Otherwise Phyllis Part 8

Uncle Amy got a good first crop this year from his young orchard. But he had a man spray the bugs off. There are a lot of things to do to an orchard. The land Uncle Amy turned into an orchard runs right up to your place, and it must be the same kind of land. But it isn't as easy as it looks--apples isn't."

"Apples isn't?" he repeated soberly.

"Oh, cheer up, that's a joke! I know apples _aren't_!"

The young man smiled.

"Mine _isn't_, I'm afraid, from what you say about them."

"I think maybe that speck isn't a wormhole, after all," said Phil, subjecting the apple she still held to another scrutiny. "You might give us a half a bushel of these. My ambitions lead me toward apple pie, and if it doesn't come out well I can blame your apples."

He smiled again, and frank admiration shone in his eyes as they surveyed Phil with more a.s.surance.

"If you really want some of these I'll bring them in. Half a bushel?"

"That will be enough," replied Phil succinctly. She rubbed the apple with the corner of her blue-and-white ap.r.o.n, chose a spot that inspired confidence, and bit into it. She waited for the effect absently and puckered her lips. "It's a cooker. What's the name of the brand?"

"Give it up."

"Then I'll tell you. It's a 'Liza Browning. You'd better learn the names of apples before you go much further in the business. Any farmhand can tell you. Uncle Amy's taught me about twenty. What's the price of this precious fruit?"

"Oh, I couldn't charge you for these, you know. You see--"

"Then I won't take them--nary an apple! You bring in those apples and I'll pay you just the same price you ask everybody else."

Her attention was attracted by a black cat moving along the alley fence with n.o.ble unconcern. Phil stepped out upon the brick walk, drew back her arm and threw the apple. It struck the fence immediately beneath the cat, which vanished on the alley side.

"Good shot. You almost got him!"

"Almost nothing!" said Phil scornfully. "You didn't suppose I wanted to hit the wretch, did you? He's an old pal of mine and would be lonesome if I didn't scare him to death occasionally."

Holton brought the apples in a sack which he emptied into a basket Phil found for the purpose. His absence had been prolonged. To measure half a bushel of apples is not ordinarily a serious matter, but in this instance the vendor chose fastidiously. The fruit that went into the sack was beyond question the best in the wagon.

"How much?" asked Phil, surveying her purchase, purse in hand.

"Oh, about a quarter."

She handed him a fifty cent piece.

"Please don't try that again--not here! I've been telephoning the grocery and apples about like those are a dollar a bushel.

Good-morning!"

"Good-morning, Miss Kirkwood."

He looked at her intently, laughed, threw the sack over his shoulder and went out, holding the coin in his hand.

CHAPTER V

THE OTHERWISENESS OF PHYLLIS

Hint to those who read with an eye on the clock: skip this chapter! It is made up from notes furnished by Mrs. John Newman King, Judge Walters, Captain Joshua Wilson, the veteran recorder, former-Sheriff Whittlesey and others, and is included merely to satisfy those citizens of Montgomery who think this entire history should be devoted to Phil, to the exclusion of her friends and relations. The historian hopes he is an open-minded person, and he would rather please Montgomery than any other center of thought and industry he knows; but the laws of proportion (as Phil would be the first to point out) may not lightly be ignored. Phil's otherwiseness was always difficult to keep in bounds; it must not tyrannize these pages. Skip and carry thirteen, but don't complain if pilgrims from Montgomery take you to task for denying Phil five minutes of your time.

Phil was on her way to Buckeye Lane the first cold day in November to call on the daughter of a newly enrolled member of the Madison faculty when she saw her Uncle Amzi on the bank steps taking the air. She had on her best walking-suit, and swung a silver cardcase in her hand. The cardcase marked an advance. Formal calls were not to Phil's taste, but her aunts had lately been endeavoring to persuade her that it was no longer seemly for her to "drop in" when and where she pleased, but that there were certain calls of duty and ceremony which required her best togs and the leaving of circ.u.mspect bits of cardboard inscribed "Miss Kirkwood." When Phil set forth to call upon a girl friend it was still something of a question whether caller and callee would sit in the parlor and be ladies or seek the open to crack walnuts on the kitchen steps or slide down the cellar door.

As Phil spied her uncle she stopped abruptly, feigned to be looking at the sign over his head, and when his gla.s.ses presently focused upon her, pretended suddenly to be intent upon the face of the court-house clock two blocks distant.

"Beg pardon, sir, but is this a bank?"

Thus accosted Mr. Montgomery looked upon his niece with exaggerated surprise.

"A bank, little girl? What on earth do you want with a bank?"

"I thought I might separate it from some of its cash; or if the terms are satisfactory I might leave some money. If the venerable old party I address holds a job inside we might withdraw from the public gaze and commune within the portals. The day is raw and that ice-cream suit invites pneumonia."

Pa.s.sers-by viewed the pair with an amused smile. Captain Wilson, stumping along at the moment, asked without pausing:--

"Stranger in town, Amzi?"

"Yes, Cap; she's just bought the town and wants the key to the bank vault."

Phil followed her uncle into the bank and waited for him to walk round behind the cages. The dingy old room with its walnut counter and desks seemed at once a brighter place. The four clerks made it convenient to expose themselves to Phil's smile. She planted herself at the paying teller's cage and waited for Amzi's benevolent countenance to appear at the wicket. She held up her cardcase that he might have the full benefit of her splendor, extracted a small bit of paper, and pa.s.sed it in to him. Seeing that it was not one of the familiar checks of the Montgomery Bank, he scrutinized it closely. It was a check of the "Journey's End"

Magazine Company for fifty dollars, drawn upon a New York bank and payable to Phyllis Kirkwood.

Amzi's face expressed no surprise. He threw it back and waved her away.

"It's no good. Worthless!"

"No good? You don't mean--"

"No good, Miss Kirkwood--without your indors.e.m.e.nt."

"Why didn't you say so! I don't want to come as near sudden death as that again."

He thrust out a pen so that she need not turn to the tall desk behind her to make the indors.e.m.e.nt. He examined the signature carefully and blotted it.

"One of your own efforts, Phil?" he asked carelessly.

"Well, yes, you might say so. I suppose you'd call it that."

"Poetry?"

"A poor guess, Amy, and marks you as an ignorant person. Fifty dollars for a poem out of my green little cantaloupe? That's half what Milton got for 'Paradise Lost.' And the prices haven't gone up much since John died."

She knew that his curiosity was aroused. This play of indifference was an old game of theirs, a part of the teasing to which she subjected him and which he encouraged.