"Oh, I am glad to hear that," said Tom with a grin. "Won't you come along, Sam? It's only a little way down.""All right," said Sam cheerfully. "So long, folks. See you later, Larry. Au reservoir, young lady, as the camel said to the elephant when he asked what he'd have. Hope I see you later if not sooner--ta-ta; tinga-ling; honk honk." Again he swept Miss Hazel an elaborate bow.
"Thinks he's smart," said that young lady, lifting her nose. "He's a regular scarecrow. Who in the world is he and where did he come from?" she demanded of Larry, who proceeded to account for Sam's presence with their party.
The visitors peered into the car and poked into its recesses, discovered the food supplies for boy and beast, and inspected the dormitories under Larry's guidance, while the boy, who had recovered from his embarrassment, discoursed upon the wonderful experience of the journey. Miss Hazel flashed her great blue eyes and her white teeth upon him, shook all her frizzes in his face, smiled at him, chattered to him, jeered at him, flattered him with all the arts and graces of the practiced flirt she was, until Larry, swept from his bearings, walked the clouds in a wonder world of rosy lights and ravishing airs. His face, his eyes, his eager words, his tremulous lips, were all eloquent of this new passion that possessed him.
As for Miss Hazel, accustomed as she was to the discriminating admiration of her fellow clerks, the sincerity and abandonment of this devotion was as incense to her flirtatious soul. Avid of admiration and experienced in most of the arts and wiles necessary to secure this from contiguous males, small wonder that the unsophisticated Larry became her easy prey long before she had brought to bear the full complement of her enginery of war.
It was a happy afternoon for the boy, but when informed by his sisters of his mother's desire that he should return with them, he was resolute in his refusal, urging many reasons why it was impossible that he should leave the car and his comrades. There was nothing for it but to leave him there and report to his mother their failure.
"I might have known," she said. "He would never come to a stranger's house in his old clothes. I will just bring down his best suit after tea."The dinner hour at Dr. Brown's was fully occupied with an animated recital of the adventures of the afternoon. Each member of the car party was described with an accuracy and fulness of detail that would have surprised him.
"And you know, Papa," said the little maid, "Tom just laughed at Larry because he could not play baseball and things, and I just told him that Larry could play the mouth organ lovely and the fiddle, and they laughed and laughed. I think they were laughing at me. Tom laughed loudest of all, and he's not so smart himself, and anyway Larry passed the entrance a year ago and I just told him so.""Oh, did you," said her father, "and how did Master Tom take that?""He didn't laugh quite as much. I don't think I like him very much.""Ah?"
"But Hazel, she was just lovely to Larry. I think she's nice, Papa, and such lovely cheeks and hair." Here Jane sighed.
"Oh, has she? She is quite a grown-up young lady, is she not?""She has her hair up, Papa. She's sixteen, you know.""I remember you told me that she had reached that mature age.""And I think Larry liked her, too."
"Ah? And why do you think so?"
"He just looked at her, and looked, and looked.""Well, that seems fairly good evidence."
"And he is coming up here to-night when we bring him his good clothes.""Oh, you are to bring him his good clothes, are you?""Yes, Mrs. Gwynne and I are taking them down in the carriage.""Oh, in the carriage--Mrs. Gwynne--"
"Yes, you know-- Oh, here's Nora at the door. Excuse me, Papa. Iam sure it is important."
She ran to the door and in a moment or two returned with a note.
"It's for you, Papa, and I know it's about the carriage." She watched her father somewhat anxiously as he read the note.
"Umm-um. Very good, very nice and proper. Certainly. Just say to Mrs. Gwynne that we are very pleased to be able to serve her with the carriage, and that we hope Larry will do us the honour of coming to us."Jane nodded delightedly. "I know, Papa. I told her that already.
But I'll tell her this is the answer to the note."Under Jane's direction and care they made their visit to the car, but on their return no Larry was with them. He would come after the picnic and baseball game tomorrow, perhaps, but not to-night.
His mother was plainly disappointed, and indeed a little hurt. She could not understand her son. It was not his clothes after all as she had thought. She pondered over his last words spoken as he bade her farewell at the car door, and was even more mystified.
"I'll be glad when we get to our own place again," he said. "Ihate to be beholden to anybody. We're as good as any of them anyway." The bitterness in his tone mystified her still more.
It was little Jane who supplied the key to the mystery. "I don't think he likes Tom very much," said the little girl. "He likes Hazel, though. But he might have come to our house; I did not laugh." And then the mother thought she understood.
That sudden intensity of bitterness in her boy's voice startled her a little, but deep down in her heart she was conscious of a queer feeling of satisfaction, almost of pride. "He's just like his father," she said to herself. "He likes to be independent."Strict honesty in thought made her add, "And like me, too, I fear."The picnic day was one of those intensely hot June days when the whole world seems to stand quivering and breathlessly attent while Nature works out one of her miracles over fields of grain, over prairie flowers, over umbrageous trees and all things borne upon the bosom of Mother Earth, checking the succulence of precocious overgrowths, hardening fibre, turning plant energy away from selfish exuberance in mere stalk building into the altruistic sacrament of ripening fruit and hardening grain. A wise old alchemist is Mother Earth, working in time but ever for eternity.
