The Iron Game Part 22

"Did you call some one, Miss Atterbury?" he said, with chilling dignity.

Usually he called her plain Rosa.

"I thought may be you had the toothache--you kept so quiet."

"No; I haven't got the toothache." Poor d.i.c.k! He said, to himself, that he had much worse. But he wouldn't gratify her with the acknowledgment of her triumph, and he stalked along with the basket over his head, as he had often seen the darkeys in the sun. There was a faint little appealing cry from behind.

"Oh--oh--dear!"

"What is it; are you hurt?" he cried, rus.h.i.+ng to where Rosa stood, balanced on one foot.

"There is a crab thorn an inch long in my foot; it's gone through shoe and all. That wretched Sardanapalus never clears the limbs away when he cuts the hedge. I'll have him horsewhipped. Oh, dear!"

"Let me hold you while I look for the thorn."

d.i.c.k cleverly slipped his arm about her waist and set the basket endwise for her to sit on. Then kneeling, he picked out the thorn, which was a great deal less than the dimensions Rosa had described. But he said nothing to her about picking the torment out and slipping it in his vest pocket. He held the foot, examining the sole critically. Finally, as she moved impatiently, he asked:

"Does it hurt yet?"

"Of course it does, you stupid fellow. Do you suppose I would sit here like a goose on a gridiron and let you hold my foot if it didn't hurt?

Men never have any sense when they ought to."

He affected to examine the sole of the thin leather of the upper still more minutely. As she gave no sign of ending the comedy, he said:

"I'm sure, Rosa, if it relieves the pain to have me hold your foot, I'll sit here in the sun all day--if you'll bring the rim of your hat over a little--but, as for the thorn, it has been out this ten minutes."

She gave him a sudden push and darted away. He followed laughing, admonis.h.i.+ng her against another thorn. But she deigned no answer. Coming to the bee-hives, she stopped a moment to watch the busy swarm, and d.i.c.k stole up beside her. She turned pettishly, and he said, insinuatingly:

"Toothache?"

"You know, d.i.c.k, you're too trying for anything--holding my foot there like a ninny in the hot sun. You haven't a thimbleful of sense."

"Well, now we'll test these propositions, as Jack does, by syllogisms.

Let me see. All men are trying. d.i.c.k Perley is a man: therefore he is trying."

"No; your premise--isn't that what you call it?--is wrong. d.i.c.k Perley is only a boy."

"I'll be nineteen in January next."

"Well?"

"Well, your father was married at nineteen. You've said it yourself, Rosa, and thought it greatly to his credit--at least Vint does."

"You can't imitate my father in that, at least."

"I might."

"How?"

"You could help me, Rosa."

"How?"

"Would you if you could?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On the girl."

"Ah! she's a perfect girl, but she's very young," and d.i.c.k eyed Rosa with ineffable complacency.

"That's bad."

"But she's older than she looks."

"That's worse; you'd grow tired of her."

"No, no; I don't mean she's older than she looks; her mind is older than her looks."

"Women with minds make troublesome wives. I have refused to let Vincent marry several of that kind."

"But, my girl hasn't got that kind of mind; it is all sweetness and wit and gayety and loveliness and--and--"

"Your girl? Who gave her to you?"

"Love gave her to me."

"Oh, well, since love gave her to you, I don't see how I can be of any service. Down here the mother always gives the girl, unless she have no mother; then some other kin gives her. But if your girl has all these qualities you describe, I advise you to get her into your own keeping just as soon as you can, for that's the sort of girl all the fellows about here are seeking."

"Very well, I'm ready. Will you help me? It comes back where we started."

"But you evaded my question."

"What question did I evade? I answered like an encyclopedia!" d.i.c.k cried, immensely satisfied with his own readiness.

"That convicts you; an encyclopedia has nothing about living people."

"Oh, yes; the new ones do." d.i.c.k was now very near her as she stood contemplating the bees, swarming in the comb. "O Rosa--Rosa, you know I love you, and you know I can never love anybody else. Why will you pretend not to understand me? I don't want you to marry me now, but by and by, when I shall have made a name as a soldier, or--or something,"

he added in painful turbulence of joy and fear over the great words--which he had been racking his small wits to fas.h.i.+on for weeks past, and, now that they were spoken, were not nearly so impressive as he had intended they should be.

"My dear Richard, you are a perfect boy--a very delightful boy, too, and I am extremely fond of you--oh, very, very fond of you--but you really must not make love to me. It isn't proper," and Rosa glanced into his eyes with a tender little gleam, that gave more encouragement than rebuff--for it came into her mind, in a moment, that it was not a time to hurt the bright, eager love--so winning, if boyish.

"Nonsense, Rosa, it is perfectly proper; everybody makes love to you; Jack makes love to you, and he is as good as engaged--" But here it suddenly flashed in d.i.c.k's mad head that he was meddling, and he stopped short. Rosa had turned upon him with a flash of such scorn, such indignant pain, that he cried:

"No, no; I don't mean that; but you know fellows do make love to you, and why mayn't I?"

She flirted away from him too angry or mortified to speak. He could not see her face, for she pulled the ample breadth of the hat-brim down, which served at once as a veil to shut out her visage and a sweeping sort of funnel to keep him far from her side, as she tripped determinedly to the pleasant group of clean, whitewashed cabins, where the negroes abode. Poor d.i.c.k, vexed with himself--angry at her for being irritated-waited in the hot sun until she had ended her commands, and when she came out to return he repentantly sidled up, imploring pardon in every movement. She couldn't resist the big, pleading blue eyes, and said, quite as if there had been deep discussion on the point: