Half a Dozen Girls Part 4

The minute was a short one; for the girls s.n.a.t.c.hed their hats in pa.s.sing through the hall, and quickly surrounded the carriage, in a gay, laughing group. Alan came sauntering down the stairs after them, and stood leaning in the doorway, watching them settle themselves preparatory to starting. Something in the lad's position struck Mrs. Adams, and she beckoned to him.

"Come too, Alan; that is, if you can stand it with so many girls."

"May I? Is there room?"

He ran out to the carriage, then stopped, hesitating, as he saw Polly touch her mother's arm, and shake her head silently.

"I don't believe I'll go," he said, drawing back.

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Adams, in surprise.

"I don't think Polly wants me to," answered the boy frankly. "I don't want to be in the way." And he turned back to the house.

"'Tisn't that, mamma," said Polly, blus.h.i.+ng at being caught. "I'd like to have Alan go, well enough, only I was afraid it would be too much for Job to take so many of us."

"In that case, you might have offered to be the one to give up,"

said her mother, in a low tone, which, though very gentle, still brought a deeper flush to Polly's face. Then she added to Alan, "Nonsense, my boy! You are thin as a rail, and don't weigh anything to speak of. Get in here this minute, and if Job gets tired, I'll make you all walk home."

Alan mounted to the front seat, where he made himself comfortable, with a boyish disregard of Florence's fresh pink gingham gown; Mrs. Adams shook the lines persuasively; Job waked and began to trudge along with an air of sombre patience which would have done credit to the scriptural original of his name.

"I am glad you are all of you used to Job," said Mrs. Adams smilingly, as they moved slowly down the main street and across the railroad track. "He really has been a valuable horse in his day, and there was a time when nothing could go by him,--why, what is the matter?" And she looked around at the girls on the back seat, as they burst into an irreverent laugh.

"Nothing, mamma," said Polly, leaning forward with her elbows on the back of the seat in front of her; "only we thought we'd heard you say something about it before."

"Let's drop them out, if they're so saucy," suggested Alan. "Don't you want me to drive, Mrs. Adams?"

"Thank you, Alan; but I don't dare trust you, when you are no more used to him, for he stumbles so. Go on, Job!" she added, with an inviting chirrup, as she leaned forward and rattled the whip up and down in its socket, to remind Job of its existence.

But Job was familiar with that operation, and from long experience he had learned its lack of significance. Accordingly, he only tilted one ear back towards his mistress, and went on at his former jog.

It was one of the finest days of the summer, one of the days when the season seems to have reached its height and appears to be standing still, for a moment, in the full enjoyment of its own beauty. A shower early in the day had washed away the dust, and every leaf and blossom by the roadside stood up in all the glad pride of its clean face, and turned its eyes disdainfully upward, away from the brown earth below. The girls chattered and laughed while they rode through the town, past the cemetery, where Mrs.

Adams had some difficulty in overcoming Job's desire to turn in, across the long white bridge over the river, and through the quiet little village on its eastern bank. Then they turned southward, where the road lay over the level meadows, now past a great corn- field, now by the side of a piece of gra.s.s land dotted thickly with large yellow daisies. At their right was the broad blue river, s.h.i.+ning like metal in the sun; before them rose the two mountains that watch over the old town, one beautiful in its irregular outlines, the other impressive in its bold dignity. No one who has lived near these hills can ever forget their spell.

Though long years may have pa.s.sed before his return, yet his first glance is always towards the bare, rugged cliffs, the wooded sides, and the white summit houses of these twin guardians of the quiet valley town.

"I believe I am perfectly happy," said Florence, with a sigh of content, as she leaned back and surveyed the meadows.

"I should be, if I could have some of those daisies," said Polly, pointing to a great bunch of them close by.

"Want 'em? All right, here goes!" And before Mrs. Adams could bring Job to a halt, Alan was out over the wheel.

"Don't stop; I can catch up with you," he called. "It's too hard work to get Job under way again."

He was as good as his word; for he hastily pulled up the flowers by the roots, came running after the carriage, and tossed them into Polly's lap.

"There! Now aren't you glad you brought me?" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he scrambled up the back of the carriage, like a monkey, and worked his way along to the front seat again. "You're a daisy, yourself, Alan," answered Polly, leaning out over the wheel to break off the roots. "These are lovely. Want some, girls?"

"It's going to rain to-morrow, I just know," said Molly, disregarding the daisies. "If it does, it will spoil our picnic, and that will be a shame."

"Oh, it won't rain," said Jean. "What makes you think so, Molly?"

"It always does," said Molly wisely, "when the hills look such a lovely dark blue. I heard somebody say so, ever so long ago, and I never knew it to fail."

"I don't believe in signs," remarked Polly vindictively, with her mouth full of daisy stems. "It's all just as it happens, only some people have a sign for everything. For my part, I'll wait till I see the rain coming, before I believe in it."

"That's Polly all over," said Alan. "She won't take anything on trust; she has to see it first."

"How did the reading come on to-day?" inquired Mrs. Adams, leaning back in her seat, and letting Job ramble from side to side of the road, at his will.

"Not very well," said Florence, seeing that none of the others started to reply.

"I hope I didn't break it up," Mrs. Adams answered, as she took out the whip, to brush a fly from Job's plump side.

Alan giggled.

"You needn't be afraid, Mrs. Adams; the girls are glad to get off on any terms."

"I'll tell you how 'tis, Mrs. Adams," said Jean, coming to the rescue, rather to Polly's relief. "You see, it's such warm weather, and the book wasn't real interesting, so we decided to let it go till by and by. Do you think we're very dreadful?" And she laughed up into Mrs. Adams's face, with perfect confidence in her approval.

Mrs. Adams laughed too.

"I didn't really think you would carry out your plan for very long," she said. "Polly takes Aunt Jane's words too seriously. In old times, everybody read 'Pilgrim's Progress,' but it's going out of fas.h.i.+on now, and--Whoa, Job! What are you doing?" she exclaimed, as the carriage tilted to one side so unexpectedly that Florence and Molly screamed a little.

Job, grieved at finding himself ignored and left out of the conversation, had apparently determined to amuse himself in his own way. He had meandered back and forth across the road, as was shown by the serpentine character of his tracks; now, catching sight of a tempting stalk of mullein by the fence, he had walked across the gutter and was just stretching his head forward to seize the coveted morsel, when Mrs. Adams interrupted him. Her first impulse was to draw him back, but kinder feelings prevailed, and she bent forward to give him the full length of the lines, saying indulgently,--

"The mischief is done already, Job, so you may as well have your lunch, for you can't tip us up any farther." And she sat there quite patiently, in spite of her strained position, until Job had devoured the mullein in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on. Then she reined him back into the road, remarking, "It isn't fair for poor Job to do all the work and not have any of the fun, is it?"

"I'll tell you, Mrs. Adams," suggested Alan; "let's all get out and put Job into the carriage, and draw him a mile or two, just to rest him."

"You shan't make fun of Job!" said Polly indignantly. "You didn't like what Jean said to you, and now you go and say, Job is o-l-d and s-l-o-w."

"What in the world do you spell the words for, Poll?" asked Jean.

"I never have been able to make out."

"Why, Job knows what you are saying, as well as anybody, and may be he is sensitive about it," replied Polly, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the girls.

"We might read 'Pilgrim's Progress' to him, then," said Jean wickedly. "Perhaps it would teach him to go ahead, if he knows so much."

"Poor old Job! his going days are nearly over, aren't they, Joby?"

said Mrs. Adams caressingly, as she rubbed the whip up and down over his glossy side. "Well, he's a poor, tired old fellow with a heavy load, so perhaps we'd better turn here and go home."

This proceeding met with Job's full approval. He had been walking more and more slowly, as if overcome by the effort which he had been forced to make, and seemed scarcely able to totter onward, stumbling at every stone. But with the change of direction, his life came back to him, and with a whisk of his tail and an ungainly flourish of his hind legs, he started off at a trot, turning neither to the right nor the left, but only intent on reaching home and supper.

"There!" said Mrs. Adams in a tone of disgust; "when Job does that I just want to whip him. He has played that trick on me over and over again, and still I am always deceived by it. It isn't more than two weeks since Polly and I were driving to the Glen, one very warm day. It was a strange road, and all at once Job was taken ill in such a queer way; he staggered and almost fell. Polly and I were so frightened, for we thought he was going to die, right then and there. We jumped out and walked along beside him, leading him and petting him. The road was so narrow that we couldn't turn him around, without going on ever so far; n.o.body was in sight, and we were both of us just ready to cry from sheer nervousness. At last we came to where we could turn him, and backed him around as carefully as could be. What did the old goose do but put down his head and give it the funniest sideways toss, and then trot off towards home, leaving us standing there in the road."

"What did you do? did you walk home?" asked Alan, while the girls laughed.

"No, indeed! We made him stop for us, and he had to trot the rest of the way, you may be sure. Go on, Job!" urged Mrs. Adams, shaking the lines violently.

But Job settled that matter by whisking his tail over the lines and holding them firmly, in spite of the attempts his mistress made to free them once more. Finding her labors of no avail, she turned her attention to the girls again.