Rose of Old Harpeth | Page 3

and summer comes for good," she continued, with the most delightful ingenuousness, as she shaped the last of the ten flowers and glanced from her task at him with the most solicitous concern. "Of course, you feel as if the smash your lung got in that awful rock slide has healed all up, and I know it has, but you'll have to do as the doctor tells you about not running any risks with New York spring gales, won't you?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose I will," answered Everett, with a trace of restlessness in his voice. "I'm just as sound as a dollar now and I'm wild to go with that gang the firm is sending up into British Columbia to thrash out that copper question. I know they counted on me for the final tests. Some other fellow will find it and get the fortune and the credit, while I--I--"
He stared moodily out the door of the milk-house and down Providence Road that wound its calm, even way from across the ridge down through the green valley. Rose Mary's milk-house was nestled between the breasts of a low hill, upon which was perched the wide-winged, old country house which had brooded the fortunes of the Alloways since the wilderness days. The spring which gushed from the back wall of the milk-house poured itself into a stone trough on the side of the Road, which had been placed there generations agone for the refreshment of beast, while man had been entertained within the hospitable stone walls. And at the foot of the Briars, as the Alloway home, hill, spring and meadows had been called from time immemorial, clustered the little village of Sweetbriar.
The store, which also sheltered the post-office, was almost opposite the spring-house door across the wide Road, the blacksmith shop farther down and the farm-houses stretched fraternally along either side in both directions. Far up the Road, as it wound its way around Providence Nob, could be seen the chimneys and the roofs of Providence, while Springfield and Boliver also lay like smoke-wreathed visions in the distance. Something of the peace and plenty of it all had begun to smooth the irritated wrinkle from between Mark Everett's brows, when Rose Mary's hand rested for a second over his on the table and her rich voice, with its softest brooding note, came from across her bowl.
"Ah, I know it's hard for you, Mr. Mark," she said, "and I wish--I wish--The lilacs will be in bloom next week, won't that help some?" And the wooing tone in her voice was exactly what she used in coaxing young Stonewall Jackson to bed or Uncle Tucker to tie up his throat in a flannel muffler.
"It's not lilacs I'm needing with a rose in bloom right--" But Everett's gallant response to the coaxing was cut short by a sally from an unexpected quarter.
Down Providence Road at full tilt came Stonewall Jackson, with the Swarm in a cloud of dust at his heels. He jumped across the spring branch and darted in under the milk-house eaves, while the Swarm drew up on the other bank in evident impatience. Swung bundle-wise under his arm he held a small, tow-headed bunch, and as he landed on the stone door-sill he hastily deposited it on the floor at Rose Mary's feet.
"Say, Rose Mamie," he panted, "you just keep Shoofly for us a little while, won't you? Mis' Poteet have done left her with Tobe to take care of and he put her on a stump while he chased a polecat that he fell on while it was going under a fence, and now Uncle Tuck is a-burying of him up in the woods lot. Jest joggle her with your foot this way if she goes to cry." And in demonstration of his directions the General put one bare foot in the middle of the mite's back and administered a short series of rotary motions, which immediately brought a response of ecstatic gurgles. "We'll come back for her as soon as we dig him up," he added, as he prepared for another flying leap across the spring stream.
"But, Stonie, wait and tell me what you mean!" exclaimed Rose Mary, while Everett regarded Stonewall Jackson and his cohorts with delighted amusement.
"I told you once, Rose Mamie, that Tobe fell on a polecat under a fence he was a-chasing, and he smells so awful Uncle Tuck have burned his britches and shirt on the end of a stick and have got him buried in dirt up to jest his nose. Burying in dirt is the onliest thing that'll take off the smell. We comed to ask you to watch Shoofly while he's buried, cause Mis' Poteet will be mad at him when she comes home if Shoofly smells. We're all a-going