"That explains the maritime tints in your eyes. Even when they laugh the sparkle is like the sun on the water. Continue, please."
"Well, my father, who came here to fish, met my mother, fell in love, married her, and took her away. He was very clever at everything except making money, it seems, so my mother came home within a year to welcome me on to the planet. My grandfather had a small farm, and I was his shadow and one of his 'hands' until I was eight years old."
"Was it a happy life?"
"It was. I remember especially the smell of Grammy's buttery, sweet-smelling cookies, and gingerbread, and apple pies with cinnamon. It smells the same way now. Do you wonder I like to come back?"
"You stimulate my appetite," said Diana.
"Oh, she'll give you some. There were many jolly things in those days to brighten the life of a country boy. The way the soft grass felt to bare feet in the spring, and in the frosty autumn mornings when we went to the yard to milk and would scare up the cows so those same bare feet could stand in the warm place where the cows had lain. Then came winter and snowdrifts—making snow huts and coasting down the hills. Sliding and skating on the ice-filled hollows. It was all great. I'm glad I had it."
"You test my credulity, Mr. Barrison, when you speak of ice and snow in this poetic home of summer breezes."
He looked down at her. "We will have a winter house-party at Grammy's sometime and convince you."
"So at eight years of age you went out into the world?"
"Yes, at my dear mother's apron strings. My father had spent some time with us every year and at last secured a living salary and took us to town. The first thing I did in the glitter of the blinking lamp-posts was to fall in love. I prayed every night for a long time that I might marry that girl. She had long curls and I reached just to her ear. I received her wedding cards a year or so ago. I was always praying for something, but only one of my prayers has ever been answered. I was always very devout in a thunderstorm, and I prayed that I might not be struck by lightning and I never have been yet."