Brady was a typical business-man of the West,—cheerful, practical, a bit boastful, square-shouldered, clear-eyed and ruddy-faced, confident of himself, proud of his surroundings, sure that there were no problems of earth or Heaven with which America in general, and Philip Brady in particular, were not fitted to cope.
Before he had uttered a dozen sentences, Flint began to realize how far apart they had drifted in the ten years since they had met. He experienced a vaguely hopeless sense of complexity in the presence of his friend's bustling frankness. He felt almost a hypocrite, and yet it seemed to him that any attempt at self-revelation would be useless, because the relative value, the chiaro-oscuro of life, was so different to each. He took refuge, as we all do under such circumstances, in objectivity—asked heartily for the health of each member of Brady's family, listened with polite interest to the statistics of the growth of Bison, and then began to wonder what he should talk about next. As he cast his eye downward, a very practical subject suggested itself, for he saw with dismay that the cork was [Pg 49] out of the molasses jug, from which the sticky fluid had already oozed forth, and was rapidly spreading itself over the floor of the carryall.
"This is what comes of being obliging. Just look at this mess! What in time are we going to do about it, Brady?"
Brady, being a man of action, wasted no energy in discussion. He jumped to the ground, pulled out first his overcoat and gripsack, fortunately unharmed, then the paper parcels of oatmeal and hominy, sticky and dripping. Swiftly corking the jug, he lifted it out of the carryall, together with the oilcloth strip, and deftly stood both against a fence by the roadside. Flint watched him with admiration. He felt himself supremely helpless in the presence of the direful calamity. How was he ever to get these bundles into condition to be put back into the wagon? How cleanse the oilcloth and the fatal jug?
No house was in sight.
Flint stood gloomily gazing down at his boots covered with the oozy brown fluid. "Jupiter aid us!" he exclaimed; and as if in answer to his call, "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall," rose on their sight, coming towards them from over the ridge of the hill. She came on swiftly, yet without hurry. She walked (a process little understood by the feminine half of the world, hampered as they are by their stays and ten [Pg 50] penny heels). This woman neither hobbled, nor waddled, nor tripped. With the leg swinging out from the hip (no awkward knee-movement, yet no stride), she swept down the hill as serenely as though she were indeed a messenger sent by Jupiter to their assistance. Beside her trotted a large dog who now and again excursionized in search of tempting adventure, but as constantly returned to rub his head lovingly against his mistress's skirt, and lick her hand, as if to assure her that, in spite of his wandering propensities, his heart remained faithful.
"The hoodoo!" muttered Flint.
"What a pretty girl!" exclaimed Brady.
The object of these widely differing criticisms moved steadily nearer. She wore a white gown. A basket was on her arm, and her wide-brimmed straw hat was pulled low over her eyes to shield them from the sun. She was close upon the scene of accident before she discerned it. Catching at the same moment a look of annoyance on Flint's face, she swerved a little, as if with intent to pass by, like the priest and the Levite, on the other side; then, reassured by Brady's look of half-comic despair, she set down her basket and paused.
"You have met with an accident, I see," she observed, as casually as though she had never before heard of any catastrophe in connection [Pg 51] with Flint. "The molasses worked, I suppose. It will, sometimes, if it is not tightly corked. It was stupid in the grocer not to warn you."