Patchwork Part 37

"I will not!" She delved into the box and brought out a sandwich. "It's mine as much as yours."

"Going in for Woman's Suffrage and Rights and the like?" he asked, laughing.

"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, "don't mention things like that to-day. I don't want to hear about war or work or problems or anything but just pure joy this day! I earned this perfect day this year. This is to be a day of all-joy for us. Have another sandwich? I'm going to--this makes only four more left for each. Aunt Maria knew what she was doing when she made me take this big box of lunch for just us two. Now, aren't you glad that I brought lunch in a box instead of eating our dinner at Hull's as you suggested?" she said as she kicked her feet, little girl fashion, against the side of the boulder.

"Of course I am glad. I was afraid you might like dinner at the tavern better, that is why I suggested it."

"Don't you know me better than that? Why, we can eat in dining-rooms three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. This is one day when we eat in the birds' dining-room."

"I am enjoying it, Phbe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy of it."

"Now," said Phbe later, when the last crumb had been taken out of the lunch box, "we can pack the arbutus in this box. If you find some damp moss I'll arrange them."

She laid the flowers on the cushion of moss, covered them with a few damp leaves and closed the box. "That will keep them fresh," she said.

"Now for our drink of mountain water, then home again."

Farther in the woods they found the spring. In a little cove edged with laurel bushes and overhung with chestnut trees and tall oaks it sent up a bubbling fountain of cold water.

"I'm sorry the picnic is over," said Phbe as she leaned over the clear water and drank the cold draught.

"There is still the lovely drive home," he consoled her.

"Yes," she said as they turned and walked back through the woods to the road again, "and I shall remember this day for a long time. In the spring it's dreadful to be shut in the city."

"I believe you are growing tired of Philadelphia."

"Yes and no. I love the many things to do and see there, but on a day like this I think the country is the place to really enjoy the spring. I wish you could come down some time to the city; there are many places of interest you would like to visit."

"Yes." He opened his lips to tell her that he was soon to be in the service of his country, then he remembered that she had said she did not want to hear the word war on that day, it must be a day of all joy, so he closed his mouth resolutely and merely smiled in answer as she entered the carriage for the ride home. They spoke of many things; she was gay with the childish happiness she always felt in the woods or open country roads. He answered her gaiety, but his heart ached. What did the future hold for him? Would she, perchance, love another before he could return--would he return?

"Look," Phbe said after they had driven several miles, "it is going to storm--see how dark! We are going to have an April storm."

Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They turned and looked toward the mountains behind them--the summits were shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence in the air, living things of the fields and woods scurried to shelter; only a solitary red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapped noisily upon a dead tree trunk.

Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the gloom.

Phbe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us," she said. "Look at the hills--they are black as night. Can we get home before the storm breaks over us?"

"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more miles to go."

The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder echoed and reechoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the earth.

Phbe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."

Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.

"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."

"If you don't mind," Phbe began, but the woman was talkative and broke in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after when I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"

"They come true sometimes," said Phbe.

"Ach, yes, my granny used to plant her garden by the signs in the almanac. Cabbage, now, must be planted in the up-sign. But mebbe you're hungry after your drive? I'll get some cake."

"We had lunch----"

"Ach, if your man's like mine he can eat cake any time." She opened a door that led to the cellar and soon returned with a plate piled high with cake. "Now eat," she invited. "But, ach, I just thought of it--you said you come from Greenwald--then I guess you know about Caleb Warner dying, killing himself, or something."

"Caleb Warner dying!" David echoed. He half started from his chair, then sank with a visible effort at self-control.

"Yes. I guess you know him. My mister was in to dinner a while ago and he said it went over the 'phone at Risser's and Jacob Risser told him that Caleb Warner of Greenwald was dead. It was from gas or something funny like that. It's the Warner that sold that oil stock and gold stock. You know him?"

David nodded, his lips dry.

"Well, I guess now a lot of people will lose money. There's a lady lives near here that gave him almost all her money for some of his stock. For a while she got big interest from it, but then it stopped and now she ain't got hardly enough money to live. And I guess a lot will lose money. My mister had no time for that stock. But if the man's dead now we should let him rest, I guess."

"Yes----" David braced himself. "The rain is over. Phbe, we must go."

He smiled to the little woman as he gripped her hand. "You have been very kind to us and we appreciate it."

"Yes, indeed," echoed Phbe. "I hope we have not kept you from your work."

"Ach, I can work enough to-day yet. I like company and I don't have much of it week-days. Um, ain't it good smelly after the rain?" She sniffed, smiling, as she followed Phbe and David down the path to the barnyard.

"Good-bye," she called as they drove off. "Safe home."

"Thank you. Good-bye," Phbe called over the side of the carriage. Then, as they entered again upon the country road, she turned to her place beside David.

She looked up at him. All the light and joy had faded from his face; he stared straight head, though he must have felt her eyes' intent gaze upon him.

"David," she said softly, "what is wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied.

"Seems you look different," she persisted. "Is it anything about Caleb Warner's death?"

"I'm not much of a stoic, Phbe. I should have hidden my worry. But you must forget it; we must not let it spoil our perfect day. It really is no great matter. I am affected, in some way you can't know, by his death, but I'll get over it," he tried to treat the matter lightly.

But Phbe felt a sudden heaviness of heart. She was almost certain that David had had no money to buy any stock from Caleb Warner, therefore, she jumped to the conclusion, it must be that David cared for Mary Warner, as town gossip said he did, and that the death of the girl's father would affect him. She felt hurt and baffled and sorely rebuffed at the withholding of David's confidence and was worried as she saw the marks of worry in the face of the man. Womanlike, she felt certain that the other girl was not good enough for David. Mary Warner, beautiful, aristocratic in bearing and manner--what had she to do with a man like David Eby! Was an incipient engagement with Mary Warner the Aladdin's lamp David had mentioned several times as being on the verge of rubbing and thus become rich? The thought left her trembling; she shivered in the April sunshine. When David spoke it was with an abstracted manner, and the girl beside him finally said, "Oh, don't let us talk. Let us just sit and look at the fields and enjoy the scenery."

She said it calmly enough, but the man beside her could not know that it required the last shreds of her courage to keep her voice from breaking.

She would not let David see that she cared if he did care for Mary Warner! Of course, she didn't want to marry him, it was merely that she knew Mary was too haughty for him. Mother Bab would also say that he was too different from Mary, that he was too fine for her. Then she remembered that Mother Bab had said on the previous evening that the Warners had taken David to Hershey recently in their fine new car. She shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phbe," she thought, "you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to another girl you have a spasm!"

But the self-administered discipline failed to correct her att.i.tude. She knew their day of all-joy was changed for her as it had been changed for David. The jealousy in her heart could not be quite overcome. She was glad when they reached familiar fields and were on the road near Greenwald.

"Will you come in?" she invited as she left the carriage.

"No. I better go right home."