“Does so,” he replied, reassuringly, “but we’ll get a hard spell of weather along in March, as usual. Tell your Pa if he don’t want to save them New York Sunday papers, I’d like to have a good look at them. Couldn’t see anything but some of the headlines, they was done up so tight. Go ’long there, Alexander.”
Alexander, the old white horse, picked up his hoofs and trotted leisurely down the hill to the little bridge, with his usual air of resigned nonchalance, while Jean ran back with the unusual and interesting mail, laughing as she went. Still, as Cousin Roxy said, it was something to feel you were adding to local history by being a part and parcel of Mr. Ricketts’ mail route.
CHAPTER XIII
MOUNTED ON PEGASUS
It was one of the habits and customs of Greenacres to open the daily mail up in Mr. Robbins’ own special room, the big sunny study overlooking the outer world so widely.
When they had first planned the rooms, it had been decided that the large south chamber should be Father’s own special corner. From its four windows he could look down on the little bridge and brown rock dam above with its plunging waterfall, and beyond that the widespread lake, dotted with islands, reed and alder fringed, that narrowed again into Little River farther on.
“It’s queer,” Doris said once, when winter was half over. “Nothing ever really looks dead up here. Even with the grass and leaves all dried up, the trees and earth look kind of reddish, you know what I mean, Mother, warm like.”
And they did too, whether it was from the rich russets of the oaks that refused to leave their twigs until spring, or the green laurel underneath, or the rich pines above, or the sorrel tinted earth itself, the land never seemed to lose its ruddy glow except when mantled with snow.
Mr. Robbins stood at a window now, his hands behind his back, looking out at the valley as they came upstairs.
“Do you know, dear,” he remarked. “I think I just saw some wild geese over on that first island, probably resting for the trip north overnight. That means an early spring. And there was a woodpecker on the maple tree this morning too. That is all my news. What have you brought?”
Everyone settled down to personal enjoyment of the mail. There was always plenty of it, letters, papers, new catalogues, and magazines, and it furnished the main diversion of the day.