Sunlight Patch Part 23

The morning had worn on without a bell for recess. The room had become restive, and now Jane realized that the youngest of the Owsleys was l.u.s.tily bawling. She glanced at the little watch in her belt, crying: "Heavens!" Then dashed toward the door to rescue her neglected charges; leaving Nancy under the trees to patch up the interrupted dream.

CHAPTER XVII

AT TOP SPEED

Brent had at one time promised Dale to take him out on the survey. This promise had been made in an unguarded moment--or, at least, without a suspicion that the mountaineer would keep so tenaciously after him until it was fulfilled. Now, with school closed the day before, he felt that the evil hour could no longer be postponed. He had no objection to Dale, or having him along on the work, if he would only take some recesses in his interminable string of questions. But this impetuous student, whose soul craved the heights of Lincoln and Clay, took no recesses.

Petulantly Brent had carried his woe to the Colonel, but, instead of sympathy, he found the old gentleman radiant;--declaring Dale would become so utterly absorbed in learning the secrets of this science, that the engineer would find himself being led out by the ears each morning at sunrise.

"The road is just as good as built," he had cried, "if you have along Dale's example of application!" Which comforted Brent not at all.

So this very morning the Colonel was astir long before breakfast, sharing in a measure the mountaineer's excitement. Anything, he had jovially averred, which inspired Brent to work, was worth getting up early to see.

"Don't stay out too long," he had counseled. "My Commencement dinner is tonight!"

Standing on the terrace he watched them trudge off toward the k.n.o.bs, followed by five darkies carrying the lunch, axes, poles and transit. He noted, also--just as upon that day when Bob first took Dale to Flat Rock--that the mountaineer was forging ahead, and that his companion was evidently cautioning less speed.

"A little bit of that will put the road through," he chuckled.

They were crossing a pasture luxuriant with bluegra.s.s where Lucy had been pensioned to while away in comfort her declining years; and now a more tender light came into the old gentleman's face. For he saw her head go up while yet a great way off from them, and saw her intently looking. He knew what difficulty, and with what yearning, she was urging her clouded eyes to do their best; and he guessed the exultation gradually creeping through her frame as she began to realize that Dale was near. Suddenly, as fast as age would permit, she broke into an awkward gallop, furiously whinnying, excitedly calling out her delight.

Overtaking her master, who had not been once to see her in all these days, she thrust her muzzle across his shoulder to be petted, as of yore--and this deeply affected the Colonel. But the next instant he stiffened as a man of iron, for the mountaineer, furious at the interference, had struck her cruelly across the face. In utter dejection now she stood, looking after him as he strode away.

"Did you see dat?" Uncle Zack cried, and not till then did the Colonel know he was nearby.

"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair, Zack! Take her out four quarts of oats!"

"I don' see whar she's gwine put 'em, wid all dat gra.s.s inside her," he laughed. "If she wuz a man, I'd a-tucken her a toddy 'foh now to cheer her ole heart! But only de likes of me an' you kin eat ice-cream an' poh down hot coffee, an' pickle 'em wid licker an' not git ourse'ves kilt--ain' dat right, Ma.r.s.e John? Hawses an' dawgs an' cows an' sich, cyarn' put de stuff in dey stumicks dat we kin. It takes a suah-nuff man to do dat!"

The old gentleman was not listening. To his surprise he now saw Brent quickly make up the intervening s.p.a.ce, grasp Dale by the shoulder and spin him around with every evidence of tremendous anger, then shake his fist in the mountaineer's face as though he were emphasizing a speech.

To the Colonel's further astonishment he then saw Dale walk meekly back to the mare, put out his hand, and for several moments stroke her nose.

"An' did you see dat?" Uncle Zack yelled in high glee.

"I wouldn't have missed it for a million," the old gentleman cried.

"Mebbe she don' need no oats now! But I reckon she'd better have 'em, wid yoh com'liments, jest de same!"

"I wish Jane could have seen it," the Colonel murmured, keeping his eyes on them.

"Dar ain' no reason why she cyarn' be tol' 'bout it," Zack winked to himself, starting to the stables for a full measure of oats.

At the Colonel's request she came over early in the afternoon to see to the decorations for his table, and brought a bag with the idea of dressing there. While carrying this into the house Zack graphically made known the drama in the pasture--which may or may not have been the reason why, an hour later as she moved about the flowers, the old gentleman several times wondered why he had never before remarked the beauty of her voice.

This dinner was a new inst.i.tution at Arden. It came into existence with the opening day of school, when the old gentleman announced his intention of entertaining after each commencement for the girl who had made the greatest progress. When Jane told him a week ago that Nancy was to be his guest of honor, he had received the news as though she were a princess. However he might have flinched inside, no suspicion of it reached as far as his eyes or face. That very night other guests were appropriately selected from the neighborhood, and the invitations sent forthwith.

The sun hung low in the sky when the surveyors returned. Dale, as might have been expected, came leading, and dashed up the steps with scarcely a nod to the Colonel who sat amusedly looking on. He impetuously entered the library, searched feverishly along the shelves for a text book on surveying that he had previously seen, jerked it out and began to scan its pages. Brent, on the other hand, was dragging himself along, groaning wearily. When he reached the porch he flopped into a chair and again groaned.

"Uncle Zack, you'll have to bring my dinner up stairs. I can't dress, or anything!"

"Why, sir," the Colonel turned in alarm, "what has happened?"

"Everything's happened," Brent groaned. "That b.o.o.b in there walked my legs off, and talked my head off, and I'm all in! Gee!--push my foot out a little farther, Uncle Zack! Oh, Lord! Can't somebody catch somebody's eye? The seven-year drought of Egypt's in my throat!"

The Colonel began to laugh, while Zack, highly elated, said:

"Dat wuz a plague, Ma.r.s.e Brent!"

"Well, don't I know it?" he looked pitifully up at him.

"Naw, sah," Zack laughed again. "I mean de 'Gyptians didn' have no drought; dey had de plague dem seben yeahs! I 'member dat story!"

"Zack, this isn't any time to split hairs over what the Egyptians had.

Come out of the ages, and focus your mind on what I've got!"

The old fellow disappeared with a chuckle, still audible after reaching the dining-room. The Colonel, too, was chuckling.

"It's all right to laugh, Colonel, and make everybody hate you, but I'll bet we walked forty miles! From the very moment that human engine cranked himself up this morning, he's been pressing the accelerator with spark advanced every second of the time. Don't think I'm crazy, but gas engine terms are the only ones to describe him. The next time he and I go on that survey, I go alone--which accounts for the Mac in McElroy,"

he added with a grin.

"Never mind," the old gentleman said, "you'll feel better in a few minutes."

"That's just the trouble," Brent complained. "If I hadn't lapped up so much of your delectable nose-paint, that hayseed couldn't have walked me to death. I'm as good a man as he is any day--when in condition!"

Jane, standing within the hall, heard this, and at once perceived the great dawning hope which chance had suddenly thrust before her. It was a hope for the railroad, for her people. Pa.s.sing into the library she looked over Dale's shoulder, took the book from his hand, and smiled at it.

"You can't make anything out of this, yet," she said. "If you want to build railroads yourself some time, what you need now is actual experience; and you can get it if you persist."

"How?" he asked eagerly.

"Make Brent go out every day till the work is done--then I've a plan for you."

"What?" he was growing very much excited.

"Sh," she laughed. "I'll tell you some other time. Now go up and dress; dinner will be ready in half an hour."

As he sprang to obey, a glance at his determined jaw, the enthusiasm of his stride, told her that Brent might not henceforth have such an idle time of it. His voice came in to her now.

"----and he threw all the lunch away," he was telling the Colonel, "because he said we didn't have time to eat it. I wanted to kill him; and would, if it hadn't struck me as being so darned funny! But I will say that we did more than I've ever seen done in a day--even with a trained party! What's more, we can save three miles. Dale did that, too!"

"This is encouraging, sir!" the old gentleman cried.

"It's more than that, Colonel--it's a find! Entirely disregarding the fact that I'd made a reconnaissance, he dragged me about like a toy, and finally, blest if he didn't scoot into a natural tunnel. I knew it was there, too, but never thought of following it up! We can go through it without turning a shovel of earth or shooting a stone. It not only saves the three miles I spoke of, but a terrible amount of cutting, and doesn't add a fraction to our ruling grade; bringing us out--I'll tell you where it brings us out! You know a place, about three hundred feet under a bold spur sticking to the north face of Snarly?--where a stream boils down into a sort of cave and disappears?"

"Oh, yes. That is our natural freak around this country--that and your tunnel! I know them well!"