“Would you go on a picnic with me some day next spring?” Hastily, “I mean with Miss Proudfoot and Mrs. Arty and me?”
“I should be pleased to.” She was prim but trusting about it. “Oh, listen, Mr. Wrenn; did you ever tramp along the Palisades as far as Englewood? It’s lovely there—the woods and the river and all those funny little tugs puffing along, way _way_ down below you—why, I could lie on the rocks up there and just dream and dream for hours. After I’ve spent Sunday up there”—she was dreaming now, he saw, and his heart was passionately tender toward her—“I don’t hardly mind a bit having to go back to the store Monday morning…. You’ve been up along there, haven’t you?”
“Me? Why, I guess I’m the guy that discovered the Palisades!… Yes, it is _won_-derful up there!”
“Oh, you are, are you? I read about that in American history!… But honestly, Mr. Wrenn, I do believe you care for tramps and things—not like that Teddem or Mr. Duncan—they always want to just stay in town—or even Tom, though he’s an old dear.”
Mr. Wrenn looked jealous, with a small hot jealousy. She hastened on with: “Of course, I mean he’s just like a big brother. To all of us.”
It was sweet to both of them, to her to declare and to him to hear, that neither Tom nor any other possessed her heart. Their shy glances were like an outreach of tenderly touching hands as she confided, “Mrs. Arty and he get up picnics, and when we’re out on the Palisades he says to me—you know, sometimes he almost makes me think he _is_ sleepy, though I do believe he just sneaks off under a tree and talks to Mrs. Arty or reads a magazine—but I was saying: he always says to me, ‘Well, sister, I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself—you won’t talk to a growly old bear like me. Well, I’m glad of it. I want to sleep. I don’t want to be bothered by you and your everlasting chatter. Get out!’ I b’lieve he just says that ’cause he knows I wouldn’t want to run off by myself if they didn’t think it was proper.”
As he heard her lively effort to imitate Tom’s bass Mr. Wrenn laughed and pounded his knee and agreed: “Yes, Tom’s an awfully fine fellow, isn’t he!… I love to get out some place by myself, too. I like to wander round places and make up the doggondest fool little stories to myself about them; just as bad as a kiddy, that way.”