The Front Yard Part 14

"He never hunts, because he has something better to do," retorted Bartholomew.

"Ah, better?" murmured the Englishman, doubtfully.

Bartholomew got up and took a chair which was nearer f.a.n.n.y. "No--no tea," he said, as she made a motion towards a cup; then, without further explaining his change of position, he gave her a little smile. Dallas, who caught this smile on the wing, learned from it unexpectedly that there was a closer intimacy between his hostess and Bartholomew than he had suspected. "Bartholomew!" he thought, contemptuously.

"Gray--spectacles--stout." Then suddenly recollecting the increasing plumpness of his own person, he drew in his out-stretched legs, and determined, from that instant, to walk fifteen miles a day.

"Rod knows how to shoot, even though he doesn't hunt," said Bartholomew, addressing the Englishman. "I saw him once bring down a mad bull, who was charging directly upon an old man--the neatest sort of a hit."

"He himself being in a safe place meanwhile," said Dallas.

"On the contrary, he had to rush forward into an open field. If he had missed his aim by an eighth of an inch, the beast--a terrible creature--would have made an end of him."

"And the poor old man?" said Eva.

"He was saved, of course; he was a rather disreputable old darky.

Another time Rod went out in a howling gale--the kind they have down there--to rescue two men whose boat had capsized in the bay. They were clinging to the bottom; no one else would stir; they said it was certain death; but Rod went out--he's a capital sailor--and got them in. I didn't see that myself, as I saw the bull episode; I was told about it."

"By Rod?" said Dallas.

"By one of the men he saved. As you've never been saved yourself, Dallas, you probably don't know how it feels."

"He seems to be a modern Chevalier Bayard, doesn't he?" said good-natured Mark Ferguson.

"He's modern, but no Bayard. He's a modern and a model pioneer--"

"Pioneers! oh, pioneers!" murmured Gordon-Gray, half chanting it.

None of the Americans recognized his quotation.

"He's the son of a Methodist minister," Bartholomew went on. "His father, a missionary, wandered down to Florida in the early days, and died there, leaving a sickly wife and seven children. You know the sort of man--a linen duster for a coat, prunella shoes, always smiling and hopeful--a great deal about 'Brethren.' Fortunately they could at least be warm in that climate, and fish were to be had for the catching; but I suspect it was a struggle for existence while the boys were small. David was the youngest; his five brothers, who had come up almost laborers, were determined to give this lad a chance if they could; together they managed to send him to school, and later to a forlorn little Methodist college somewhere in Georgia. David doesn't call it forlorn, mind you; he still thinks it an important inst.i.tution. For nine years now--he is thirty--he has taken care of himself; he and a partner have cleared this large farm, and have already done well with it. Their hope is to put it all into sugar in time, and a Northern man with capital has advanced them the money for this Italian colonization scheme: it has been tried before in Florida, and has worked well. They have been very enterprising, David and his partner; they have a saw-mill running, and two school-houses already--one for whites, one for blacks. You ought to see the little darkies, with their wool twisted into twenty tails, going proudly in when the bell rings," he added, turning to f.a.n.n.y.

"And the white children, do they go too?" said Eva.

"Yes, to their own school-house--lank girls, in immense sun-bonnets, stalking on long bare feet. He has got a brisk little Yankee school-mistress for them. In ten years more I declare he will have civilized that entire neighborhood."

"You are evidently the Northern man with capital," said Dallas.

"I don't care in the least for your sneers, Dallas; I'm not the Northern man, but I should like to be. If I admire Rod, with his constant driving action, his indomitable pluck, his simple but tremendous belief in the importance of what he has undertaken to do, that's my own affair. I do admire him just as he stands, clothes and all; I admire his creaking saw-mill; I admire his groaning dredge; I even admire his two hideously ugly new school-houses, set staring among the stumps."

"Tell me one thing, does he preach in the school-houses on Sundays and Friday evenings, say?" asked Ferguson. "Because if he does he will make no money, whatever else he may make. They never do if they preach."

"It's his father who was the minister, not he," said Bartholomew. "David never preached in his life; he wouldn't in the least know how. In fact, he's no talker at all; he says very little at any time; he's a doer--David is; he _does_ things. I declare it used to make me sick of myself to see how much that fellow accomplished every day of his life down there, and thought nothing of it at all."

"And what were you doing 'down there,' besides making yourself sick, if I may ask?" said Ferguson.

"Oh, I went down for the hunting, of course. What else does one go to such a place for?"

"Tell me a little about that, if you don't mind," said the Englishman, interested for the first time.

"M. de Verneuil wants us all to go to the Deserto some day soon," said f.a.n.n.y; "a lunch party. We shall be sure to enjoy it; M. de Verneuil's parties are always delightful."

III

The end of the week had been appointed for Pierre's excursion.

The morning opened fair and warm, with the veiled blue that belongs to the Bay of Naples, the soft hazy blue which is so different from the dry glittering clearness of the Riviera.

f.a.n.n.y was mounted on a donkey; Eva preferred to walk, and Mademoiselle accompanied her. Pierre had included in his invitation the usual afternoon a.s.semblage at the villa--Dallas, Mark Ferguson, Bartholomew, Gordon-Gray, and David Rod.

For f.a.n.n.y had, as Dallas expressed it, "taken up" Rod; she had invited him twice to dinner. The superfluous courtesy had annoyed Dallas, for of course, as Rod himself was nothing, less than nothing, the explanation must lie in the fact that Horace Bartholomew had suggested it.

"Bartholomew was always wrong-headed; always picking up some perfectly impossible creature, and ramming him down people's throats," he thought, with vexation.

Bartholomew was walking now beside f.a.n.n.y's donkey.

Mark Ferguson led the party, as it moved slowly along the narrow paved road that winds in zigzags up the mountain; Eva, Mademoiselle, Pierre, Dallas, and Rod came next. f.a.n.n.y and Bartholomew were behind; and behind still, walking alone and meditatively, came Gordon-Gray, who looked at life (save for the hunting) from the standpoint of the Italian Renaissance. Gordon-Gray knew a great deal about the Malatesta family; he had made a collection of Renaissance cloak clasps; he had written an essay on the colors of the long hose worn in the battling, leg-displaying days which had aroused his admiration, aroused it rather singularly, since he himself was as far as possible from having been qualified by nature to shine in such vigorous society.

Pierre went back to give some directions to one of the men in the rear of their small procession.

When he returned, "So the bears sometimes get among the canes?" Eva was saying.

"But then, how very convenient," said Pierre; "for they can take the canes and chastise them punctually." He spoke in his careful English.

"They're sugar-canes," said Rod.

"It's his plantation we are talking about," said Eva. "Once it was a military post, he says. Perhaps like Ehrenbreitstein."

"Exactly," said Dallas, from behind; "the same ma.s.sive frowning stone walls."

"There were four one-story wooden barracks once," said Rod; "whitewashed; flag-pole in the centre. There's nothing now but a chimney; we've taken the boards for our mill."

"See the cyclamen, good folk," called out Gordon-Gray.

On a small plateau near by a thousand cyclamen, white and pink, had lifted their wings as if to fly away. Off went Pierre to get them for Eva.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE WAY TO THE DESERTO]

"Have you ever seen the bears in the canes yourself?" pursued Eva.

"I've seen them in many places besides canes," answered Rod, grimly.

"I too have seen bears," Eva went on. "At Berne, you know."

"The Punta Palmas bears are quite the same," commented Dallas. "When they see Mr. Rod coming they sit up on their hind legs politely. And he throws them apples."

"No apples; they won't grow there," said Rod, regretfully. "Only oranges."

"Do you make the saw-mill go yourself--with your own hands?" pursued Eva.