"It's all right, Joe," said Miss Farnsworth, rapidly drawing on a pair
of heavy white gloves. "You needn't be in the least afraid to trust me
with the colts. And the station agent can find somebody to help him
load the wagon for me."
She sprang in and took her seat at the front of the big farm wagon--a
most unusual and dainty figure there, in her crisp white linen. She
gathered the reins deftly, said gayly to the people on the farmhouse
porch: "When I come back I'll show you unpatriotic persons how to keep
Fourth of July in the country," and would have driven off with a
flourish but for one unforeseen and effective hindrance. Joe remained
stolidly at the heads of the two restless black colts.
"You may give them their heads now, Joe," said the girl, decisively.
"In jest a minute, miss."
"Now. I'm in a hurry."
But Joe remained stationary. He turned his head and eyed uneasily a
window above the porch, murmuring: "Jest a minute, now----"
Miss Farnsworth waited half the designated period, then she said,
imperatively: "Joe, be so kind as to let go of those horses."
Joe pretended to have found something wrong with the bridle of the off
horse. Miss Farnsworth watched him skeptically. And an instant later
Stuart Jarvis appeared upon the porch, hat in hand, smiling at the
driver of the farm wagon.
"May I go with you?" he asked, easily, coming up.
There was no reason why she should refuse, particularly with three
middle-aged women, two elderly gentlemen, and four girls observing
with interest from the porch. Neither was there good reason for
refusing to allow Mr. Jarvis to take the reins, since he leaped up at
the right side of the wagon, and held out his hand for them as a
matter of course. But the moment they were around the first bend in
the road Agnes Farnsworth attempted to adjust affairs to her original
intentions.
"Would you mind letting me drive?" she asked. The words, though spoken
with a silver tongue, had rather the effect of a notification than of
an interrogation.
"Not in the least," returned Jarvis, making no motion, however, to
resign the reins, "provided you can prove that I am authorized to give
up my charge."
She looked at him as if she doubted whether she had heard aright. "You
know perfectly well that I am accustomed to horses," she declared,
moving as if she intended to change places with him.
He looked full down at her, smiling, but he still drove with the air
of one who intends to continue in his present occupation. The black
colts were going at a spanking trot, making nothing of the decided
upward trend of the road. Their shining coats gleamed in the sun;
alertness and power showed in every line of them. They were alive from
the tips of their forward-pointing satin ears to the ends of their
handsome uncropped tails, and they felt their life quiveringly.
"There is no reason in the world why I shouldn't drive," said Miss
Farnsworth, with the pleasantly determined air of a girl who intends
ultimately to have her own way. "If you had not appeared just at the
moment you did, I should have come alone."
"Do you really think you would?" asked Jarvis, studying the left ear
of the nigh horse.
"Certainly. Why not?"
"Because I told Joe not to let you go without me."
She colored under her summer's tan.
"May I ask," she inquired, somewhat stiffly, "why you didn't suggest
to me an hour ago that you wished to get to the station?"
Jarvis smiled at this way of putting it. "Joe was intending to go with
you," he explained.
She looked puzzled.
"Five minutes before you left, Joe came and told me that an accident
had happened to one of his men, and that he couldn't go. He said he
didn't think the colts were safe for you. I've been here only three
days--I don't know anything about them. Joe does."
"Oh--nonsense!" said the girl. "I'm not afraid of them."
"They ran away day before yesterday."
"That makes no difference."
"They are crazily afraid of everything in the shape of a conveyance
run by its own motive power, from a threshing machine to an
automobile."
"That makes no difference, either," declared the young person beside
him with energy. "Not the least in the world."
"Possibly not--to you. It makes an immense difference to me."
She looked away, although the words were said in a matter-of-fact tone
hardly calculated to convey their full importance.
"Since you are here to take the reins away from me when I scream," she
said, with a curling lip, "it is perfect nonsense to refuse to let me
drive. Mr. Jarvis----"
"Put it politely," he warned her, smiling.
"Please change places with me." She said it imperiously.
He looked steadfastly down into her eyes for an instant, until her
glance fell. Then he asked, lightly:
"Have you driven them before?"
"No."
"I wonder why," he mused.
She was silent, but her cheeks burned with displeasure.
"I'm glad we're to have a Fourth of July celebration," said he,
driving steadily on. His tone became casual, with a pleasant
inflection, quite as if there had been no controversy. "It will do the
natives good--stir them up. I took the liberty, after you had sent
your order, of wiring the dealer to add rather a good lot of
explosives on my own account. They will come along with yours. It's
lucky the wagon is big--we shall need it for all the stuff."
But the girl would not talk about the Fourth of July. She sat erect,
with her very charming head in the air, and let the miles roll by in
silence.
Upon the platform of the small freight house at the junction stood
several boxes, a long roll and two trunks--all due at the farmhouse.
As the wagon drew up to it, the freight agent came leisurely out to
attend to business. His eyes fell at once upon the black team.
"Pretty likely pair," said he, with an approving pat upon the nearest
shining flank. "Joe Hempstead's, ain't they? I heard he set
considerable store by 'em. Well, they're all right--or will be, when
they're a little older. I've got a mare now that I cal'late could show
'em a clean pair o' heels. She's round behind the station. I'll bring
her out."
"Of course--that's what we came to see," observed Jarvis, as the man
disappeared. "Getting our load is a secondary matter."
"Other matters are always secondary to the sight of a good horse,"
retorted his companion. She was leaning forward and Jarvis did not
miss the opportunity to look at her. He gazed intently at a certain
conjunction of curves at the back of her neck--a spot which always
tempted him tremendously whenever he saw it.
The freight agent appeared round the corner of the station, leading an
animal the sight of which made Jarvis' eyes light with pleasure. Agnes
Farnsworth caught her breath softly and leaned still further forward.
The brown mare was led back and forth before them, the colts requiring
a strong hand upon the reins as she caracoled in front of their
exasperated eyes. Jarvis was obliged to give them his whole attention.
But the girl slipped down from the wagon. She went up to the mare and
laid a coaxing, caressing hand upon the velvet nose--a hand so gentle
that the animal did not resent it. She spoke softly to her; inquired
her name, and called her by it in a voice of music--Betty. Presently
she asked for the halter, and the freight agent, somewhat doubtful,
but too full of admiration for the near presence of beauty to refuse,
gave it to her. Then, indeed, did Miss Farnsworth prove the truth of
her assertion that she was accustomed to horses. In five minutes she
had made love to the mare so effectively that the shy and hitherto
somewhat disdainful creature was following her with a slack halter and
an entreating nose. Incidentally Betty had allowed the slender fingers
to open her mouth.
"Of course you are not selling her," remarked Miss Farnsworth,
carelessly, as she walked away to examine her freight.
"Well--had an offer of two hundred and fifty for her last week."