Edith and John Part 52

"Not at all; just resting after our walk down the hill preparatory for the returning climb," answered Edith, with an effort to be a little disdainful; but if he noticed this in her, it was more than anybody else could see, for it was quite contrary to her nature to be disrespectful, except when brought to extremities, no matter how hard she tried, even toward the worst of fists. "Finding it getting warm," she continued, "we sat down here to rest before returning."

"Aren't you going any farther? Which way?" he asked.

"Up the hill," she answered his implied questions.

"Then I may accompany you on the return?" he asked.

Edith glanced at Star, Star at Edith, for an answer; but neither answered for a moment. Then Edith, seeing the predicament they would be in of either saying yes, or offering a rebuke, said: "We came out for a quiet walk together, Mr. Cobb, and thought we would find rest down here, and be away from the people up there--" pointing toward the hotel; "but if you are going up the hill, we will see who can go the faster."

"Banter me for a race, do you?" he said, ingratiatingly.

"Oh, not necessarily," returned Edith, with a laugh.

"All right, then a walk it shall be," he said airily, not a whit disposed toward being piqued at the young ladies' desire to have done with him.

Edith and Star started off together at a lively step on the upgrade tramp, Jasper keeping by their side, with even step, in a palavering mood. His talk was simply airy nothings, commonplace enough in its most brilliant stages, and foolish enough for the most twadling and appreciative loiterer of swelldom. He had a sort of rude wit about him that might be very interesting and enjoyable to a crowd of sports, but to Edith and Star he was a driveling idiot.

The walk progressed at such a rate that very soon Edith, in her desire to keep in advance of him, began to lag, and her breath was coming too fast and furious for her benefit; but Star, who yet showed no signs of fatigue, had taken Edith by the arm to urge her along the best she could. Edith's face was excessively red from the great exertion, and sweat stood out on her forehead like morning dew on the crimson clover bloom.

"Whew!" exclaimed Edith, at last, puffing and blowing, and heaving her breast in harmony with her rapid respiration, and saying between breaths, "that is--a little--too--much."

"You are blowing like a porpoise," said Jasper, as he stopped and was contemplating her from head to foot, using his cane for a rest, on which he leaned. "Shall I fetch an auto for you?"

"No; I can make it up the hill; but I must take it slower," she answered, holding her hand over her heart.

"If you will permit me, I will a.s.sist you," he said.

"Oh, never mind me, I will get there, eventually."

"Come on, then," he said, with coa.r.s.eness, as he laid hold of her arm to urge her forward; and thus between the two they got her up the hill.

Simultaneously with their rounding the hill from the east, there rounded the same hill from the west a double team of farm horses. .h.i.tched to a c.u.mbersome wagon. On a flat board seat, across the bed in front, sat a young man about twenty years of age, and a la.s.s of about sixteen blooming summers in her face. The horses moved at a slow and lazy pace, after having pulled a heavy load up the winding stretch of three mile grade, and stopped at the apex for a "blow" before relieving the pressure on their collars for the downward pull. At the stopping of the team, Edith and Star and Jasper came abreast in their walking, and also stopped for a "blow" before entering the hotel.

This meeting seemed to have been the result of prearrangement, so natural did the precise moment of stopping appear. The young man in the wagon was a p.r.o.nounced blonde; but the many seasons that he had spent in the mountains had bronzed his cheeks to a coppery red, and made him a very healthy and rugged youth, withal. He had a regularity of features that could not be gainsayed for their Grecian similarity. His light blue eyes were sharp, steady, penetrating. With a slouch hat on his head, flapping down on both sides, and tending to pokeness at the crown; a check shirt opened in front and turned aside, revealing a deep manly breast, and turned up sleeves exposing muscular arms from the elbows to a set of rough but well shaped hands--he sat like a monument of Strength and Health and Robust Beauty, resting his horses, and indifferent to the astonished gaze of the city bred people standing by. The young lady by his side, in the flower of young maidenhood, was a counterpart of the young man; and they were, without a doubt, from the same family tree.

Her pink-lined sun-bonnet of gingham, accentuated by the warming sun, caused her face to glow, as if on fire, and her red calico dress could not have added more demureness to her looks had it been made of the richest silk.

Thus, as they came by chance together, at such a time and at such a place, and under such pleasant circ.u.mstances, the three a-foot and the two a-riding cast contradictory glances at each other. Edith thought she saw in the young mountaineer an embossed replica of some one else; and also in the face of the young girl she was sure there was the heavenly-traced picture of another face. Star, with her head thrown back, in contemplative grandeur, looked at them with a stare of uncertain recognition. The young man in the wagon was about to speak, believing them to be friendly disposed vacationists, and would not mind a turn of conversation with him, being as he was of the out of the way places of their humdrum existence; but before he could do so, Edith suddenly plucked Star by the arm, and with her ran toward the hotel entrance, not stopping till she had gained the wide veranda, panting again, and all excited. Reaching the vantage of that viewpoint, and while standing behind a shielding porch column, she peeped from behind it, like one frightened. She beheld the mountaineer, with the little girl, disappear below the hill, and heard the screeching of the rubber blocks of his wagon, and saw the louting Jasper ambling, with a whistling note to keep him step, down the pikeway toward the hotel.

"Star, that was John's brother!" exclaimed Edith, after he had disappeared over the hill, "and that little girl was his sister."

Resuming her composure over the excitement the incident caused, she sat down in one of the lounging chairs, with Star by her looking serious enough herself.

"I believe so, Edith; but why didn't we stop long enough to talk with them?" said Star, apparently disappointed.

"Oh, I wanted to stop to speak--but that would not do, dear Star--would not do at all; but I will have a talk with them when he comes here next week, never mind," cried Edith, with much joyousness in the ring of her voice. "Isn't she such a pretty creature--just like one of those little fairy mountain girls you see sometimes in romantic plays in the theaters, and I know she is more romantic."

"What do you think of him, Edith--the man--her brother--if that is whom he is?" asked Star, blushing for the first time Edith ever saw that intelligible sign in her face.

"If he is not Mr. Winthrope's brother, he is his living stature in bronze," replied Edith; "and now, Star, tell me your opinion?"

"I can't say that I have an opinion, Edith; I am really dumb with amazement. He is such a big fellow--more like a mill-worker, or such--oh, my, Edith; don't ask me for--"

"Well, now, I like that way of speaking about Mr. Winthrope's brother.

Maybe it was not him at all, and we have had our little scare for nothing. Oh, goodness! here comes Mr. Cobb again! dear me!" and Edith subsided.

Pursuing the tenor of his prevailing thoughts, Jasper Cobb sought Edith and found her on the eastern end of the veranda. After saluting the two young ladies again quite prodigiously, he asked Edith for a private interview at once. Star, hearing the request, rose and left them, as if she had an errand in her room, before Edith had time to ask her to remain. Star, however, was waiting for such an opportunity to absent herself, knowing what young Cobb's mission was. Having been informed by Edith what her answer would be, she went away satisfied that she would return to find that young man laboring under a severe jolt to his mercenary soul.

Now, when alone, Mr. Cobb drew up a seat and sat near Edith.

"Miss Jarney, we have always been friends--our families?"

"Yes."

"And we have been friends for years, you and I?"

"Yes."

"Would you consider a proposition from me to make that friendship permanent and lasting?"

"Yes."

His heart bounded--a little.

"Well, Miss Jarney--may I call you Edith?--I came here to ask you to marry me?"

"You?" she said, turning on him.

"Yes; me," he answered, dejectedly, for he caught the tone of her voice in no uncertain meaning.

"No," said Edith, firmly, looking at him, with a sort of a commiserated smile for his imbecility. "If you want to be my friend, Mr. Cobb, all right, you may consider me as such; but, as to marrying you, never can I make up my mind to that end."

"Dear Miss Jarney, you don't know the blow that you have struck me--it almost topples me over," he insisted, and Edith came near laughing in his face, so ludicrous was the expression that he had now a.s.sumed. "I have always thought you had encouraged me--"

"Oh, never was I guilty of such an offense, Mr. Cobb--never. You are laboring under a misconception, or a delusion, or something else.

Encourage you, Mr. Cobb? How ridiculous!"

"Then, you refuse?" he asked, coldly and fiercely.

"I most certainly have my senses with me," she retorted, with a laugh.

"Ah, then, I'll go my old way. I thought I might settle down some day and be a man," he whispered.

"Be a man first, Mr. Cobb, and settle down afterwards, is my advice to you," she responded.

"You are cruel, Miss Jarney--cruel--as cruel as all the other women of the rich, who make monkeys of we men folk," he said, despairingly.

"You must understand, Mr. Cobb, that I am not one 'of all the other women' of the rich, of whom you speak so slightingly," she replied, still keeping a good temper.