“Oh, am I? Wherein lies the difference, may I inquire?” The voice sounded a trifle nettled.
“Why I should think anyone could understand that,” was the surprised reply. “Mr. Stuyvesant is the kind of a man who knows what children are thinking right down inside themselves all the time. They don’t have to explain things to him at all. Why the day I found Baltie he knew just as well how I felt about having him shot, and I knew just as well as anything that he’d take care of him and make it all right. We’re great friends. I love him dearly.”
“Whom? Baltie?”
“Now there! What did I tell you? That’s why you are years and years older than Mr. Stuyvesant. He would’nt have had to say ‘Whom? Baltie?’ He’d just know such things without having to ask.” The tone was not calculated to inspire self-esteem.
“Hum,” answered the man who could easily have told anyone the distance of Mars from the earth and many another scientific fact. “I think I’m beginning to comprehend what constitutes age.”
“Yes,” resumed Jean as she flapped the reins upon Baltie who seemed to be lapsing into a dreamy frame of mind. “You can’t always tell how old a person is by just looking at ’em. Maybe you aren’t nearly as old as I think you are, though I guess you can’t be far from forty, and that’s pretty bad. But if you’d sort of get gay and jolly, and try to think how you felt when you were little, or maybe even as big as the boys back yonder, you wouldn’t seem any older to me than Mr. Stuyvesant.”
The big eyes were regarding him with the closest scrutiny as though their owner wished to avoid falling into any error concerning him.
“Think perhaps I’ll try it. It may prove worth while,” and the Professor fell into a brown study while old Baltie plodded on and Jean let her thoughts outstrip his slow progress. At the other end of her commercial venture lay a reckoning as well she knew, and like most reckonings it held an element of doubt as well as of hope. It was nearly one o’clock when they came to the outskirts of Riveredge. The pretty town was quite deserted for it was luncheon hour. When they reached the foot of Hillside street, Jean said:
“This is my street; I have to go up here,” and drew up to the sidewalk for her passenger to descend. He seemed in no haste to take the hint, and Jean began to wonder if he would turn out a regular old man of the sea. Before she could frame a speech both positive and polite as a suggestion for his next move, her ears were assailed by:
“Bress Gawd, ef dar aint dat pesterin’ chile dis very minit! What I gwine do wid yo’? Jis’ tell me dat?” and Mammy came puffing and panting down the hill like a runaway steam-roller.