An Alabaster Box Part 17

"Why should you need to be convinced of anything so unlikely?" she asked, with gentle coldness.

He reddened angrily.

"Of course it's none of my business," he conceded.

"I didn't mean that. But, naturally, I could have no idea of coal or oil--"

"Well; I won't work for you at any four dollars a day," he said loudly. "I thought I'd like to tell you."

"I don't want you to," she said. "Didn't Deacon Whittle give you my message?"

He got hurriedly to his feet with a muttered exclamation.

"Please sit down, Mr. Dodge," she bade him tranquilly. "I've been wanting to see you all day. But there are so few telephones in Brookville it is difficult to get word to people."

He eyed her with stubborn resentment.

"What I meant to say was that four dollars a day is too much! Don't you know anything about the value of money, Miss Orr? Somebody ought to have common honesty enough to inform you that there are plenty of men in Brookville who would be thankful to work for two dollars a day. I would, for one; and I won't take a cent more."

She was frowning a little over these statements. The stalwart young man in shabby clothes who sat facing her under the light of Mrs.

Solomon Black's well-trimmed lamp appeared to puzzle her.

"But why shouldn't you want to earn all you can?" she propounded at last. "Isn't there anything you need to use money for?"

"Oh, just a few things," he admitted grudgingly. "I suppose you've noticed that I'm not exactly the gla.s.s of fashion and the mold of form."

He was instantly ashamed of himself for the crude personality.

"You must think I'm a fool!" burst from him, under the sting of his self-inflicted lash.

She smiled and shook her head.

"I'm not at all the sort of person you appear to think me," she said.

Her grave blue eyes looked straight into his. "But don't let's waste time trying to be clever: I want to ask you if you are willing, for a fair salary, to take charge of the outdoor improvements at Bolton House."

She colored swiftly at sight of the quizzical lift of his brows.

"I've decided to call my place 'Bolton House' for several reasons,"

she went on rapidly: "for one thing, everybody has always called it the Bolton place, so it will be easier for the workmen and everybody to know what place is meant. Besides, I--"

"Yes; but the name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville ears," he objected. "You've no idea how people here hate that man."

"It all happened so long ago, I should think they might forgive him by now," she offered, after a pause.

"I wouldn't call my house after a thief," he said strongly. "There are hundreds of prettier names. Why not--Pine Court, for example?"

"You haven't told me yet if you will accept the position I spoke of."

He pa.s.sed his hand over his clean-shaven chin, a trick he had inherited from his father, and surveyed her steadily from under meditative brows.

"In the first place, I'm not a landscape gardener, Miss Orr," he stated. "That's the sort of man you want. You can get one in Boston, who'll group your evergreens, open vistas, build pergolas and all that sort of thing."

"You appear to know exactly what I want," she laughed.

"Perhaps I do," he defied her.

"But, seriously, I don't want and won't have a landscape-gardener from Boston--with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr.

Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things--wild things out of the woods. You understand, I'm sure."

The dawning light in his eyes told her that he did.

"But I've had no experience," he hesitated. "Besides, I've considerable farm-work of my own to do. I've been hoeing potatoes all day. Tomorrow I shall have to go into the cornfield, or lose my crop.

Time, tide and weeds wait for no man."

"I supposed you were a hunter," she said. "I thought--"

He laughed unpleasantly.

"Oh, I see," he interrupted rudely: "you supposed, in other words, that I was an idle chap, addicted to wandering about the woods, a gun on my shoulder, a cur--quite as much of a ne'er-do-well as myself--at my heels. Of course Deacon Whittle and Mrs. Solomon Black have told you all about it. And since you've set about reforming Brookville, you thought you'd begin with me. Well, I'm obliged to you; but--"

The girl arose trembling to her feet.

"You are not kind!" she cried. "You are not kind!"

They stood for an instant, gazing into each other's eyes during one of those flashes of time which sometimes count for years.

"Forgive me," he muttered huskily. "I'm a brute at best; but I had no business to speak to you as I did."

"But why did you say--what made you ever think I'd set about reforming--that is what you said--_reforming_--Brookville? I never thought of such a thing! How could I?"

He hung his head, abashed by the lightning in her mild eyes.

She clasped her small, fair hands and bent toward him.

"And you said you wanted to be--friends. I hoped--"

"I do," he said gruffly. "I've told you I'm ashamed of myself."

She drew back, sighing deeply.

"I don't want you to feel--ashamed," she said, in a sweet, tired voice. "But I wish--"

"Tell me!" he urged, when she did not finish her sentence.

"Do you think everybody is going to misunderstand me, as you have?"

she asked, somewhat piteously. "Is it so strange and unheard of a thing for a woman to want a home and--and friends? Isn't it allowable for a person who has money to want to pay fair wages? Why should I scrimp and haggle and screw, when I want most of all to be generous?"

"Because," he told her seriously, "scrimping, haggling and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g have been the fashion for so long, the other thing rouses mean suspicions by its very novelty. It's too good to be true; that's all."