Nan crossed a pasture, whistling. The Holsteins, nibbling the young grass, lifted their heads and bent their slow, meditative gaze upon her. She paused to pat one of them on the nose. Nan was growing wise in dairy lore and knew at sight the heaviest producers of the herd. She resumed her whistling and went on toward the house, with a pair of robins hopping before her. June had come and summer sounds and scents filled the air.
As she neared the bungalow a motor swept into the driveway and discharged Eaton and Thurston.
“A child of the pastures! The daughter of Cincinnatus tripping in from the fields!” observed Eaton, as he shook hands.
“Just been tinkering an incubator, if you want the facts—counting chickens before they’re hatched,” laughed Nan, brushing a straw from her skirt.
“We have a small business matter to discuss with you, Nan. We’ll fall upon it at once if you’re agreeable.”
“Business!” Nan mocked. “I hoped you’d come to look at the dairy.”
This was a very different Nan, Eaton reflected, from the Nan of a year ago. Exposure to wind and sun had already given her a becoming tan. Her old listlessness, the defiant air she had sometimes worn, had vanished; she had become alert, self-reliant, resolute. Within the bounds of her self-respect she meant that the world should like her. A democratic young person—this new Nan, on good terms with truck farmers, humble drivers of grocers’ wagons, motormen, and market-house policemen. In her short skirt and plain blue blouse, she looked less than her years to-day.
“We can sit on the veranda if you gentlemen are not afraid of the country air.”
“I wouldn’t dare go in after that,” remarked Thurston dryly; “Eaton already refers to me as his learned senior.”
“Mr. Eaton is the youngest and the oldest man in the world!” Nan declared.