In Apple-Blossom Time Part 9

"Depends on how you do it," he responded protectingly. "I don't want those hands put in dishwater."

"I shall do whatever your mother will let me do," responded the girl quickly. "That is what I came for. I've come here to earn my living."

Rufus Carder laughed leniently, and leaning forward would have patted her hand, but she drew it away with a quick motion which warned him to proceed slowly. In her eyes was an indignant light.

"You can do about as you like with me, little girl," he said fondly. "If it's a dishwasher for Ma that you want, why, I'll have to get one, that's all."

"I heard that you have found it very difficult to get help out here."

"I always get whatever I go after," was the reply. And the guest had a fleeting consolation in the thought that she might make easier the lot of that wrinkled slave in the kitchen.

"You don't know yet all I can do for you," pursued Carder, and Geraldine writhed under the self-satisfied gaze which seemed to be taking stock of her person from head to foot; "nor what I intend to do," he added. "My wife was a plain sort of woman and I've been wrapped up in business. See that little buildin' down there side o' the road? That's my office. I can see everybody who comes in or goes out of the place and can keep my hand on everything that's doin' on the farm. I've held my nose pretty close to the grindstone and I've earned the right to let up a little. I know you find things very plain here, but I'm goin' to give you leave to do it all over. I intend you shall have just what you want, little girl."

Every time Rufus Carder used that expression, "little girl," a strange sensation of nausea crept again around Geraldine's heart. It was as if he actually caressed her with those big-jointed and not over-clean hands. She still remembered the pleading of his mother not to make him angry.

"Your mother should be your first thought," she said.

"Well, that's all right," he returned. "Of course she's gettin' along and I put water in the kitchen for her this year; but it's legitimate for young folks to begin where old folks leave off. If it wa'n't so, how would there be any improvement in the world? You and I'll make lots o'

trips to town until you get this old house to lookin' just the way you want it. I'm sorry d.i.c.k Melody can't come out and see us here."

Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. Tears of grief and an infinite resentment that this coa.r.s.e creature could so familiarly name her father.

Mrs. Carder here appeared to announce that their supper was ready, so no more was said until in the next room they found a small table set for two.

"Have you eaten your supper, Mrs. Carder?" Geraldine asked of the hara.s.sed and heated little woman who was hurrying back and forth loaded with dishes.

"Yes, much as I ever do," was the reply. "I get my meals on the fly."

Then, meeting her son's lowering expression, she hastened to add, "I get all I want that way, you know. It's the way I like the best."

"It isn't the way you must do while I'm here," responded Geraldine firmly. "You're tired out. Come and sit down with your son and let me wait on you while you rest."

"Don't that sound daughterly?" remarked Rufus exultantly. "Perhaps I didn't know how to pick out the right girl. What?" His mother, relieved by his returned complacence, became voluble with rea.s.surances; and Geraldine, seeing that Rufus's hand was approaching her arm, hastily slid into her chair and he took the opposite place.

"Didn't I tell you we'd make up for the lunch that great porpoise cheated us out of yesterday?" he said in high good-humor.

Geraldine's desolate heart yearned after the kind friend so soon lost.

"That'll do, Ma. I guess the grub's all on the table. Go chase yourself.

Miss Melody'll pour my coffee."

"Don't wash any of the dishes, Mrs. Carder, please, until I get out there," said Geraldine.

The old woman disappeared with one last glance at her son whom Geraldine eyed with sudden steadiness.

He smiled at her with semi-toothless fondness.

"Give me my coffee, little girl. I'm famished. Isn't this jolly--just you and me?"

Geraldine poured the coffee and handed him the cup; then she spoke impressively.

"Mr. Carder, this is the last time this must happen. I refuse to sit down and make a waitress of your old mother. If you insist on showing her no consideration, I shall go away from here at once."

Her companion laughed, quietly, but with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt and admiration.

"By ginger," he said, "when you're mad, you're the handsomest thing above ground. Go away! That's a good one. Don't I tell you, you can do anything with me?" The speaker paused to drink his coffee noisily, keeping his eyes on the exquisite, stiff little mouth opposite him. "I know I ain't any dandy to look at. I've been too busy rollin' up the money that's goin' to make you go on velvet the rest o' your days: you're welcome to change all that, too. Yes, indeed. Never fear. When we do over the house we're goin' to do over yours truly, too. I'll do exactly as you say and you can turn me out a fashion plate that'll be hard to beat."

"I'm not interested in turning you out a fashion plate," returned Geraldine coldly. "I'm interested in making the lot of your mother easier, that is all."

Rufus regarded her thoughtfully and nodded. It penetrated his brain that he had been going too fast with this disdainful beauty. He rather admired her for her disdain; it added zest to the certainty of her capitulation.

"Have it your own way, little girl," he said leniently. "I know you're tired, still. You're not eatin'. Eat a good supper and to-night take another long sleep and to-morrow everything will look different."

Geraldine still regarded him with an unfaltering gaze. "We are strangers," she said. "I wish you not to call me 'little girl!'"

Rufus smiled at her admiringly. "It's hard for me to be formal with d.i.c.k Melody's girl," he said. "What shall I call you? My lady? That's all right, that's what you are. My lady. Another cup o' coffee please, my lady. It tastes extra good from your fair hands. We'll do away with this rocky tea-set, too. You're goin' to have eggsh.e.l.l China if you want it; and of course you do want it, you little princess."

His extreme air of proprietorship had several times during this interview convinced Geraldine that her host had been drinking. In spite of his odious frank admiration and the glimpses that he gave of some disquieting power, Geraldine scorned him too much to be afraid of him, and while she doubted increasingly that it would be possible for her to remain here, she determined to see what the morning would bring forth.

The man's pa.s.sion for acquisition, evidenced by his showmanship of his acc.u.mulations, might again absorb him after the first flush of her novelty wore off. She would enter into the work of the house, she would never again sit _tete-a-tete_ with him, and he should find it impossible to see her alone. His mother had warned her that he was terrible when he was angry, and Geraldine suspected that the mother always felt the brunt of his wrath. She must be careful, therefore, not to make the lot of that mother harder while endeavoring to ease it.

As soon as she could, Geraldine escaped to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Carder at her wet sink.

"I asked you to wait for me, Mrs. Carder," she said.

The old woman looked up from her steaming pan, her countenance full of trouble.

"Now, Rufus don't want you to do anything like this, Miss Melody, and Pete's helpin' me, you see."

Geraldine turned and saw a boy who was carrying a heavy, steaming kettle from the stove to the sink, and she met his eyes fixed upon her. She recognized him at once as the driver of the motor in which she and her host had come from the station. As the chauffeur he had appeared like a boy of ordinary size, but now she saw that his arms were long and his legs short and bowed, and in height he would barely reach her shoulder.

The dwarf had a long, solemn, tanned face and a furtive, sullen eye.

Geraldine remembered Rufus Carder's rough tone as he had summoned him at the station. He was perhaps a wretched, lonely creature like herself.

She met his look with a smile that, directed toward his master, would have sent Rufus into the seventh heaven of complacence.

"I have met Pete already," she said, kindly. "He drove us up from the station. I'm glad you are helping Mrs. Carder, Pete. She seems to have too much to do."

The boy did not reply, but he appeared unable to remove his eyes from Geraldine's kind look, and careless of where he was going he stumbled against the sink.

"Look out, Pete!" exclaimed his mistress. "What makes you so clumsy? You nearly scalded me. I guess he's tired, too." The old woman sighed.

"Everybody picks on Pete. They all find something for him to do."

"Then run away now," said Geraldine, still warming the boy's dull eyes with her entrancing smile, "and let me take your place. I can dry dishes as fast as anybody can wash them."

The dwarf slowly backed away, and disappeared into the woodshed, keeping his gaze to the last on the sunny-haired loveliness which had invaded the ugliness of that low-ceiled kitchen.

Geraldine seized a dish-towel, and Mrs. Carder, her hands in the suds, cast a troubled glance around at her.

"Rufus won't like it," she declared timorously.