No man has complained that you have discoursed too long on any
subject, for you leave us in an eagerness of hearing more.
--DRYDEN.
The other two walked slowly on. They had always been cronies, as a man
and even a small boy can be; and now Magnus found his old friend full
of the keenest interest in all the new life and varying work of which
the young cadet had so much to tell. Slowly down the pretty hill they
went; Mr. Erskine taking from Magnus what help he could for his lame
side, and the cadet trying to make the regulation step know its place.
And it was so pleasant to see, so like the dear old times, that the
four at the cottage dropped everything to watch them as they came. Then
Mrs. Kindred hurried out to welcome her guest, the two sisters got hold
of Magnus, and Cherry went quietly back to finish setting the table.
I doubt she was not minding her business too closely, smiling to
herself over the words and laughter that came past the half-open door
of the closet where she was sorting out spoons; for she never heard
what stealthy steps drew near, and her first warning of danger was the
sudden darkening of the closet by the shutting of the door. Cherry
sprang towards it just in time to hear the bolt shot and the key
withdrawn. Then came a struggle outside.
"Oh, Magnus, stop! Cherry is in there!"
"Safe as possible."
"Give me the key! She wants to be out here."
"Then why did she go in?"
"She went for the spoons, you intolerable boy," said Violet.
"Do to talk of," said Magnus coolly. "No, my dear; she went because
this intolerable boy was around. So you perceive it is very kind of me
to keep her where she cannot see him. Come, chicks; let's get the old
banjo, and I'll sing you the 'Song of the Summer Girl.'"
"If you sing one single note when Cherry is not by to hear, we will
stop our ears," said Rose.
"Then you will not be able to tell her about it afterwards," said
Magnus. "Come along."
"Well, you cannot have your dinner till we get the spoons," said Violet.
"At West Point we eat with forks--when we have them," said Magnus.
"When we do not, we take our fingers. Where is that banjo?"
The girls followed him, talking and scolding and threatening to tell
Mr. Erskine, but Cherry had no idea of waiting for outside help. She
was a girl of resources, and the case in hand was not very hard. For
this was an outside lock, simply screwed on; an old knife made a fair
screwdriver; and, when Magnus had just reached the next room, a soft
chink made him look round, and there was Cherry, calmly putting the
spoons in place.
"Where did you come from?" he said, turning back.
"The spoon drawer. Do I understand that West Point cadets scorn both
spoons and forks?"
"I'll teach you something about West Point cadets, before I go," Magnus
asserted, stepping towards her.
"How good of you!" said Cherry mockingly, as she slipped round the
table. "We're such an ignorant set out here. Magnus, if you would
announce a lecture on warped surfaces, I really think it would draw."
What Magnus would have said or done, and how Cherry might have
suffered for her temerity, does not appear. Rose came in, bearing
a dish of such chicken pot-pie as Magnus declared never grew on a
reservation; Violet followed with potatoes and peas and beets--the
pretty red, white, and green of the summer garden; and they all sat
down to dinner. Then Magnus found that he had neither spoon nor fork.
"Why, Violet, how careless," the mother said, as he made known the fact.
"No, mamma, not I."
"Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry, "Magnus said that West Point cadets could
eat with their fingers, so I thought if he enjoyed it, we should like
to see how it was done. And it would be one less to wash. And the
chickens are cut up," she added gravely. Mrs. Kindred laughed.
"If you two are having a fight, I'll keep out," she said. "Go and help
yourself, Magnus." And this he would have done from Cherry's plate, if
that young damsel had not laid fast hold of her property; so he took
Violet's instead.
But it was a delightful dinner: what though the courses were few and
simple, and the trained waiters only the three girls. Then the two
elders carried Magnus off to the porch for another talk while the girls
cleared the table, and then they also came out, bringing the banjo.
"Now for the summer girl!" they cried, and Magnus left his place for
one on the steps at Cherry's feet.
"_She_ has been called 'a summer girl,'" he said, "and I want to see
how she likes her portrait. This lay is named: 'The Idle of the Summer
Girl.'"
"Your writing?" said Rose.
"If you admire it, yes."
"Dear me, child," said Mrs. Kindred, "do they waste your time out there
writing poetry?"
"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better
believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what time means if I didn't
filch a little for my own use, now and then. This is: 'The Idle of the
Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,' Cadet Rig being the other
party. All the weak lines are his. There's another touching ditty on
the same theme, much sung in camp at the time of full moon, but it
takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from a specimen verse."
Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing
voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in
his own:
_1st Cadet_: "O the Summer Girl has come to town."
_2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
_1st Cadet_: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail--ing gown."
_2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
_3d Cadet_: "Steady on that, you haven't got any."
At least four voices cried:
"Go on! Go on!"
"Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony."
"Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet.
"Very much the way."
"And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?"
inquired Mr. Erskine.
"Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her
justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork
quilt:
"I sing the song of the Summer Girl;
She feels for the lonely cadet.
Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams
I seem to taste them yet."
("N. B.--The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station probably.")
"The peaches she threw at my head at drill,
The apples she dropped at my feet;
The little pound cake that she made me take,
First biting, to make it sweet."
"Magnus--she didn't!"
"Rose--she did!"
"And you eat it?"
"Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on Chappy. Robins
aren't fetched up particular, as I was. Why, that's nothing!"
"Nothing?"
"No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of sugar between her teeth
and comes round offering everybody a bite, that is rather steep."
"And yet, long life to the Summer Girl!
Far be it from me to flout her.
She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top,
But what could we do without her?
There were two spoons and a single dish,
Two hearts that beat as one;
When we sat by the wall before recall,
Eating ice cream in the sun."
A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who had
grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles."
"Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose.
"Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his
mother.
"Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row?
Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted
for one of the blackbirds?"
"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.
"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out of
anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally
careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the
partition wall grows thin."
"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got
ice cream."
"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets
gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a
summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature
smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country
store up in business."
"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.
"Contraband sweets of life, sir."
"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.
"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would
confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em.
Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the
hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."
"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I do
not like to have you breaking rules."
"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not make
'em so fragile."
"If they are fragile, keep off."
"Just can't, mammy. Here we've had breakfast at half past six. Then
we go head over heels into math. and heels over head into tan bark;
and not another regulation mouthful to be had till one o'clock. Flesh
and blood can't stand it, you know. We just _have_ to have a barrel of
apples handy, and a box of crackers; and any other trifles we can pick
up."
"A barrel of apples!" said Rose. "And 'smuggled' in! Wherever in the
world do you keep them?"
"You are going to be such a favourite with the Tacs next summer, I
think I will not tell," said Magnus.
"Poor starved boy!" said Rose. "And he has been home two whole days,
and not even half a dish of ice cream, yet."
"I have had all the ice I want, thank you," said Cadet Kindred, looking
up at Cherry, who as I said, had been very silent while all these other
girls filled the air. "_Cream_ has been scarce. Perhaps if you two
would stir up some sort of stuff to-morrow, Cherry would come down and
freeze it."
"You shall freeze it yourself," said Violet.
"Agreed--with her to help me." And laughing up at her with mischievous
eyes, Magnus finished his song:
"But never you trust the Summer Girl,--
Or you will find to your sorrow,
That just as she smiled on Tubs to-day,
She'll smile on Daddy to-morrow."