“No, let’s let ’em worry a while longer. They’ve been kinder careless of Miss Ann to 243 have mislaid her, and mighty snobbish with our gal not to have claimed kin with her long ago. My advice is let ’em worry, let ’em worry,” decreed Major Fitch.
Miss Ann wasn’t lost very long, however. That same evening, when Judith made her daily trip to the trolley stop with the men’s dinner, Jefferson Bucknor stepped from the rear platform of the six-thirty.
“In time to carry your ‘empties’ for you,” he said, shaking Judith’s hand with a warmth that his casual greeting did not warrant. Judith surrendered the basket, but held on to the empty milk can.
“Your trusty weapon,” said Jeff, and they both laughed. “Have you knocked anybody down lately?” the young man asked.
“Not many, but I am always prepared with my milk can. It is a deadly weapon, with or without buttermilk.”
“I wonder if you are anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can’t fool myself. Are you glad to see me?” 244
“Of course,” said Judith.
“I wish you wouldn’t swing that milk can so vigorously. I think a cousin might be allowed to ask if you are glad to see him without being in danger of having to take the same medicine Tom Harbison had to swallow. I’ve come home on a rather sad mission, in a way, and still I wanted to see my little cousin so much I can’t help making a kind of lark of it. I am really worried very much, and should go to Buck Hill immediately, but if you don’t mind, I’ll hang around while you get the seven o’clock dinners packed and then help you carry them.”
Judith did not mind at all. “I hope nobody at Buck Hill is ill,” she said.
“No, but my father is in a great stew over old Cousin Ann Peyton. She is lost and he seems to feel I can find her. Why, I don’t know, if he and Big Josh can’t, even with the help of the marshal.”