Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Mettle of the Pasture

49 of 69

history now? But then they are doing everything. Still that is no reason why I should not read a little, because my mind is really a blank on the subject of the antiquities. Of course I can get the ancient Hebrews out of the Bible; but I ought to know more about the Greeks and Romans. Now oughtn't I?" "You don't want to know anything about the Greeks and the Romans, Harriet," said Miss Anna. "Content yourself with the earliest Hebrews. You have gotten along very well without the Greeks and the Romans--for--a--long--time." Harriet understood at last; there was no mistaking now. She was a very delicate instrument and much used to being rudely played upon. Her friend's reception of her to-day had been so unaccountable that at one moment she had suspected that her appearance might be at fault. Harriet had known women to turn cold at the sight of a new gown; and it had really become a life principle not to dress even as well as she could, because she needed the kindness that flows out so copiously from new clothes to old clothes. But it was embarrassment that caused her now to say rather aimlessly: "I believe I feel overdressed. What possessed me?" "Don't overdress again," enjoined Miss Anna in stern confidence. "Never try to change yourself in anyway. I like you better as you are--a--great--deal--better." "Then you shall have me as you like me, Anna dear," replied Harriet, faithfully and earnestly, with a faltering voice; and she looked out into the yard with a return of an expression very old and very weary. Fortunately she was short-sighted and was thus unable to see her bouquet which made such a burning blot on the green grass, with the ribbon trailing beside it and the card still holding on as though determined to see the strange adventure through to the end. "Good-by, Anna," she said, rising tremblingly, though at the beginning of her visit. "Oh, good-by, Harriet," replied Miss Anna, giving a cheerful shake to the yellow bowl. As Harriet walked slowly down the street, a more courageously dressed woman than she had been for years, her chin quivered and she shook with sobs heroically choked back. Miss Anna went into the library and sat down near the door. Her face which had been very white was scarlet again: "What was it you did--tell me quickly. I cannot stand it." He came over and taking her cheeks between his palms turned her face up and looked down into her eyes. But she shut them quickly. "What do you suppose I did? Harriet and I sat for half an hour in another room. I don't remember what I did; but it could not have been anything very bad: others were all around us." She opened her eyes and pushed him away harshly: "I have wounded Harriet in her most sensitive spot; and then I insulted her after I wounded her," and she went upstairs. Later he found the bouquet on his library table with the card stuck in the top. The flowers stayed there freshly watered till the petals strewed his table: they were not even dusted away. As for Harriet herself, the wound of the morning must have penetrated till it struck some deep flint in her composition; for she came back the next day in high spirits and severely underdressed--in what might be called toilet reduced to its lowest terms, like a common fraction. She had restored herself to the footing of an undervalued intercourse. At the sight of her Miss Anna sprang up, kissed her all over the face, was atoningly cordial with her arms, tried in every way to say: "See, Harriet, I bare my heart! Behold the dagger of remorse!" Harriet saw; and she walked up and took the dagger by the handle and twisted it to the right and to the left and drove it in deeper and was glad. "How do you like this dress, Anna?" she inquired with the sweetest solicitude. "Ah, there is no one like a friend to bring you to your senses! You were right. I am too old to change, too old to dress, too old even to read: thank you, Anna, as always." Many a wound of friendship heals, but the wounder and the wounded are never the same to each other afterward. So that the two comrades were ill at ease and welcomed a diversion in the form of a visitor. It happened to be the day of the week when Miss Anna received her supply of dairy products from the farm of Ambrose Webb. He came round to the side entrance now with two shining tin buckets and two lustreless eyes. The old maids stood on the edge of the porch with their arms wrapped around each other, and talked to him with nervous gayety. He looked up with a face of dumb yearning at one and then at the other, almost impartially. "Aren't you well, Mr. Webb?" inquired Miss Anna, bending over toward him with a healing smile. "Certainly I am well," he replied resentfully. "There is nothing the matter with me. I am a sound man." "But you were certainly groaning," insisted Miss Anna, "for I heard you; and you must have been groaning about _something_." He dropped his eyes, palpably crestfallen, and scraped the bricks with one foot. Harriet nudged Miss Anna not to press the point and threw herself gallantly into the breach of silence. "I am coming out to see you sometime, Mr. Webb," she said threateningly; "I want to find out whether you are taking good care of my calf. Is she growing?" "Calves always grow till they stop," said Ambrose, axiomatically. "How high is she?" He held his hand up over an imaginary back. "Why, that is _high_! When she stops growing, Anna, I am going to sell her, sell her by the pound. She is my beef trust. Now don't forget, Mr. Webb, that I am coming out some day." "I'll be there," he said, and he gave her a peculiar look. "You know, Anna," said Harriet, when they were alone again, "that his wife treats him shamefully. I have heard mother talking about it. She says his wife is the kind of woman that fills a house as straw fills a barn: you can see it through every crack. That accounts for his heavy expression, and for his dull eyes, and for the groaning. They say that most of the time he sits on the fences when it is clear, and goes into the stable when it rains." "Why, I'll have to be kinder to him than ever," said Miss Anna. "But how do you happen to have a calf, Harriet?" she added, struck by the practical fact. "It was the gift of my darling mother, my dear, the only present

49 of 69 pages. Go to page:

Go to this Book's Directory Page