The Major Part 13

"Ah? And why do you think so?"

"He just looked at her, and looked, and looked."

"Well, that seems fairly good evidence."

"And he is coming up here to-night when we bring him his good clothes."

"Oh, you are to bring him his good clothes, are you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Gwynne and I are taking them down in the carriage."

"Oh, in the carriage--Mrs. Gwynne--"

"Yes, you know--Oh, here's Nora at the door. Excuse me, Papa. I am sure it is important."

She ran to the door and in a moment or two returned with a note. "It's for you, Papa, and I know it's about the carriage." She watched her father somewhat anxiously as he read the note.

"Umm-um. Very good, very nice and proper. Certainly. Just say to Mrs. Gwynne that we are very pleased to be able to serve her with the carriage, and that we hope Larry will do us the honour of coming to us."

Jane nodded delightedly. "I know, Papa. I told her that already. But I'll tell her this is the answer to the note."

Under Jane's direction and care they made their visit to the car, but on their return no Larry was with them. He would come after the picnic and baseball game tomorrow, perhaps, but not to-night. His mother was plainly disappointed, and indeed a little hurt. She could not understand her son. It was not his clothes after all as she had thought. She pondered over his last words spoken as he bade her farewell at the car door, and was even more mystified.

"I'll be glad when we get to our own place again," he said. "I hate to be beholden to anybody. We're as good as any of them anyway." The bitterness in his tone mystified her still more.

It was little Jane who supplied the key to the mystery. "I don't think he likes Tom very much," said the little girl. "He likes Hazel, though.

But he might have come to our house; I did not laugh." And then the mother thought she understood.

That sudden intensity of bitterness in her boy's voice startled her a little, but deep down in her heart she was conscious of a queer feeling of satisfaction, almost of pride. "He's just like his father," she said to herself. "He likes to be independent." Strict honesty in thought made her add, "And like me, too, I fear."

The picnic day was one of those intensely hot June days when the whole world seems to stand quivering and breathlessly attent while Nature works out one of her miracles over fields of grain, over prairie flowers, over umbrageous trees and all things borne upon the bosom of Mother Earth, checking the succulence of precocious overgrowths, hardening fibre, turning plant energy away from selfish exuberance in mere stalk building into the altruistic sacrament of ripening fruit and hardening grain. A wise old alchemist is Mother Earth, working in time but ever for eternity.

The picnickers who went out to the park early in the day were driven for refuge from the blazing sun to the trees and bushes, where prostrated by the heat they lay limp and flaccid upon the gra.s.s. Miss Hazel Sleighter, who for some reason which she could not explain to herself had joined the first contingent of picnickers, was cross, distinctly and obviously cross. The heat was trying to her nerves, but worse, it made her face red--red all over. Her pink parasol intensified the glow upon her face.

"What a fool I was to come, in this awful heat," she said to herself.

"They won't be here for hours, and I will be just like a wash-rag."

Nor was Larry enjoying the picnic. The material comforts in the form of sandwiches, cakes and pies, gloriously culminating in lemonade and ice cream, while contributing a temporary pleasure, could not obliterate a sense of misery wrought in him by Miss Hazel's chilly indifference. That young lady, whose smiles so lavishly bestowed only yesterday had made for him a new heaven and a new earth, had to-day merely thrown him a pa.s.sing glance and a careless "h.e.l.lo," as she floated by intent on bigger game.

In addition, the boy was conscious of an overpowering la.s.situde that increased as the day wore on. His misery and its chief cause had not escaped the observing eyes of the little maid, Jane Brown, whose clear and incisive voice was distinctly audible as she confided to her friend Nora her disappointment in Miss Hazel.

"She won't look at him to-day," she said. "She's just waiting for the boys to come. She'll be nicer then."

There was no animus in the voice, only surprise and disappointment. To Larry, however, the fact that the secret tragedy of his soul was thus laid bare, filled him with a sudden rage. He cast a wrathful eye upon the little maid. She met his glance with a placid smile, volunteering the cheerful remark, "They won't be long now."

A fury possessed the boy. "Oh shut your mouth, will you?" he said, glaring at her.

For a moment little Jane looked at him, surprise, dismay, finally pity succeeding each other in the deep blue eyes. Hastily she glanced about to see if the others had heard the awful outburst. She was relieved to note that only Joe and Nora were near enough to hear. She settled herself down in a position of greater comfort and confided to her friend Nora with an air of almost maternal solicitude, "I believe he has a pain. I am sure he has a pain."

Larry sprang to his feet, and without a glance at his anxious tormentor said, "Come on, Joe, let's go for a hunt in the woods."

Jane looked wistfully after the departing boys. "I wish they would ask us, Nora. Don't you? I think he is nice when he isn't mad," she said. To which Nora firmly a.s.sented.

A breeze from the west and the arrival of the High School team, resplendent in their new baseball uniforms, brought to the limp loiterers under the trees a reviving life and interest in the day's doings.

It was due to Jane that Sam got into the game, for when young Frank Smart was searching for a suitable left fielder to complete the All Comers team, he spied seated among the boys the little girl.

"h.e.l.lo, Jane; in your usual place, I see!" he called out to her as he pa.s.sed.

"h.e.l.lo, Frank!" she called to him brightly. "Frank! Frank!" she cried, after the young man had pa.s.sed, springing up and running after him.

"I am in a hurry, Jane; I must get a man for left field."

"But, Frank," she said, catching his arm, for young Smart was a great friend of hers and of her father's. "I want to tell you. You see that funny boy under the tree," she continued, lowering her voice. "Well, he's a splendid player. Tom doesn't want him to play, and I don't either, because I want the High School to beat. But it would not be fair not to tell you, would it?"

Young Smart looked at her curiously. "Say, little girl, you're a sport.

And is he a good player?"

"Oh, he's splendid, but he's queer--I mean he looks queer. He's awfully funny. But that doesn't matter, does it?"

"Not a hair, if he can play ball. What's his name?"

"Sam--something."

"Sam Something? That is a funny name."

"Oh, you know, Sam. I don't know his other name."

"Well, I'll try him, Jane," said young Smart, moving toward the boy and followed by the eager eyes of the little girl.

"I say, Sam," said Smart, "we want a man for left field. Will you take a go at it?"

"Too hot," grunted Sam.

"Oh, you won't find it too hot when you get started. Rip off your coat and get into the game. You can play, can't you?"

"Aw, what yer givin' us. I guess I can give them ginks a few pointers."

"Well, come on."

"Too hot," said Sam.

Jane pulled young Smart by the sleeve. "Tell him you will give him a jersey," she said in a low voice. "His shirt is torn."

Again young Smart looked at Jane with scrutinising eyes. "You're a wonder," he said.

"Come along, Sam. You haven't got your sweater with you, but I will get one for you. Get into the bush there and change."

With apparent reluctance, but with a gleam in his little red eyes, Sam slouched into the woods to make the change, and in a few moments came forth and ran to take his position at left field.