IN HONOR OF THE FAIRY QUEEN!
"Guy Little!"
The old man's voice boomed out mightily as the old man himself strode
back and forth impatiently in the big barn-like library of his ranch
home. Guy Little appeared with a promptness savoring either of magic
or prepared expectancy.
"You rang, your majesty?"
"Rang, your foot!" shouted old Packard. "I hollered my ol' head off.
What's the day of the week, Guy Little?"
"It's Wednesday, your----"
"An' what's the day of the month?"
"It's the nineteenth, your----"
"Then tell me, sir," and the old man's tone was angry and challenging
to a remarkable degree, "why in the name of the devil my gran'son,
Stephen, ain't showed up yet!"
Guy Little might have remarked that it was rather early to expect any
one to show up. It was not yet six o'clock of a morning which promised
to be one of the very finest mornings ever known. The old man had, as
Guy Little expressed it, "been prancin' an' pawin' aroun'," for an hour.
Guy Little grinned like any cherub.
"He has showed up," he chuckled, though he had meant to hold back the
tidings teasingly. "He come in late las' night. You was asleep an'
sleepin' soun', so----"
"He did, did he?" bellowed the old man. "Crept in like a damn' thief
in the night, did he? Well, where is he now? Sleepin' yet, I'll be
bound. When he ought to be up an'-- Why, when I was a young devil his
age----"
"He's outside somewhere," said Guy Little. "He has been down to the
crick for a mornin' dip, I'd guess, your majesty."
"Why would you guess that?"
"Because pretty near all he had on was a towel an' a--a sort of
a----immodes' britch-cloth," explained Guy Little confidentially.
"An'," continued old man Packard, "where's--she?"
"Meanin' the Fairy Queen, your majesty?" Guy Little's voice was now a
whisper.
"Meanin' her--the Fairy Queen," said the old man gently. "Sleepin',
Guy Little? I won't have her woke!"
"Woke, your eyebrow!" chuckled Guy Little. "I'd say she's gone for
a--a dip, too, your majesty. An'--an', between just the two of us ol'
fellers, hers is purty near as immodes' as his! Fact, an' I don't care
whose granddaughter she is. Blue, you know; an' not very much of it.
An' a red cap. An'--I couldn't see very well through the curtains an'
I dasn't let 'em know I was lookin'. Only don't you let her know we
know; why, bless her little simple heart, she ain't got the least idea
how pretty an'--an'----immodes'----"
Old man Packard fixed him with a knowing eye.
"Ain't she?" he demanded. "Ain't she, Guy Little? Why, if there's one
thing in this world worth knowin' that my granddaughter don't know--
Go order breakfas' ready in two shakes, Guy Little."
"I did," said Guy Little. "It's ready already. There they come.
Happy-lookin', ain't they? Like a couple kids."
"An' see that them two new saddle-horses is ready right after breakfas'
for 'em, Guy Little."
"They're ready now," chuckled Guy Little. "I remembered."
"An--an' she likes----"
"Flowers on the table? An' her grapefruit stacked high with sugar?
An' the coffee with hot milk? Don't I know nothin' a-tall, Packard?"
Steve and Terry, dripping and laughing, breaking into a run as they
came on across the meadow, spied the big man and the little at the
window and shouted a joyous good morning and Terry threw them a kiss
apiece. And old man Packard, his hands on his hips, a look of
absolute, ineffable content in his eyes, said softly:
"I've made a mistake or two in my life, Guy Little. But ain't I lived
long enough to squeeze in a blunder or so here an' there? An' I've
made a mistake a time or two on a man."
"Blenham did fool you pretty slick," suggested Guy Little.
"But," went on the old man hurriedly, "I know a real, upstandin',
thoroughbred----"
"Fairy Queen of a woman."
"Fairy Queen of a woman when I see her. An' that little thing out
there, her eyes shinin' like I ain't seen a pair of eyes shine for
more'n fifty year, Guy Little--why, sir, she's what I call a-- Why,
she's a Packard, man!"