"Was you uns thinkin' ez I'd 'pear so pore ez ter dance in them old shoes?" she demanded with a flash of the eyes and drawing up her figure with dignity, but alack, a flash, however fiery, from out the blue and yellow frills of the sunbonnet, and the prideful pose of a form disguised by the angular folds of the unyielding fabric that held the starch so stiffly, lost all impressiveness in their disastrous environment.
"I was thinking that same," he retorted unequivocally. He turned to her eldest brother, who had just come up, followed at a little distance by her staring father, and sought to reach here more pliancy of receptivity. "Well, sport," he said genially to Daniel Pinnott, "you see I wanted to show a nymph of the orchard—such as dance among the trees."
The jaws of both mountaineers fell. "When did they dance, stranger?" they uneasily demanded in a breath, as if the mere idea of terpsichorean intrusion among their trees had an inherent disquietude for them.
"Oh, there's no such folks sure enough," Lloyd made haste to explain. "People have pretended that there were spirits of the trees and the like." He hesitated; Shadrach Pinnott's eyes fixed in stultified wonderment on his face were disconcerting. "Of course nobody ever saw them, unless the feller was dreamin' or drunk;"—at the last word Shadrach Pinnott's countenance took on the insignia of comprehension—"anyhow, the book-guys have written a lot of poetry about 'em, and the artist-guys have painted pictures of what they thought these lydies looked like; so when I saw Miss here, dancing and singing in the orchard, she took my eye for a dryad, or oread or a bacchante or some of them nationalities, and I'd like to try the turn on the public—but—" he concluded sternly, "not in them clothes—that's just an everyday Persimmon Cove girl, and no dryad about it."
Clotilda made no sign of relenting, and Lloyd stared disconsolately at her while the slow brains of the two other men turned over his discourse reflectively. "The right kind of glad rags for dancing are never stiff," he urged. "I can't figure out how the lydy managed to stay so stiff and starched these seven miles and more, waggoning down from the mountain. She looks to be just off the ironing-board."
"An' stranger, she be," the old grandam's voice broke in suddenly as she hobbled up on her stick. "Clotildy changed into them clothes, under the kiver of the waggin, whenst we uns war about half a mile from town."
Lloyd made a bolt toward the canvas-covered vehicle. "And she has got the same togs along?" he exclaimed. "Three cheers! Three cheers! Get 'em out,—get 'em out. And child, take off your cap or bonnet or whatever that disguise is called—blazes, girl! what have you got on your hair?"
Clotilda, overborne by the trend of events and perceiving very definitely that the opportunity for display was lost unless she surrendered her persuasions as to toilette, obediently bared her head to the light, the locks all sleek and smooth and closely banded to her forehead. They were streaked dark and light and glistened when the sun fell upon them. She lifted her hands deprecatingly to her head as he vociferated, "What is it that you have got on your hair?"
"Nuthin' but lard," she faltered.
"Oh,—oh—" Lloyd gave a sigh of despair. Then didactically he rejoined: "A lydy who performs in public must be more natural than—than—nature—or seem to be,—which is all the same thing. She can paint her cheeks, which yours don't need—and beautify along natural lines—but no oread that I ever saw billed had a greased head. I take it that this ain't the style among the ones in the mountains, or the boards would have followed the fashion. We will all pray that a cake of tar soap and a pail of river water will wash that grease off. I understand that you are going to camp here a little distance from town," he added, turning to Shadrach Pinnott, and as the mountaineer assented, he continued, "Well, she can go now to the camping ground and get that larded hair washed, and sit in the sun till it dries off, for," declared this disciple of realism severely, "no oread, nor dryad, nor bacchante can do a song-and-dance turn in my show with a greased head!"