They walked on down, and Marvin drew deep breaths of relief and
satisfaction. No matter how difficult the future, he had thus far met
only sweet reasonableness. The nature of this old man was noble and
ample. The air he breathed was one-fifth oxygen, the mountains about him
were half oxygen, the river he loved was eight-ninths oxygen, and his
soul was like them all.
Here were no volcanic passions depositing sulphur on the earth. If there
had been such in his youth, they were all transformed to gentleness,
just as sulphur has proved the most valuable of all chemicals to shape
the objects used in civilized life.
So reflecting, the young man found himself once more in the library and
presently called to dinner. The white sun slanted through the window and
fell upon her long-sleeved tire as she stood there smiling. Her table
was pretty with crimson radishes and with pale heads of lettuce cut down
in the middle, revealing exquisite convolutions. And in the midst she
had placed her armful of fireweed, which glowed almost as red as the
radishes.
He seated her. Then father and daughter bowed their heads in gratitude
to a silent God, and he followed their example.
Presently she was serving him soup made of hulled corn and full of
minute golden nuclei. Next the perch came on, all decapitated except the
big one, and all encrusted with delicious starches blended and browned.
Marvin received the biggest, and before beginning on it drew out his
centimeter stick and measured it.
“Dr. Rich, you have a remarkably truthful daughter. This fish is even
larger than she said it was.”
“I trust,” smiled the doctor, “that she is just as truthful about
everything. She has never told me anything but the truth, and not much
of that.”
The sunlight that slanted across the long-sleeved tire seemed to lessen
a little as Jean looked up. There was no reproach in the forgetmenot
eyes, but the old man’s gentle shot had told. This girl did keep things
back from her father. Perhaps she did not let him know when the larder
needed replenishing.
Once and again, as the happy meal proceeded, the guest had the same
sensation. Now she would flash into merry words, now sink into shadowy
reticence. Now she was electrosensitive, now perfectly neutral.
They came to salad, and he lifted the bowl of mayonnaise.
“You ought to have let me make this.”
“No, indeed. That would have cut down my profits.”
Marvin stirred the contents of the bowl and reflected that if he could
explain the surface tension in mayonnaise he could explain a great many
other things.
She broke in upon his reverie with a little laugh.
“Once upon a time I asked an Indian boy to get me some olive oil. I
called it wood oil, because of course he wouldn’t know what olives are.
What do you suppose the result was?”
“He brought you wood alcohol?”
“No, he asked for lard stick and brought me a strip of bacon.”
“And after that,” smiled her father, “she took him as a pupil and taught
him English.”
“Did he pay her?”
“I’m afraid not. She loves him too much.” Jean tossed her head.
“I’ll say the Little Pine owes me thirty dollars.”
“How old is he?”
“Almost fifteen. Some day or other he is going to be a doctor, and when
he has grown very rich, I shall send him a bill for those lessons.”
With that remark, of which she did not mean one single word, she whisked
away the dishes and presently returned with a shortcake.
Marvin watched her cut it. Very slowly her sharp knife descended through
the fruit and crust, and each wedge came away without spilling one drop
of its pure red.
“You are very deft.”
“So are you. I was going to cut up your perch for you, but I saw that
you didn’t need me.”
Marvin soberly began to eat his shortcake.
“Miss Jean, your hands do so many beautiful things that they ought to be
worth a great deal of money. But I have only one hand, whether to do
things with or to offer in marriage. I have a proposal to make to you.”
Dr. Rich glanced up in alarm, but Marvin went on calmly.
“I can’t wash my own hand. Please consider a proposition to wash it for
me every day. I am willing to pay a dollar a wash. Don’t you think I
ought, doctor?”
“Marvin, I do not. I enjoy your fun, but pray don’t carry it too far.”
“But haven’t you noticed how enterprising your daughter is getting to
be? She is going to collect bills of Indians, and after dinner she is
going to take my last cent. I don’t even dare to ask her the time of the
day without adding, ‘How much?’”
The doctor smiled. “When you find the answer to that question, I wish
you’d let me know. The value of the time of day is often infinite. So is
that of commercial rectitude. How honest ought a man to be? He ought to
be infinitely honest. Of course he can’t be, but he ought to be. So if
you young folks are about to consider your infinite obligations to each
other, I think I’ll go and take a nap.”
They rose while he left the room, and then sat down again.
“He gets so tired. He is nearly seventy-four, you know.”
“Is it possible?”
“Yes, he was born in ’46. He still has keen vision and hearing, but it
breaks my heart to see him losing his resistance.”
“Losing resistance? Please don’t vex your soul with any such notion. All
he needs is an audience to talk to. Coming down the path he got started
about grain, and if there is a live subject in the year 1919, it’s
grain. I think we ought to draw him out on that subject. In fact I’d
like to see him invited down to my old college to talk about it. What
your father needs is a little light of publicity once more.”