Otherwise Phyllis Part 54

"Looks bad for somebody," said Phil.

"What does?" asked Amzi.

"When Jack goes out on his horse, it's a sign somebody's going to jail."

"Only serving subpoenas, I reckon," said Amzi.

They espied Fred driving a corn-planter across a long level field, and stopped the car. He ran to the fence to talk to them, and they all alighted. It was a warm afternoon and he mopped his face with a big bandanna as he talked to them. He rested his arms on the top rail of the fence, playing with his cap--not the disreputable old c.o.o.nskin with which Phil had become familiar that winter, but the regular Madison College cap with a scarlet "M" above the visor.

"In the words of the poet," began Phil, "where did you get that hat?"

"This? Oh, the day of the Main Street rumpus I lost mine and one of the boys lent me his. I meant to get him another, but I haven't been to town since. And besides, I've forgotten his name."

"That's George Nesbit's cap," Phil answered, after eyeing it critically.

"I know because it's an old style n.o.body else wore this year. George lives at the Phi Gam house, if you care for his address."

"I hope you don't know them all as well as that, Phil," remarked Lois.

"She does," chuckled Amzi; "she does, indeed."

Amzi and Fred dealt in technicalities. The green of young wheat caught the eye in the distances. These were Amzi's acres; the Holton farm lay beyond--the land that had been Fred's. In February, Phil and Amzi had driven out one afternoon and had found Fred sowing clover seed over the snow-covered wheat in his own field. Her imagination took fire at all these processes. "A calendar might be laid out in great squares upon the earth," she had written in her notebook, "and the months would tell their own stories." It was all a great wonder, that man had learned so perfectly how to draw from the mute soil its sweetness and vigor.

Nothing man did seemed more interesting than this tilling and sowing.

She noted how even snow had its use in catching and holding seed against the wind, and watched the sower marking his own progress and regulating the distribution by his tracks. Ultimately the clover would give its own life to nourish and strengthen the wheat--these things kindled her fancy. Here was poetry in the making, with suns and frosts, rains and snows taking their part in it. And Fred felt it too; she knew that. In his shy, guarded way he had spoken of it. But to-day he was not a dreamer but a man of action.

"Got all the help you want, Fred?" Amzi was asking.

"Yes, sir. No troubles. I'm using my old place for a boarding-house for the hands. Suppose you won't stay for supper?" he suggested, a little perfunctorily.

"Just because you're so enthusiastic, we will! But we've brought our own fodder--Phil packed the hamper; enough for a couple of regiments. We'll meet you at my house at supper-time and have an indoors picnic."

They waited to watch him start the team. Phil took the wheel, and as they rolled away Lois and Amzi exchanged a glance.

"You trust him?" she asked, glancing meaningly at Phil's back.

"Thunder!" said Amzi; "I don't know about _that_."

"It might be worse," Lois replied, and her brother looked at her in surprise.

"He's a straightforward, manly fellow; seems to have escaped the family curse. It must be this"--Lois indicated the fields--"that makes the difference. There's a moral influence in it; and," she added with a smile, "there's always a market for corn."

"He's as square a chap as they make 'em, but as for that--" and he nodded towards Phil.

"It isn't for us to say, brother, but I believe I should trust him; and they seem to understand each other. He's far from stupid, and the kind of man to watch over her and protect her."

These utterances greatly astonished Amzi. He wondered whether Lois's own experiences were responsible for her feeling that Phil needed a protector, and her frankly expressed liking for Fred in that connection.

He was surprised but not displeased though the thought of Phil's marrying gave him a distinct shock when considered concretely. He never dissociated it from the remembrance of Lois's tragedies.

They found Amzi's house in order. Phil lighted the open fire to take the chill from the living-room, which had been closed since the Perrys'

departure. Amzi ran off in the machine to pay a visit to one of the county commissioners who lived near by: Lois with her usual adaptability produced a novel and made herself comfortable on a couch. She was absorbed in her book before Phil left the room. Her mother's ready detachment never ceased to astonish her. Sometimes in the midst of a lively conversation, Lois would abruptly take up a book, or turn away humming to look out of the nearest window. Her ways had been disconcerting at first, but Phil had grown used to them. It argued for the completeness of their understanding that these dismissals were possible. Her mother's love of ease and luxury; the pretty knick-knacks she kept about her; her deftness in self-adornment--the little touches she gave to a hat that utterly re-created it--never failed to fascinate Phil.

Having disposed of her mother, or rather, that lady having forgotten her existence, Phil climbed the blossomy orchard slope and looked off toward Listening Hill. How many things had happened since that fall afternoon when she had talked there with Fred! Life that had seemed simple just then had since shown her its complexities. She watched Fred's slow progress with the corn-planter in the field below.

Glancing again at Listening Hill road her wandering gaze fell upon a horse and rider. Her eye, delighting in the picturesque at all times, was alive to the strong, vigorous lines in which man and horse were drawn against the blue May sky. They gained the crest of the road, and the man turned in his saddle and swept the surrounding fields in a prolonged inspection. She looked away and then sought the figures again, but they had disappeared. A little cloud of dust rose in the hollow toward Turkey Run. It was undoubtedly big Jack Whittlesey, the sheriff.

The idea of one man hunting another was repugnant to Phil to-day, in this bright, wakened world of green fields, cheery bird song and laughing waters. She ran down the hill to escape from the very thought of sheriffs and prisons, and set off for the creek, following the Montgomery-Holton fence toward the Holton barn, whither the music had lured her that night of the change o' the year when she had danced among the corn shocks. The laborers were all off at work and no one was in sight.

It was a very respectable-looking barn now that Fred had patched its weather-beaten sides and painted it. She flung back the door to revisualize her recollection of the dance. The bang of the sliding door roused a hen to noisy protest, and it sought the open with a wild beating of wings. The hen had emerged from the manger of an unused stall, and in feeling under the corn-trough for eggs, Phil touched some alien object. She gave a tug that brought to light a corner of brown leather, found handles, and drew out a suit-case. She was about to thrust it back when "C. H." in small black letters arrested her eye. It was an odd place for the storing of luggage and her curiosity was keenly aroused. She had seen and heard nothing of Charles Holton since the night he had taken her to the lecture, and barns were not likely camping-places for gentlemen of his fastidious tastes.

A step on the planked approach to the barn caused her to thrust the case back under the corn-box. She sprang toward the door, and faced Jack Whittlesey, who grinned and took off his hat.

"'Lo, Phil!"

"'Lo, Jack!"

"Stealing eggs, Phil?"

"The hen deceived me; nothing doing."

"Pa.s.sed you on the way out. Hardly know your old friends now you've set up a machine, I reckon."

"Cut that out, Jack, and feed it to the larks. You had only ten votes to spare when you were elected and I landed seven of them for you, so don't be gay with me."

"I'm not gay; I'm tired. I'm looking for a party."

"What's your friend's name?" asked Phil, picking up a straw and chewing it.

"That would be telling. You haven't seen a man chasing over the country with a brown suit-case, have you?"

"Nope; nor with a black, pink, or green one. Where does the story begin?"

"Well, not in my county. They send all the hard jobs out to us farmers.

Suppose there's anybody in this barn?"

"There was a hen; but she went off mad when I came in. You'd better go back and pose on Listening Hill again; you looked rather well there--a lone picket on an Alp watching for Napoleon's advance.

"He saw afar The coming host, but thought the glint of arms, Betokened milk-cans in some peasant's cart,"--

Phil added, bending forward and shading her eyes with her hand.

Whittlesey, knowing Phil well, laughed his appreciation absently.

"He's been dodgin' up and down the creek here for two days, trying to muster nerve enough to hit the trolley and clear out. There's a nice bunch of plunder in his suit-case."

"Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief?" Phil repeated--touching the b.u.t.tons on her shirt-waist.

"That would be tellin'."

"Well, don't tell, then. But not mentioning any names that particular person wouldn't be likely to hang around here," suggested Phil meditatively.