“DRAT LOVE AFFAIRS!” SAID MRS. PICKETT
Eweretta was not destined to be so completely isolated after all, for
one fine afternoon Mrs. Pickett took a sudden resolve, and putting on
her “best things,” walked across the field and made a state call at the
White House, where she was so kindly received, that she was emboldened
to ask the whole party to take tea at the Farm on the following
afternoon.
The invitation was accepted, so there was a grand “clean-up” of the big
house-place (not that it seemed to need it!), and there was a great
baking of cakes and fruit-pies. The best china and table-linen were got
out, together with some really fine old silver, and when the guests
arrived the table was already laid for tea.
Minnie had picked a huge bunch of dahlias and placed them in a
beautiful old china jug in the center of the table, which was loaded
with good things, for tea was a genuine meal at Pickett’s Farm.
Pickett was performing his ablutions in the big kitchen that joined the
house-place, where there was a long sink with a pump at one end of it.
Mrs. Pickett and Minnie were “dressed for company.”
A big log fire burned cheerfully in the old-fashioned fireplace, making
the brass and copper utensils glitter and flash. The “settle” and some
high-backed arm-chairs were drawn up near the fire. Altogether the
place looked the picture of hospitality and comfort. A sweet scent of
apples was perceptible in the air. A bob-tailed sheep-dog and a collie
lay asleep upon a rug by the fender, and Alvin made friends with them
while Mrs. Pickett conducted Eweretta and Mrs. Le Breton upstairs to
remove their outer garments.
Soon Pickett appeared, and sat down with Alvin near the fire, and the
two men began to discuss farming from the English and the Canadian
point of view.
“I have been pulling and carting mangold to-day,” said Pickett, handing
a tobacco-jar to Alvin, with an invitation to “fill up.” “I want to get
them in while the weather is favorable.”
“Some believe in leaving them longer to improve,” said Alvin, “but I
think you are right. A frost might come any time now. It is very cold
to-day.”
“I see you know a bit about farming,” said Pickett with approval.
“I know a bit about most things,” said Alvin. “You have to, out in the
North-West. But farming in Canada is very different from farming in
England.”
“I suppose so,” answered Pickett with interest.
“And you want plenty of grit to stand the life,” went on Alvin.
“But it is cheap living, isn’t it?” inquired Pickett.
Alvin laughed. “It is double what it is here,” he said. “Animals,
wagons, agricultural implements cost a lot out there. We depend a lot
on salt pork, and our guns. Prairie chicken is good eating. It isn’t
unlike partridge--and snipe--well, you can get as much snipe as you
like.”
The entrance of the women stopped the conversation at this point, and
a strapping maid having brought in the tea-pot, they all sat down to
tea, and Philip’s name came up.
“You know Mr. Barrimore who lives in our bungalow?” said Mrs. Pickett.
“Of course they do, mother,” put in Minnie. “Why, you’ve seen him go in
and out there yourself.”
“I said they knew him, didn’t I?” asked Mrs. Pickett. “You are a bit
too sharp, Minnie. Pass the cream to Mrs. Le Breton.”
“He’s a bit stand-offish,” went on Mrs. Pickett. “He often comes up
past our farm, but he doesn’t look in. He hasn’t been here since his
stable was finished. He talks to Pickett now and again over the gate.”
“Oh, he’s right enough!” interrupted the farmer. “He’s taken up with
his young lady. He’ll be getting married one of these days, and then
he’ll soon find eyes for other people. Bless you! they’re all the same
when they are courting.”
“Is he really engaged?” inquired Alvin.
“Well, sir, don’t it look like it? You have windows, and likewise eyes.
Miss Lane’s always coming over to the bungalow on that cycle of hers.”
“Which to me don’t seem right and proper for a young lady to do,” put
in Mrs. Pickett. “I wonder at Colonel Lane allowing it. If it was my
Minnie, she’d hear about it! Why, it’s the talk of Hastings; my friend
Mrs. Hannington says so. Miss Lane is staying at Hawk’s Nest now, while
her father’s gadding off somewhere. There _is_ talk that _he_ has
got another establishment near London. Of course, that being so, he
wouldn’t look after his daughter properly, not having proper notions of
right and wrong.”
“Mother!” broke out Pickett, pausing in the act of carving a chicken.
“I wonder at your repeating tales like that! Every time Mrs. Hannington
comes, there is some new yarn to somebody’s discredit. I can’t bear the
sight of her!”
Eweretta ate her chicken, with her eyes cast down. She did not like
this type of conversation. Mrs. Le Breton, too, looked uncomfortable.
Alvin, who noted this, began hastily to introduce a new topic.
Naturally the topic was Canada, as he knew little about anything else.
“There will be blizzards in Canada now,” he began. “You wouldn’t think
it, that a great fire could rage there at this time of the year? Yet I
remember one when I was on my way to Saskatoon. It was a line of fire
six miles long, and the flames were seven feet high. It could be seen
forty miles away; and that was in October.”
Farmer Pickett smiled discreetly. He would not contradict his guest,
but he evidently believed him to be pulling the long bow.
“How perfectly awful!” exclaimed Minnie, who did believe the tale.
“It was a grand sight,” said Alvin.
Mrs. Le Breton shivered. She had seen such “grand sights” unpleasantly
near.
Alvin pointed to the sleeping dogs. “Now I daresay you think your dogs
good herders,” he said; “but I had a pony that would beat them hollow.”
“Indeed!” said Pickett, with the same incredulous smile.
“You should have seen her at work,” went on Alvin, “jumping over the
badger and gopher holes and mounds. I had only to sit tight, and she
would collect the strayed oxen better than any dog. She knew all their
names as well as I did.”
“Perhaps she could talk?” suggested Pickett, winking at the company
generally.
Alvin was annoyed, and said no more for some time, so Mrs. Pickett kept
the ball rolling.
“I think Canada would be a bit too lively for _me_,” she said.
“Most people don’t think it lively,” put in Mrs. Le Breton.
“You are thinking of the prairie, mother,” said Eweretta, who had not
before spoken. “The towns are quite different. Montreal is gay enough.”
“Do you keep chickens?” asked Mrs. Pickett.
“At Montreal?” demanded Eweretta.
“No, at the White House,” laughed Mrs. Pickett. “You ought to, for you
have plenty of room.”
“We have none yet,” said Mrs. Le Breton.
“We could give you a bit of a start with some,” Pickett joined in.
“Favorolles are good all-round fowls, and we could well spare some.
What do you keep in the little wood, Mr. Alvin?”
The question was so sudden and unexpected, that Alvin could not at
first reply.
At last he stammered out:
“Nothing--as yet.”
“You’re not offended at my asking, are you?” demanded the farmer. “No
offence meant, you know; only seeing that the wood is wired in so
finely, and you have built a high wall round something in the clearing,
I wondered--”
Mrs. Le Breton caught Pickett’s eye and slightly shook her head.
A silence fell on the company, and even when at last a few remarks were
exchanged, all felt a sense of strain, and it was a relief when tea was
over and the two men sat by the fire to smoke.
Then it was that Minnie rather shyly offered to show Miss Le Breton
round the rambling old house. There was not a great deal to show, but
Eweretta was genuinely interested, because she had never seen anything
of the sort before; also, the girls found plenty to say to each other
when once the ice was broken.
Minnie was not reserved, nor did she perceive that Eweretta was so.
It was in the apple-room, where the winter fruit was stored, that
Minnie confided to Eweretta that she had a sweetheart.
“He’s a clerk in the Gasworks,” she explained, “and he often comes
over, and we meet in the rickyard; but I daren’t let father and mother
know, because they say I shan’t have a young man till I’m turned
twenty-one. Harry--his name is Henry Johnson--and I met in Hollington
Wood in the spring. I had gone over to the churchyard to put some
flowers on grandmother’s grave, and he came in from the wood, and we
got talking, and he walked with me to the tram. That was the beginning.
He is so nice, and quiet, and respectable. I am sure father and mother
couldn’t dislike him. But, you see, they are so determined I shall
turn twenty-one before I am engaged. We aren’t really engaged, Miss Le
Breton, you know, but we both know we shall be. It’s a long time to
wait, for I am only nineteen.”
“It is best to wait a long time,” said Eweretta. “Men change so.”
Minnie looked at her companion with incredulous round eyes.
“Some men, perhaps,” she said, as if grudgingly conceding something.
“But not men who _really_ and _truly_ love,” she added.
“Yes,” rejoined Eweretta, “even those who love really and truly fall
out of love sometimes. They don’t mean to do it. It is not a crime.
No one ought to blame them for it. But I think love ought to be well
tested before marriage. If the failing of love comes before marriage it
is only very sad. If it comes after marriage, _then_ it is tragic.”
Minnie looked at the speaker bewildered. To her love, once felt, was
a thing eternal. At last, after a few moments of rapid thought, an
explanation of the strange words she had just heard came to her, and
she said with a sympathetic ring in her voice:
“Have you lost a lover, Miss Le Breton? If so, I am--oh! so sorry!”
Eweretta smiled an April smile, and gently laying her hand on Minnie’s
said: “Yes, but don’t be sorry. I am glad, for it has saved me much
worse pain.”
There were tears in Minnie’s bright eyes as she repeated: “Oh, but I am
so sorry!”
The friendship of these two girls dated from this little scene in the
apple-room.
Eweretta genuinely liked Minnie, and Minnie, with a young girl’s fresh
enthusiasm, adored Miss Le Breton.
After the guests had departed that afternoon, Minnie said to her
mother: “I know what made Miss Le Breton ‘queer in her head’ for a
time. She had an unfortunate love affair, but you must not mention it.”
“Drat love affairs!” exclaimed Mrs. Pickett. “Don’t you get having any
till you are old enough to know what you are about!”