“It’s nice, too, when the rains come. We do things indoors then that we never do all the rest of the year. My mother plays and sings half the time, ’cause then she can’t go poking around all over the ranch, like she does now. In the evenings the ‘boys’ all come in and tell stories or do their best to amuse us. We were always happiest, too, when Pedro came, and when my father was here he coaxed him and he came often. Now––he’ll never come again!” she finished, with an irrepressible burst of grief, which she as quickly suppressed, for she saw that it saddened her guest as well; and she had been reared in the spirit of hospitality that makes the stranger glad even at the cost of one’s own impulses.
So she added, with a smile that seemed all the brighter because of the tears still glistening on her long lashes:
“I’ll bring you some books out here and you can rest in the hammock while I run and have the horses saddled. Buster isn’t as fast as Nimrod, but he’ll go now and then as if he were a colt. I hope this will be one of his fast times, don’t you? I love to ride fast!” 184 Ninian smiled rather grimly, answering:
“Just at present, from the state of my poor muscles, I fancy I’d prefer a gait as slow as Buster’s ordinary one. But if I stay the week out, I mean to learn a thing or two about that fine beast of mine.”
“A week or two! Why, you’re to be here till after Christmas, anyway, and that’s a fortnight off. I wish––oh, I wish you would live here always!”
From his delightful resting place in a hammock that was “stretched just right,” and which commanded one of the loveliest views in the world, he looked afield and wished so too. Fond as he was of his own active city life, this broad outlook appealed to him most strongly; yet he shook off the longing that assailed him to pass his days in the country and opened the book Jessica had brought. He was soon absorbed in its pages and forgot the errand upon which the child had gone, till, after a long time, as it proved, Ned stole bashfully up and pushed a scrap of paper into his down-hanging hand.
“Hello, youngster!” cried the gentleman, sitting up. “What’s this?”
The child’s timidity banished at the first sound of the visitor’s voice. Mr. Sharp reading, with his spectacles on, and Mr. Sharp speaking in that hail-fellow-well-met manner were two different people. Besides that, Ned’s shyness was not his strongest feature, though it cropped out now and then to the astonishment of his family. Also, he was fresh from the hands of Aunt Sally and his catechism lesson, into which she had adroitly forced a hint of the conduct due toward a “wise man, that can write printin’.” 185 Supposing it to be a production of the little fellow’s own, Mr. Sharp delayed the reading of the crumpled epistle he had received and continued his talk with its bearer; who presently forgot his Sunday manners, and reproachfully demanded that “printing press you promised.”
“’Cause if I had it I’d be just as smart as you, you know.”
“Smartersyou!” cried the echo, clasping Ned’s neck with that choking affection of his.