CALLERS
"Heavens!" cried Stella, leaping to her feet, "do you suppose it's
callers?"
She looked ruefully at her paint-stained fingers, at her old, soiled
khaki garden skirt which stopped at least six inches from the ground, and
then at my get-up, which consisted of a very dirty soft-collared shirt,
no necktie, khaki trousers that beggared description, and soil-crusted
boots. Some passengers from the motor were unquestionably coming up our
side path--they were coming around the corner by the lilac bush to the
front door--they were around the lilac bush--they were upon us!
We looked at them--at a large, ample female in a silk gown anything but
ample, at a young woman elaborately dressed, at a smallish man with white
hair, white moustache, and ruddy complexion, clad in a juvenile Norfolk
jacket and white flannels.
"They are coming to call!" whispered Stella. "The Lord help us! John,
I'm scared!"
We advanced to meet them, and as I glanced at my wife, and then at the
ample female, I was curiously struck with their resemblance to a couple
of strange dogs approaching each other warily. I fully expected to see
the stout lady sniff; she had that kind of a nose.
"How do you do," said she. "I'm Mrs. Eckstrom. I presume this is Mr.
and Mrs. Upton?"
Stella nodded.
"We are your neighbours," she continued, with an air which said, "You
are very fortunate to have us for neighbours." "We live in the first
place toward the village. This is Mr. Eckstrom, and my daughter, Miss
Julia."
"We can hardly offer our hands," said Stella. "Will you forgive us?
You see, we are making a garden, and it's rather messy work."
"You like to work in the garden yourself, I see," said Mrs. Eckstrom.
"I, too, enjoy it. I frequently pick rose bugs. I pick them before
breakfast, very early, while they are still sleepy. I find it is the
only way to save my tea roses."
"The early gardener catches the rose bug--I'll remember that," Stella
laughed. "Perhaps you would care to see the beginnings of our little
garden?"
We moved down through the orchard and surveyed the pool. I suppose it did
look bare and desolate to the outsider, who did not see it, as we did,
with the eye of faith--the bare soil green with grass, the lip ringed
with iris blades, the shrubbery bordered with a mass of blooms. At any
rate, the Eckstroms betrayed no enthusiasm.
[Illustration: We are your neighbours ... you are very fortunate to have
us for neighbours]
"Mr. Upton spaded all that lawn up himself, and we made the bench
together," cried Stella.
"Well, well, you _must_ like to work," said Mr. Eckstrom. "It's so
much simpler to sic a few men on the job. Besides, they can usually do
it better."
Stella and I exchanged glances, and she cautioned me with her eyes. But
politeness was never my strong point.
"Sometimes," said I, "it happens that a chap who wants a garden lacks
the means to sic a few men on the job. Under those conditions he may
perhaps be pardoned for labouring himself."
There was a slight silence broken by Stella, who said that we were going
to get some goldfishes soon.
"We can give them some out of our pool, can't we, father?" the other
girl said, with an evident effort to be neighbourly. "We really have
too many."
"Certainly, certainly; have Peter bring some over to-night," her father
replied.
"Oh, thank you!" Stella cried. "And will you have Peter tell us their
names?"
"Their what?" exclaimed Mrs. Eckstrom.
"Oh, haven't they names? The poor things!" Stella said. "I shall name
them as soon as they come."
"What a quaint idea," the girl said, with a smile. "Do you name all
the creatures on the place?"
"Certainly," said Stella. "Come, I'll show you Epictetus and Luella."
This was a new one on me, but I kept silent, while she led us around the
house, and lifted the plank which led up from the sundial lawn to the
south door. Under it were two enormous toads and two small ones.
"Those big ones are Epictetus and Luella," she announced, "and, dear
me, two children have arrived to visit them since morning! Let me see."
She dropped on her knees and examined the toads carefully, while they
tried to burrow into the soil backward, to escape the sun. Our callers
regarded her with odd expressions of mingled amusement and amazement--or
was it pity?
"A son and daughter-in-law," she announced, rising. "They are Gladys
and Gaynor."
A polite smile flickered on the faces of our three visitors, and died
out in silence. Stella once more shot a glance at me.
We turned toward the house. "If you will excuse me for a few moments, I
will make myself fit to brew you some tea," said my wife, holding open
the door.
"That is very kind, but we'll not remain to-day, I think," Mrs.
Eckstrom replied. "We will just glance at what you have done to this
awful old house. It was certainly an eyesore before you bought it."
"I _liked_ it all gray and weathered," Stella answered. "In fact,
I didn't want it painted. But apparently you have to paint things to
preserve them. Still, the Lord made wood before man made paint."
"He also made man before man made clothes," said I.
A polite smile from the girl followed this remark. Her father and mother
seemed unaware of it. They gave our beautiful living-room a casual
glance, and the man took in especially the books--in bulk.
"You are one of these literary chaps, I hear," he said. "I suppose
you need all these books in your business?"
"Well, hardly all," I answered. "Some few I read for pleasure. Will
you smoke?"
I offered him a cigar.
"Thanks, no," said he. "Doctor's orders. I can do nothing I want to.
Diet, and all that. Damn nuisance, too. Why, once I used to----"
"Father," said the girl, "don't you want to see if the car is ready?"
The look of animation which had come over the man's face when he began
to talk about his ill health vanished again. He started toward the door.
"Let me," said I, springing ahead of him.
The car, of course, was waiting, the chauffeur sitting in it gazing
vacantly down the road, with the patient stare of the true flunkey. I
came back and reported. With a polite good-bye and an invitation to
call and see their garden, our guests departed.
Stella and I stood in the south room and listened to the car rumble over
the bridge. Then we looked at one another in silence.
Presently she picked up what appeared like a whole pack of calling cards
from the table, and glanced at them.
"John," she said, "it's begun. They've called on me. I shall have
to return the call. Are all the rest like them, do you suppose? Are they
all so deadly dumb? Have they no playfulness of mind? I tried 'em out
on purpose. They don't arrive."
"They're rich," said I. "Almost all rich people are bores. We bored
them. The old man, though, seemed about to become quite animated on the
subject of his stomach."
Stella laughed. "I'm _glad_ we were in old clothes," she said. "And
aren't Epictetus and Luella darlings?"
"By the way," I cried, "why haven't I met them before?"
"I just discovered them this noon," she answered. "You were working
at the time. I was saving them for a surprise after supper. I'm glad
Gladys and Gaynor brought no grandchildren, though. It would have been
hard to name so many correctly right off the bat, and it's terrible to
start life with a wrong name."
"As Mike would say, it is surely," I answered. "That is why they were
careful to call you Stella."
"Do you like the name?" she whispered, creeping close to me. "Oh,
John, I'm glad we're not rich like them"--with a gesture toward the
pack of calling cards--"I'm glad we can work in the garden with our
own hands and play games with toads and just be ourselves. Let's _never_
be rich!"
"I promise," said I, solemnly.
Then we laughed and went to hear the hermit thrush.