“What’s that?”
“I wanter drive you to church in my new buggy, and make Joe Badger an’ that Nettie Meyers look like thirty cents. That’s what I want.”
“Oh, Lucas! That isn’t a very high ambition,” she cried.
“But it’s goin’ to give me an almighty lot of satisfaction,” declared the young farmer. “You won’t go back on me; will yer, Miss ’Phemie?”
“I’ll ride with you–of course,” replied ’Phemie. “But I’d just as lief go in the buckboard.”
“Now that,” said the somewhat puzzled Lucas, “is another thing that makes you gals diff’rent from the gals around here.”
Old Mr. Colesworth came and made himself at home very quickly. He played cribbage with Mr. Bray in the evening while the girls did up the work and sewed; and during the early days of his stay with them he proved to be a very pleasant old gentleman, with few crotchets, and no special demands upon the girls for attention.
He walked a good deal, proved to be something of a geologist, and pottered about the rocky section of the farm with a little hammer and bag for hours together.
As Mr. Bray could walk only a little way, Mr. Colesworth did most of his rambling about Hillcrest alone. And he grew fonder and fonder of the place as the first week advanced.
As far as his entertainment went, he could have no complaint as to that, for he was getting all that Lyddy had promised him–a comfortable bed, a fire on his hearth when he wanted it, and the same plain food that the family ate.