Red Pepper Burns Part 10

That's the way to get it! Burn up the products of fatigue, replace them with fresh cells full of oxygen, and you get rejuvenation. Look at that stretch of country before us! Isn't that worth the climb?"

"It's glorious! I've often looked at this height as our car drove by on the road over there, and wanted to climb it. But Martha and Jim are always for reeling off miles, and so, I thought, were you. I imagined there was n.o.body but myself to care for this."

"And I thought you liked the porch and the pretty clothes you wear there better than anything I could show you in the open," he owned with a laugh. "Not that I haven't enjoyed that porch and the sight of the clothes--they don't seem to be just like Martha's and Winifred's somehow, though I can't tell why! I've wanted to ask you off for a trip like this, but never was sure you'd enjoy it. I'm glad I've found out. I feel as if I'd wasted the summer."

He fell to gathering wood for his fire, and when she had regained her breath she helped him in spite of his remonstrance. "Let me have all the fun, too," she begged. "I haven't had a chance like this for four years.

I used to camp in flannels all summer long, in the roughest sort of style, and loved it dearly. I could stand the tension of a long social winter twice as well as the other women on account of it."

He understood, knowing that her husband had occupied a prominent official position which called upon him to maintain a corresponding place in the society of the city in which they had lived. Although he knew her to be still under thirty, he realized that on account of her early marriage she had had much experience in the world of affairs. It was this aspect of her he had always borne in mind as he had seen her before. Now he was beginning to recognize another side of her character and tastes, a side which interested him even more than the other had done.

Like a pair of children they collected their firewood, racing together to the base of operations with armfuls of dry sticks. When there was a big pile she surprised him by asking to be allowed to make the fire herself.

"I'll prove to you I'm a woodsman," she a.s.serted, and when she had performed her task after the most approved fashion of the skilled camper, he acknowledged that she had made good her boast. As the smoke cleared away in the direction which left the view un.o.bscured and the spot he had selected for the lunching-place free from smoke, he grinned approvingly.

"I've no doubt you could grill the steak and brew the coffee with equal skill," he admitted, "but I'm not going to let you. That's my job. I want to prove my prowess. Sit down on that log, please, and oversee me."

She watched with hungry interest while he also gave evidence of his craft. It could hardly be the first time that a hamper had been packed for him at the place in the city, for nothing he needed had been left out, even to a big bottle of spring water with which to make the coffee.

When his work was nearly complete she spread a square of white linen upon a flat rock and set forth the other contents of the hamper--olives and bread and b.u.t.ter, crisp celery-hearts, and cream cheese and a tin of biscuits. She heated the plates and cups before the fire, and as he withdrew his steak from the coals she set a smoking hot platter before him and offered him the materials for seasoning.

"You're a crack camper for sure," he declared. "Ah-h--does that steak look fit for the G.o.ds, or not? How's the coffee? Clear?"

"Perfect. And the steak looks as if it would melt in one's mouth. Oh, isn't this fun? How glad I am I'm here and not at that luncheon!" She consulted a tiny watch. "It's two o'clock--they're sitting down," she exulted. "Martha has waited half an hour for me and given me up, and she's perfectly furious. I'm wicked enough to feel that that fact is going to make this meal taste all the better!"

"Stolen steak and bread and b.u.t.ter eaten in secret have an extra relish--no doubt of that. Here--this juicy bit is for you to begin on.

Set your teeth into it, partner! How's that for food, I ask of you?"

Sitting on the ground opposite each other with the flat rock between, they consumed this Arcadian banquet, eating with the zest born of exertion and the open air, the sunshine and the comradeship.

"Nothing has tasted quite so good to me in a year," said she when the steak had vanished, dipping a white celery-heart in salt and biting the end off with teeth still whiter.

"Nothing ever tasted so good to me," said he, leaning on his elbow and spreading a crisp biscuit with a layer of cheese. "I always think that of each meal I eat in a place like this, but this one seems to have a special flavour. I wonder if it can be the company?"

He smiled across at her, the sunshine among the pine needles of the tree above him throwing flecks of bright copper among the thick locks of his hair.

"I think the company is usually an important part of all such outings,"

she admitted frankly. "I never took one before in the society of a wornout doctor who began to look like a boy again before he had finished his coffee. I really shouldn't know you were the same person who invited me to go on this expedition."

"There's nothing like it for renewing one, body and mind. Actual physical repose isn't often the best cure for weariness: it's change of thought and occupation, particularly if the open air is a part of the cure. I've forgotten I have a care in the world: all I can think of is--may I say it?--yourself! I can't get over the wonder of seeing you turn from what Bob calls his 'pretty lady' into the girl I see before me--a girl who looks about nineteen, with a capacity for good sport in the open air I never dreamed of."

"The open air would renew everybody's youth, I think, if everybody would go to living out-of-doors. We're through, aren't we? There isn't a crumb left! Now please go off and let me clear up and pack away. That's always the woman's part. Couldn't you lie down on that inviting carpet of needles over there under the big pine and get a bit of sleep?"

"Sleep--when I can talk to you?"

She nodded. "Yes, indeed. I'm not going to talk just now, anyhow, so you might as well make the best of it. Throw yourself down with your hands under your head, and look up at those beautiful boughs. Please!"

Rather reluctantly he obeyed, and she could see that, weary as he undoubtedly still was in spite of the refreshing meal, he really did not want to lose any of her society. Lying at full length on his side, his head propped on his hand, talking in the lazy tone of after-dinner content which had descended upon him, he continued to watch her as she repacked the hamper. It was not until she deliberately forsook him that he gave up to her wishes. But when, having been out of his sight for ten minutes, she peered cautiously through the bushes behind which she had screened herself, she saw what she had hoped for. His whole weary frame was stretched upon the pine-needle carpet, the lines of his face were relaxed, and his eyes fast shut.

The sun was far down the hills when he awoke. He lay blinking at the low-sweeping boughs above him for a little without realizing where he was; then, as the midsummer stillness which surrounded him took hold of his senses, he turned his head to recall to himself the conditions under which he had been sleeping. Only the hamper under a tree close by gave evidence that he was here by his own volition. He stared about, remembering that he had had a companion. He got somewhat stiffly to his feet, discovering as he did so that he had lain for a long time without stirring from the position in which slumber had overtaken him.

"Mrs. Lessing!" he called.

From some distance away came back a blithe answer: "Here, Doctor Burns!"

He started in the direction of the voice and presently came upon her sitting on a big granite boulder, busy with a lapful of pine cones out of which she seemed to be constructing something. She looked up, smiling.

"Why in the world did you let me sleep all the afternoon?" he reproached her.

"I should have wakened you in ten minutes more. Have I made you late for your work? I understood that you could afford a few hours for rest.

You've only slept three."

"Three! Good heavens! When I might have been spending them with you!"

He looked so chagrined that her smile changed into outright laughter.

"You are very flattering. But I've been taking much more satisfaction in your repose than I could possibly have done in your society, no matter how brilliant you might have been."

"That's not flattering, but I admit it has its practical side. Those three hours' sleep in the open air have put me on my feet again. Just the same, I want to eat my cake and have it, too! Promise me three consecutive hours of your company when I'm awake, or I shan't get over regretting what I've missed. Will you do this again with me some September day when I can make the time?"

"I promise with pleasure. I've had a charming afternoon all by myself and wandered all over the hillside, dreaming midsummer day-dreams. We must go, mustn't we?" She stood up, her hands full of her work.

"Tell me some of them, won't you, while we climb down to the car?" he begged.

"My happiest one," she said as they descended, "is the making of a country home for little crippled children. I think I've found the spot--the old Fairmount place--it's not more than five miles from here.

If I can only buy it at a reasonable figure--"

"Mrs. Lessing!" he broke in. "So that's the sort of thing that makes your day-dreams! No wonder--well!--"

"Why should you be surprised? Isn't that a delightful dream? If I can only make it come true--"

"You can. Do you want a visiting surgeon?"

"Of course I do. Will you--"

"Why, Mrs. Lessing," said he, stopping short just below her on the steep path and looking up into her face with eyes of eager pleasure, "that's been one of my dreams so long I can't remember when I began to think about it. But I haven't been able to finance it yet, nor to find time to get anybody else to do it. If you'll provide the place I'll do everything I can to make it a success. There are no less than four children this minute I'm longing to get into such a home. We'll go into partnership if you'll take me. I why--you see, I can't even talk straight about it! And you--I thought you were a society woman!"

"I am a society woman, I suppose," she answered laughing, "though our ideas might differ as to what that term stands for. But why should that prevent my caring for this lovely plan?"

"Evidently it doesn't. How many sides have you anyhow? I've found out two new ones to-day. Girl--and patron saint--"

"Ah, don't make fun of me. I'm no girl and very far from any kind of saint. Please help me down this four-foot drop as if I were a very, very old lady, for my head is dizzy with joy that I've found somebody to care for my schemes."

He leaped down and held up his arms. "Come, grandma!" he invited, his face full of mischief and enthusiasm and happiness.

"I think I'll play girl, after all," she refused gaily and, accepting one hand only, swung herself lightly down to his side.

"And it's 'bracers' the fellows think they need to put the heart back into them!" jeered Red Pepper Burns to himself. "Let them try the open country and a comrade like this--if there is another anywhere on earth!

But they can't have her!"