The Early Bird | Page 9

he's a credit to his family."
"Meaning just you?" she ventured.
"Yes, we're all we have; just yet, at least." This quite soberly.
"He must talk of getting married," she guessed, with a quick intuition that when this happened it would be a blow to Sam.
"Oh, no," he immediately corrected her. "He isn't quite old enough to think of it seriously as yet. I expect to be married long before he is."
Miss Stevens felt a rigid aloofness creeping over her, and, having a very wholesome sense of humor, smiled as she recognized the feeling in herself.
"I should think you'd spend your vacation where the girl is," she observed. "Men usually do, don't they?"
He laughed gaily.
"I surely would if I knew the girl," he asserted.
"That's a refreshing suggestion," she said, echoing his laugh, though from a different impulse. "I presume, then, that you entertain thoughts of matrimony merely because you think you are quite old enough."
"No, it isn't just that," he returned, still thoughtfully. "Somehow or other I feel that way about it; that's all. I have never had time to think of it before, but this past year I have had a sort of sense of lonesomeness; and I guess that must be it."
In spite of herself Miss Josephine giggled and repressed it, and giggled again and repressed it, and giggled again, and then she let herself go and laughed as heartily as she pleased. She had heard men say before, but always with more or less of a languishing air, inevitably ridiculous in a man, that they thought it about time they were getting married; but she could not remember anything to compare with Sam Turner's na?vet�� in the statement.
He paid no attention to the laughter, for he had suddenly leaned forward to the chauffeur.
"There is another clump of walnut trees," he said, eagerly pointing them out. "Are there many of them in this locality?"
"A good many scattered here and there," replied the boy; "but old man Gifford has a twenty-acre grove down in the bottoms that's mostly all walnut trees, and I heard him say just the other day that walnut lumber's got so high he had a notion to clear his land."
"Where do you suppose we could find old man Gifford?" inquired Mr. Turner.
"Oh, about six miles off to the right, at the next turning."
"Suppose we whizz right down there," said Sam promptly, and he turned to Miss Stevens with enthusiasm shining in his eyes. "It does seem as if everything happens lucky for me," he observed. "I haven't any particular liking for the lumber business, but fate keeps handing lumber to me all the time; just fairly forcing it on me."
"Do you think fate is as much responsible for that as yourself?" she questioned, smiling as they passed at a good clip the turn which was to have taken them over the pretty Bald Hill drive. Sam had not even thought to apologize for the abrupt change in their program, because she could certainly see the opportunity which had offered itself, and how imperative it was to embrace it. The thing needed no explanation.
"I don't know," he replied to her query, after pausing to consider it a moment. "I certainly don't go out of my road to hunt up these things."
"No-o-o-o," she admitted. "But fate hasn't thrust this particular opportunity upon me, although I'm right with you at the time. It never would have occurred to me to ask about those walnut trees."
"It would have occurred to your father," he retorted quickly.
"Yes, it might have occurred to father, but I think that under the circumstances he would have waited until to-morrow to see about it."
"I suppose I might be that way when I arrive at his age," Sam commented philosophically, "but just now I can't afford it. His 'seeing about it to-morrow' cost him between five and six thousand dollars the last time I had anything to do with him."
She laughed. She was enjoying Sam's company very much. Even if a bit startling, he was at least refreshing after the type of young men she was in the habit of meeting.
"He was talking about that last night," she said. "I think father rather stands in both admiration and awe of you."
"I'm glad to hear that," he returned quite seriously. "It's a good attitude in which to have the man with whom you expect to do business."
"I think I shall have to tell him that," she observed, highly amused. "He will enjoy it, and it may put him on his guard."
"I don't mind," he concluded after due reflection. "It won't hurt a particle. If anything, if he likes me so far, that will only increase it. I like your father. In fact I like his whole family."
"Thank you," she said demurely, wondering if there was no end to his bluntness,