“I wish Sammy was here,” murmured Silvia, lovingly.
“First-rate cat,” Aaron admitted. “Now, we didn't marry to oblige each other. Each of us obliged himself. Hey?”
Silvia opened her eyes wide. The idea seemed a little complicated. They clasped hands the tighter.
“Now,” said Aaron, “Silvy's scared. I ain't, but I mote be when I got there.”
A blue-jay flew shrieking down the road. Aaron looked after it with a quick change of interest.
“See him! Yes, sir. You can tell his meanness the way he hollers. Musses folks' eggs.”
Aaron no longer surprised us now, nor did Silvia. We accepted them. We had standards of character and conduct, of wisdom and of things possible, but they were not set for us by the pulpit, the statute book, or the market-place. We had often gone forth on expeditions into the mystical beyond, always with a certain purpose to achieve there, and at some point it had been necessary to come home and face the punishment, if there were any, to have supper, and go to bed. Home could not be left permanently and another existence arranged, any more than the feet could be taken from the earth permanently. It had been found impractical. Aaron and Silvia were like ourselves. They might conceive of living away from the farmhouse under the mountain-side a few days. They shrank from facing old Kincard with his hoe-handle or horse-whip, but one must go back eventually. We recognized that their adventure was bold and peculiar; we judged the price likely to be appalling; we gave them frank admiration for both. None of us had ever run away to be definitely married, or suffered from a hoe-handle or a horse-whip, and yet all these were things to be conceived of and sympathized with.
“I knew a blue-jay,” went on Aaron, thoughtfully, “that lived near the end of Shore's land, and he never appeared to like anything agreeable. He used to hang around other folks' nests and holler till they were distracted.”
Silvia's snuffling caught his ear, and once more the rapid change passed over his face.
“We-ell,” he said, “the old man'll be lively, that's sure. I'd stay in the woods, if it was me, but women”—with a large air of observation—“have to have houses.”.