“They’d all like first rate to meet you some other time,” she said, “but, seein’ it’s about clothes and all, I guess things ’ud be freer and easier without you this mornin’. My apron’ll do to wave, Peg.”
As Archibald climbed the wood trail behind the shack, he looked through an opening in the leafiness and counted eight feminine figures filing out of the Neals’ side gate and taking the meadow path.
He laughed, as he stood holding the branches aside, but there was a pleasant warmth at his heart. Neighbors of his!
He was still feeling neighborly when an hour or two later he wandered down the western slope of Pine Knob and found himself confronted by the bars beyond which a crooked lane led through the land of the Smiling Lady to the white farmhouse under the maples. He glanced at the sun, then looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. Time enough for an hour’s neighboring and a stroll around by the road to his one o’clock dinner. Morning calls were informal but they seemed to be the accepted thing in the Happy Valley, and the Smiling Lady would send him away quite frankly and amiably if he was in the way. He felt sure of that. She would never allow a man to make a nuisance of himself.
He found her in the vegetable garden and she waved a trowel at him in a fashion that left no doubt as to his welcome.
“Heaven Sent One!” she hailed, coming toward the fence to meet him. “I prayed for a man—an able-bodied, obliging man, and behold! I had set my heart on a morning’s gardening and John had to take the horse to the blacksmith. It was absolutely necessary. He explained it all to me very clearly. As a matter of fact, John hates gardening as the devil hates holy water. He’ll commit any of the venial sins to escape it. I telephoned for Bill Briggs but he’s been away for two days, so even if I could put a hand on him he wouldn’t be garden-worthy. The last time he pulled up all my young spinach and transplanted a lot of very superior plantain into the lettuce bed—but he gave me a day’s work for nothing afterward. Bill’s ‘overtaken’ sometimes. He admits it, but he’s a gentleman. Can you dig?”
The wind had ruffled her hair into wild disorder. The hand that held the trowel was grubby. The other hand was grubbier. There was a broad streak of dirt across one cheek and a smudge on her forehead. Her short blue denim skirt was caked with earth at the knees. A shockingly untidy young woman, but, as she stood in the sunlight, laughing, Archibald could have shouted for joy in the free glad life of her. It was good just to be in the world with anything so young and brave and gay—and so lovely. Yes; even when wind and gardening had done their worst, so very lovely. Where was the man who could refuse to dig for her?
“Lead me to a spade,” he urged valiantly.
Two hours later, Ellen coming out in the garden to announce dinner, found two dirty, tired, but cheerful beings scrambling across freshly pulverized earth on all fours.
“The saints preserve us!” she exclaimed piously.