Father only laughed when they went in, and said: "I'm glad you didn't do anything more than that to the little chaps, daughter; it's only a bit of boy life and impulse working in them, after all; their natural way of cooling the 'sweating of the corn.'" Then we drove away through the lanes draped with birch tassels and willow wands, while bloodroot and marshmarigold kept pace in the runnels, and I heard the twitter of the first barn-swallow of the year.
As we drove along we talked or were silent without apology and according to mood; and as father outlined his route to me, I resolved that I would call upon Horace Bradford's mother, for our way lay in that direction.
Many things filled father's mind aside from the beauty of the perfect April day, that held even the proper suggestion of hidden showers behind the curtain of hazy sunshine. The sweating of the human corn that came under father's eye was not always to be cured by air and sun, or rather, those who turned uneasily would not accept the cure.
The germ of unrest is busy in the village this spring. Not that it is wholly new, for unrest is wherever people congregate. But this year the key is altered somewhat. The sight of careless ease, life without labour, and a constant change of pleasures, that obtain in the Bluff Colony, is working harm. True, the people can always read of this life in book and paper, but to come in direct contact is another thing. Father said the other day that he wished that conservative country places that had lived respected and respectable lives for years could have the power to socially quarantine all newcomers before they were allowed to purchase land and set a pace that lured the young cityward at any cost. I, too, realize that the striving in certain quarters is no longer for home and love and happy times, but for something new, even if it is merely for the sake of change, and that this infection of social unrest is quickly spreading downward from the Bluffs, touching the surface of our little community, if not yet troubling its depths.
The leading merchant's daughter, Cora Blackburn, fresh from a college course that was a strain upon the family means, finds that she has built a wall four years wide between herself and her family; henceforth life here is a vacuum,—she is misunderstood, and is advertising for an opportunity to go to New York and the independence of a dreary back third or fourth story hall bedroom. But, as she said the other day, putting on what Evan calls her "capability-for-better-things" air, "One's scope is so limited here, and one never can tell whom one may meet in New York," which is, of course, perfectly true.
It was only last night that father returned from the hospital, distressed and perplexed, and called me into the office. A young woman of twenty-two, that I know very well, of a plain middle-class family over in town, had, it seems, sent her name for admission to the training-school for nurses. Father, in his friendly way, stopped at the house on his way home to talk with her about the matter, and found from a little sister, who was washing dishes, that the mother of the family was ill and being cared for by a neighbour. Presently, down tripped the candidate for nursing, well dressed, well shod, and with pink, polished finger nails.
Father, wondering why she did not care for her mother, asked his usual questions: "What leads you to wish to take up nursing? Are you interested in medicine, and fond of caring for the sick? For you should be, to enter such an exacting life." She seemed to misunderstand him altogether and take his inquiry for prying. She coloured, bit her lip, then lost her head and blurted out: "Interested in the sick! Of course not. Who could be, for they are always so aggravating. I don't mean to stay so very long at it, but it's a good chance to go into some swell family, and maybe marry and get into society."
[Illustration: His Mother]
Poor father was fairly in a rage at the girl's idea of what he deems a sacred calling, and it was not until Richard had kissed him from the end of his nose up over his short thick gray hair, and down again to the tickle place in his neck, that he calmed down. Unless my instinct fails me, he will have his social experience considerably widened during the coming season, even if his trustful nature is not strengthened.
Father had made three calls, and we had eaten our luncheon by the wayside, unhooking the horses, and baiting them by a low bridge rail that sloped into the bushes, where they could eat and drink at leisure, before we reached Pine Ridge. Once there, he dropped me at the Bradford farm, while he drove westward, along the Ridge, to a consultation with the local doctor over a complicated broken leg that would not knit.