"'Cause she acted so durned ornery," he blurted out in an angry tone. "Jes' see what she did: gin out night 'fore last jes' 's we was gittin' ready to h'ist that big stretcher; kep' me an' Caleb up two nights a-castin' an' borin' on 'er out; then all of a sudden she thought she'd upset an' fool us. I tell ye, ye've got to take hold of a thing like that good an' early, or it'll git away with ye."
One hand was swung high over his head as if it had been a sledge-hammer.
"Now she'll stay put till I git through with her. I ain't a-goin' to let no damned pump beat me!"
The Indian summer days had come,--soft, dreamy days of red and gold, with veils of silver mist at sunrise, and skeins of purple clouds at twilight. The air was hazy with the smoke of dull fires smouldering on the hillside. The stems of the bare birches shone white; wreaths of scarlet crowned the low stone walls; dead leaves strewed the lawns, and tall chrysanthemums flamed in the garden-beds. Here and there a belated summer rose, braving the cold, shivered with close-folded lips, or hung head down, pierced by the night-frost.
Sanford had shifted his quarters from the little room over Captain Joe's kitchen to the big east room at The Pines, opening out upon a wide balcony, from which he could see with his glass the feathers of white steam on the Ledge. His apartments in Washington Square had been closed, and Sam ordered to join his master at Keyport, where he found himself promoted from the position of man-of-all-work to that of valet-in-chief, with especial instructions to report daily to Buckles, who grew more reticent and imposing by reason of the added charge.
And with the dreamy days came Helen and Jack; Smearly with a big canvas, which he never afterward touched; and the major, with a nondescript wardrobe, as curious as it was astonishing.
To Helen The Pines was a land of romance and charm. She had been brought up in the country, and loved its quiet, the rest of its shady lanes and cool woods, and the life it brought. The city had charmed her at first. She liked its novelty, its theatres, galleries, and crowded streets, but long before her visit in town was done, she had begun to sigh for green fields, and rose gardens, and the freedom of her young days at home. She had passed the summer with her school friends, Jack spending his Sundays with her whenever he could manage an invitation. But the homes of her friends had been simple ones, with none of the luxury and comfort and the poetry of The Pines.