Ramsey Milholland Part 4

When the song was over, cheers were given for the cla.s.s, "the good ole cla.s.s of Nineteen Fourteen," the school, the teachers, and for the picnic, thus officially concluded; and then the picnickers, carrying their baskets and faded wild flowers and other souvenirs and burdens, moved toward the big "express wagons" which were to take them back into the town. Ramsey got his guitar case, and turned to Milla.

"Well--" he said.

"Well what, Ramsey?"

"Well--g'bye."

"Why, no," said Milla. "Anyways not yet. You can go back in the same wagon with me. It's going to stop at the school and let us out there, and then you could walk home with me if you felt like it. You could come all the way to our gate with me, I expect, unless you'd be late home for your supper."

"Well--well, I'd be perfectly willing," Ramsey said. "Only I heard we all had to go back in whatever wagon we came out in, and I didn't come in the same wagon with you, so--"

Milla laughed and leaned toward him a little. "I already 'tended to that," she said confidentially. "I asked Johnnie Fiske, that came out in my wagon, to go back in yours, so that makes room for you."

"Well--then I guess I could do it." He moved toward the wagon with her.

"I expect it don't make much difference one way or the other."

"And you can carry my basket if you want to," she said, adding solicitously, "Unless it's too heavy when you already got your guitar case to carry, Ramsey."

This thoughtfulness of hers almost overcame him; she seemed divine.

He gulped, and emotion made him even pinker than he had been under the mayonnaise.

"I--I'll be glad to carry the basket, too," he faltered. "It-it don't weigh anything much."

"Well, let's hurry, so's we can get places together."

Then, as she manoeuvred him through the little crowd about the wagon, with a soft push this way and a gentle pull that, and hurried him up the improvised steps and found a place where there was room for them to sit, Ramsey had another breathless sensation heretofore unknown to him.

He found himself taken under a dovelike protectors.h.i.+p; a wonderful, inexpressible Being seemed to have become his proprietor.

"Isn't this just perfectly lovely?" she said cozily, close to his ear.

He swallowed, but found no words, for he had no thoughts; he was only an incoherent tumult. This was his first love.

"Isn't it, Ramsey?" she urged. The cozy voice had just the hint of a reproach. "Don't you think it's just perfectly lovely, Ramsey?"

"Yes'm."

Chapter VII

The next morning Ramsey came into his father's room while Mr. Milholland was shaving, an hour before church time, and it became apparent that the son had someting on his mind, though for a while he said nothing.

"Did you want anything, Ramsey?"

"Well--"

"Didn't want to borrow my razors?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Milholland chuckled. "I hardly supposed so, seriously! Shaving is a great nuisance and the longer you keep away from it, the better. And when you do, you let my razors alone, young feller!"

"Yes, sir." (Mr. Milholland's razors were safe, Ramsey had already achieved one of his own, but he practised the art in secret.) He pa.s.sed his hand thoughtfully over his cheeks, and traces of white powder were left upon his fingers, whereupon he wiped his hand surrept.i.tiously, and stood irresolutely waiting.

"What is it you really want, Ramsey?"

"I guess I don't want anything."

"Money?"

"No, sir. You gay' me some Friday."

Mr. Milholland turned from his mirror and looked over the edge of a towel at his son. In the boy's eyes there was such a dumb agony of interrogation that the father was a little startled.

"Why, what is it, Ramsey? Have you--" He paused, frowning and wondering.

"You haven't been getting into some mess you want to tell me about, have you?"

"No, sir."

His tone was meek, but a mute distress lurked within it, bringing to the father's mind disturbing suspicions, and foreshadowings of indignation and of pity. "See here, Ramsey," he said, "if there's anything you want to ask me, or to tell me, you'd better out with it and get it over. Now, what is it?"

"Well--it isn't anything."

"Are you _sure?_"

Ramsey's eyes fell before the severe and piercing gaze of his father.

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Milholland shook his head doubtfully; then, as his son walked slowly out of the room, he turned to complete his toilet in a somewhat uneasy frame of mind. Ramsey had undoubtedly wanted to say something to him and the boy's expression had shown that the matter in question was serious, distressing, and, it might be, even critical.

In fact it was--to Ramsey. Having begun within only the last few hours to regard haberdashery as of vital importance, and believing his father to be possessed of the experience and authority lacking in himself, Ramsey had come to get him to settle a question which had been upsetting him badly, in his own room, since breakfast. What he wanted to know was: Whether it was right to wear an extra handkerchief showing out of the coat breast pocket or not, and, if it was right--ought the handkerchief to have a coloured border or to be plain white? But he had never before brought any such perplexities to his father, and found himself too diffident to set them forth.

However, when he left the house, a few minutes later, he boldly showed an inch of purple border above the pocket; then, as he was himself about to encounter several old lady pedestrians, he blushed and thrust the handkerchief down into deep concealment. Having gone a block farther, he pulled it up again; and so continued to operate this badge of fas.h.i.+on, or unfas.h.i.+on, throughout the morning; and suffered a great deal thereby.

Meantime, his father, rather relieved that Ramsey had not told his secret, whatever it was, dismissed the episode from his mind and joined Mrs. Milholland at the front door, ready for church.

"Where's Ramsey?" he asked.

"He's gone ahead," she answered, b.u.t.toning her gloves as they went along. "I heard the door quite a little while ago. Perhaps he went over to walk down with Charlotte and Vance. Did you notice how neat he looks this morning?"

"Why, no, I didn't; not particularly. Does he?"

"I never saw anything like it before," said Mrs. Milholland. "He went down in the cellar and polished his own shoes."

"What!"