He meant it for a jest, but even in the gathering darkness, he could see the dull red mounting to Dick’s temples. “I’ll be darned,” thought Harlan, seeing the whole situation instantly. Then, moved by a brotherly impulse, he said, cheerfully: “Go in and win, old man. Good luck to you!”
“Thanks,” muttered Dick, huskily, “but it’s no use. She won’t look at me. She wants a nice lady-like poet, that’s what she wants.”
“No, she doesn’t,” returned Harlan, with deep conviction. “I don’t claim to be a specialist, but when a man and a poet are entered for the matrimonial handicap, I’ll put my money on the man, every time.”
Dick swiftly changed the subject, and began to speculate on probable happenings at the sanitarium. They left the conveyance in the village, from whence it had been taken, and walked uphill.
Lights gleamed from every window of the Jack-o’-Lantern, but the eccentric face of the house had, for the first time, a friendly aspect. Warmth and cheer were in the blinking eyes and the grinning mouth, though, as Dick said, it seemed impossible that “no pumpkin seeds were left inside.”
Those who do not believe in personal influence should go into a house which uninvited and undesired guests have regretfully left. Every alien element had gone from the house on the hill, yet the very walls were still vocal with discord. One expected, every moment, to hear Uncle Israel’s wheeze, the shrill, spiteful comment of Mrs. Holmes, or a howl from one of the twins.
“What shall we do,” asked Harlan, “to celebrate the day of emancipation?”
“I know,” answered Dorothy, with a little laugh. “We’ll burn a bed.”
“Whose bed?” queried Dick.
“Mr. Perkins’s bed,” responded Elaine, readily. The tone of her voice sent a warm glow to Dick’s heart, and he went to work at the heavy walnut structure with more gladness than exercise of that particular kind had ever given him before.