"Yes, a Romney herb-pot is better," I said, as a strange chant began to play itself on my heartstrings with me alone for a breathless audience.
"And if you come in on Saturday you can—" Bess was saying in a positive tone that admitted of no retreat, when Matthew's huge blue car came around the drive from the front of Elmnest and stopped by Bess's roadster. On the front seat sat Matthew, and Corn-tassel was beside him, but the rest of the car was piled high with huge sacks of grain, which looked extremely sensible and out of place in the handsomest car in the Harpeth Valley.
"Oh, Miss Ann, Mr. Matthew and I found the greatest bargain in winter wheat, and the man opened every sack and let me run my arm to the elbow in it. It is all hard and not short in a single grain. We are going to trade you half." And Polly's blue eyes, which still looked like the uncommercialized violet despite a six weeks' acquaintance with society in Hayesville, danced with true farmer delight.
"It's warranted to make 'em lay in night shifts, Ann," said Matthew as he beamed down upon me with a delight equal to Polly's, and somehow equally as young. "Where'll I put it? In the feed-room in the bins?"
"Yes, and they are almost empty. I was wondering what I would do next for food, because I owe Rufus and the hogs so much," I answered gratefully.
"What did you pay?" asked Bess, in a business-like tone of voice.
"Only a dollar and a quarter a bushel, all seed grade," answered Matthew, with the greatest nonchalance, as if he had known the grades of wheat from his earliest infancy.
"Why, Owen bought two bags of it for our joint family and paid such a fortune for it that I forgot the figures immediately; but I took up the rug and put it all in my dressing-room to watch over, lest thieves break into the garage and steal. Also I made him send me plebeian carnations instead of violets for Belle Proctor's dinner Tuesday," said Bess, with covetousness in her eyes as she watched Matthew begin to unload his wheat. I wonder what Matthew's man, Hickson, at one twenty-five a month, thought of his master's coat when he began to brush the chaff out of its London nap.
"Oh, Owen Murray is just a town-bred duffer," said Matthew, as he shouldered his last sack of grain.
"Well, you are vastly mistaken if you think that—" Bess was beginning to say in a manner that I knew from long experience would bring on a war of words between her and Matthew when a large and cheerful interruption in the shape and person of Aunt Mary Corn-tassel came around the corner of the house.