In October the maple leaves fell, the white birches showered the
hill-sides with crumpled gold, the ruffed grouse put on its downy
stockings, the great hare's flanks became patched with white. Cold was
surely coming; somewhere behind the blue north the Great White Winter
stirred in its slumber.
As yet, however, the oaks and beeches still wore their liveries of
rustling amber, the short grass on hill-side pastures was intensely
green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet passed in
wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed
in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the
magnificence of a perfect afternoon.
Miss Elliott, riding beside Burleson, had fallen more silent than usual.
She no longer wore her sombrero and boy's clothes; hat, habit, collar,
scarf--ay, the tiny polished spur on her polished boot--were eloquent of
Fifth Avenue; and she rode a side-saddle made by Harrock.
"Alas! alas!" said Burleson; "where is the rose of yesterday?"
"If you continue criticising my habit--" she began, impatiently.
"No--not for a minute!" he cried. "I didn't mention your habit or your
stock--"
"You are always bewailing that soiled sombrero and those unspeakable
breeches--"
"I never said a word--"
"You did. You said, 'Where is the rose of yesterday?'"
"I meant the wild rose. You are a cultivated rose now, you know--"
She turned her face at an angle which left him nothing to look at but
one small, close-set ear.
"May I see a little more of your face by-and-by?" he asked.
"Don't be silly, Mr. Burleson."
"If I'm not, I'm afraid you'll forget me."
They rode on in silence for a little while; he removed his cap and
stuffed it into his pocket.
"It's good for my hair," he commented, aloud; "I'm not married, you see,
and it behooves a man to keep what hair he has until he's married."
As she said nothing, he went on, reflectively: "Eminent authorities have
computed that a man with lots of hair on his head stands thirty and
nineteen-hundredths better chance with a girl than a man who has but a
scanty crop. A man with curly hair has eighty-seven chances in a
hundred, a man with wavy hair has seventy-nine, a man--"
"Mr. Burleson," she said, exasperated, "I am utterly at a loss to
understand what it is in you that I find attractive enough to endure
you."
"Seventy-nine," he ventured--"my hair is wavy--"
She touched her mare and galloped forward, and he followed through the
yellow sunshine, attendant always on her caprice, ready for any sudden
whim. So when she wheeled to the left and lifted her mare over a
snake-fence, he was ready to follow; and together they tore away across
a pasture, up a hill all purple with plumy bunch-grass, and forward to
the edge of a gravel-pit, where she whirled her mare about, drew bridle,
and flung up a warning hand just in time. His escape was narrower; his
horse's hind hoofs loosened a section of undermined sod; the animal
stumbled, sank back, strained with every muscle, and dragged himself
desperately forward; while behind him the entire edge of the pit gave
way, crashing and clattering into the depths below.
They were both rather white when they faced each other.
"Don't take such a risk again," he said, harshly.
"I won't," she answered, with dry lips; but she was not thinking of
herself. Suddenly she became very humble, guiding her mare alongside of
his horse, and in a low voice asked him to pardon her folly.
And, not thinking of himself, he scored her for the risk she had taken,
alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fashion
of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he
asked her not to do it again, for his sake--an informal request that she
accepted with equal informality and a slow droop of her head.
Never had she received such a thorough, such a satisfying scolding.
There was not one word too much--every phrase refreshed her, every
arbitrary intonation sang in her ears like music. And so far not one
selfish note had been struck.
She listened, eyes downcast, face delicately flushed--listened until it
pleased him to make an end, which he did with amazing lack of skill:
"What do you suppose life would hold for _me_ with you at the bottom of
that gravel-pit?"
The selfish note rang out, unmistakable, imperative--the clearest,
sweetest note of all to her. But the question was no question and
required no answer. Besides, he had said enough--just enough.
"Let us ride home," she said, realizing that they were on dangerous
ground again--dangerous as the gravel-hill.
And a few moments later she caught a look in his face that disconcerted
and stampeded her. "It was partly your own fault, Mr. Burleson. Why does
not your friend take away the mare he has bought and paid for?"
"Partly--my--fault!" he repeated, wrathfully.
"Can you not let a woman have that much consolation?" she said, lifting
her gray eyes to his with a little laugh. "Do you insist on being the
only and perfect embodiment of omniscience?"
He said, rather sulkily, that he didn't think he was omniscient, and she
pretended to doubt it, until the badinage left him half vexed, half
laughing, but on perfectly safe ground once more.
Indeed, they were already riding over the village bridge, and he said:
"I want to stop and see Santry's child for a moment. Will you wait?"
"Yes," she said.
So he dismounted and entered the weather-battered abode of Santry; and
she looked after him with an expression on her face that he had never
surprised there.
Meanwhile, along the gray village thoroughfare the good folk peeped out
at her where she sat her mare, unconscious, deep in maiden meditation.
She had done much for her people; she was doing much. Fiction might add
that they adored her, worshipped her very footprints!--echoes all of
ancient legends of a grateful tenantry that the New World believes in
but never saw.
After a little while Burleson emerged from Santry's house, gravely
returning the effusive adieus of the family.
"You are perfectly welcome," he said, annoyed; "it is a pleasure to be
able to do anything for children."