"And now," continued Miss Colton, after an interval during which, I presume, she had been waiting for some reply to her frank declaration concerning mind and appetite, "what must I do to help?
Shall I unpack the basket?"
I was struggling, as we say in Denboro, to get the ship under control.I had been taken aback so suddenly that I had lost steerage way.My slight experience with the vagaries of the feminine mind had not prepared me for the lightning changes of this kind.Not two minutes before she had, if one might judge by her look and tone, been deeply offended, almost insulted, because Irefused to permit her wandering off alone into the woods.My invitation to lunch had been given on the spur of the moment and with no idea that it would be accepted.And she not only accepted, but had expected me to invite her, had been fearful that I might not do so.She told me so, herself.
"Shall I unpack the basket?" she repeated.She was looking at me intently and the toe of her riding boot was patting the leaves.
"What is the matter? Are you sorry I am going to stay?"It was high time for me to get under way.There were squalls on the horizon.
"Oh, no, no!" I exclaimed, hastily."Of course not.I am delighted.But you need not trouble to help.Just let me attend to your horse and I will have lunch ready in a jiffy."I led Don over to the little green belt of meadow between the trees and the sand of the beach, unbuckled the reins and made him fast to a stout birch.He bent his head and began to pull big mouthfuls of the rich grass.He, too, was evidently glad to accept my invitation.
When I returned to my camping ground I found the basket unpacked and the young lady arranging the eatables.
"You shouldn't have done that," I said."I am the host here."She did not look up."Don't bother the table maid," she observed, briskly."That fire is not kindled yet."I lit the fire and, going over to the bushes, selected two of the fish, a bass and a pickerel.I carried them down to the shore of the pond and began cleaning them, using my jacknife and a flat stone.I was nearing the end of the operation when she came over to watch.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked."You are not going to cook them--now--are you?""I am going to try," I replied.
"But how? You haven't anything to cook them in.""I don't need it.You don't appreciate the conveniences of this hotel, Miss Colton.There! now we're ready."I rose, washed my hands in the pond, and picked up two other flat stones, large ones, which I had previously put aside.These Icarried to the fire and, raking aside the burning logs with a stick, laid the stones in a bed of hot coals.
"Those are our frying pans," I informed her."When they are hot enough they will cook the fish.At least, I hope they will.Now for the coffee."But she waved me aside."The coffee is my affair," she said."Iinsist upon making the coffee.Oh, you need not look at me like that.I am not altogether useless.I studied Domestic Science--a little--in my prep school course.As much as I studied anything else," laughingly.
"But--"
"Mr.Paine, I am not on horseback now and you can't hold my bridle as you did Don's.If you will fill the coffee pot and put it on to boil.Thank you.I am glad to see that even you obey orders, sometimes."I had cooked fish in out-of-door fashion often before, but I am quite sure I never took such pains as I did with these.They were not culinary triumphs, even at that, but my guest was kind enough to pronounce them delicious.The lunch basket contained two plates, but only one knife and fork.These I insisted upon her using and I got on very well with sharpened sticks and a spoon.
The coffee was--well, it had one qualification, strength.
We conversed but little during the meal.The young lady said she was too hungry to talk and I was so confounded with the strangeness of the whole affair that I was glad to be silent.Sitting opposite me, eating Dorinda's doughnuts and apple puffs and the fish that I--_I_ had cooked, was "Big Jim" Colton's daughter, the automobile girl, the heiress, the "incarnation of snobbery," the young lady whose father I had bidden go to the devil and to whom, in company with the rest of the family, I had many times mentally extended the same invitation.And now we were picnicing together as if we were friends of long standing.Why, Nellie Dean could not appear more unpretentious and unconscious of social differences than this girl to-day! What would her parents say if they saw us like this? What would Captain Jed, and the rest of those in rebellion against the Emperor of New York, say? That I was a traitor, hand and glove with the enemy.Well, I was not; and I did not intend to be.But for her to--She interrupted my meditations.
"Mr.Paine," she observed, suddenly, "you will excuse my mentioning it, but you are distinctly not entertaining.You have not spoken a word for five minutes.And you are not attending to my needs.The apple puffs are on your side of the--table."I hastened to pass the paper containing the puffs.
"I beg your pardon," I said, hurriedly."I--I was daydreaming, Iguess."
"So I imagined.I forgive you; this lunch would tempt me to forgive greater sins than yours.Did that delightful old housekeeper of yours cook all these nice things?""She did.So you think Dorinda delightful, do you?""Yes.She is so sincere and good-hearted.And so odd and bright and funny.I could listen to her for hours.""Humph! Well, if you were a member of her household you would have that privilege often.I doubt if her husband considers it such a privilege.""Her husband? Oh, yes! I met him.He is a character, too, isn't he?""Yes; a weak one."
She put down her coffee cup and sighed, contentedly.
"I think I never tasted anything so good as this lunch," she observed."And I'm quite sure I never ate so much at one sitting.
I am going to help you clear away, but please don't ask me to do it just now.Have you finished? You may smoke, if you like."I had been longing for a smoke and now I filled my pipe and lighted it.
