"Stop!" interrupted Edith sharply. "You all leave everything for me to do, but I won"t be teased and tormented in the bargain."
"But really," continued the incorrigible Zell, "I have been so much impressed by the first scene in the creation of your Eden, which I have just witnessed, that I am quite impatient for the second. It may be that our sole acquaintances in this delightful rural retreat, the "drunken Laceys," as mother calls them, will soon insist on becoming inspired with the spirit of the corn they raise in our arbor."
Edith sprang up from the table and went to her room.
"Shame on you, Zell," said Mrs. Allen sharply, but Laura was too apathetic to scold.
Impulsive Zell soon relented, and when Edith came down a few moments later in walking trim, and with eyes swollen with unshed tears, Zell threw her arms around her neck and said:
"Forgive your naughty little sister."
But Edith repulsed her angrily, and started toward the village.
"I do hate to see people sullenly h.o.a.rd up things," said Zell snappishly. Then she dawdled about the house, yawning and saying fretfully, "I do wish I knew what to do with myself."
Laura reclined on the sofa with a novel, but Zell was not fond of reading. Her restless nature craved continual activity and excitement, but it was part of Mrs. Allen"s policy that they should do nothing.
"Some one may call," she said, "and we must be ready to receive them,"
but at that season of the year, when roads were muddy, there was but little social visiting in the country.
So, consumed with ennui, Zell listened to the pounding of the carpenters overhead, and watched the dogged old plowman go round the small garden till it was all scratched over, and then the whole crazy mechanism rattled off to parts unknown. The two servants did not leave her even the recourse of housework, of which she was naturally fond.
Edith went straight to Mr. Hard, and was so provoked that she scarcely avoided the puddles in her determined haste.
Mr. Hard looked out upon his customers with, cold, hard little eyes that changed their expression only in growing more cold and hard. The rest of his person seemed all bows, smirks, and smiles, but it was noticed that these latter diminished and his eyes grew harder as he wished to remind some lagging patron that his little account needed settling. This thrifty citizen of Pushton was soon in polite attendance on Edith, but was rather taken back when she asked sharply what he meant by sending such a good-for-nothing man to plow her garden.
"Well, Miss Allen," he said, his eyes growing harder but his manner more polite, "old Gideon does such little jobs around, and I thought he was just the one."
"Does he plow your garden?" asked Edith abruptly.
"I keep a gardener," said Mr. Hard with some dignity.
"I believe it would pay me to do the same," said Edith, "if I could find one on whom I could depend. The man you sent was very impudent. I told him the work didn"t suit me--that he didn"t plow half deep enough, and that he must leave. But he just kept right on, saying you sent him, and he would plow it, and he injured my flower borders besides. Therefore he must look to you for payment." (Mr. Hard"s eyes grew very hard at this.) "Because I am a woman I am not going to be imposed upon. Now do you know of a man who can really plow my garden?
If not, I must look elsewhere. I had hoped when you took our business you would have some interest in seeing that we were well served."
Mr. Hard, with eyes like two flint pebbles, made a low bow and said with impressive dignity:
"It is my purpose to do so. There is Mr. Skinner, he does plowing."
"I don"t want Mr. Skinner," said Edith impatiently, "I don"t like his name in reference to plowing."
"Oh! ah! excellent reason; very good, Miss Allen. Well, there"s Mr.
McTrump, a Scotchman, who has a small greenhouse and nursery, he looks after gardens for some people."
"I will go and see him," said Edith, taking his address.
As she plodded off to find his place, she sighed, "Oh, dear! it"s dreadful to have no men in the family. That Arden Lacey might have helped me so much, if mother was not so particular. I fear we are all on the wrong track, throwing away substantial and present good for uncertainties."
Mr. McTrump was a little man with a heavy sandy beard and such bushy eyebrows and hair that he reminded Edith of a Scotch terrier. But her first glance around convinced her that he was a gardener. Neatness, order, thrift, impressed her the moment she opened his gate, and she perceived that he was already quite advanced in his spring work.
Smooth seed-sown beds were emerging from winter"s chaos. Crocuses and hyacinths were in bloom, tulips were budding, and on a sunny slope in the distance she saw long green rows of what seemed some growing crop.
She determined if possible to make this man her ally, or by stratagem to gain his secret of success.
The little man stood in the door of his greenhouse with a transplanting trowel in his hand. He was dressed in clay-colored nankeen, and could get down in the dirt without seeming to get dirty.
His small eyes twinkled shrewdly, but not unkindly, as she advanced toward him. He was fond of flowers, and she looked like one herself that spring morning.
"I was directed to call upon you," she said, with conciliatory politeness, "understanding that you sometimes a.s.sist people with their gardens."
"Weel, noo and then I do, but I canna give mooch time with a" my ain work."
"But you would help a lady who has no one else to help her, wouldn"t you?" said Edith sweetly.
Old Malcom was not to be caught with a sugar-plum, so he said with a little Scotch caution:
"I canna vera weel say till I hear mair aboot it."
Edith told him how she was situated, and in view of her perplexity and trouble, her voice had a little appealing pathos in it. Malcom"s eyes twinkled more and more kindly, and as he explained afterward to his wife, "Her face was sae like a pink hyacinth beent doon by the storm and a wantin" proppin" oop," that by the time she was done he was ready to accede to her wishes.
"Weel," said he, "I canna refuse a blithe young leddy like yoursel, but ye must let me have my ain way."
Edith was inclined to demur at this, for she had been reading up and had many plans and theories to carry out. But she concluded to accept the condition, thinking that with her feminine tact she would have her own way after all. She did not realize that she was dealing with a Scotchman.
"I"ll send ye a mon as will plow the garden, and not scratch it, the morrow, G.o.d willin"," for Mr. McTrump was a very pious man, his only fault being that he would take a drop too much occasionally.
"May I stay here a while and watch you work, and look at things?"
asked Edith. "I don"t want to go back till that hateful old fellow has done his mischief and is gone."
"Why not?" said Malcom, "an ye don"t tech anything. The woman folk from the village as come here do pick and pull much awry."
"I promise you I will be good," said Edith eagerly.
"That"s mair than ony on us can say of oursel," said Malcom, showing the doctrinal bias of his mind, "but I ken fra" yer bonnie face ye mean weel."
"Oh, Mr. McTrump, that is the first compliment I have received in Pushton," laughed Edith.
"I"m a thinkin" it"ll not be the last. But I hope ye mind the Scripter where it says, "We do all fade as a flower," and ye will not be puffed oop."
But Edith, far more intent on horticultural than on scriptural knowledge, asked quickly:
"What were you going to set out with that trowel?"
"A new strawberry-bed. I ha" more plants the spring than I can sell, sae I thought to put oot a new bed, though I ha" a good mony."
"I am so glad. I wish to set out a large bed and can get the plants of you."
"How mony do ye want?" said Malcom, with a quick eye to business.
"I shall leave that to you when you see my ground. Now see how I trust you, Mr. McTrump."
"An" ye"ll not lose by it, though I would na like a" my coostomers to put me sae strictly on my honesty."