Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/28

18 "Why not?"

"It's dretfle warm."

"She's ben useter coats and all that, you was sayin'?"

"Yes. And I guess she'd feel it wuss 'n I do. Emerline, you've got a collar on!"

"I don' know where your eyes be, Mr. James. Ever sence you come home from the war with your bounty-money an' back-pay, an' we hed the house painted an' the front-door porch built on, I've hed a collar w'en I fixed up after the day's work."

"I s'pose you couldn't churn an' bake in one? I don' know how I can cut that line o' lamb 'ith these sleeves a-pullin'—"

"It don't need much cuttin'. It's tender 's a snow-apple."

"I don' know," with a sigh. "I don' know. By gracious!" he cried, suddenly, glancing through the open door, " there's that young shorthorn in the new corn again! Does seem as if everythin' come to once, and w'en you least expect it most!" And the sight acting like a quick pick-me-up, he was after the shorthorn, a pair of swift feet pattering behind him, and he came back from a triumphant rescue of the corn with Lally on his arm, quite another man.

"Why, father," said Lally, as they sat down at the table, "what have you got that thick coat on for, in this weather? You take it right off, and mother and I'll make you a linen one instead. You've got a dickey on, too! It's just because I was coming! But it's mighty becoming." An order from the Governor wouldn't have hindered Mr. James from wearing the becoming article next morning. "I should think I was a queen, to see you!" she said. "Did you put on a dickey the day I was born?"

"The day you was born," said her father, solemnly, and laying down his knife, "ef I'd hed a dickey on 'twould 'a' ben like a piece o' wet paper,—the way 'twill be w'en I come in fum mowin' to-morrer."

"Father James! You wouldn't wear a dickey out mowing?"

"I don' know. Wouldn't ye?"

"Of course I wouldn't!"

"Wal, I don't s'pose the king wears his crown ter bed. Yes," after a moment's thought and the disappearance of a buttered biscuit, "the day you was born—it was jes the gray of the dawnin', and a great star hung in the east—I guess a star hangs in the east before all best blessings come—"

"You're a blessing yourself, Father James!"

"Guess your mother don't think so," with a shy glance across the table.

"Sometimes I do, father. Sometimes," said the calm voice there.

"An' by the time they fetched ye into the room where I was stan'in' by the winder the sky of a sudding flamed up the color of an evening-primrose, an' you was a-starin' stret out 'ith them big eyes o' yourn, an' fust ye blinked an' then ye sneezed. I vum, the bobolinks whistlin' down in the medder lot never made half so sweet a sound as thet little sneeze! But somehow it skeered me, too. You warn't nothin' but a mite, a handful of live dust; but there was suthin' sort of awesome in that handful. You wasn't there a minute ago, and now you was, an' the thin's that make life an' death was there, too. I tell ye, I was limp. 'Sam,' sez your mother, w'en I see her, 'it's a 'mortal sperrit.' And I didn't darst kiss ye."

"You do now, don't you?" the 'mortal spirit cried, and she sprang up and darted round to hug him. "Did I choke you with these arms, Father James?" she said, as he emerged red from the embrace.

"They're dear arms," said Father James.

"They're strong ones. That's what gymnasium, and basket-ball, and rowing, and lifting dead-weights of women in the hospital do for you. Oh, I'll show you how I can rake the hay to-morrow!"

"I guess we didn't send ye to college ter hev ye come home an' rake hay," said her father, majestically. "Say! you ain't looked in the keepin'-room!"

"Yes, I did. And you've gone and got an organ, and I can't play on it!"

"I can," said her father.

"You darling old Father James! You can? Oh, won't that be the best yet! Only think of it! Mother and I will sing hymns and you will play them, Sunday nights. I never dreamed of that! How did you learn to do it, father?"

"Learned myself," he said, somewhat loftily. "Picked it out, an' pegged away.