“I am sorry now that I did not meet her,” he added, looking more closely at Dorcas than he had done before, and trying to trace some resemblance between her and the photograph he had dubbed Squint-Eye.
But there was none, and he felt a good deal puzzled, wondering what Phineas meant by calling Dorcas “handsome as blazes.” She must be the one referred to, for no human being could ever accuse Squint-Eye of any degree of beauty. And yet how the father and sister loved her, and how the old man’s voice trembled when he spoke of her, always with pride it seemed to Rex, who began at last himself to feel a good deal of interest in her. He knew now that he was occupying her seat, and that the rose-bud he had fastened in his button-hole was put there for her, and he hoped his aunt would treat her well.
“I mean to write and give her some points, for there’s no guessing what Mrs. Walker Haynes may put her up to do,” he thought, just as he caught the name of Phineas and heard Mr. Leighton saying to Dorcas:
“I saw him this morning, and he thinks he will get up in the course of a week and do the plastering.”
“Not before a week! How provoking!” Dorcas replied, while Rex ventured to say:
“Are you speaking of Phineas Jones? I made his acquaintance this morning, or rather he made mine. Quite a character, isn’t he?”
“I should say he was,” Dorcas replied, while her father rejoined:
“Everybody knows Phineas, and everybody likes him. He is nobody’s enemy but his own, and shiftlessness is his great fault. He can do almost everything, and do it well, too. He’ll work a few weeks,—maybe a few months,—and then lie idle, visiting and talking, till he has spent all he earned. He knows everybody’s business and history, and will sacrifice everything for his friends. He attends every camp-meeting he can hear of, and is apt to lose his balance and have what he calls the power. He comes here quite often, and is very handy in fixing up. I’ve got a little job waiting for him now, where the plastering fell off in the front chamber, and I dare say it will continue to wait. But I like the fellow, and am sorry for him. I don’t know that he has a relative in the world.”
Rex could have told of his Aunt Lucy, and that through her, Phineas claimed relationship to himself, but concluded not to open up a subject which he knew would be obnoxious to his aunt. Supper was now over, but the rain was still falling heavily, and when Rex asked how far it was to the hotel, both Mr. Leighton and Dorcas invited him so cordially to spend the night with them, that he decided to do so, and then began to wonder how he should broach the real object of his visit. From all Phineas had told him, and from what he had seen of Mr. Leighton, he began to be doubtful of success, but it was worth trying for, and he was ready to offer fifteen hundred dollars extra, if necessary. His coat and shoes were dry by this time, and habited in them he felt more like himself, and after Dorcas had removed her apron, showing that her evening work was done, and had taken her seat near her father, he said:
“By the way, did Mr. Gorham ever write to you that a New Yorker would like to buy your farm?”