The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 12

"No," he said, gently, "I see you don't. And you let yourself be a fool because there are a lot of fools in there."

She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and bitterness; she bent far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "Oh, Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have such hard lives, you and I! It doesn't seem right--while we're so young! Why can't we be like the others? Why can't we have some of the fun?"

He withdrew his hand, with the embarra.s.sment and shame he would have felt had she been a boy.

"Get out!" he said, feebly.

She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. "I try so hard to have some fun, to be like the rest--and it's always a mistake, always, always, always!"

She rocked herself slightly from side to side. "I'm a fool, it's the truth, or I wouldn't have come to-night. I want to be attractive--I want to be in things. I want to laugh as they do--"

"To laugh, just to laugh, and not because there's something funny?"

"Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair--there must be some place where you can learn those things. I've never had any one to show me! It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen, Joe--"

She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs.

"I hate myself so for crying--for everything!"

Just then a colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out upon the porch, bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters, and coffee. At his approach, Joe had fallen p.r.o.ne on the floor in the shadow. Ariel shook her head to the proffer of refreshments.

"I don't want any," she murmured.

The waiter turned away in pity and was reentering the window when a pa.s.sionate whisper fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel's.

_"Take it!"_

"Ma'am?" said the waiter.

"I've changed my mind," she replied quickly. The waiter, his elation restored, gave of his viands with the [v]superfluous bounty loved by his race when distributing the product of the wealthy.

When he had gone, "Give me everything that's hot," said Joe. "You can keep the salad."

"I couldn't eat it or anything else," she answered, thrusting the plate between the palms.

For a time there was silence. From within the house came the continuous babble of voices and laughter, the clink of [v]cutlery on china. The young people spent a long time over their supper. By and by the waiter returned to the veranda, deposited a plate of colored ices upon Ariel's knees with a n.o.ble gesture, and departed.

"No ice for me," said Joe.

"Won't you please go now?" she entreated.

"It wouldn't be good manners," he joked. "They might think I only came for the supper."

"Give me the dish and coffee-cup," she whispered, impatiently. "Suppose the waiter came and had to look for them? Quick!"

A bottle-shaped figure appeared in the window, and she had no time to take the plate and cup which were being pushed through the palm-leaves.

She whispered a word of warning, and the dishes were hurriedly withdrawn as Norbert Flitcroft, wearing a solemn expression of injury, came out upon the veranda.

"They want you. Some one's come for you."

"Oh, is grandfather waiting?" She rose.

"It isn't your grandfather that has come for you," answered the fat one, slowly. "It is Eskew Arp. Something's happened."

She looked at him for a moment, beginning to tremble violently, her eyes growing wide with fright.

"Is my grandfather--is he sick?"

"You'd better go and see. Old Eskew's waiting in the hall. He'll tell you."

She was by him and through the window instantly. Mr. Arp was waiting in the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.

"Your grandfather's all right," he told the frightened girl quickly. "He sent me for you. Just hurry and get your things."

She was with him again in a moment, and seizing the old man's arm, hurried him down the steps and toward the street almost at a run.

"You're not telling me the truth," she said. "You're not telling me the truth!"

"Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor," panted Mr. Arp. "We're going this way, not that." They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the right he pulled her sharply to the left.

"Where are we going?" she demanded.

"To your Uncle Jonas's."

"Why?" she cried, in supreme astonishment. "What do you want to take me there for? Don't you know that he doesn't like me--that he has stopped speaking to me?"

"Yes," said the old man, grimly; "he has stopped speaking to everybody."

These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not tell her what she was soon to learn--that he had died rich, and that, failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.

II

It was Sunday in Canaan--Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few friends since his return.

A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and gra.s.s to life.

The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.

For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again.

A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.

It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions of her. We can find conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her, there was preeminently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more, from the ivory [v]ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and slender foot-print she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.

He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see the harmony of the things she wore. Her dress and hat and gloves and parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen overspreading the western slope. Under the summer hat her very dark hair swept back over the temples with something near trimness in the extent to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach to trimness, after all, was the true key to the mystery of the lady who appeared to Joe.

She was to pa.s.s him--so he thought--and as she drew nearer, his breath came faster. And then he realized that something wonderful was happening to him.

She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to her; a great and unaccountable shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat, trying not to clear his throat--his everyday sense urging upon him that she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way.

"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blus.h.i.+ng, meaning to finish with "direct you," or "show you the way."

Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest sight of life. The lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and overfilled.