She had intended to “blow him up” for never being around when he was needed, but she changed her mind and replied: “I did want you to help move the bureau and things from the northwest room, but Jeff will answer as well. You look hot. Go and rest yourself on the north piazza with Mr. Mason.”
The tone of her voice was nearly as exhilarating as Zacheus Taylor, Esq. had been, for it was not often that she spoke to him so considerately when on the war path, and it was with a feeling of great satisfaction that he took his way to Craig Mason and the north piazza.
CHAPTER III.
UNCLE ZACH AND CRAIG MASON.
Craig Mason was feeling tired and wondering how he was to pass the hot morning with no one to talk to and nowhere to go and nothing to see if he went there. His mother was spending the day at East Ridgefield, and, as most of the boarders in the house were men who had their business to attend to, he was rather lonely and sometimes wished he had chosen a gayer place than Ridgefield, where there was some excitement and now and then a girl to amuse himself with. Not that he cared particularly for girls as a whole. They were mostly a frivolous lot, fond of dress and fashion and flirting, and caring nothing for anything solid, like Browning. But they were better than nothing when one was bored. In college he had devoted himself to his studies and seldom attended the social gatherings where he would have been warmly welcomed and lionized, for his family was one of the best in Boston, and he had about him an air of refinement and culture which would have won favor without the prestige of family and wealth. The students called him proud and the young ladies cold and cynical. They did not interest him particularly, and, as he was not strong enough to join in the athletic sports of his companions, he kept mostly to himself in his handsome rooms and took his exercise behind his fleet horse, the only real extravagance in which he indulged. He had wanted to bring Dido to Ridgefield, but had been dissuaded by his mother, who said there were probably plenty of horses to be had,—that it might look airy and she hated anything like ostentation. So Dido was left at home and Craig had tried some of the stable horses and found them lacking. He had visited the library and the big shoe shop and had seen the crowd of girls and boys pour out of it at twelve and six o’clock, and wondered how he should like to be one of them, shut up in a close, smelly place for hours in company with Tom, Dick and Harry and their sisters. The last would have hurt him the most, for although courteous to every one, he was fastidious with regard to his associates and shrank from contact with anything common and vulgar, especially if there was pretension with it. Uncle Zach was ignorant and common, but he was genuine, and Craig had taken a great fancy to him. They had driven together a few times in what Uncle Zacheus said was the finest turnout in town, with his two blooded horses, Paul and Virginia.
“You’ve got to keep a sharp lookout or they’ll take the bits in their teeth and run away with you,” he said to Craig, who had expressed a wish to drive. “Mebby I’d better take the lines. Them white hands don’t look strong enough to hold such bloods as Paul and Virginny.”
Craig thought he could manage them, and wondered what Uncle Zach would say to Dido if he could once see her carry herself up hill and down with no sign of fatigue or need of a whip, while these plugs, as he mentally designated Uncle Zach’s bloods, had to be urged after the second long hill and stopped of their own accord to rest after the third, while at the fourth Uncle Zach suggested that they get out and walk “to rest the critters.” Craig took no more drives after Uncle Zach’s blooded horses, but he went rowing with him on the river once or twice and always treated him with a deference which was not lost on the little man.
“He’s a gentleman, every inch of him,” Mr. Taylor often said of him, and nothing could have pleased him better than his wife’s permission to join him on the north piazza.
Craig was glad to see him. He had given up Browning for the time being,—had nearly finished his lemonade, and was quite ready for a chat with his loquacious landlord, who, after inveighing against the propensity of women to clean house when there was nothing to clean, and inquiring after Craig’s health and declaring himself comfortable two or three times, commenced a eulogy on Ridgefield.
“The greatest town in the county, with the finest views and most notorious people and places. See that hill over there?” he asked, pointing to the west. “Wall, there’s the suller hole where the Injuns pushed their wagons of blazin’ hemp, and the garrison would have been burnt to the ground and the people scalped, if the Lord hadn’t done a miracle and sent a thunder shower in the nick of time. One of Dot’s ancestors was there shut up, so it’s true. Dot’s great on ancestory; goes back to the flood, I do b’lieve. She’s got the door latch of that old house. I’ll show it to you if you don’t b’lieve it. Yes, ’twas a miracle, that shower, like the sun standin’ still in one of our battles, I don’t remember which. In the Revolution, wa’n’t it, when Washington licked the British?”
Craig smiled and answered that he believed it was in the old testament times when Joshua was the general.