GOOD NEWS
Sunday morning dawned gloriously, and although the sun rose at an early
hour, Jenny was out on the Rocky Point to watch the crimson and gold
shafts of light flaming up back of the mountain peaks; then she looked
out at the sea with its opalescent colors. Turning, she saw someone
walking along the beach from the house beyond the high hedge.
It was not hard to recognize the military bearing of the youth. As the
girl had not known of the party given on the previous evening at The
Palms, she had no knowledge of the near presence of the lad whom she had
so longed to see, that she might ask about the farm. Harold had said
nothing to his sister Gwynette of his determination to remain over night,
but when his comrades had departed for the big city far to the north, he
had climbed into his little gray speeder and had gone to the deserted
mansion-like home belonging to his mother.
Being without a thought of fear, the lad had not in the least minded the
ghastliness of the spacious rooms where the furniture wore coverings of
white and where his footsteps awakened echoes long silent. He had slept
in his own bed, but had aroused early, meaning to breakfast with his old
nurse and her family.
When he saw the girl standing on the highest rock of the points with the
shining morning sky back of her, he snatched off his cap and waved it,
then broke into a run, which soon took him scrambling up the rocks to her
side.
Holding out a strong brown hand, he exclaimed, real pleasure glowing in
his eyes: “Why, little Jenny Warner, how tall you are, and graceful, like
a flower on a slender stem.”
The girl laughed merrily. “Do boys always feel that they must say pretty
things to their girl acquaintances?” she asked.
As he gazed into her liquid brown eyes with their tender depths, the lad
suddenly found himself wishing that he were a poet, that he might say
something truly fitting, but as words failed him, he confessed that most
girls seemed to like to receive compliments. How innocent was the
expression of the sweet face that was lifted toward his.
“Really, do they?” Then she confessed: “I don’t know many girls, only
one—a farmer’s daughter who is over at Granger Place Seminary.”
The lad raised his eyebrows questioningly. Then he began to laugh.
“A farmer’s daughter, is she? Well, I’m glad there is _one_ pupil at that
school who is honest about her family.”
Then noting that his companion was looking at him as though wondering
what he meant, he explained in an offhand way, not wishing to break his
promise to his sister: “Oh, I just heard that some one of the girls in
that school is supposed to be the daughter of a younger son of the
English nobility.” Adding quickly: “You say that you are acquainted with
only one girl. Hasn’t my sister Gwyn been over to call on the Warners
yet, and haven’t you met her?”
A color that rivaled the rose in the sky flamed into Jenny’s face. Harold
saw it and correctly concluded that the girls _had_ met, and that Jenny
had been rudely treated.
“Gwyn is a snob,” was his mental comment. Aloud he said: “Do you suppose
that your grandmother will invite me to stay to breakfast? I’ll have to
start for the big town by ten, at the latest, and so I cannot be here for
dinner.”
“Of course she will.” Jenny glanced back at the farmhouse as she spoke
and saw that the smoke was beginning to wreath out of the chimney above
the kitchen stove. “They’re up now, and so I’ll go in and set the table.”
But still she did not move, and the lad watching her expressive face
intently, exclaimed impulsively: “Jenny, is something troubling you?
Can’t I help if there is?”
That Harold’s surmise had been correct the lad knew before the girl
spoke, for her sweet brown eyes brimmed with tears, and she said in a
low, eager voice:
“Oh, how I have wanted to see you to ask about the farm. I heard, I
overheard your sister telling her two friends from San Francisco that
when your mother comes from France the farm is to be sold, and if it is,
dear old Grandpa and Grandma will have no place to go.”
An angry color had slowly mounted the tanned face of the boy, and he said
coldly: “My sister presumes to have more knowledge of our mother’s
affairs than she has. The farm is _not_ to be sold without my consent.
Mother has agreed to that. I have asked for Rocky Point and the Maiden
Hair Falls Canyon for my share of the estate.”
He looked out over the water thoughtfully before he continued: “Mother, I
will confess, thinks my request a strange one, since the home and the
fifteen acres about it are far more valuable, and she will not consent to
the making of so unequal a division of her property, but she did promise
that she would not sell the farm until I wished it sold. I believe she
suspects that when I finish my schooling I may plan to become a gentleman
farmer myself.”
The lad laughed as though amused, but as he looked intently at the lovely
girl before him, he became serious and exclaimed as though for the first
time he had thought of considering it:
“Perhaps, after all, I might do worse. I simply will not go into the
army. I should hate that life.”
Then, catching the girl’s hand, he led her down the rocks as he called
gayly: “Come on, little Jenny Warner, let’s ask your grandfather if he
will begin this very summer to teach me how to be a farmer.”
And so it was a few moments later, when Grandpa Si came from the barn
with a pail brimming with foamy milk, that he was almost bumped into by a
girl and boy who, hand in hand, were running joyfully from the other
direction.
“Wall, I’ll be dod-blasted!” the old man exclaimed, “if it ain’t little
Harry!”
Then he called: “Grandma Sue, come an’ see who’s here!”
The bright-eyed old woman appeared in the open door, fork in hand. The
lad leaped up the porch steps and kissed her on a flushed, wrinkled
cheek.
“Grandma Sue,” he asked merrily, “have you room for a starved beggar boy
at your breakfast table?”
“Room, is it?” was the pleased response. “Thar’ll allays be that, sonny,
whenever you’re wantin’ a bite to eat.”
Such a merry meal followed. No one could make pancakes better than Susan
Warner, and when the first edge was taken from his appetite, Harold
insisted on helping Jenny turn the cakes for the other two. He wondered
what Gwynette would think and say, if she could see him, but for that he
cared not at all. Then, when they were seated, the boy astonished the
farmer by asking if he were willing to take him on that coming summer as
a helper.
“Tush! Nonsense it is yo’re talkin’ now, Harry boy. Yo’ wouldn’t want to
be puttin’ on overalls, would ye, an’ be milkin’ ol’ Brindle?”
But Harold was in dead earnest, they were finally convinced, and when at
last he started away along the beach it was with the understanding that
he was to return the first of June to be Farmer Warner’s “helper.”