“This must be the Duffy grove,” exclaimed Billie. “He told me he had built a board fence as high as the wall of China around his place, because next to his wife, he loved his orange trees.”
It was the Duffy grove, for the rotund gentleman himself could now be seen frantically waving his Panama hat and pointing toward a whitewashed board fence, some twenty feet high, at the top of which branched rafters like the uncovered roof of an enormous building.
“He stretches canvas over it when the weather is cool, and he has stoves all about inside with wood fires to keep the baby oranges from catching cold. Isn’t he a funny man?”
“In other words he has an orange asylum instead of an orphan asylum,” put in Timothy, as they drew up at the gate of the two-acre enclosure wherein Mr. Duffy indulged his taste for an ideal orange grove.
The avenue itself did not enter the enclosure but took its unconsecrated way outside the great white wall. Tall palms, like a row of giant sentinels, seemed to keep guard over the secrets of the grove; but the inquisitive vine of the yellow jasmine had almost reached the top, and innumerable and brilliant flowers grew at its foot. At the end of the avenue was the Duffy lodge.
“Ladies, you must excuse these simple accommodations,” he said as he helped them out of the motor. “Mrs. Duffy and I like to come here and camp out occasionally, but it’s a little too primitive for the old woman. She prefers Palm Beach and society. And she’s right,” he added good-naturedly. “This is a fine place to motor to, but it’s too far from people, and Mrs. Duffy and I like people, don’t we, old lady? Especially young people, eh? I feel like blessing that current that carried you and Timothy against me that day, Miss Billie.”
“We feel like blessing it, too,” said Billie.
“It was a very well-bred and respectable current,” exclaimed Timothy. “It not only saved our lives but it carried us into a moonlight dance and an orange grove.”
Although the lodge was hardly the primitive affair Mr. Duffy had described, being a well-built and comfortable bungalow, it had only three rooms—a large living room, a bedroom and a kitchen.
“Take off your coats and hats, my dears,” exclaimed Mrs. Duffy, “and put on these aprons, because when people eat oranges in a real grove they need protection, and I would not for worlds have you ruin your pretty frocks.”