"What hill you going to climb, Ford?" was his manner of exploding his bomb. "Bald pinnacle? I can climb that hill myself."
"I don"t know as I"m going to climb any hills at all," Ford said indulgently, accepting another helping of potato salad from Mrs. Kate.
"You told dad before he went to gran"ma"s house you was going to climb a big, long hill, and he was more sure than sensible." He giggled and showed where two front teeth were missing from among their fellows. "Dad told him he"d make it, but he"d have to dig in his toes and hang on by his eye-winkers," he added to the two women. "Gee! I"d like to see Ford hang onto a hill by his eye-winkers. Jo could do it--she"s got winkers six feet long."
Miss Josephine had been looking at Ford"s face going red, as enlightenment came to him, but when she caught a quick glance leveled at her lashes, she drooped them immediately so that they almost touched her cheeks. Bud gave a squeal and pointed to her with his fork.
"Jo"s blushing! I guess she"s ashamed because she"s got such long winkers, and Ford keeps looking at "em all the time. Why don"t you shave "em off with dad"s razor? Then Ford would like you, maybe. He don"t now.
He told dad--"
"Robert Chester Mason, do you want me to get the hairbrush?" This, it need not be explained, from Mrs. Kate, in a voice that portended grave disaster.
"I guess we can get along without it, mamma," Buddy answered her, with an ingratiating smile. Even in the first seven years of one"s life, one learns the elementary principles of diplomacy. He did not retire from the conversation, but he prudently changed the subject to what he considered a more pleasant channel.
"d.i.c.k likes you anyway, Jo," he informed her soothingly. "He likes you, winkers and all. I can tell, all right. When you go out for a ride he gives me nickels if I tell him where--"
"Robert Ches--"
"Oh, all right." Buddy"s tone was wearily tolerant. "A man never knows what to talk about to women, anyway. I"d hate to be married to "em--wouldn"t you, Ford?"
"A little boy like you--" began his mother, somewhat pinker of cheeks than usual.
"I guess I"m pretty near a man, now." He turned his eyes to Ford, consciously ignoring the feminine members of his family. "If I had a wife," he stated calmly, "I"d snub her up to a post and then I"d talk to her about anything I d.a.m.n pleased!"
Mrs. Kate rose up then in all the terrifying dignity of outraged motherhood, grasped Buddy by the wrist, and led him away, in the direction of the hairbrush, if one would judge by Buddy"s reluctance to go.
"So you are going to climb the--Big Hill, are you?" Miss Josephine observed, when the two were quite alone. "It is to be hoped, Mr.
Campbell, that you won"t find it as steep as it looks--from the bottom."
Ford was not an adept at reading what lies underneath the speech of a woman. To himself he accented the last three words, so that they overshadowed all the rest and made her appear to remind him where he stood--at the bottom.
"I suppose a hollow does look pretty high, to a man down a well," he retorted, glancing into his teacup because he felt and was resisting an impulse to look at her.
"One can always keep climbing," she murmured, "and never give up--" Miss Josephine, also, was tilting her teacup and looking studiously into it as if she would read her fortune in the specks of tea leaves there.
"Like the frog in the well--that climbed one jump and fell back two!" he interrupted, but she paid no attention, and went on.
"And the reward for reaching the top--"
"Is there supposed to be a reward?" Ford could not tell why he asked her that, nor why he glanced stealthily at her from under his eyebrows as he awaited her reply.
"There--might--there usually is a reward for any great achievement--and--" Miss Josephine was plainly floundering where she had hoped to float airily upon the surface.
"What"s the reward for--climbing hills, for instance?" He looked at her full, now, and his lips were ready to smile.
Miss Josephine looked uneasily at the door. "I--really, I never--investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shoulders and met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed the hill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reached firm ground. "Will you have more tea, Mr. Campbell?"
Her final words were chilly and impersonal, but Ford left the table, smiling to himself. At the door he met d.i.c.k, whom Buddy had mentioned with disaster to himself. d.i.c.k saw the smile, and within the room he saw Miss Josephine sitting alone, her chin resting in her two palms and her eyes fixed upon vacancy.
"h.e.l.lo," Ford greeted somewhat inattentively. "Do you want me for anything, d.i.c.k?"
"Can"t say I do," drawled d.i.c.k, brushing past Ford in the doorway.
Ford hesitated long enough to give him a second glance--an attentive enough glance this time--and went his way; without the smile, however.
"Lordy me!" he said to himself, when his foot touched the bridge, but he did not add anything to the exclamation. He was wondering when it was that he had begun to dislike d.i.c.k Thomas; a long while, it seemed to him, though he had never till just now quite realized it, beyond resenting his covert sneer that day in town. He had once or twice since suspected d.i.c.k of a certain disappointment that he himself was not foreman of the Double Cross, and once he had asked Mason why he hadn"t given the place to d.i.c.k.
"Didn"t want to," Mason had replied succinctly, and let it go at that.
If d.i.c.k cherished any animosity, however, he had not made it manifest in actual hostility. On the contrary, he had shown a distinct inclination to be friendly; a friendliness which led the two to pair off frequently when they were riding, and to talk over past range experiences more or less intimately. Looking back over the six weeks just behind him, Ford could not remember a single incident--a sentence, even--that had been unpleasant, unless he clung to his belief in d.i.c.k"s contempt, and that he had since set down to his own super-sensitiveness.
And yet--
"He"s got bad eyes," he concluded. "That"s what it is; I never did like eyes the color of polished steel; nickel-plated eyes, I call "em; all shine and no color. Still, a man ain"t to blame for his eyes."
Then d.i.c.k overtook him with Buddy trailing, red-eyed, at his heels, and Ford forgot, in the work to be done that day, all about his speculations. He involved himself in a fruitless argument with Buddy, upon the subject of what a seven-year-old can stand in the way of riding, and yielded finally before the quiver of Buddy"s lips. They were only going over on Long Ridge, anyway, and the day was fine, and Buddy had frequently ridden as far, according to d.i.c.k. Indeed, it was d.i.c.k"s easy-natured, "Ah, let the kid go, why don"t you?" which gave Ford an excuse for reconsidering.
And Buddy repaid him after his usual fashion. At the supper table he looked up, round-eyed, from his plate.
"Gee, but I"m hungry!" he sighed. "I eat and eat, just like a horse eating hay, and I just can"t fill up the hole in me."
"There, never mind, honey," Mrs. Kate interposed hastily, fearing worse.
"Do you want more bread and b.u.t.ter?"
"Yes--you always use bread for stuffing, don"t you? I want to be stuffed. All the way home my b--my stomerch was a-flopping against my backbone, just like d.i.c.k"s. Only d.i.c.k said--"
"Never mind what d.i.c.k said." Mrs. Kate thrust the bread toward him, half b.u.t.tered.
"d.i.c.k"s mad, I guess. He"s mad at Ford, too."
Buddy regarded his mother gravely over the slice of bread.
"First I"ve heard of it," Ford remarked lightly. "I think you must be mistaken, old-timer."
But Buddy never considered himself mistaken about anything, and he did not like being told that he was, even when the pill was sweetened with the term "old-timer." He rolled his eyes at Ford resentfully.
"d.i.c.k is mad! He got mad when you galloped over where Jo"s red ribbon was hanging onto a bush. I saw him a-scowling when you rolled it up and put it in your shirt pocket. d.i.c.k wanted that ribbon for his bridle; and you better give it to him. Jo ain"t your girl. She"s d.i.c.k"s girl. And you have to tie the ribbon of your bestest girl on your bridle. That"s why," he added, with belated gallantry, "I tie my own mamma"s ribbons on mine. And," he returned with terrible directness to the real issue, "Jo"s d.i.c.k"s girl, "cause he said so. I heard him tell Jim Felton she"s his steady, all right--and you are his girl, ain"t you, Jo?"
His mother had tried at first to stop him, had given up in despair, and was now sitting in a rather tragic calm, waiting for what might come of his speech.
Josephine might have saved herself some anxious moments, if she had been so minded; perhaps she would have been minded, if she had not caught Ford"s eyes fixed rather intently upon her, and sensed the expectancy in them. She bit her lip, and then she laughed.
"A man shouldn"t make an a.s.sertion of that sort," she said quizzically, in the direction of Buddy--though her meaning went straight across the table to another--"unless he has some reason for feeling very sure."
Buddy tried to appear quite clear as to her meaning. "Well, if you are d.i.c.k"s girl, then you better make Ford give that ribbon--"
"I have plenty of ribbons, Buddy," Josephine interrupted, smiling at him still. "Don"t you want one?"
"I tie my own mamma"s ribbons on my bridle," Buddy rebuffed. "My mamma is my girl--you ain"t. You can give your ribbons to d.i.c.k."