Jean Webster

“ He was, then, nothing but a man in spite of his clothes, and with a man she knew how to deal.
A full moon was rising above the trees and the twilight was fading into dusk. As Billy had justly observed at the supper table, it was a fine night in which to get acquainted. The four miles between the station and Willowbrook suddenly dwindled into insignificance in Peter's sight, and at the top of the hill he turned Trixy's head in exactly the wrong direction.
"If ye have no objections," he observed, "we'll drive the long way by the beach because the roads is better." ”

“ I don't just like his looks for a youngster to ride."
"Huh!" said Billy, "Master Bobby ain't such a baby as everybody thinks; he can manage him all right."
Word came out from the house that afternoon that Bobby was to try the new mustang. Billy saddled the horses—Apache, and Blue Gypsy for Miss Ethel, and a cob for Peter—and led them out, while Peter in his most immaculate riding clothes swaggered after. The maids were all on the back porch and the family at the porte-cochère to watch the departure. Bobby would accept no assistance, but mounted from the ground with a fine air of pride. ”

“ The beach was five miles away, and there is an element of ludicrousness in the spectacle of two people in one small dog-cart riding five miles without speaking. Annie's sense of humour was keen; it struggled hard with her sense of wrong. She was never an Indian to cherish vengeance; her anger could be fierce at the moment, but it rarely lasted. And Peter was sorry for what he had said, she reminded herself; he had already tried to make up. By the end of the second mile two dimples appeared in her cheeks. ”

“ Toward seven o'clock that evening, as Peter was happily changing from plum-coloured livery into checked town clothes, a telephone call came out from the house, ordering the waggonette and the runabout. "Yes, sir, in fifteen minutes, sir," said Peter into the mouthpiece, but what he added to the stable boy would scarcely have been fit for Master Bobby's presence. He tumbled back into his official clothes, and hurried to the kitchen to break the news to Annie.
"It's all up with us," said Peter gloomily. ”

“ While Peter stood hesitating, a sudden frightened squawk rang out, and he saw one of Mr. Jasper's guinea fowls fly a few feet into the air and plump heavily to the ground. At the same instant Patrick appeared at the top of the meadow, bearing down upon the scene of the crime, shouting menacingly as he advanced. The boys broke and ran. They came crashing through the hedge a few feet from Peter and made for cover in a clump of willows. Peter recognized them all—Bobby and Bert Holliday and the two Hartridge boys, the latter the horror of all well-regulated parents. ”

“ You don't know how to shoot—no? Eye-talians use knives. Americans use guns."
Vittorio smiled back, pleased at being so freely included in the conversation.
"I shoot-a more good dat. You no shoot-a straight; no hit middle." His tone was not boastful; he merely dropped the remark as an unimpassioned statement of fact.
Peter had raised the rifle to his shoulder; he lowered it again to stare.
"What are ye givin' us?" he demanded. "Ye think ye can shoot better'n me?"
Vittorio shrugged. He had no desire to hurt Peter's feelings, but at the same time he saw no occasion to lie. ”

“ Mr. Harry had set up a target down on the Jasper beach—a long strip of muddy gravel which the inlet, at low tide, left bare—and had given the men permission to shoot. One Saturday afternoon Patrick and Peter and Billy were gathered on the beach amusing themselves with a rifle and a fresh box of cartridges. The target was a good two hundred yards away. With a light rifle, such as the men were using, it was a very pretty shot to hit one of the outer rings, the bull's-eye, through anything but a lucky fluke, being almost impossible. ”

“ Carter's mouth became a straight line.
"Annie, I never allow my servants to dictate as to what is their work and what is not. When I engage you, I expect you to do whatever you are asked. This is a very easy place; you are allowed to go out a great deal, and you have very little work to do. But when something extra comes up outside your regular work, I expect you to do it willingly and as a matter of course. Miss Ethel has been very kind to you; you can do her a favour in return." ”

“ But you just get to work on it; you iron beautiful and it won't take you long when you once begin."
"Won't take me long? It'll take me the whole afternoon; it'll take me forever. I shan't touch it!"
Annie's eyes wandered out of doors again. The sunshine seemed brighter, the songs of the birds louder, the glimpse of the bay more enticing. And, as she looked, Peter came sauntering out from the stables—Peter in his town clothes, freshly shaven, with a new red necktie and a flower in his buttonhole. He was coming toward the kitchen. ”

“ Then, as a glimmering of Peter's insinuation finally penetrated, he shook his head and laughed. The charge amused him. [Pg 120] "Me no cow-ward!" he declared. "No afraid fight, but no like-a fight. Too hard work." He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. "More easy take care-a flower."
The subtlety of this explanation was lost upon Peter, and the two went their ways; the one happily engaged with his weeding and his pruning, the other looking on across the hedge contemptuously scornful.
Peter's ideal of the highest human attainment was to become a "true sport." ”

“ Mr. Carter, having visited every horse dealer in the neighbourhood, had, in his carefully methodical manner, almost made up his mind. The choice was a wiry little mustang, thin-limbed and built for running; he could give even Blue Gypsy some useful lessons in speed, and she had a racing pedigree four generations long. Peter had fallen in love with the mustang; he wanted it almost as much as Bobby. ”

“ Annie commented one day, as she and Peter strolled up to the hedge and inspected the new gardener at work with the clipping-shears. "And, at least, he's tall—that's something. They're usually so little, them Eye-talians."
"Huh!" said Peter, "size ain't no merit. The less there is of an Eye-talian, the better. His bigness don't help along his courage none. Ye're a coward, Tony. D'ye hear that?" ”

“ She hasn't got you, Petey."
"And I'm thinkin' she isn't wantin' me," said Peter, with his eyes on the beach above them, where Miss Ethel and Mr. Harry were coming toward them hand in hand. The two stopped suddenly as they caught sight of Annie and Peter and hastily dropped each others' hands. Then Miss Ethel ran forward with a conscious little laugh.
"Annie, you shall be the first to congratulate me—but it's a secret; you mustn't tell a soul." ”

“ The four boys looked at one another and shuddered delightedly.
"It's like a book," Master Wallace declared. "The miscreant has foiled us at every turn."
[Pg 153]
"Let's form a detective bureau!" Bobby rose to the occasion. "You can be chief of the local police, Peter. And since you find the mystery beyond your power to solve, you have called to your aid a private detective force—that's us. Jerome and Wallace and me can be detectives, and Augustus can be a policeman."
"I want to be a detective, too," objected Augustus.
"It's nice to be a policeman," soothed Bobby. ”

“ For the next few days Peter's life was rendered a burden. Billy and Joe and Simpkins and Tom, even good-natured Nora in the kitchen, never met him without covert allusions to the affair. The gardener at Jasper Place, next door, called over the hedge one morning to inquire if they didn't have a new maid at their house. On the third day after the arrival the matter reached its logical conclusion.
"Hey, Pete," Billy called up to him in the loft where he was pitching down hay for the horses. "Come down here quick; there's some one wants to see you." ”

“ The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. ”

“ The cart rolled along over the smooth roads, past country clubs and summer cottages, and the only sign either of the two gave of being [Pg 264] alive was an occasional vicious crack of the whip from Peter when patient little Trixy showed signs of wishing to take a quieter pace. At such times Annie would instinctively stretch out a deterring hand and form her mouth as if to say, "Please, Pete, don't whip her; she's doin' her best," and then suddenly remembering that formidable vow, would straighten up again and stare ahead with flushed cheeks. ”

“ You've watched him rehearse—do you think you could take his place?"
"Don't believe I could, ma'am." Peter's face did not betray enthusiasm.
"You'll have to do it!" said Miss Ethel. "It's too late now to find anyone else." ”

“ For she loves ye true, sir, like as Annie loves me, an' I know, sir, if she took it hard before ye was married, it ud near kill her now. Ye mustn't mind what she says when she's angry, for she just thinks o' the worst things she can to hurt yer feelin's, but Lord! sir, she don't mean it no more'n a rabbit, an' if ye'll give her half a chance and don't act like an iceberg she'll want to make up. Me an' Annie, Mr. Harry, we pulls together lovely. I'm the boss in some things, an' she's the boss in others; I lets her think she can manage me, an' she lets me think I can manage her—and I can, sir. ”

“ Here, vociferous showmen were urging a hesitating public to enter the side-shows, containing the cream of the exhibit, and only ten cents extra. Vendors of peanuts and popcorn and all-day-suckers were adding to the babel, while the chatter of monkeys and the surly grumbling of a big lion formed an intoxicating undertone.
Across the tent, gathered in a laughing group about the elephant, Peter caught sight of the Willowbrook party—the ladies in fluffy, light [Pg 101] gowns and opera coats, the gentlemen in immaculate evening clothes. ”

“ Peter scooped a quart of oats into a box, took out the bottle of liniment the veterinary surgeon had left, and started, grumbling, for the lower meadow. Trixy had hurt her foot, and it was Billy's fault. A groom who knew no better than to tie a horse to a barbed-wire fence on a day when the flies were bad, ought, in Peter's estimation, to be discharged.
He had some trouble in catching Trixy and applying the liniment, but he finally accomplished the matter, and dropped down to rest in the shade of the straggling hedge that divided the grounds of Willowbrook from Jasper Place. ”

“ The three Brainard boys were still at Willowbrook, but their visit was to come to an end in a week, and in the meantime they, too, were in a chastened mood. Peter marked out a diamond in [Pg 140] the lower meadow, and with infinite relief saw them devote themselves to the innocent pursuit of base-ball. If their enthusiasm could only be made to last out the week, he felt that the waggon-shed would be cheap at the price. ”

“ He drove as well, he was better looking—he told himself—and he was infinitely larger. To Billy's simple understanding it was quantity, not quality, that makes the man. He resented Peter's assumption of superiority, and he intended, when opportunity should present itself, to take it out of Peter.
"I don't care about fetchin' out the new maid any more than Billy," Peter nonchalantly threw off after a prolonged pause, "only I've got to take a note to the Holidays for Miss Ethel, and I'd just as lief stop at the station; it won't be much out o' me way."
"All right," said Joe. "Suit yourself." ”

“ I can't never thank you enough."
"Yes, ye can—by not flirtin' with that Dago any more."
"I wasn't flirtin' with him; he don't care nothin' about me. All he wants is to learn to talk."
Peter looked sceptical.
"Honest, Pete! It's the livin' truth. I never flirted with no one, except—maybe you."
Peter's face softened momentarily, but it hardened again as a shadow fell between them. Vittorio was standing on the other side of the hedge.
"You find-a dat baby?" he inquired with an all-inclusive smile. As the fact was self-evident, nobody answered. Vittorio was a romantic soul ”

“ Forty-three million miles from the earth—a succession of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction. John Carter, American, finds himself on the planet Mars, battling for a beautiful woman, with the Green Men of Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, mounted on horses like dragons. ”

“ Mary, the chambermaid, had been a witness to this tender passage, and poor Simpkins's dignity ever since had walked on shaky ground. But Annette's charms had conquered more than Simpkins. Tom, the gardener, had spent the entire three weeks of her stay in puttering about the shrubs that [Pg 12] grew in the vicinity of the house; while the stablemen had frankly prostrated themselves—with the exception of Joe, who was married and not open to Gallic allurements. It was evident from the first, however, that Peter and Billy were the favoured ones. ”

“ I'll teach him his dooty if I ever ketch him out alone. It was me as saved the buckboard an' all the tools, an' Master Augustus in the bargain—wish I'd let him burn, I do. 'An',' says Mr. Carter, 'do ye think it consonant wid the dignity o' me position,' he says, 'that me son should be painted with axle grease—me—the Honourable Jerome B. Carter, Esquire?' His dignity! Take away his money an' his dignity, an' there wouldn't be enough of him left to fill a half-pint measure. I'll get it back at him; you see if I don't. I risks me life and I burns me best pants, an' that's all the thanks I get! ”

“ I was servin' at Willowbrook all the time that ye was in boardin' school an' college. Her hair was hangin' down her back an' she was drivin' a pony cart when I first come. I watched her grow and I know her ways—there was times, sir, when she was most uncommon troublesome. She's the kind of a woman as needs managin', and if ye'll excuse me for sayin' so, it takes a man to do it. Ye're too quiet an' gentleman-like, Mr. Harry. Though I guess she likes to have ye act like a gentleman, when ye can't do both she'd rather have ye act like a man. If I was her husband——"
"You forget yourself, Peter!" ”

“ I am Irish myself on the side that isn't Colonial, and I have a warm spot in my heart for everything green."
Peter manfully bit back the only observation that occurred to him while the lady rattled on:
"My Irish connection is three generations back—a younger son, you know, who came to make his way in a new land, and, having married into one of the old Colonial families, settled for good. But once Irish, always Irish, I say. My heart warms to the little ragamuffins in the street if they have a bit of the brogue. It's the call of the blood, I suppose. [Pg 197] Shall we sit here? ”