Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 5

"He will not, Uncle Jim."

"Bet you a pound of bonbons, Leila."

"From town?"

"Yes."

"All right."

"Can he coast? I did not ask you."

"Well! pretty well," said Leila. For some unknown reason she was unwilling to say more.

"Doesn't the rector dine here, to-day, Leila?"

"Yes, but-oh! Uncle Jim, we found a big hornets' nest yesterday on the log cabin. They seemed all asleep. I told John we would fight them in the spring."

"And what did he say?"

"He said: 'Did they sting?'-I said: 'That was the fun of it!'"

"Better not tell your aunt."

"No, sir. I'm an obedient little girl."

"You little scamp! You were meant to be a boy. Is there anything you are afraid of?"

"Yes, algebra."

"Oh! get out," and she fled.

At dinner John said no word of the skating, to the satisfaction of Leila who conveyed to her uncle a gratified sense of victory by some of the signs which were their private property.

Leaving the cousins to their game of chess, Penhallow followed his wife and Mark Rivers into his library. "Well, Mark," he said, "you have had this boy long enough to judge; it is time I heard what you think of him. You asked me to wait. The youngster is rather reticent, and Leila is about the only person in the house who really knows much about him. He talks like a man of thirty."

"I do not find him reticent," remarked Mrs. Ann, "and his manners are charming-I wish Leila's were half as good."

"Well, let's hear about him."

"May I smoke?" asked the rector.

"Anywhere but in my drawing-room. I believe James would like to smoke in church."

"It might have its consolations," returned Penhallow.

"Thanks," said Rivers smiling. Neither man took advantage of her unusual permission. "But you, Squire, have been closer than I to this interesting boy. What do you make of him?"

"He can't ride-he hardly knows a horse from a mule."

"That's not his fault," said Mrs. Penhallow, "he's afraid of horses."

"Afraid!" said her husband. "By George! afraid of horses."

"He speaks French perfectly," said Mark Rivers.

"He can't swim. I got that out of Leila. I understand he tried it once and gave it up."

"But his mother made him, James. You know Susan. She was as timid as a house-fly for herself, and I suppose for him."

"I asked him," said Rivers, "if he knew any Latin. He answered me in Latin and told me that at Budapest where he was long at school the boys had to speak Latin."

"And the rest, Rivers. Is he well up in mathematics?"

"No, he finds that difficult. But, upon my word, Squire, he is the most doggedly persistent fellow I have ever had to teach and I handled many boys when I was younger. I can take care of my side of the boy."

"He can skate, James," said Mrs. Ann.

"Yes, so I hear. I suppose that under Leila's care and a good out-of-door life he will drop his girl-ways-but-"

"But what, James?"

"Oh! he has been taught that there is no shame in failure, no disgrace in being afraid."

"How do you know he is afraid, my dear James?"

"Oh! I know." Leila's unwillingness to talk had given him some suspicion of the truth. "Well, we shall see. He needs some rough boy-company. I don't like to have the village boys alone with Leila, but when she has John with her it may be as well to ask Dr. McGregor's son Tom to coast and play with them."

"He has no manners," said Mrs. Penhallow.

"Then he may get some from John. He never will from Leila. I will take care of the rest, Rivers. He has got to learn to ride."

"You won't be too hard on him, James?" said his wife.

"Not unless he needs it. Let us drop him."

"Have you seen yesterday's papers?" asked Rivers. "Our politics, North and South, look to me stormy."

Penhallow shook his head at the tall rector. The angry strife of sections and parties was the one matter he never discussed with Ann Penhallow. The rector recalled it as he saw Mrs. Ann sit up and drop on her lap the garment upon which her ever industrious hands were busy. Accepting Penhallow's hint, Rivers said quickly, "But really there is nothing new," and then, "Tom McGregor will certainly be the better for our little gentleman's good manners, and he too has something to learn of Tom."

"I should say he has," said Penhallow.

"A little dose of West Point, I suppose," laughed Mrs. Ann. "It is my husband's one ideal of education."

"It must once, I fancy, have satisfied Ann Grey," retorted the Squire smiling.

"I reserve any later opinion of James Penhallow," she said laughing, and gathering up her sewing bag left them, declaring that now they might smoke. The two men rose, and when alone began at once to talk of the coming election in the fall of 1856 and the endless troubles arising out of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The boy who had been the subject of their conversation was slowly becoming used to novel surroundings and the influence they exerted. Ann talked to him at times of his mother, but he had the disinclination to speak of the dead which most children have, and had in some ways been kept so much of a child as to astonish his aunt. Neither Leila nor any one could have failed to like him and his gentle ways, and as between him and the village boys she knew Leila preferred this clever, if too timid, cousin. So far they had had no serious quarrels. When she rode with the Squire, John wandered in the woods, enjoying solitude, and having some appreciative relation to nature, the great pine woods, the strange noises of the breaking ice in the river, the sunset skies.