"Oh, but you mustn"t tell him," she said, aghast. "I only want him to understand!"
"I see, I see," he pinched her cheek, "You only want him to understand.
Well, he shall understand this very night, then."
"And you"ll thank him for sending me Mac?"
"Yes, yes, I"ll thank him, never fear. Wait now, till I order my horse; I"m going to ride home with you."
"It isn"t dark yet, and I"m not afraid with Mac," she demurred.
"It is nearly dark, and I"m very much afraid," he bowed gallantly, "that I"ll too soon be forgot for this airedale gentleman if you go alone."
CHAPTER XXV
ALMOST A RESOLUTION
Shortly after breakfast next day the Colonel dispatched Uncle Zack and his mule with a note to Jane. He might have telephoned this message, which simply read: "He understands, with an amplitude of grace which ill befits him. Come over this morning and straighten Lizzie out with her preserving. I hear that she is skinning every negro on the place, and I greatly fear for them, or her."
But, no; this must be on a written page and delivered by hand, for the old Colonel averred that no gentleman should a.s.sume to shriek his voice by mechanical device into the ear of a gentlewoman. In cases of illness, accident or fire, or perhaps in pressing business needs, the telephone had its uses; but a _faux pas_ of the first order was to employ it socially.
So Zack"s mule ambled down the pike and home again, bringing a reply which sparkled with merriment between its lines: "You have the maternal instinct of that lady who lived in a shoe! I"ll be over to soothe Miss Liz and her poor, flayed darkies."
Arriving some hours later, she and Mac went directly to the shed where bright copper kettles were hanging in a row above the old fashioned, stone oven fires. Several negro women were moving quickly and silently about, frightened and getting into each other"s way. But now, as she drew near, there was a commotion, and she saw Miss Liz actually lay hands upon a girl of about seventeen and roughly draw her away from one of the simmering pots. Un.o.bserved, and in utter amazement, Jane stood and stared at them.
"What were you about to do?" Miss Liz cried excitedly.
"I--I drapped de spoon in," the girl began to whimper.
"And were going to thrust in your hand and get it scalded to the bone?"
"I"se--I"se "feerd you"d scold," she put her head down in her arm.
"Now, Amanda," Miss Liz looked at her reprovingly, "if you think I"ve nothing to do but sit up nights making poultices on account of your idiocy, you"re very much mistaken! What does a spoon in the preserves amount to compared with your suffering?--and my suffering, when I"ll be dead for sleep with nursing you? What do you all mean," she turned angrily upon the others, "by standing there and letting her attempt such a thing?"
""Deed, I didn" see her, Miss Liz!" several voices were raised in protest.
"Of course, you didn"t see her! You never see anything! I must be your eyes as well as your brains, you lazy pieces! Here, Amanda, take this handful of cherries and go out there under the trees and eat them; and don"t swallow the seeds, either, or I"ll be sitting up with you yet!"
Jane came on then, and Miss Liz gratefully recited the mult.i.tude of grievances which had beset her since early morning. This seemed such a vast relief that she yielded to persuasion and left for a little rest. A few minutes later the shed was animated with a buzz of happy voices, fingers, more skilled than Miss Liz had given herself the opportunity of realizing, now traveled with twice their former speed, and into the simmering kettles was being cooked a geniality which all preserves must have to be appreciated.
Half an hour later, leaving this crew in splendid working order, she walked slowly around to the front of the house. Out before her, in the shaded group of rustic chairs, sat the Colonel and Brent, somewhat apart from, but facing, Miss Liz, who seemed to be holding them at bay. Had the men been alone Jane might doubtless have gone indoors and sought the commander of the kettles, for she did not care to see Brent just at once. But the human dice had fallen otherwise, and there seemed no alternative but straight ahead.
As she drew near she noticed that Miss Liz"s cheeks were flushed with some new excitement, and guessed she was being worried by a process of serious teasing. Her eyes then sought the reason for this and discovered it in two julep goblets, cuddled guiltily behind a nearby tree. For as Miss Liz had come across the lawn to join them half an hour earlier, this refreshment was hurried out of sight--the Colonel"s resolution of independence notwithstanding--and now, before the ice could entirely melt, Brent, by a polite tirade against the prim old lady"s pet hobby, trusted her increasing wrath to clarify the situation by routing her housewards. While he and the Colonel knew this would inevitably come, her anger was not yet at sufficient heat, and she held her ground with defiance bristling from every stiff fold of her black silk dress.
Jane gave the men a reproachful look, and Brent"s face flushed when he saw her eyes hover about the juleps; but she entered their scheme by asking:
"Why does everyone seem so serious?"
"My dear," Miss Liz began to fire, "your father had suggested a Fourth of July celebration--a most fitting tribute to our departed heroes--but I regret to say that two not very high minded gentlemen--" The lorgnette, turned first upon the Colonel and then on Brent, completed her indictment.
"I"m sure we are misunderstood," Brent murmured, but the Colonel maintained a discreet silence.
"Can it be, Mr. McElroy," she glared at him with straightening lips, "that I misunderstood you to say George Washington was not a paragon of truth?"
"You mean a bird?" he innocently asked.
"A bird, sir?" the black dress gave a startled rustle.
"Excuse me; I thought you said ptarmigan."
The conventional old Colonel committed a very deplorable breach of etiquette--he snickered; but twisted it into a l.u.s.ty cough, gutturally explaining:
"Really, my cold!"
"Mr. McElroy," she turned severely to Jane, "has been blaspheming--blaspheming the traditions of our n.o.ble heroes! My dear, it is positively disgusting!"
"The subject is quite a closed book to him," Jane sweetly replied, and the Colonel was threatened with another coughing spell.
"I didn"t say anything against heroes," the engineer explained, "except that none of them can measure up to our heroines."
But from the toss of Miss Liz"s head this had not brought him a grain of grace.
"What hero did I malign?"
"You said," she snapped, "that Washington was neither truthful nor honest!"
"Oh, now, I couldn"t have!" he protested. "I merely said, in regard to the cherry tree episode, his intention was not only to cut, but to run.
You"ve heard the expression "cut and run"? Well, we get it from George."
"Your surmises are intolerable!"
"Miss Liz, it isn"t fair to condemn until you hear me!" It was the tone of a much misunderstood penitent, and she hesitated. "I"ll leave it to the Colonel," he was continuing, but the old gentleman briskly interrupted:
"You"ll do nothing of the kind, sir!"
"Then I"ll leave it to Jane--she may have some remote idea of history--if I"m scandalizing your hero by saying he never set us the extraordinary example you think. He was just a normal boy, a considerate boy, and had no intention of worrying the family about that tree; but it so happened that before he had time to sweep up the chips--which shows he was a tidy boy!--his governor swooped right down on top of him, you might say, and the game was up. George had cut, you see, Miss Liz, but he couldn"t run--and here"s where he showed himself the genius which ultimately resulted in our independence. He knew in a flash that this was a tight place; it was an awful tight place; in fact, you might say it pretty nearly squeezed him all over. There was the prostrate tree, right before the old gentleman"s eyes; and there was the old gentleman, mad as hops, with his cane trembling in the air. There wasn"t another boy, or even another hatchet, in fifteen miles--and little George"s mind a.n.a.lyzed the full significance of that fact. It didn"t take him a second to see how the situation had to be handled; so, really, Miss Liz, I think our lesson should be drawn, not from his love of truth, but from his quick and accurate judgment. In all the English language there was just one thing for him to say, and he said it. That"s genius, Miss Liz--but not always veracity."
"Some persons may think that way," she compressed her lips, taking care to give the proper emphasis to persons. "There is no accounting for the benighted mind. Thanks be to G.o.d that every man, woman and child of intelligence knows otherwise."
Delivering herself of this, she calmly folded her hands and smiled at Jane with an expression of triumph. Brent took a fleeting glance toward the juleps.
But something now smote the Colonel"s conscience. She looked so thin and frail! He remembered, too, the suspicious watering of Zack"s bad eye, and what his good eye had seen in the "long room." In a gentle voice he said:
"My dear, I hear that the sisters are asking where good cherries may be had. It seems the convent would put up a certain cordial; and, if you are pa.s.sing there, would you inquire how many bushels they wish, and say you will send them over with your compliments?"