Silent Stead was the first to throw a wet blanket upon the scheme, his reasons being purely personal, as it usually developed that they were; though he would bitterly have resented the idea of it. He found it difficult to put his objections into reasonable words, and so merely retired within himself, and was “grumpy,” as the Cub put it.
The Cub came back from the village a few days later with the rings and frame for the sign, which the blacksmith had fashioned; and Brooke, after varnishing the bread-board well to keep out the weather, had fitted it in place, and was looking at the result when Stead came in. In his arms he carried several packages of bulbs and garden seeds for her, which he dropped on the table. He had a lovely hillside garden of his own below the lodge, which he and José tended, and already he was planning a more elaborate arrangement of the old-fashioned kitchen garden at the farm than Miss Keith had attempted, saying, in answer to Brooke’s objection, that it would perhaps be more than they could care for:—
“Turn about is fair play; you give me, an idler, a daily resting spot between the valley and the hill; why may I not give you a spot to rest in between the day’s work? For God’s sake, do not make me feel more of a cumberer of the ground than necessary!”
As for the gifts of seeds and roots, to Mrs. Lawton, accustomed as she had been to the perfect southern courtesy of such things, that bore no obligation between neighbours and equals, they seemed quite matters of course, and of no special import.
Mrs. Fenton, when Brooke told her of the new venture, and consulted her as to the ways of the great folk of the neighbourhood, and their seasons for coming and going, had expressed her opinion that the first of May was time enough to begin, as then the people in general ran over from Boston and New York for a few days at a time to start the wheels in motion, and take a breath of air. This left Brooke a full month for her preparations, and both Robert Stead and the mail carrier noticed the frequency with which letters flew between herself and Lucy Dean during this time.
Brooke, at first being humble-minded as to her ability, and therefore as to the prices to be charged, was gradually convinced by her hard-headed friend that if her wares were the equal of those which Tokay furnished the same patrons at their houses in town, why might she not charge the same at the wayside tea garden of the Moosatuk, where such things had hitherto not only been unattainable but unknown?
To clinch her unanswerable argument, Lucy had made and sent to her friend a box of dainty cards, such as are often used at bazaars in private houses. A fox’s head appeared at the top—next below TEA, lemon or cream—MILK—FOXHEAD JULEP (the name with which they had christened Granny West’s delicious ginger, lemon, and mint concoction). Then followed the price-list of sandwiches—cheese—potted chicken—lettuce—jam, and plain bread and butter, singly or by the dozen, according to Tokay’s schedule. And Brooke accepted Lucy’s advice, but exacted a promise that she should tell no one, nor exploit the plan in any way, saying, “I want the venture to make its way from the inside out, not from the outside in.”
Thus the matter was settled, and when mother and daughter had agreed that it was best to use the exquisite fern-leaf china cups and saucers for their added attraction over commoner china, and there seemed nothing more to do but to work along in the interim, a new difficulty suddenly smote Brooke. Though she and her mother might brew and bake, who was to serve the tea to those who, lacking footmen, wished it brought to carriage or served in the porch, which Brooke already called her Tea Garden, where she planned, if business warranted, to place some seats and small tables?
One day, the very last of March, Deacon Fenton stopped at the West farm, and in answer to Mrs. Lawton’s urgent invitation to come in, replied: “Thank you kindly, but not to-day. I’m looking for that farmer daughter of yours. I’ve fetched up the new man, and given him an idee of the plantin’. He seems to sense it all right, though he’s kinder soft and unconditioned, and slow for spring ploughin’, and his hands blister up so’s I told him he’d better wear sheepskin mits fer a spell, as it’s some time he claims since he worked land for his mother. That don’t count, however, when it’s work on shares. You get your half jest the same if he’s a week doin’ a day’s work, and that’s the sense on it fer a girl like yourn, who can’t be expected to drive farm hands up to the bit, as must be did if you’re goin’ to git enough offen your land to feed a sparrer! Where’s the young lady? A-paintin’ pussy cats—no, I think it was wild rabbits likely, in the barn, Adam said, only I didn’t see her when I tied up. I thought maybe she’d like to go down to the ploughed field, and be made acquainted with her new help. She won’t need to bother much with him, not payin’ out wages, but it may come in handy for her to have speech with him, jest the same.
“Say, Mis’ Lawton, the tea and spice pedler saw that fox-head sign, settin’ in there in the kitchen, and he says the firm he travels fer are just introducing a new brand of condensed goat’s milk, and if she’d paint out a nice, white, lively-lookin’ goat with a pretty, dressed-up baby sittin’ on its back, and a dreadful thin baby sittin’ on the road a-crying ’cause she didn’t get none, he reckons he could get her all of twenty-five dollars for it—maybe more. There’s a fine big carriage goat boardin’ at Bisbee’s fer the winter that she could copy—’tain’t a milking one, but she might add to it a little. Thought I’d jest mention it; you know ’tain’t often she might get the chance to turn picture paintin’ into something useful and instructive and payin’ all to onct.”