to send a message to its heart.
From the shelter she drew out a rug, spread it close to her best-loved tree, then sitting upon it leaned against the trunk, feet crossed and hands clasped loosely behind her head. The chirp of sparrows and twitter of small birds, the clear song of robin and the cat-bird's call fell after a while unheeding on her ears, and the drowsy hum of insects was lost in the dreaming that possessed her. From the garden of old-fashioned flowers some distance off the soft breeze flung fragrance faint and undefined, and for a while she was a child again--the child