“Oh, I know he is! I admired him last summer, but Jeanette is fit for the best, and I’m glad, surely! She’s perfectly happy. Mr. Lancaster, I’ve got to see to the boys! Do you mind? I’d far rather not, but see that pair over there? That tussle is getting too earnest.” Cis pointed to wrestling that was rapidly degenerating into a fight.
“I’ve done a meddlesome thing. I want to tell the lads about it before I tell you, because then you can’t betray how angry you are with me! But first may I show that pair—the others will not stand off long!—a trick or two of Japanese wrestling? Don’t be afraid; I’ll show them how to use it properly. They won’t come to harm, and boys have to scrap; kittens and puppies do, too, you know!” Anselm Lancaster began to take off his coat as he spoke, not waiting for Cicely’s assent to his proposal.
She looked at him wondering. Was this the man whom she had feared, even when she felt most at home with him and admired him? His nearly forty years had been thrown off as he was throwing off his coat; he was like one of the older boys among her guests, except that his body showed the fine lines of breeding and training as he faced the lads, the wind blowing his silken shirt and rumpling his brown hair.
“Come on, boys!” he said tightening his belt and settling the loose collar of his shirt. “I know a thing or two about the way the Japs wrestle. Stand up to me, you biggest boy over there, and I’ll give you some points which you’ll find good to know, if ever you’re in a tight place. I’ll teach the whole crowd, but you come on first. And in case the lady in whose charge we’re all here, she-that-must-be-obeyed, is afraid we’ll be too late getting home, I’ll tell you that we aren’t going to walk it. I ordered a truck to come after us at six; it will hold us all, and get us back to town in fifteen minutes; less! How does it strike you?”
It struck them into silence for the space of a breath, and then into a babel of noisy approval.
“Oh, Mr. Lancaster, how kind you are! And what a lark!” cried Cis, flushed with delight. “Boys, if you’re yelling, yell right! Three times three for Mr. Lancaster! Come on; I’ll lead!”
Cis bent over and waved her arms in the approved manner; she had led her school yells in days past. The nine cheers were given deafeningly, ending with: “Rah, rah, rah; Lancaster!” which the boys approved, though they missed its meaning.
Then Mr. Lancaster initiated the boys into the beginnings of Jiu-jitsu till the big truck came into the glen, and they all piled in warm, hungry, blissfully happy.
Mr. Lancaster stood on the running board and looked the boys over.
“Going to stick to Mass every Sunday, and stand by like good fellows, every one of you? Come now, that’s to be a promise! Don’t make it unless you mean to keep it, but make it and keep it; see the idea?” he said.