But Miss Tribbey’s judgment was not to be trusted in respect to masculine good looks, her one unit of comparison being yellow-haired Lanty Lansing, who, tall, broad-shouldered and straight-limbed, was a man among a thousand. Sidney Martin had his fair share of good looks. Under any circumstances it would have been impossible to take him for anything but a gentleman, a gentleman by breeding, education, and natural taste. He, too, was tall like Lanty, but much more slender. He had grey eyes—the dreamy eyes of Endymion, slender, nervous hands, and graceful gestures. He walked with something of a scholar’s stoop, and had the pallor of the student. Above all, his face was irradiate with kindliness towards every living thing. His eyes had the dilating pupils of those who are dreamers of dreams. It might be that the ideal would take him greater lengths than the truth. About his mouth lay always a touch of pity—pity for the world about him, which, to his eyes, was so blind to the true good, so bent upon burdening itself with baleful creeds which disintegrated the universal brotherhood of man.
The three young people, escorted by the collie, left the house, and turning away from the road, proceeded along a lane which was really a continuation of the avenue without the grateful shade of the trees. The dusty way was strewn with fragrant hay which had fallen from the waggons on their way to the barns. They passed the two broad, shallow ponds, overgrown, as Miss Tribbey had said, with water-weeds and bulrushes. Only a shallow, unwholesome little pool of water remained in each; thirsty birds fluttered about the margin, and, as the three passed, the frogs plunged into the water from every side. The collie walked sedately into the middle of one of the pools, then came and shook himself beside Mabella, spattering her skirts.
The heat was breathless; the earth, beneath the inquisition of the sun, suffered but was mute. And presently they saw the hay-makers, the two sweating horses in the mower, the man tossing the windrows into coils. A great oak tree stood solitary in one corner, and thither the girls directed their steps; a brown earthen jug of water, covered by the men’s coats, stood in its shadow. Mabella took off her sunbonnet and waved it wildly by one string. One of the men sent back an answering shout, and tossed a forkful of hay into the air. The sun glinted from the burnished steel of the fork to the yellow hair of its wielder.
“That’s Lanty,” said Mabella to Sidney, with a certain shy personal pride in her accent.
“Our cousin, Lansing Lansing,” amended Vashti.
“Does he live with you?” asked Sidney.
“No! Oh, no! He has a farm of his own, but his haying is all done, and he has come over to help Dad.”
“The farmers help each other here, when they can,” said Mabella.
Sidney felt enthusiasm surge within his breast; was not this practical communism?
The men had left their work and were coming towards them.