“Now, then!” she cried. “You don’t know what to do with yourself, I’ll be bound! And I haven’t got a minute to spare, with the dinner I have to get up for Mr. Van Brink at noon. His farm’s four miles off, you know.”
She stared at him, frowning, until an inspiration came.
“Maybe you’d enjoy to play on the harmonium,” she suggested. “Esther’s got some real sweet music.[Pg 33]”
Tommy did not know what a harmonium was; but she showed him a queer little organ in the parlor, and he sat before it all the rest of that intolerable morning, picking out tunes and experimenting with the stops.
At noon old Van Brink came driving home in his buggy, and his hot and anxious wife began hurrying back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing in an enormous hot dinner. The farmer had nothing to say to Tommy. He sat there with his napkin tucked in his collar, consuming one dish after the other as fast as his wife brought them in, absorbed and ravenous, like a feeding animal. Now and again Tommy caught the old man’s small blue eyes surveying him with an expression which he could not comprehend, but which he didn’t like.
Van Brink drove off directly after eating, and his wife withdrew to the kitchen again. With growing resentment, Tommy seized his hat and went out, followed the route of the night before, and reached the village. Entering the only hotel, the Gilbert House, he ordered a cocktail and bought a newspaper; but the drink was shockingly bad, and he couldn’t endure the stale dullness of the place long enough to read the paper there.
He had never before in his life suffered from such boredom. He went back to the house, determined to write at once to his uncle and say he couldn’t stand it any longer.
And there, rocking on the porch and enjoying the cool of the afternoon, sat Esther.
“Hello!” she said cheerfully.
“Good afternoon,” he replied stiffly.