In Apple-Blossom Time Part 2

"I mean that I have been away from home at school for several years,"

said the girl coldly.

"Oh, I know where you have been, and why, and when, and just how long, and all about it." The tone of this was quiet, but there was something disquieting to Geraldine in his manner. "Perhaps you didn't know," he added after a pause filled by the crescendos and diminuendos of the speeding train, "that your father and I were pretty thick." At this the girl's head turned and her eyes raised to his questioningly. "Yes," he added, receiving the look, appreciative of the curves of the long lashes and lovely lips, "I don't believe anybody knew d.i.c.k Melody better than I did."

"Do you mean," asked the girl, "that you were fond of my father?"

Charming as her self-forgetful, earnest look was, her companion seemed unable to sustain it. He gave a short laugh and turned his head away.

"My wife attended to that part of it," he replied.

A flash of relief pa.s.sed over Geraldine's face. "Your wife," she repeated. "I--I hadn't heard--I didn't know--I thought the Mrs. Carder they mentioned was your mother."

"She is. My wife died nearly a year ago, but she had the nerve to think your father was handsomer than me." The speaker looked back at his companion with a cheerful grin. "She said d.i.c.k Melody'd ought to be set up on a pedestal somewheres to be admired. I don't know as bein'

good-lookin' gets a man anywhere. What good did those eyes ever do him!"

Geraldine sank closer to her window. The despair in those eyes, as her father begged for her forgiveness, rose before her. Never had she felt so utterly alone; so utterly friendless.

"Yes, I say leave the looks to the womenfolks," pursued Rufus Carder, feasting his gaze on the girl's profile. "When Juliet set out to get d.i.c.k, I warned her, but it wasn't any use. She had to have him, and she knew pretty well how to look out for herself. I guess she never lost anything by the deal."

"Would you mind not talking about them?" said Geraldine stiffly.

"Please yourself and you'll please me as to what we talk about,"

returned Rufus cheerfully. "Shouldn't wonder if you were pretty sore at Juliet. Look out for number one was her motto all right." A glance at the shrinking girl showed the host that her eyes were closed. "Tired, ain't you?" he added.

"Dead tired," she answered. And as she continued to keep her eyes closed he contented himself by watching the lashes resting on her pale cheeks.

"Ketch a little nap if you can, that's right," he said. She kept silence.

She did not know how long the blessed relief from his voice had lasted when he announced their arrival.

"Be it ever so humble," he remarked, "There's no place like home."

To have him get out of the seat and leave her free of the touch of his garments was a blessing, and she rose to follow mechanically. The eternal hope that dies so hard in the human breast was suggesting that his mother might be not impossible; and at any rate a farm was wide. She would never be imprisoned in a car seat with him again.

"There now, my lady," he said triumphantly when they were on the platform. "I suppose you thought you were comin' to Rubeville. That don't look so hay-seedy? Eh?"

He pointed to a dusty automobile whose driver, a boy of eighteen or twenty, with a torn hat, eyed her with dull curiosity.

"I suppose you expected a one-hoss shay. No, indeedy. You've come to all the comforts of home, little girl." His airy geniality of tone changed.

"What you starin' at, you coot? Come along here, Pete."

The boy moved the car toward the spot where they waited with their bags.

Rufus put these in at the front and himself entered the tonneau with his guest. His conversation as they sped along the country road consisted mainly of pointing out to her the cottages or fields owned by himself.

The information fell on deaf ears. The roughness of her host's tone to the boy added one more item against him and lessened her hope that the woman responsible for his existence could be a better specimen.

"I'm free," thought Geraldine over and over. "I don't need to stay here." Of course the proprietary implication in every word the man said arose simply from the conceit of a boor. She would be patient and self-controlled. It might be possible still that she should find this a haven where she could live her own life in her leisure hours, few though they might be.

It was with a weary curiosity that she viewed the weather-beaten house toward which they finally advanced. In front of it stood an elm-tree whose lower branches swept the roof of the porch.

"That's got to come down, that tree," said Rufus meditatively.

His companion turned on him. "You would cut down that splendid tree?"

He regarded her suddenly vital expression admiringly.

"Why not, little one?" he asked. "It's makin' the house damp and injurin' property. Property, you understand. Property. If I'd indulged in sentiment do you s'pose I'd be owner of all the land I've been showin' you?" He smiled, the semi-toothless smile, and met her horrified upturned eyes with an affectionate gaze. "However, what you say goes, little girl. You look as if you were goin' to recite--'Woodman, spare that tree.' Consider the tree spared for the present."

The automobile drew up at the house and in high good-humor the master jumped out and removed Geraldine's bag to the steps of the narrow piazza. A woman's face could be seen appearing and disappearing at the window, and Pete, the driver, looked with furtive curiosity at the guest as she stepped to the porch without touching the host's outstretched hand.

Rufus threw open the door. "Where are you, Ma?" he shouted, and a thin, wrinkled old woman came into the corridor nervously wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n.

Geraldine looked at her eagerly.

"Well, you have to take us as you find us, little girl," remarked Rufus, scowling at his parent. "Ma hasn't even taken off her ap.r.o.n to welcome you."

At this Mrs. Carder fumbled at her ap.r.o.n strings, but Geraldine advanced to her and put out her hand.

"I like ap.r.o.ns," she said; and the old woman took the hand for a loose, brief shake.

"I'm very glad to see you, Miss Melody," she said timidly. "I'm glad it has been a pretty day."

"Show her her room, Ma, and then perhaps she'd like some tea. City folks, you know, must have their tea."

Geraldine followed her hostess with alacrity as she went up the narrow stairway; glad there was an upstairs; and a room of her own, and a woman to speak to.

She was ushered into a barely furnished chamber; a bowl and pitcher on the small wash-stand seemed to indicate that modern improvements had not penetrated to the Carder farm.

"I s'pose you'll find country livin' a great change for you," said Mrs.

Carder, pulling up the window shade. Geraldine wondered how in this beautiful state could have been found such a treeless tract of land. She remembered the threatened fate of the elm. Perhaps there had been other destruction. "My son never seemed to take any interest in puttin' in water here."

The girl met the wrinkled face. The apprehension in the old eyes under Carder's scowl had given place to curiosity.

"I have come to help you," said Geraldine, "I must get used to fewer conveniences."

"It's nice of you to say that," said the old woman, "Rufus don't want you to work much, though."

"But of course I shall," returned the girl quickly. "I'm much better able to work than you are."

"Oh, I've got a wet sink this year," said Mrs. Carder. "I told Rufus I just had to have it. I was gettin' too old to haul water."

"I should think so!" exclaimed Geraldine indignantly. "Mr. Carder is well off. He shouldn't allow you to work any more the rest of your life."

Mrs. Carder smiled and shook her head, revealing her own need of dentistry. "I'm stronger than I look. I s'pose if I was taken out of harness I might be like one o' these horses that drops down when the shafts don't hold him up any longer."

Geraldine regarded her compa.s.sionately. "I've heard--my stepmother told me it was very hard for you to get help out here. I suppose it is lonely for maids."

The old woman regarded her strangely, and her withered lips compressed.