Phebe, Her Profession Part 18

"You."

"I'm busy."

"You look it," she said merrily, as she pointed to the book against which Melchisedek had promptly braced his back while he searched for a missing burr that he had acc.u.mulated in the course of his rambles.

"I wish you'd go away," he grumbled.

"I'm not doing any harm," she said composedly. "You don't own this place, anyway."

"My father does, then."

"He won't turn me out."

"Wish he would and done with it." Allyn rolled over on his side with his back inhospitably turned to his caller.

Her dimples came ever so little. Then she said quietly,

"What a dear, courteous soul you are, Allyn! Please do listen to me, for I've come to tell you something."

"Tell away, if you want to." He pushed aside Melchisedek who had stolen up behind him and pounced down upon his ear.

"I want to make peace."

"Make it."

"But if it takes two to make a quarrel, it probably takes two to make a peace. Allyn, I am tired of fighting. Let's make up."

"What's the use? We should only fight again."

"Perhaps; but sufficient unto the day--We might try it and see."

He made no answer. Instead, he dislodged Melchisedek from a seat on his neck, and reached out for the neglected book. Cicely antic.i.p.ated him and grasped it first. Quickly she dropped her coaxing tone and became curt and matter-of-fact.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Dutch."

"Not reading it for fun?"

"Not if I know myself. It's grammar."

"Isn't it hard, though?"

"Beastly. I can't get it into my head. Don't believe anybody can." And Allyn sat up and vented his spite against the language by hurling a stone against a distant birch tree.

"What are you studying it for now?" Cicely demanded, as Melchisedek scurried, yelping rapturously, in search of the flying stone.

"Got to, or else be conditioned."

"I don't believe it is as bad as that."

"Yes, 'tis. I barely sc.r.a.ped through, last Christmas, and papa told me then that, if I failed now, I couldn't go to Quantuck, but must stay here alone with him and work all summer."

"And so you are trying to be on the safe side?"

"Not any safe side about it. I was warned, a week ago."

"How horrid!" Cicely said sympathetically. "It won't be any fun at Quantuck without you. I was counting on having you to explore things with, you know. I've never been there."

"You'll have to take it out in counting, then."

"I don't see why. You're only warned, and it's two weeks before examination."

"Yes; but I can't get the blamed stuff into me."

"Perhaps I could help you," she suggested.

"You!" Allyn's tone was not altogether complimentary, and Cicely was uncertain whether she wanted to laugh or to box his ears. "Do you know any German?"

"Papa and I used to talk it a good deal," she said demurely; "and I know something about the grammar."

"Why, I didn't know it. I didn't suppose you knew anything but music." In his honest boyish wonder, Allyn's voice regained something of its old friendliness.

"Yes, I was almost ready for college; but, when I came up here, papa said I'd better take a vacation and only keep up my music," she answered, in an off-hand way which gave Allyn no hint that he was talking to the show pupil of Professor Almeron's school. "It was great fun at first; but now I am honestly sick of having so much vacation and I'd love to take up my German again if I only had somebody to do it with."

"Do you like to study?"

"N--no; but I don't mind it. I like to practise better."

"I hate it all. I wish I weren't going to college."

"What do you for, then?"

"Oh, I'm expected to. They all take it for granted. Ted did, and Hubert and Billy. I hate languages, though. I'd like to cut the whole thing."

"What do you like?"

"Drawing."

Cicely clasped her hands in sudden envy.

"Oh, I do love pictures! Can you draw? I never saw any."

"I never drew a picture in my life." Allyn's tone was disdainful.

"What do you draw then?"

"Machinery, of course. Wheels and pulleys and things. It's such fun to fit them together, Cis, and see how you can get the power across from one to the other."