“Right glad t’ see you. I been feedin’ th’ colt. It’s about as likely a specimine as you be,” was Nathan Hornby’s salutation, and his handclasp was as hearty as his stubby fingered, hairy hands could make it.
Lizzie slipped quietly into her chair at his side, and stole a glance up at him again. All through the meal he found her eyes turning toward him curiously, and at last he said good-naturedly:
“I’ll know you next time whether you do me or not.”
The remark was a random one and meant nothing at all, except that he had been conscious of her close attention, but something in the way her gaze was withdrawn showed that whatever she had been thinking she wished to conceal it, and in the end it made Nathan Hornby really uncomfortable. The fact of the matter was that Nathan’s language did not fit his surroundings. Susan Hornby’s house was in advance of the country in which they lived, while her husband fitted the pioneer life he had chosen. Of this fact neither husband nor wife seemed to be conscious. Nathan was ten years older than the woman he had married. In accepting him she had accepted him as he was; later she had grown, but to her he remained the same; he was just Nathan, and needed no analysis. They lived and loved, and radiated the harmony which was theirs. The incongruities of their union were evident to this child, who was supersensitive about grammatical constructions, but their harmony was to be one of the strong lessons of her life. Lizzie was accustomed to ungrammatical language at home, but the atmosphere of this house made ignorance of good form noticeable. She liked Mr. Hornby, but she wondered a little about his association with his wife and her home. She went with him to see the colt after breakfast and remarked upon his neat barnyard in a manner which lifted the cloud upon his face; he had had a feeling that he did not somehow come up to her expectations.
The little colt nosed about his hand looking for food, and Nathan laughed.
“It’s just like th’ human critter o’ that age—wants t’ try everything in its mouth,” he said, trying to find a topic of conversation.
Again Nathan Hornby caught a flicker of surprise in Lizzie Farnshaw’s eye, and again he was disconcerted.
“Wonder what I done t’ set that child t’ lookin’ at me so funny?” he asked himself as he went to the field later, and being big-hearted and ignorant was unaware that a man could hamstring himself by an ungrammatical phrase.
All day Susan Hornby read with the young girl and questioned her to get into touch with her life and thought, and when night came was wildly enthusiastic about her.
“Nate, she’s worth a lift,” she said to her husband after Lizzie had again been tucked into bed. “Let’s take her with us to Topeka this fall and put her into the high school. She’s—she’s just the age our Katie would have been. She says some teacher told her she was ready for the high school.”