ARGUMENTS AND ANSWERS
"I'm sure that's as good a report as we could hope for," urged Josephine
Burnside. But the anxiety in her eyes somewhat qualified her
cheerfulness.
Maxwell Lane shook his head doubtfully.
"'Holding her own'--that's all they've said the last three days," he
said.
"Yes, but that's a good deal at this stage. It's the end of the
second week."
"She's out of her head."
"They usually are, I think."
The pair emerged from the door of the hospital.
"Well, I'm glad I met you here," said Max. "It's kind of you to come
so often."
"It's not kind at all. I couldn't stay away. And if I could, Jarvis
wouldn't let me. No telephone messages will satisfy him."
"Good old fellow. How are his eyes?"
"Worse than ever. Mother and I take turns reading to him, while he tramps
the floor. We should try to get him off somewhere into the country, but
he won't leave until Sally is out of the hospital. And I've no idea he
will leave then, he'll be so anxious to do things for her."
"Good old chap," murmured Max again, absently. He was looking at
Josephine as if an idea had struck him. "Are you going to do anything in
particular the rest of the afternoon?"
"I don't know that I am. Why?"
"Don't you want to invite me to drive out into the country in your trap?
The roads are pretty good now, and I ought to go out and take a look at
the farm. Besides, I'm too restless to keep still. Saturday afternoons
and Sundays are tough to get through with, just now."
"I shall be delighted. Come home with me, and we'll start right away. I
should like to see the place again, too."
Fifteen minutes by trolley-car, and ten to allow for the ordering of the
trap, and the two young people were driving away. Josephine held the
reins over the back of a fine gray mare that seemed glad to get out of
the stable on this sunny May afternoon. The roads were even better than
Max had predicted, and the seven-mile drive was soon over.
"There are the pines." Josephine pointed with her whip. "How far away
they show, against the lighter foliage. I'm fond of pines--they make me
think of the mountains. You're lucky to have that grove. If you ever live
here, it will be a lovely spot for hot summer afternoons."
"We'll never live here, if I can help it," answered Max. "As for the pine
grove, the best thing to do with that is to cut it down and get the money
out of it."
"Max!" exclaimed Josephine. "Don't do that without the permission of
every member of your family and most of your friends. What's the money?"
"The money's a good deal to me. This illness of Sally's--"
"Sell the books, if you must, but not the trees. Of course you ought to
keep both, but don't--_don't_ cut down those trees!"
"You're as bad as Sally about this old place. Hello, there's some one in
the grove now! What's he doing? Standing on his head?"
For a leg could be descried waving in the air, while its owner apparently
lay partly on his back, his shoulders against a tree trunk. As the trap
came nearer, the man could be seen distinctly; he was reading, with one
leg balancing across the knee of the other.
"Seems to have taken possession of my grounds. I suppose he also would
object if I offered to cut down the grove. Is he going to see us? No--too
absorbed in his yellow novel."
"He sees us. But we're nothing to him. He's turned back to his page.
Shall we drive in? Are you going to get out?"
"Yes, of course, if only to show that chap I'm the owner of his
lounging place."
Josephine turned in, and the trap swung through the gateway and on past
the pine grove. Max saw the reader get to his feet.
"Coming to apologize," murmured Max. "Well, if he asks permission, he can
stay--till I cut down the grove."
Before the horse had been tied, the stranger was at hand. "Since I'm
caught in the act, I'll come and ask if I may," he said, genially. "This
is Mr. Lane, I believe. I'm Donald Ferry, a neighbour of yours. Your fine
grove is a sort of 'call of the wild' to me."
Max shook hands, attracted at once by both voice and face. Donald Ferry
was a sturdy young man, with broad shoulders and a thick thatch of
reddish-brown hair; he possessed a pair of searching but friendly hazel
eyes. He was dressed in a rough suit of blue serge, and a gray flannel
shirt with a rolling collar and flowing blue tie gave him an out-door
air confirmed by the tan and freckles on his face and the sinewy grip of
his brown hand. He had closed his book and tucked it under his arm, so
that its title could not be observed, but it had not exactly the look of
a "yellow novel."
"You're entirely welcome to make use of the grove as much as you like,"
Max answered, with the cordiality he could not help feeling toward the
possessor of so frank and genial a look as that with which the strange
young man continued to regard him.
"I live with my mother in the little house on the other side of the
grove," explained Mr. Ferry. "We've been living there for a fortnight,
but this is the first time I've caught sight of anybody about the place.
It seemed so completely deserted I've been proposing to my mother that we
appropriate the house. But she seems a trifle appalled by the size of it.
On the whole, for us, ours is rather the better fit."
"This house is too big to fit anything but an orphan asylum," said Max,
with a wave toward the brick walls now heavily vine-clad with the tender
green leafage of May. "It's in bad shape, from chimneys to cellar. Just
the same, I've a sister who is wild to live here."
"Yet you are the one who comes out to look over the place? Perhaps you
have a sort of sneaking fondness for it, after all!"
"My sister would come if she could. She's in the hospital with typhoid,"
explained Max, wondering, as he did so, how he came to be giving details
like these in his first conversation with a stranger. He really liked the
look of the fellow extraordinarily well.
"This will be a great place for her to grow strong in, by and by,"
suggested the other, his tone indicating his sympathy with the situation.
"The pine grove, in June, will be better than a sanatorium."
Max shook his head. "It's not practical for us to think of living here.
Of course we can bring her out for a day at a time."
"You might put up a tent in the grove. Nothing like out-doors for
convalescents--and for well people. Well, Mr. Lane, thank you immensely
for letting me feel free of the grove--until you come to live. I am
fairly sure you will come to live here some day. It's an irresistible
old place."
He took his leave with a pleasant grace of manner which, in spite of the
rough old suit and flannel shirt, spoke of training in other places than
pine groves.
When he had gone off among the pines toward the hedge, which lay between
the grove and the little white cottage on the side toward Wybury, Max
rejoined Josephine. "He looked a pretty good sort, didn't he? If anybody
did live here, he'd be an interesting neighbour. I hardly knew there was
a house there, did you?"
"Oh, yes, I saw it as we came by. It had been freshly painted white, and
I noticed how pleasant it looked. It's a tiny house. Unless his mother is
smaller than he is, it certainly must be a tight fit."
"She's probably about the size of a pint pot. Mothers of strapping
fellows like that usually are."
"He wasn't any taller than you."
"Wasn't he? I thought he was a giant. He'd outweigh me by fifty pounds."
Josephine glanced at him. It struck her that Max, never of stalwart
build, looked paler and thinner than usual. There was a slight stoop in
his shoulders. She recalled the straight set of those belonging to the
strange young man.
"Max," she asked, quite suddenly, "how much light do you have in
your office?"
"Floods of it," replied Max, promptly. "I have to wear a shade
sometimes."
"Daylight?"
"Bless your soul, no! What do you think a ground-floor banking house
gets, between a lot of ten-story buildings? Electrics, of course, are the
only things possible."
"Then you don't have the daylight at all?"
"I have plenty of light to work by."
"I think it's dreadful!" cried Josephine. She had never thought of it
before, or considered Max's pale skin as the direct result of spending
his days under such conditions. "If you could see the difference between
your face and Mr. Ferry's--"
Max stared at her. "That red-headed, freckle-faced chap seems to have
made a great impression on you," he complained. "He probably has an
out-door job of some sort--his clothes showed it. Engineering, more than
likely. That was undoubtedly a book on dynamics or hydraulics, or
something of that sort. You can't expect a bank clerk to have a skin like
an Indian's--under electric light. Come on, shall we walk back to the
timber tract? That's what I want to look at. I suppose you won't object
to my cutting there? There must be a lot of stuff fit to sell, and, as I
told you, I need the money. When Sally gets out of the hospital, it will
be a long time before she's fit to work. Uncle Tim says typhoid
convalescents are pretty slow at getting back to the working stage. We'll
have to keep on hiring that Mary Ann Flinders. She polishes the stove
with the napkins, I think--they look it."
"Goodness! How poor Sally would feel if she knew!"
"She does know. I told her the last time I saw her--before she got these
funny notions in her head. To-day she thought I was an Episcopal bishop
come to marry her to the doctor--they got me out right away."
"Max! You must not tell Sally disturbing things about home. She will be
anxious enough when she's herself, without hearing about napkins and
things from you."
"I suppose so. But I've been so blue ever since she went I couldn't
keep in."
"Then keep out."
Max looked at her. Josephine's dark cheeks were pink, partly with
indignation, partly with the brisk progress over the slightly rising
grade of the cartpath through the fields toward the timber tract.
"Well, you _are_ sort of down on your friends to-day, aren't you? I'm an
idiot to think of cutting down the pine grove. I'm a milksop compared
with a red-headed Indian you never saw before. Now I'm a blunderbuss for
answering a simple question asked me by my sister. What do you think I
am, anyhow? Fit to cumber the earth?"
Josephine returned his gaze. She seemed not in the least awed by this
burst of wrath. She replied with spirit, not unmixed with good humour:
"I think you're peppery--as usual. Hasn't an old friend like me a right
to try to keep things straight? You ought to know better than to say one
word to Sally that will give her a minute's anxiety. Goodness knows
she's had enough of it, keeping house for you four people for three
whole years."
"Haven't we been taking care of her all that time?" demanded Max, with
rising colour of his own. "Haven't we all been working our heads off to
pay expenses, and giving her every cent we could get to run things with?"
"Of course you have. It's what you ought to do, but I certainly give you
credit for doing it. Only I don't think you've fully appreciated Sally's
part. She's worked harder than any of you."
"Has she told you so?" Max was looking straight in front of him, and his
eyes were angry.
"Never! You know she hasn't. She's not that kind of girl. But I'm another
girl, and I can see for myself. Sally's worked hard to make that
apartment seem like home. No matter how blue she felt herself, she's
never acted blue before you--now has she?"
"I can't say that she has. She's a light-hearted girl--always was, and--"
"Don't you think it. Sally's been putting on a brave face and letting
everybody suppose she's cheerful. She's kept you all up when she was
bluer than you are now."
Max stopped short, stood still in the cart-path and looked Josephine in
the eye. She stopped also, and faced him coolly.
"Will you tell me how you know all this?" he inquired, fiercely.
"I've put two and two together, and found they make four," replied
Josephine. "See here, Max "--she spoke more gently, but quite as
decidedly as before--"you mustn't think I'm trying to be disagreeable,
now, of all times. Of course I know you boys all love Sally as devotedly
as brothers can, and do a great deal to show it. But when it comes to
sparing her anxiety and letting her have her way about things she has set
her heart on, I don't think you're always quite as considerate as you
might be. I didn't dream of saying all this to-day. But when you began to
talk about cutting down that pine grove, though you knew what a fancy
Sally took to it, it came over me that you would be just as likely as
anything to do it right now, while Sally is sick--and I just couldn't
help speaking out."
The two walked on in silence for some distance. Then Max spoke, gloomily:
"It's all right enough to consider sentiment, and I know you well enough
to understand what you mean by pitching into me this way. But the craze
Sally's been in over this old place seems to me a thing out of all
reason. What are we, a family of bank clerks and office boys, to shoulder
a proposition like this? We can't think of moving out here and living in
that barracks, and trying to make a living off the soil. Neither can we
put a tenant on here, and fit him out with farm tools, and take the
responsibility and the risk of his running the place. He'd undoubtedly
run us into the ground the first year. I've thought it over and thought
it over, and the only course seems to me to be to find a buyer for the
place. Money isn't easy just now, and I've no doubt we'd have a hard time
to get a decent price. Meanwhile it seems to me only common sense to get
what income we can out of it. If I could sell that big pine grove, and
cut off what timber is ready for the axe up here, it would bring us
something quite substantial."
Now this certainly was a presentation of the case which called for a
considerate listening. But, quite as if she had not heard a word of his
argument, Josephine cried out:
"Max, why not do what Mr. Ferry proposed, if you think the house can't be
lived in? Put up a tent in the grove and bring Sally there as soon as
she's fit for it. She'd get strong twice as fast as in that stuffy flat!"
Max gazed at her. "That's just what you get," he ejaculated, "when you
try to talk business with a girl. Show her a good and sufficient reason
why you can't do a thing, and she instantly asks why you can't do
something ten times harder. Will you tell me how, with Sally out here in
a tent, we fellows are going to get along in the flat? And what would she
do out here, all by herself?"
It was now Josephine's turn to gaze with scorn at her companion. "Do you
think I'm proposing for Sally to camp by herself out here, while Mary Ann
Flinders keeps house for you in town? No; bring Mary Ann out here to cook
for Sally, and you boys come out for the nights. If you had a bit of camp
spirit, you'd jump at the chance to get a real outing right along with
your work."
"Camp," exclaimed Max, "in your own front yard!"
"The pine grove isn't your front yard, and the farther end of it is so
far away from the road, nobody could tell who was who, back there.
Besides, what difference, if Sally gets strong again as fast as out-door
life can make her?"
"It's not practical," Max continued to object, and Josephine realized
afresh that the Lane temperament was not one easily swayed by argument or
appeal. There was a stubborn streak in Max which was as hard to deal with
now as it had been in the days when Josephine had fought it out with him
in playground affairs. Yet she did not lose hope. She had known Max to
come round, if left to himself, convinced in the end by logic derived
from his own consideration of the case. If he could once see a course as
fair and right he would accept it. Clearly, he did not yet see this thing
in any such light, and it was of no use to persist in heated argument
which would only result in prejudicing him yet further against the plan
which seemed to Josephine so wise a one.
The two walked through the timber tract, Max pointing out trees which he
thought could be sacrificed with a real gain to the timber to be left
standing. Josephine listened and agreed, finding genuine interest in the
long vistas of oak and chestnut pillars stretching away to what seemed an
infinite distance, for dense undergrowth at the back of the wood
prevented the appearance of an outlet anywhere.
As they drove away, they noted with new interest the small white cottage
on the farther side of the dividing hedge.
"There's your friend Ferry," observed Max, as they flew by at the gray
mare's smartest pace, "working away in a strawberry patch as if his life
depended on it. That's where he gets his beautiful Indian complexion you
admire so much, when he isn't doing engineering stunts. Probably he's
home just now between jobs, fixing up his mother in her new place. Well,
we can't all grow strawberries and lie round on our backs reading
hydraulics. Some of us have to do the in-door jobs. Of course those are
useless--mere folly. All the really sensible chaps are looking after the
colour of their skins!"