Lost Farm Camp Part 18

"Yes; but wire is shorter-easier to say."

"Is thet why you said it?"

"Not exactly. But why?"

"Oh, nothin'; only when Pop had a cold and I said to you he could sca'cely talk 'cause he had frost in his pipes, you said it was wrong to say thet, and to say 'my father has a sore throat.' Ain't 'frost in your pipes' quicker than sayin' 'my father has a sore throat'?"

She looked up from Smoke as David laughed, her gravely smiling lips vivid in contrast with the clear, healthy brown of her rounded young cheek.

He gazed at her a moment, and the pert, shabbily-clad Swickey of a year ago returned his gaze for a fleeting instant. Then a new Swickey, with full, brown eyes and the rich coloring of abundant health, pushed back the frayed cap from her smooth, girlish forehead, and laughed, laughed with the buoyant melody of youth and happiness.

"You're actually pretty, Swickey."

She grasped the import of his words with a slow realization of the compliment, perhaps the first that had ever been paid her, and a sudden consciousness of self overwhelmed her throat and cheek with rus.h.i.+ng color. She pulled her skirt, that Smoke had disarranged, closer about her knees.

"Pop says my mother was pretty-awful pretty. I never seen her, 'cept in her picture. Pop's got it with all gold on the edges of the box and a cover thet goes 'snap' when he shets it."

"Yes," replied David absently.

He was thinking of the pale beauty of another and older girl, a tall, slender woman, whose every feature bespoke ancestral breeding. He could not imagine her as a part of this picture, with its squalid setting, nor even as a part of the splendid vista of glistening spring foliage sprinkled upon the background of the hillside conifers that climbed the height of land opposite. Palms and roses, the heavy warm air of the conservatory, sensuous, soothing, enervating.... Wallie Bas...o...b..s sister ... Elizabeth Bas...o...b.. "Well, it had been a mistake." He shrugged his shoulders. "Bas...o...b..senior will sit up straight when I name our price,"

he muttered. "Strange how this thing has worked out ... and Bessie won't understand...."

Smoke, nuzzling his hand, recalled him to his surroundings. He did not realize that he had been speaking, but Swickey sat with eyes intently fixed on his face.

"I thought-" he began.

"I unhitched the chain when you was talkin' to yourself like Pop does,"

explained Swickey.

David stooped and patted the dog, who jumped from him to Swickey and back again, overjoyed and impartially affectionate.

"Be careful not to let him out alone," said David. "Smoke isn't popular with the men."

"Pop says they'll be"-("There'll be," corrected David)-"there'll be suthin' doin' if any of the crew tetches Smoke!"

"Well, you and I will look after him for a while, Swickey. Then no one will touch him."

Together they walked leisurely toward the cabin, hand in hand, Swickey swinging the empty bowl, all unconscious of Smoke's capering and rus.h.i.+ng in circles round his liberators. He quieted down and trotted silently behind them when his first joy had evaporated. They didn't seem to enter into the spirit of the thing.

David, unlike his usual self in Swickey's presence, was silent to taciturnity. Boston, of which he was thinking, seemed vague and unreal, a place he once knew. His surroundings were the only realities, and now that he was going away they seemed to hold him with a subtle force he could not a.n.a.lyze. Was he really growing fonder of his life here, of Swickey and her father, than he cared to acknowledge?

"'Fraid Dave'd get lost in the long gra.s.s?" said Avery, who stood in the doorway, grinning as they came up.

David stopped and turned toward Swickey. She slowly withdrew her fingers from his.

"I reckon Dave's sick," she replied.

"How sick?" queried her father, with undisguised solicitude.

"Sick of us as don't know nothin'," she answered, her cheeks flaming.

And she pushed past the figure in the doorway and disappeared into her room.

"Wal, sweatin' catfis.h.!.+ What ails the gal? She was puffin' like a hen drawin' rails when she went past me. Huh!"

The old man fumbled in his pocket for tobacco, oblivious to Smoke's appeal for notice. Then the dog trotted quietly after Swickey, who in the sanctuary of her own tiny bedroom was crying her heart out. Smoke was sympathetic from his cold, friendly nose to the tip of his querulous tail, which wagged in an embarra.s.sed way; and he licked her chin at intervals when it was visible, with dumb solicitude for the sorrow of his idol, a sorrow wholly incomprehensible to him, and vague even to Swickey, but more emotionally potent, perhaps, for that very reason.

CHAPTER XIII-DAVID'S "REAL GOOD-BYE"

Dear Davy:-Only a line to say how d'do, and tell you that things are booming here, especially in the office. The pater asks me to say that he, as chairman of a certain committee of inflated gold-bugs, will accept your figure for the entire Lost Farm tract (survey inclosed), provided the figure is anywhere within reason, whatever that means. This is with the understanding that the present tenants vacate on or before June 1st, 19-.

The N. M. & Q. will have their iron laid as far as Tramworth by that time.

I suppose you have become quite a woodsman by this time, but I can't for the life of me see how you can stand it up there in winter; summer is bad enough.

By the way, if it is not too much trouble, you might bring Smoke along when you come out, if you ever do. I've given up hoping you will. Bess seems to think she wants Smoke, although she didn't see him once a month when he was at home.

My ill.u.s.trious father has cooked up a new job for me-I'm a promoter now.

Shake.

Davy, I have a surprise for you when you come; something that will make you sit up and take notice, I'll bet. In the mean time, beware the seductions of Tramworth, and dressmakers in particular. Speaking of Tramworth reminds me of the account I saw of your accident. Congrats, old man, on your ability to dodge bullets. I intended to write sooner, but have been on the jump every minute. Smoke did the Indian up for fair, bless his little heart (I mean Smoke's). But we can talk it over when you arrive. Regards to old Cyclops and the siren child.

Sincerely,

-WALTER E. BAs...o...b..

David tucked the letter into his pocket, and closing the door of his cabin walked over to Avery's camp.

"Pop's down on the dam talkin' to Jim," said Swickey from the doorway.

"All right. I'll jog down and see him." He turned back after a step or two. "Did Jim say he was going back this afternoon?"

"I dunno," replied Swickey listlessly.

He looked at her. She seemed older, more serious than usual. Slowly he realized that she was no longer the child of yesterday, but a girl budding rapidly into womanhood, which seemed natural enough when he remembered what her life had been up to the time he had first met her.

She was virtually doing a woman's work at the camp; had been for a number of years. Then she was of the type that matures rapidly. Outdoor air and exercise had developed her physically, and she had always been of full proportions for her age. The color glowed in her cheeks as he gazed at her.

"Swickey, what's the matter? Have I offended you in any way? You haven't spoken to me since yesterday."

"Nothin'," she replied. "You ain't done nothin'."

"Don't you mean: 'You haven't done anything?'" he asked kindly.

"Nope." She offended deliberately.

"Swickey!" His tone of gentle reproof was new to her. Self-accusation, laboring in her heart, sent a full tide of color to her brows, but she did not speak.