“You en Marse John fight hit out, honey,” he said. “Mek ’er tell de trufe, Marse John. Hit’s you en her fer it now; Milton’s done his bes’.”
He turned deliberately and walked out of the yard.
It did not take the Peon long to get the facts, to answer all my objections as to the inconvenience to himself, and to settle finally our immediate return. We would rebuild Cedarhurst at once.
“Oh, no,” I cried, “not Cedarhurst! Let us build our own home, all sunshine and out-of-doors! It isn’t the old house that I love; it was too cold and stately and dark—such an indoors kind of house. It’s the hills I’m homesick for, and the sky, and the biggest maple, and the pasture, and the sycamores down by the brook.”
“But we can’t sleep in the maple,” objected the Peon, “nor eat in the pasture when it rains. There must be a house.”
“Oh, of course. But let it be our house—not Great-aunt Virginia’s. You may really build it any way you please if only you will have porches enough, and so many windows that wherever you sit you can lift your eyes and look right out, miles and miles and miles. And I’d like all the rooms to have a southern exposure, of course, on account of the breeze and the sun, and east windows for winter mornings, and west windows for the sunsets. I don’t care about the rest.”
“I insist upon bath-rooms and a kitchen,” said the Peon; “mere scenery is not a sufficient sanitary basis for life. But what shall we call it—Cedarhurst?”
“Oh, no! Just a plain, every day, home-y name—something that belongs to us and the birds. Why, we’re Birds ourselves, Peon, dear. Let’s be sociable and call it Bird Corners.”
“But there aren’t any corners,” said the practical Peon; “the place lies straight along the pike.”
That is a man’s way. He thinks he must face facts and shape his course accordingly, poor slave to the visible that he is. But a woman conquers facts by turning her back upon them, and playing they are something else.