THE BUD.
"That high-priced doctor from the city fired me out," said Dex Coleman,
coming down to the barn where Jim Burns sat on the oat-box, behind the
stall where the newly-arrived Toddburn livery horse munched hungrily at
a fresh feed of hay, "and Bill's upstairs, so I couldn't ast him what it
is. If it's a boy, the old lady will go crazy--that's one thing sure.
Milt Hayes says he'll find out, as soon as he gets warmed up, and come
down here and let us know."
Milt Hayes was the Toddburn liveryman's son, who had brought out the
doctor to the Ware farm over roads crisped and snowbound by February,
and had been given license to remain by the stove in the bustling and
anxious house, until he "got thawed out".
"Ain't it queer, when you come to think of it, Dex?" remarked Jim Burns,
as the other sat down beside him on the oat-box.
"Ain't what queer, Jim?" said Dex Coleman.
"Her," said Jim Burns, "goin' to school with us about five years ago,
an' now--"
"It's queer, all right," agreed Dex Coleman.
"I wonder what she could have saw in him," pursued Jim Burns, following
the groove of an old problem.
"Oh, I dunno," Dex Coleman set his hat to the back of his head and spat
down between his hands in a thoughtful way, "Bill ain't a bad head, Jim,
when you get to know him. I never worked for a better boss, nor for
higher wages. He pays me every cent I'm worth an' a little more."
"Maybe so," said Jim Burns, "I ain't got nothin' against him personally.
But--"
"But what?"
"Oh--nothin'," said Jim Burns.
"Come on, now, Jim,--tell us. What's wrong with Bill?"
"Well," Jim Burns flung out an expressive hand, "I could have had Daise
myself, if he hadn't took her."
Dex Coleman tilted back his head and laughed till the barn rang. Jim
Burns got up slowly off the oat-box and commenced to take off his coat.
"Come on," he said, "if you want a fight. I'll push your nose out
through the back of your head, if you laugh at me that way, Coleman."
Coleman sobered, and slapped the other on the back.
"I ain't laughin' at you, boy," he said; "don't you ever think it. It
was myself I was laughin' at. I wanted her too, Jim, them days. But we
both went at it the wrong way. You said nothin' at all to her, and I
said too much. Bill goes about it in the right way, and he gets the
girl. Bill's a gentleman."
"Well," demanded Burns, "ain't we gentlemen, too? I am, anyway, and I
have a poke in the jaw for any man that says I ain't."
"That," rejoined Dex Coleman, "is one son of a moose of a way to prove
to a man that you're a _gentleman_. The trouble with us out in this
section of the country, Jim, is that, some way, we seem to have the idea
in the back of our heads that a gentleman is a man who's got either
money enough or nerve enough to sport around in a tailor-made suit and
not do any work. That's the reason each of us is so sensitive about his
claim to the title: because we think the man who says 'you're no
gentleman' sees us as day-laborers and himself as our wealthy or nervy
neighbor who don't have to work. Jim, this gentleman thing is inside of
you--not outside. I've learned that much from workin' alongside of Bill,
anyway.... Here comes Milt. Well, Milt, did they let you see it?"
"It ain't a 'it', boys," said Milt Hayes, "it's a him."
"Three cheers!" shouted Dex Coleman; "how did the old lady take it?"
"Oh, carried it kind of easy, in a shawl so clean-white it pretty near
blinded you," replied Milt Hayes, staring; "why, how did you suppose
she'd take it? By the scruff of the neck?"
"I don't mean the baby," explained Dex Coleman, "I mean the news."
"It wasn't no news to her," responded the other vaguely, "she brung him
downstairs herself, I'm tellin' you."
"Oh, go to blazes!" exclaimed Dex Coleman, jumping off the oat-box,
"boys, I'm goin' up to the house. I'll get in, sir, if I have to
massacree that city doctor to do it."
"Ast how Daise is," called Jim Burns after Coleman as he went out, "we
don't care about whether the old lady likes the baby or lumps it."
It was not long till tall, good-looking and still somewhat "nervy" Dex
Coleman came whooping back to the barn with the word, "I bunted past the
doctor, fellows--never even let on I knew he was there--and spoke right
up to Lady Frances herself. She says all you boys may come right up and
have a look at the baby."
"I guess we _may_," said Jim Burns, as he followed the speaker out
through the door; "it's Daise's baby, not hers."
"I had one look at him," commented Milt Hayes, as he brought up the rear
of the procession, "but I guess I can stand another."
Lady Frances, as the three young men entered, was sitting in the big
upholstered chair in the centre of the farmhouse living-room. Her eyes
were shining, and her whole figure radiated an extraordinary animation.
In her lap lay something in shawls--something that waved tiny red
antennæ in a futile way, and emitted a series of unclassifiable sounds.
"He sounds like a crow," Milt Hayes said, sotto voce, to Jim Burns,
"don't he?"
"You wouldn't know a crow from a cowbird, Hayes," Jim Burns muttered;
"talk sense, or keep still."
The three approached on tiptoe. Lady Frances looked up and smiled.
"You may walk briskly, young men," she said, "the child is quite wide
awake, and not at all nervous, I think."
The three came on abreast, a little sheepishly; but when they were about
five feet away, Jim Burns, with an air of proprietorship, elbowed the
other two aside and stepped to the front. Arriving at Lady Frances'
chair, he leaned over and took a lengthy and critical survey of the
infant.
"Well, ma'am," he said, "I been like a brother to Daise, and I've give
Bill a talkin'-to, more than the once: so I can speak my mind plain-out
about this baby. It's pretty fair-looking, and I guess by the way it
slings its hands around and hollers, it'll live--but I don't think it
does entire justice to Daise's looks and Bill's style. I certainly
don't. Come on, boys: yous can take a peek, but don't touch it with your
big clumsy hands. You first, Dex, and then Milt. Don't breathe in his
face, Coleman, you galoot!"
Here obviously ends the book of Daisy the Girl, but not the story of
Daisy. For as Daisy--or, more briefly, "Daise"--she still lives in the
Toddburn district of Plowland. If you are ever that way along, you may
call--any hour of any day, for there are no receiving days in Plowland.
In asking your direction of those along the trail, do not enquire for
the "estate of Sir William Ware". Nobody would know whom you meant. Just
say, "Where does Bill Ware live?"
For the ancient title has fallen into disuse, and the big house in the
city has been sold, and Lady Frances does not wince when little Billie
Ware, jumping up and down ecstatically at the window, shouts across to
her, "Oh, Gamma, see _zem_ horses wun!"
--THE END--