Lydia of the Pines Part 67

They opened the kitchen door and stepped in. Pa Norton was sitting in his stocking feet, reading the evening paper. Ma was putting away the day's baking. She paused with a loaf of bread in her hand as the two came in and Pa looked over his gla.s.ses.

"Mother and Dad," said Billy, uncertainly, "I--I've brought Lydia home to you! Look at her, Dad! Isn't she a peach!"

Lydia stood with her back against the door, cheeks scarlet, golden head held high, but her lips quivering.

Ma dropped her loaf of bread. "Oh, Lydia," she cried, "I thought that numskull of a Billy never would see daylight! I've prayed for this for years. Come straight over here to your mother, love."

But Pa Norton had dropped his paper when Ma dropped her bread and had not paused for comments. He made three strides to Lydia, and gave her a great hug and a kiss. Then he said, "First time I saw you carrying that milk for Billy's books, I said, there's the wife Billy ought to have. Ma, wasn't she the dearest--"

But Ma shoved him aside contemptuously. "Get over and talk to Billy.

This is a woman's affair. Who cares about reminiscences now. Oh, Billy, do you remember I used to worry because she didn't keep the back of her neck clean!"

"Who's reminiscencing now?" asked Pa belligerently.

Everybody laughed. Then Pa sighed. "Well, I feel almost reconciled now to Bill's giving up farming. When're you going to be married?"

Lydia blushed. "Oh, not for a long time. Now, let's go and tell my people, Billy."

Out in the night again! Curious how long the short walk to the cottage could be made! Curious how near the stars were--heaven just over the road where the lovers strolled. Not strange that such ecstasy cannot last forever. The human mind could not bear that heaven-born rapture too long.

Lizzie was mending. Amos was sitting in his arm chair, with a bit of paper on which he was figuring. Lydia flew across the room and dropped on her knees beside him.

"Oh, Daddy dear, look at me! Billy's here and he's always going to be here. Tell us you're glad."

Amos looked up with a jerk. First at Billy standing stalwart and grave by the table, his deep eyes as steady as the hand he held out to Lizzie. Then at his daughter, with her transformed face.

"But," protested Amos, "I thought it was to be Kent."

"Oh, it couldn't have been Kent," exclaimed Lydia. "We never would have understood each other. Kent was for Margery."

A frown gathered on Amos' face. He did not really want Lydia to marry any one. All that had reconciled him to the thought of Kent had been Kent's relation to the Indian lands. And now, he discovered that he didn't want to give his daughter to any one. He threw a jealous arm about her.

"No, you can't have her, Billy," he said. "n.o.body shall have her.

She's too good for the best man living."

"Yes, she is," agreed Billy. "But that isn't the point. The point is that Lydia actually wants me. I don't understand it myself, but she does and I know I can make her happy."

"I can make her happy myself," said Amos, gruffly.

"But you haven't," retorted Billy. "Look at the way you've acted about this land matter. And G.o.d knows, she deserves to be happy at any cost.

Good heavens, when I think of her, it seems to me that nothing could be too much for her. I think of her trudging those miles in her patched old clothes to buy her school books--what a thin, big-eyed kiddie she was. Why, even as a cub, I used to appreciate her. And then when she stood up before the hearing, the bravest man among us, and when she got sick trying to earn those silly Prom clothes---- My G.o.d, Amos, if Lydia wants me, or the moon, or a town lot in South Africa, it's up to you to give it to her."

Amos did not reply for a moment. Down through the years he was watching a thin little figure trudge with such patience and sweetness and determination as he seemed never before to have appreciated.

Slowly his hold loosened on Lydia's shoulders and he looked into her face.

"Do you want to marry Billy?" he asked.

"Oh, Daddy, yes," whispered Lydia.

Amos looked up at the young man, who stood returning his gaze. "Take her, Billy, and heaven help you if you're not good to her, for John Levine's spirit will haunt you with a curse."

Billy raised Lydia to her feet and the extraordinary smile was on his face.

"What do you think about it, Lizzie?" he asked. Lizzie, who had been crying comfortably, wiped her eyes with the sock she was darning.

"I'm thinking that any one that can bring the look to Lydia's face she's been wearing for twenty-four hours, deserves her. Rheumatism or no, down I get on my old knees to-night and give thanks--just for the look in that child's eyes."

And now for a while, Lydia was content to live absolutely in the present, as was Billy. Surely there never was such an April. And surely no April ever melted so softly into so glorious a May. Apple blossoms, lilac blooms, violets and wind flowers and through them, Lydia in her scholar's gown, hanging to Billy's arm, after the day's work was done.

She seemed singularly uninterested in the preparations for Commencement, though she went through her final examinations with credit. But the week before Commencement she came home one afternoon with blazing cheeks. Billy was at the cottage for supper and when they had begun the meal, she exploded her bomb.

"Dad! Billy! Lizzie! They've elected me a member of the Scholars'

Club!"

"For the love of heaven!" exclaimed Amos, dropping his fork.

"Why not?" asked Lizzie.

"Lydia, dear, but I'm proud of you," breathed Billy.

"Professor Willis told me, this afternoon," Lydia went on, "and I laughed at him at first. I thought he was teasing me. Why only high-brows belong to the Scholars' Club! Prexy belongs and the best of the professors and only a few of the post-graduate pupils. But he says I was elected. I told him lots of students had higher standings than I, and he only laughed and said he knew it. And I've got to go to that banquet of theirs next week!"

"Fine!" said Billy.

"Fine! Why, Billy Norton, I never went to a banquet in my life. I don't know what forks to use, and I _never saw a finger bowl_!"

Amos grinned. "What's the use of being a scholar, if that sort of thing bothers you?"

"I might get a book on etiquette and polish up," said Lydia, thoughtfully. "I'll get one to-morrow, and practise on the family."

Amos groaned, but to no avail. Lydia borrowed a book on etiquette from the library and for a week Amos ate his supper with an array of silver and kitchen-ware before him that took his appet.i.te away. He rebelled utterly at using the finger bowls, which at breakfast were porridge dishes. Lizzie, however, was apt and read the book so diligently while Lydia was in cla.s.s that she was able to correct Lydia as well as Amos at night.

Ma Norton had insisted on making Lydia a white mull graduation dress.

She would not let either Lizzie or Lydia help her. She had been daughter-hungry all her life and since she made her own wedding gown, no bit of sewing had given her the satisfaction that this did.

So it was that Lydia, wearing the mull under her scholar's gown, and with the precepts of the book on etiquette in her mind, attended the Scholars' banquet, timidly but not with the self-consciousness that she might otherwise have felt.

Billy left her at the door of the hall and Professor Willis took her in to dinner. There were only two other women there, but Lydia did not mind.

"You never told me," said Willis, after Lydia had safely chosen her salad fork, "what you've done about the three hundred and twenty acres."

Lydia looked up at him quickly. She had been dreading this moment for some time.

"I'm going to give up John Levine's claim on it, and enter on it as a homesteader."

"But what an undertaking!" exclaimed Willis.

"I'll not go alone," said Lydia gently. "Billy Norton will go with me."