The Trumpeter Swan | Page 5

were ascending a hill, and the horse went slowly. Ahead of them
was a buggy without a top. In the buggy were a man and a woman. The
woman had an umbrella over her, and a child in her arms.
"It's Mary Flippin and her father. See if you can't overtake them,
Jefferson. I want you to see Fiddle Flippin, Randy."
"Who is Fiddle Flippin?"
"Mary's little girl. Mary is a war bride. She was in Petersburg teaching
school when the war broke out, and she married a man named Branch.
Then she came home--and she called the baby Fidelity."
"I hope he was a good husband."
"Nobody has seen him, he was ordered away at once. But she is very
proud of him. And the baby is a darling. Just beginning to walk and
talk."
"Stop a minute, Jefferson, while I speak to them."
Mr. Flippin pulled up his fat horse. He was black-haired, ruddy, and
wide of girth. "Well, well," he said, with a big laugh, "it is cer'n'y good
to see you."
Mary Flippin was slender and delicate and her eyes were blue. Her hair
was thick and dark. There was Scotch-Irish blood in the Flippins, and
Mary's charm was in that of duskiness of hair and blueness of eye. "Oh,
Randy Paine," she said, with her cheeks flaming, "when did you get
back?"
"Ten minutes ago. Mary, if you'll hand me that corking kid, I'll kiss
her."
Fiddle was handed over. She was rosy and round with her mother's blue
eyes. She wore a little buttoned hat of white piqué, with strings tied
under her chin.
"So," said Randy, after a moist kiss, "you are Fiddle-dee-dee?"

"Ess----"
"Who gave you that name?"
"It is her own way of saying Fidelity," Mary explained.
"Isn't she rather young to say anything?"
"Oh, Randy, she's a year and a half," Becky protested. "Your mother
says that you talked in your cradle."
Randy laughed, "Oh, if you listen to Mother----"
"I'm glad you're in time for the Horse Show," Mr. Flippin interposed,
"I've got a couple of prize hawgs--an' when you see them, you'll say
they ain't anything like them on the other side."
"Oh, Father----"
"Well, they ain't. I reckon Virginia's good enough for you to come back
to, ain't it, Mr. Randy----?"
"It is good enough for me to stay in now that I'm here."
"So you're back for good?"
"Yes."
"Well, we're mighty glad to have you."
Fiddle Flippin, dancing and doubling up on Randy's knee like a very
soft doll, suddenly held out her arms to her mother.
As Mary leaned forward to take her, Randy was aware of the change in
her. In the old days Mary had been a gay little thing, with an
impertinent tongue. She was not gay now. She was a Madonna,
tender-eyed, brooding over her child.
"She has changed a lot," Randy said, as they drove on.

"Why shouldn't she change?" Becky demanded. "Wouldn't any woman
change if she had loved a man and had let him go to France?"
IV
It was still raining hard when the surrey stopped at a high and rusty iron
gate flanked by brick pillars overgrown with Virginia creeper.
"Becky," said young Paine, "you can't walk up to the house. It's
pouring."
"I don't see any house," said Major Prime.
"Well, you never do from the road in this part of the country. We put
our houses on the tops of hills, and have acres to the right of us, and
acres to the left, and acres in front, and acres behind, and you can never
visit your neighbors without going miles, and nobody ever walks
except little Becky Bannister when she runs away."
"And I am going to run now," said Becky. "Randy, there's a raincoat
under that seat. I'll put it on if you will hand it out to me."
"You are going to ride up, my dear child. Drive on, Jefferson."
"Randy, please, your mother is waiting. She didn't come down to the
station because she said that if she wept on your shoulder, she would
not do it before the whole world. But she is waiting---- And it isn't fair
for me to hold you back a minute."
He yielded at last reluctantly, "Remember, you are to act as if you had
never met me," she said to Major Prime as she gave him her hand at
parting, "when you see me to-night."
"Becky," Randy asked, in a sudden panic, "are the boarders to be drawn
up in ranks to welcome me?"
"No, your mother has given you and Major Prime each two rooms in
the Schoolhouse, and we are to dine out there, in your sitting-room--our
families and the Major. And there won't be a soul to see you until

morning, and