“I should be pleased to.” She was prim but trusting about it. “Oh, listen, Mr. Wrenn; did you ever tramp along the Palisades as far as Englewood? It’s lovely there—the woods and the river and all those funny little tugs puffing along, way way down below you—why, I could lie on the rocks up there and just dream and dream for hours. After I’ve spent Sunday up there”—she was dreaming now, he saw, and his heart was passionately tender toward her—“I don’t hardly mind a bit having to go back to the store Monday morning…. You’ve been up along there, haven’t you?”
“Me? Why, I guess I’m the guy that discovered the Palisades!… Yes, it is won-derful up there!”
“Oh, you are, are you? I read about that in American history!… But honestly, Mr. Wrenn, I do believe you care for tramps and things—not like that Teddem or Mr. Duncan—they always want to just stay in town—or even Tom, though he’s an old dear.”
Mr. Wrenn looked jealous, with a small hot jealousy. She hastened on with: “Of course, I mean he’s just like a big brother. To all of us.”
It was sweet to both of them, to her to declare and to him to hear, that neither Tom nor any other possessed her heart. Their shy glances were like an outreach of tenderly touching hands as she confided, “Mrs. Arty and he get up picnics, and when we’re out on the Palisades he says to me—you know, sometimes he almost makes me think he is sleepy, though I do believe he just sneaks off under a tree and talks to Mrs. Arty or reads a magazine—but I was saying: he always says to me, ‘Well, sister, I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself—you won’t talk to a growly old bear like me. Well, I’m glad of it. I want to sleep. I don’t want to be bothered by you and your everlasting chatter. Get out!’ I b’lieve he just says that ’cause he knows I wouldn’t want to run off by myself if they didn’t think it was proper.”
As he heard her lively effort to imitate Tom’s bass Mr. Wrenn laughed and pounded his knee and agreed: “Yes, Tom’s an awfully fine fellow, isn’t he!… I love to get out some place by myself, too. I like to wander round places and make up the doggondest fool little stories to myself about them; just as bad as a kiddy, that way.”
“And you read such an awful lot, Mr. Wrenn! My! Oh, tell me, have you ever read anything by Harold Bell Wright or Myrtle Reed, Mr. Wrenn? They write such sweet stories.”
He had not, but he expressed an unconquerable resolve so to do, and with immediateness. She went on:
“Mrs. Arty told me you had a real big library—nearly a hundred books and—Do you mind? I went in your room and peeked at them.”
“No, course I don’t mind! If there’s any of them you’d like to borrow any time, Miss Nelly, I would be awful glad to lend them to you…. But, rats! Why, I haven’t got hardly any books.”