After his interview with Mr. Royce, Claude drove directly to the
mill house. As he came up the shady road, he saw with
disappointment the flash of two white dresses instead of one,
moving about in the sunny flower garden. The visitor was Gladys
Farmer. This was her vacation time. She had walked out to the
mill in the cool of the morning to spend the day with Enid. Now
they were starting off to gather water-cresses, and had stopped
in the garden to smell the heliotrope. On this scorching
afternoon the purple sprays gave out a fragrance that hung over
the flower-bed and brushed their cheeks like a warm breath. The
girls looked up at the same moment and recognized Claude. They
waved to him and hurried down to the gate to congratulate him on
his recovery. He took their little tin pails and followed them
around the old dam-head and up a sandy gorge, along a clear
thread of water that trickled into Lovely Creek just above the
mill. They came to the gravelly hill where the stream took its
source from a spring hollowed out under the exposed roots of two
elm trees. All about the spring, and in the sandy bed of the
shallow creek, the cresses grew cool and green.
Gladys had strong feelings about places. She looked around her
with satisfaction. "Of all the places where we used to play,
Enid, this was my favourite," she declared.
"You girls sit up there on the elm roots," Claude suggested.
"Wherever you put your foot in this soft gravel, water gathers.
You'll spoil your white shoes. I'll get the cress for you."
"Stuff my pail as full as you can, then," Gladys called as they
sat down. "I wonder why the Spanish dagger grows so thick on this
hill, Enid? These plants were old and tough when we were little.
I love it here."
She leaned back upon the hot, glistening hill-side. The sun came
down in red rays through the elm-tops, and all the pebbles and
bits of quartz glittered dazzlingly. Down in the stream bed the
water, where it caught the light, twinkled like tarnished gold.
Claude's sandy head and stooping shoulders were mottled with
sunshine as they moved about over the green patches, and his duck
trousers looked much whiter than they were. Gladys was too poor
to travel, but she had the good fortune to be able to see a great
deal within a few miles of Frankfort, and a warm imagination
helped her to find life interesting. She did, as she confided to
Enid, want to go to Colorado; she was ashamed of never having
seen a mountain.
Presently Claude came up the bank with two shining, dripping
pails. "Now may I sit down with you for a few minutes?"
Moving to make room for him beside her, Enid noticed that his
thin face was heavily beaded with perspiration. His pocket
handkerchief was wet and sandy, so she gave him her own, with a
proprietary air. "Why, Claude, you look quite tired! Have you
been over-doing? Where were you before you came here?"
"I was out in the country with your father, looking at his
alfalfa."
"And he walked you all over the field in the hot sun, I suppose?"