Strawberry Acres Part 37

"It makes no difference what you've heard. Ask her herself what we've talked of most. But, Sally--how long before I may see round another corner?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. Not--this year, please."

"Not this year! Well--I certainly shall have to cultivate patience. But I will--if I must. When--?"

Her lips twitched a little. It was the girl he had known a long time who answered: "When the first strawberries go to market--from Strawberry Acres!"

"Shades of Job! A year from this June? And till then I must walk on neutral ground?"

It was harder to resist him--harder to put him off--than she had thought it would be. But she had made up her mind--and when Sally Lane did that she could not be easily swayed from her purpose.

"You've seen around the corner," she murmured. "You promised to be content with that."

"Not content--patient--if I can. I will be. Thank you for that much."

He reluctantly let her draw away her hand, and she came down the two steps, pa.s.sed him, and led the way toward the living-room door. With her hand on the k.n.o.b he stopped her.

"Sally--"

"Yes--"

"I can't help liking the look of the lane--beyond the corner!"

Laughing and blushing more brilliantly than before--which was rather superfluous--Sally threw open the door, regardless of the fact that Joanna, who possessed a pair of very good eyes, was awaiting her in the room beyond. But there is such a thing as dazzling people's eyesight so that they cannot judge perfectly of what they see, and this effect Joanna's mistress immediately proceeded to produce. For the following hour, between raptures over being at home, tales of her Southern experiences--told so vividly that her listeners seemed to see them for themselves--eager questionings of the home stayers, there was small chance for anybody to put a finger upon exactly what Miss Sally Lane's inmost thoughts might be.

Then, quite unexpectedly, a quarter hour earlier than it had been supposed possible, the tramp of feet was heard upon the porch. Sally flew toward the hall--then flew back again, leaving the door closed, and standing still and breathless upon the hearth-rug, in the full light of the fire. Voices were heard in the hall, and the rattle of umbrellas in the rack.

"Plaguey poor play," Max was complaining. "Rather stay by the fire any night than poke to town to bore myself like that. I don't think--"

He flung open the door. Behind him Alec's voice was saying: "I'm as wet as a rat. You fellows had the big umbrella. The little one isn't big enough to--"

"Well, I'll be--" Max's exclamation cut his brother short. He stood still, staring. There was a flutter of lilac skirts, a low cry of joy, and Jarvis was looking on enviously at an ill.u.s.tration of the privileges that exist for brothers, who--stupid fellows--do not half appreciate them. A moment later Alec and Bob had come in for their share of sisterly greeting, and the three were standing round the returned traveller in a highly satisfied semi-circle, putting questions, making comments, and generally behaving as they might have been counted on to do.

"I hope you don't expect us to believe those piteous tales about your losing flesh and colour with homesickness," declared Max, his hand on his sister's shoulder, as he turned her full toward the firelight. "Jove, I never saw you look more like one of those pink peonies you think so much of, in your garden."

"I didn't write piteous tales!" His sister involuntarily accentuated the likeness he had suggested by growing pinker than before.

"It was Uncle Tim, then. He got worried about you, and wrote me so. He must have been off his base. You never looked healthier. But, see here, miss--you don't do this thing again--understand? We'll never keep house here another winter without you!"

Sally had come home on Sat.u.r.day night. On Sunday morning the rain had ceased, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Before breakfast she was out in the garden. Spying her there as he looked out of his window, Max hastened his dressing and went out to join her.

"Looks fairly well in order, eh?" he questioned.

Sally remembered certain information sent her in one of Janet's letters.

"Indeed it does. And you made it so. That pleases me more than I can tell you, Max."

"How do you know I did?"

"Guessed it from your expression--and a hint I had had. Didn't you rather enjoy doing it?"

"Much more than I should have expected," he was forced to admit under the scrutiny of her eyes.

"How I wish you could leave the bank and join the boys in the work out here. Don't you almost wish so yourself?" she demanded, thrusting her hand through his arm, as he paced along, his hands in his pockets.

The old garden paths were quite wide enough for two, when they walked close together.

Max looked down at her. "To tell the truth, I'm beginning to wish so too."

This, from Max, was a great admission. Sally's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "Oh, can't you?" she cried.

"I don't see how I can, this year. To be sure, Jarve's paying all the expenses and taking all the responsibility these first two years, according to agreement, but I can't lie down on him. Of course it's all outgo and no income until we get the strawberries to bearing next year.

Meanwhile the family has to be supported, and what timber we've thought best to sell won't do that, if all of us stop work. It's all right for Al and Bob to spend this season on the farm, for Jarve would have to hire somebody anyway, but it's different with me, and my salary is more than they could earn, both together, at their old jobs. No--I must grind away another year. But then--"

"Then you'll come?"

"Yes, and be glad to."

"I'm so delighted to hear you say that!"

"I need the change. I realize, at last, what a bear I've been these three years. I'm tired of being a bear. It's half nerves, I believe--but a fellow of my age ought not to know he has nerves. Besides--"

He paused, looking off through the pine grove to the gap in the hedge, through which a glimpse of the white cottage could be had. Sally waited.

It was rarely that her elder brother became confidential, and this mood seemed more than ordinarily propitious for getting at his best thoughts.

After a little he went on, in a firm tone, speaking after a fashion which made his sister feel for him a new respect.

"I may as well tell you that in a way I think I'm rather a different fellow from the one you left last November. I see things differently.

It's his doing--" He nodded toward the cottage, and Sally understood.

Also, she felt infinitely thankful to the influence which had brought about this change. "I've come to see," he went on more slowly, "what it means to have a definite purpose in life beyond merely making a living and having as much of a good time as you can manage to extract. I want to make a man of myself--the sort of man my Maker intended me to be.

"Ferry's doing it--Jarvis is doing it--even Alec and Bob put me to shame with the manliness they're developing. If Maxwell Lane can't swing into line--"

"He can, dear--he will. He's swung already, when he can talk like this."

His sister's hand squeezed his arm tight for a minute, in her happiness.

"It's not going to be a matter of talk, mind you," he said earnestly.

"Don Ferry doesn't talk about his own life--he lives it. I want to do the same. But I felt as if I'd like you to know--that's all. What's that coming up in the corner there?"

"Lilies-of-the-valley--they're almost ready to bud." And Sally let him lead the conversation away from himself to talk about the garden, understanding that the little revelation was a great one for him to make, and that it had cost him a decided effort. But while she talked of the pruning of the roses and the prospects of the sweet peas, just sown, her heart was rejoicing over the growth in this "human garden," as Ferry had called it, so much dearer to her.

"Alec's to go away next winter for a course at an agricultural school,"

Max announced suddenly. "I've made up my mind to that. He shows more bent than any of us toward making a science of this thing. Odd, isn't it?--where you consider how set he was against even living here. I tell you Don Ferry's a great chap. He's done more for us than we can pay back.

I'd like to keep him in the family. Janet too. See here--" he rose upright from having stooped over certain newly upspringing shoots, and favoured his sister with a sharp glance. "What's the matter with you and Don hitting it off? That would leave Jarve to Janet, and make a mighty nice combination of us--eh? Judging by appearances Don wouldn't object a bit.--I say--where are you going?"

"Didn't you hear the breakfast-bell?" Sally was walking away from him toward the house.

"No, I didn't. Neither did you."