The girl heard him, and flew out to meet him. Her heart was throbbing hard, and she was drawing quick, short breaths.
"Father!" she cried. "Father! Don"t go in the house!"
And she caught him by both shoulders and drew him round. He did not know her at first in her fanciful-simple dress and her Gainsborough hat. He was not used to that style of thing, believing that it belonged rather to the world of pictures. He stared at her. Then he broke out with an exclamation,
"Lo-rd! Louisianny!"
She kept her eyes on his face. They were feverishly bright, and her cheeks were hot. She laughed hysterically.
"Don"t speak loud," she said. "There are some strange people in the house, and--and I want to tell you something."
He was a slow man, and it took him some time to grasp the fact that she was really before him in the flesh. He said, again:
"Lord, Louisianny!" adding, cheerfully, "How ye"ve serprised me!"
Then he took in afresh the change in her dress. There was a pile of stove-wood stacked on the porch to be ready for use, and he sat down on it to look at her.
"Why, ye"ve got a new dress on!" he said. "Thet thar"s what made ye look sorter curis. I hardly knowed ye."
Then he remembered what she had said on first seeing him.
"Why don"t ye want me to go in the house?" he asked. "What sort o"
folks air they?"
"They came with me from the Springs," she answered; "and--and I want to--to play a joke on them."
She put her hands up to her burning cheeks, and stood so.
"A joke on "em?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said, speaking very fast. "They don"t know I live here, they think I came from some city,--they took the notion themselves,--and I want to let them think so until we go away from the house. It will be such a good joke."
She tried to laugh, but broke off in the middle of a harsh sound. Her father, with one copperas-colored leg crossed over the other, was chewing his tobacco slowly, after the manner of a ruminating animal, while he watched her.
"Don"t you see?" she asked.
"Wa-al, no," he answered. "Not rightly."
She actually a.s.sumed a kind of spectral gayety.
"I never thought of it until I saw it was not Ca.s.sandry who was in the kitchen," she said. "The woman who is there didn"t know me, and it came into my mind that--that we might play off on them," using the phraseology to which he was the most accustomed.
"Waal, we mought," he admitted, with a speculative deliberateness.
"Thet"s so. We mought--if thar was any use in it."
"It"s only for a joke," she persisted, hurriedly.
"Thet"s so," he repeated. "Thet"s so."
He got up slowly and rather lumberingly from his seat and dusted the chips from his copperas-colored legs.
"Hev ye ben enjyin" yerself, Louisianny?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Never better."
"Ye must hev," he returned, "or ye wouldn"t be in sperrits to play jokes."
Then he changed his tone so suddenly that she was startled.
"What do ye want me to do?" he asked.
She put her hand on his shoulder and tried to laugh again.
"To pretend you don"t know me--to pretend I have never been here before. That"s joke enough, isn"t it? They will think so when I tell them the truth. You slow old father! Why don"t you laugh?"
"P"r"aps," he said, "it"s on account o" me bein" slow, Louisianny.
Mebbe I shall begin arter a while."
"Don"t begin at the wrong time," she said, still keeping up her feverish laugh, "or you"ll spoil it all. Now come along in and--and pretend you don"t know me," she continued, drawing him forward by the arm. "They might suspect something if we stay so long. All you"ve got to do is to pretend you don"t know me."
"That"s so, Louisianny," with a kindly glance downward at her excited face as he followed her out. "Thar aint no call fur me to do nothin"
else, is there--just pretend I don"t know ye?"
It was wonderful how well he did it, too. When she preceded him into the room the girl was quivering with excitement. He might break down, and it would be all over in a second. But she looked Ferrol boldly in the face when she made her first speech.
"This is the gentleman of the house," she said. "I found him on the back porch. He had just come in. He has been kind enough to say we may stay until the storm is over."
"Oh, yes," said he hospitably, "stay an" welcome. Ye aint the first as has stopped over. Storms come up sorter suddent, an" we haint the kind as turns folks away."
Ferrol thanked him, Olivia joining in with a murmur of grat.i.tude. They were very much indebted to him for his hospitality; they considered themselves very fortunate.
Their host received their protestations with much equanimity.
"If ye"d like to set out on the front porch and watch the storm come up," he said, "thar"s seats thar. Or would ye druther set here?
Women-folks is gen"rally fond o" settin" in-doors whar thar"s a parlor."
But they preferred the porch, and followed him out upon it.
Having seen them seated, he took a chair himself. It was a split-seated chair, painted green, and he tilted it back against a pillar of the porch and applied himself to the full enjoyment of a position more remarkable for ease than elegance. Ferrol regarded him with stealthy rapture, and drank in every word he uttered.
"This," he had exclaimed delightedly to Olivia, in private--"why, this is delightful! These are the people we have read of. I scarcely believed in them before. I would not have missed it for the world!"
"In gin"ral, now," their entertainer proceeded, "wimmin-folk is fonder o" settin" in parlors. My wife was powerful sot on her parlor. She wasn"t never satisfied till she hed one an" hed it fixed up to her notion. She was allers tradin" fur picters fur it. She tuk a heap o"
pride in her picters. She allers had it in her mind that her little gal should have a showy parlor when she growed up."
"You have a daughter?" said Ferrol.
Their host hitched his chair a little to one side. He bent forward to expectorate, and then answered with his eyes fixed upon some distant point toward the mountains.