The Desired Woman | Page 8

wouldn't then
come in a mile o' what's in this letter."

"I don't intend to try," Mrs. Drake said, eagerly, "anyways not with all
that ironin' to do that's piled up like a haystack on the dinin'- room table,
to say nothin' of the beds and bed-clothes to be sunned. You can keep
your big secret as far as I'm concerned."
"It's another Confederate Veteran excursion to some town whar whisky
is sold," said the bachelor, with a dry cackle. "That's my guess. You
fellows that was licked don't git no pensions from Uncle Sam, but you
manage to have enough fun once a year to make up for it."
Tom Drake swept the near-by mountain slope with his slow glance of
amusement, folded the sheet tantalizingly, and spat again.
"I don't know, Luce," he said to his wife, as he wiped his lips on his
shirt-sleeve, "that it is a good time to tell you on top o' your complaint
of over-work, but Dick Mostyn, your Atlanta boarder, writes that he's a
little bit run down an' wants to come an' stay a solid month. Money
seems to be no object to him, an' he says if he kin just git the room he
had before an' a chance at your home cooking three times a day he will
be in clover."
"Well, well, well!" Lucy cried, in a tone of delight, "so he wants to
come ag'in, an' all this time I've been thinkin' he'd never think of us any
more. There wasn't a thing for him to do that summer but lie around in
the shade, except now an' then when he was off fishin' or huntin'."
"Well, I hope you will let 'im come," John Webb drawled out, in his
slow fashion. "I can set an' study a town dude like him by the hour an'
never git tired. I never kin somehow git at what sech fellers think about
or do when they are at home. He makes money, but how? His hands are
as soft an' white as a woman's. His socks are as thin an' flimsy as
spider-webs. He had six pairs o' pants, if he had one, an' a pair o'
galluses to each pair. I axed him one day when they was all spread out
on his bed what on earth he had so many galluses for, an' Mostyn
said--I give you my word I'm not jokin'--he said"-- Webb laughed out
impulsively--"he said it was to keep from botherin' to button 'em on
ever' time he changed! He said"--the bachelor continued to laugh--"that
he could just throw the galluses over his shoulders when he was in a

hurry an' be done with the job. Do you know, folks, if I was as lazy as
that I'd be afraid the Lord would cut me off in my prime. Why, a feller
on a farm has to do more than that ever' time he pulls a blade o' fodder
or plants a seed o' corn."
"Well, of course, I want 'im to come." Mrs. Drake had not heard a word
of her brother's rambling comment, and there was a decidedly
expectant intonation in her voice. "Nobody's usin' the company-room,
an' the presidin' elder won't be here till fall. Mr. Mostyn never was a bit
of trouble and seemed to love everything I set before him. But I reckon
we needn't feel so flattered. He's coming here so he'll be near Mr.
Saunders when he runs up to his place on Sundays."
John Webb, for such a slow individual, had suddenly taken on a new
impetus. He left his sister and her husband and passed through the
passage bisecting the lower part of the plain two-story house and went
out at the rear door. In the back yard he found his nephew, George
Drake, a boy of fifteen years, seated on the grass repairing a ragged,
mud-stained fish-net.
"Who told you you could be out o' school, young feller?" John
demanded, dryly. "I'll bet my life you are playin' hookey. You think
because your sister's the teacher you can run wild like a mountain shote.
My Lord, look at your clothes! I'll swear it would be hard to tell
whether you've got on anything or not--that is, anything except mud an'
slime. Have you been tryin' to pull that seine through the creek by
yourself?"
The boy, who had a fine head and profile and was stoutly built and
generally good-looking, was too busy with his strings and knots to look
up. "Some fool left it in the creek, and it's laid there for the last month,"
he mumbled. "I had to go in after it, and it was all tangled up and
clogged with mud. Dolly knew I wasn't going to school to-day."
"She knew