The Judge stretched himself on the gra.s.s, and pulled his hat over his eyes. "Girls are queer, and if that Dalton thinks he can court my Becky----" He stopped, and spoke again from under his hat, "Oh, what"s the use of worrying, Bob, on a day like this?"
The Judge always napped after lunch, and Bob Flippin, stretched beside him, lay awake and watched the stream slip by in a sheet of silver, he watched a squirrel flattened on the limb above him, he watched the birds that fluttered down to the pools to bathe, he watched the buzzards sailing high above the hills.
And presently he found himself watching his own daughter Mary, as she came along the opposite bank of the stream.
She was drawing Fiddle-dee-dee in a small red cart and was walking slowly.
She walked well. Country-born and country-bred, there was nothing about her of plodding peasant. All her life she had danced with the Bannisters and the Beauforts. Yet she had never been invited to the big b.a.l.l.s. When the Merriweathers gave their Harvest Dance, Mary and her mother would go over and help bake the cakes, and at night they would sit in the gallery of the great ballroom and watch the dancers, but Mary would not be asked out on the floor.
Seeing the Judge asleep, Mary stopped and beckoned from the other side.
Flippin rose and made his way across the stream, stepping from stone to stone.
"Mother wants you to come right up to the Watermans", Father. Mrs.
Waterman is to have an operation, and you are to direct the servants in fitting up a room for the surgeons. The nurse will tell you what to do."
Mr. Flippin rubbed his face with his handkerchief. "I don"t like to wake the Judge."
"I"ll stay here and tell him," Mary said. "And you can send Calvin down to carry the basket."
She was standing beside him, and suddenly she laid her cheek against his arm. "I love you," she said, "you are a darling, Daddy."
He patted her cheek. "That sounds like my little Mary."
"Don"t I always sound like your little Mary?"
"Not always."
"Well--I"ve had things on my mind." Her blue eyes met his, and she flushed a bit. "Not things that I am sorry for, but things that I am worried about. But now--well, I am very happy in my heart, Daddy."
He smiled down at her. "Have you heard from T. Branch?"
"Yes, by wireless----"
He looked his astonishment. "Wireless?"
"Heart-wireless, Daddy. Didn"t you get messages that way when you were young--from Mother?"
"How do I know? It"s been twenty-five years since then, and we haven"t had to send messages. We"ve just held on to each other"s hands, thank G.o.d." He bent and kissed her. "You stay and tell the Judge, Mary.
He"ll sleep for a half-hour yet: he"s as regular as the clock."
His own two dogs followed him, but the Judge"s beagles lay with their noses on their paws at their master"s feet. Now and then they snapped at flies but otherwise they were motionless.
Before the half hour was up Fiddle-dee-dee fell asleep, and the Judge waking, saw on the other side of a stream propped against the gray old oak, the young mother cool in her white dress, her child in her arms.
"Father had to go," she told him, and explained the need; "he"ll send Calvin for the basket."
"I can carry my own basket, Mary; I"m not a thousand years old."
"It isn"t that. But you"ve never carried baskets, Judge."
The Judge chuckled. "You say that as if it were an accusation."
"It isn"t. Only some of us seem born to carry baskets and others are born to--let us carry them." Her smile redeemed her words from impertinence.
"Are you a Bolshevik, Mary?"
"No. I believe in the divine rights of kings and--Judges. I"d hate to see you carry a basket. It would rob you of something--just as I would hate to see a king without his crown or a queen without her scepter."
"Oh, Mary, Mary, your father has never said things like that to me."
"He doesn"t feel them. Father believes in The G.o.d of Things as They are----"
"And don"t you?"
"I believe in you," she rose and carrying her sleeping child, crossed the stream on the stones as easily as if she carried no burden; "you know I believe in you, don"t you--and in all the Bannisters?"
It was said so lightly that he took it lightly. No one was so touchy as the Judge about his dignity if it were disregarded. But here was little Mary smiling up at him and telling him that he was a king with a crown and she liked it.
"Well, well. Let"s sit down, Mary."
"Fish, if you want to, and I"ll watch."
He baited his hook and cast his line into the stream. It had a bobbing red cork which fascinated Fiddle-dee-dee. She tried to wade out and get it, and had to be held by her very short skirts lest she drown in the attempt.
"So I"m a confounded autocrat," the Judge chuckled. "n.o.body ever said that to me before, but maybe some of them have been thinking it."
"Maybe they have," said Mary gravely, "but they haven"t really cared.
Having the Bannisters at Huntersfield is like the English having a Victoria or an Edward or a George at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor; it adds flavor to their--democracy----"
"Mary--who"s been saying all this to you?" he demanded.
"My husband."
"Truelove Branch?"
She nodded.
"I"d like to meet him, by Jove, I"d like to meet him. He has been teaching his wife to poke fun at her old friend----"
She faced him fearlessly. "I"m not poking fun. I--I"d hate to have the Bannisters lose one little bit of their beautiful traditions.
I--I---- Some day I"m going to teach little Fiddle those traditions, and tell her what it means when--when people have race back of them.
You see, I haven"t it, Judge, but I know what it"s worth."
He was touched by her earnestness. "My dear Mary," he said, "I wish my own grandson looked at it that way. His letters of late have been very disturbing."
A little flush crept into her cheeks. "Disturbing?"