“I don’t intend to exhibit ‘Red Jacket’ to you,” she covered her exclamation quickly; “it must unfold itself. There are dozens of views, but you must come upon them unawares; and each has an inexhaustible pack of scenes—I am always discovering new ones. ‘Red Jacket’ is a crafty old Indian; he’ll remain stolid and silent as stone until you are ready to commune with him. Those four great columns outside, for instance; they are never the same. At first you will glance at them and pass under, unless you wonder why they put such huge columns on a dwelling-house. Maybe you’ll make the usual joke and ask if this is the post-office or the Carnegie library. You’ll be here a long while before they grow big and you grow small; and then you’ll pass them some moonlight night with a little reverence; and on stormy nights you’ll be glad of them and feel, oh, so protected when you are safe inside.”
She talked with a smiling casualness—hesitating here and there for a word—which took the eloquence out of the speech, but left all of the affection and all of the poetry.
“You are very dangerous,” he spoke with decision abruptly. “Your song of home is stirring primitive instincts in me. Look out, or I may stick a bread knife in my belt and stalk down that long hill to the cottage I see at the edge of the Lake and run amuck among some good man’s daughters. You are arousing my domestic instincts. Please don’t force me to marry somebody in self-defence.”
“What’s this?” Mrs. Wells caught a word. “Marry in self-defence? What an ungracious remark, Richard. I trust, if you do marry, you’ll marry for the good of your immortal soul. You know it isn’t good for a man to be alone; therefore it is bad; and therefore, a lost soul.”
She was recovering some of her old spirit. “Red Jacket” had done that. Since five o’clock she had been wandering in and out among her hardy perennials, and every blossom had given her courage. But the old vim and assurance was gone; only the external imitation remained. She looked almost as imposing and masterful as of old; but the aggressive force was no longer there. In its place had come a permanent yielding sweetness, a charming thing; and, better still, a long-belated sense of humour.
“Bravo!” cried Richard, “you are a theologian, Mrs. Wells. Any seminary would pass you, except possibly Union and Harvard Divinity; and they might, because they believe in everything. Jerry has been letting me into some of the secrets of ‘Red Jacket.’ It begins already to domesticate me. But I see that ‘Red Jacket’ has deep roots.”
“You don’t ask questions and bring us out,” Mrs. Wells beamed at him. “‘Red Jacket’ was built by my grandfather. He came with his slaves from Virginia in 1818. George Alexander’s great-grandmother was my grandfather’s ‘Mammy.’ You’ll find black folks all over this country who are the result of that migration. Grandfather Wells was a close friend of Red Jacket the Seneca Chief. Red Jacket—the Indian, not the house—was born just below us on the Lake; he was a friend of the whites, you know, and was most helpful in thwarting old Tecumseh. Grandfather was made a member of the Seneca tribe. We have a heap of mementoes of that in ‘Grandfather’s Room’ upstairs.”
“Really!” Richard’s eyes widened. “When may I see them?”
“Wait, I’ll get you the key.” The mother was on the way when Geraldine interrupted.
“Now, mother, you’re spoiling it. Don’t let’s get the key. Let it wait. I don’t want to personally conduct Richard about like a Freneau party. Let him find out things for himself. If we tell him everything it will spoil the surprise.”