The Land of Joy

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Russet’s rather out of style, isn’t it?” asked the other.

“Well, I like it better, anyhow,” asserted Phillip, completing his carving with a vicious hack of the knife. “And—what else is gone, Margey? I’d like to know so that when I see the neighbours using our things I won’t charge them with stealing them.”

Margaret’s cheeks flushed a little, but she answered as calmly as before:

“I reckon that’s about all, Phil. I’m sorry you care so much; I didn’t think you would.”

Phillip made no reply, and a moment later the conversation at the dinner table started afresh on other lines. But constraint was visible. Margaret felt hurt that Phillip should have found fault with her before John North; Phillip was plainly out of temper, although he strove not to show it; and John was secretly angry at his friend for wounding Margaret. Of the four, only Mrs. Ryerson maintained her equanimity. She chatted on to John in her quiet, grande-dame fashion of life and customs before the war, and John answered perfunctorily and wished the repast over with.

When they arose Phillip excused himself and John wandered into the library and filled a pipe. Mrs. Ryerson, as was her invariable custom, ascended to her room again on the arm of Uncle Casper, and Margaret disappeared toward the kitchen. John took down a book at random and settled himself in an easy chair to read. But it proved to be an ancient volume of Hudibras, and it soon lay forgotten on his knee. From where he sat he commanded a view of some fifty yards of gravel drive and terrace. Presently into his range of vision came two figures. They were Phillip and Margaret. Phillip, with head slightly bent and a good deal of colour in his cheeks, was evidently still nursing his displeasure. Margaret walked beside him, one hand on his shoulder, looking gravely into his face. As they passed outside the library window her voice, low, sweet and persuasive, reached the watcher in the chair and suddenly imbued him with a great longing to take Phillip by the neck and dip his head into the brook beyond in the hollow.

Then something incongruous in the girl’s attire awakened his attention, and with a strange throb at his heart he saw that she wore a man’s felt hat; that the hat, a battered, soiled and altogether disreputable affair, was adorned with cabalistic designs and figures; that it bore the initials J. N., and that, in short, it was his own! Presumably, Margaret believed it to be one of her brother’s; or perhaps she had simply picked it up from the hall table in a hurry without looking at it. John could not for an instant deceive himself into believing that there was any coquetry in the incident. But even viewed purely as an accident, the fact that Margaret wore his shabby sombrero perched at the back of her head pleased him vastly. The hat had already been one of his most precious possessions, but now it was sacred—no longer an article of headgear, but an object to be treasured and kept inviolate. John wondered if it were possible to frame hats.

Phillip and Margaret had passed from sight, and he relighted his pipe and, clasping one broad knee with his hands, leaned back and watched the purple smoke-clouds writhe and dance in the sunlight. Their convolutions must have amused him, for he grinned broadly from time to time like a good-natured and thoroughly prepossessing giant.

A quarter of an hour passed. Then the sound of footsteps on the gravel aroused him and he looked out. Phillip and Margaret were returning. But now Phillip’s arm was about his sister’s waist and the two were laughing contentedly. Margaret’s eyes under the broad brim of the hat, which she had pulled forward to keep the sun from her face, were dancing and glowing. Phillip caught sight of John and beckoned him outside. The latter nodded and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then he sighed.

“It’s sheer poppycock to imagine that a girl like that can ever care for me,” he thought ruefully. He picked up the volume which had fallen unnoticed to the floor and carried it back to the shelf. As he did so a line caught his eye and he paused and read it: