They all crowded about him and went through the same ceremony. It could scarcely be called a ceremony, it was such a simple and actually affectionate performance. It was so plain that his young good looks and friendly grace of manner reached their hearts at once, and that they were glad that he had come.
“They are glad you have come,” Sheba said afterwards. “You are from the world over there, you know,” waving her hand towards the blue of the mountains. “We are all glad when we see anything from the outside.”
“Would you like to go there?” Rupert asked.
“Yes,” she answered, with a little nod of her head. “If Uncle Tom will go—and you.”
They spent almost an hour in the store holding a sort of levée. Every newcomer bade the young fellow welcome and seemed to accept him as a sort of boon.
“He’s a mighty good-lookin’ young feller,” they all said, and the women added: “Them black eyes o’ his’n an’ the way his hair kinks is mighty purty.”
“Their feelings will be hurt if you don’t stay a little,” said Sheba. “They want to look at you. You don’t mind it, do you?”
“No,” he answered, laughing; “it delights me. No one ever wanted to look at me before. But I should hardly think they would want to look at me when they might look at you instead.”
“They have looked at me for eighteen years,” she answered. “They looked at me when I had the measles, and saw me turn purple when I had the whooping-cough.”
As they were going away, they passed a little man who had just arrived and was hitching to the horse-rail a raw-boned “clay-bank” mare. He looked up as they neared him and smiled peacefully.