He realized he was wet and hungry, that he was alone, and far from all his friends, and all at once he began to feel very young. He pushed on rapidly, and in a little while saw across the rolling country a large and comfortable farmhouse. He made straight for it and in a little while he knocked at the open door.
A little girl in a white dimity sunbonnet came to the door. She was about ten years old and remarkably pretty. She did not show the least bit of shyness and asked Brydell in hospitably. Before he had time to answer, her father and mother appeared—handsome country people, looking, as they were, thoroughly prosperous.
Brydell, whose manners were naturally graceful and polished, introduced himself and asked the privilege of remaining until the shower was over, and with a secret determination to ask for work later on. The farmer’s address was not nearly so elegant as the young fellow’s who cherished the ambition of becoming his hired man. He said:—
“My name’s Laurison. Come in and sit down. If you’ve got any dry clothes in that bundle, my wife’ll show you a room where you can change ’em.”
Brydell looked at Mrs. Laurison and his heart went out to her instantly. She was not like the officers’ wives he had known, educated and traveled women; but she had a quiet dignity and a self-possession that was equally good in its way. And she had the softest, kindest eyes in the world, and her voice was so gentle when she invited Brydell upstairs to change his clothes that he almost loved her from the start. In a little while Brydell appeared with dry shoes and stockings and another pair of trowsers.
The farmer, being compelled to stay indoors, was not indisposed to talk with the young stranger, and Brydell had quite a gift of making himself agreeable. They sat talking in a large, airy, old-fashioned hall, with a dry rubbed floor; and the little girl Minna was so pleased with her new acquaintance that she came and perched herself on the arm of his chair and gazed fearlessly into his eyes with the grave scrutiny of an innocent girl.
Brydell knew much about country life, and talked so knowingly about cows and pigs and horses that even Mr. Laurison grew fluent, and Brydell imagined it would be easy enough to get work there, and he quickly determined to ask for it.
“Do you have any trouble getting farm labor?” he asked.
“Heaps of trouble,” answered Mr. Laurison with emphasis. “The negroes all go off about this time of the year for berry-picking, just when harvest is coming on and the corn needs weeding the worst you ever saw. I’ve got two men I can count on that stay with me the year round, but I ought to have four on a farm of this size.”
Here was Brydell’s chance.