Bob would probably never have looked so high but for the bookkeeper at Brown, Ochre & Co.'s pork-house, Major Johnstone—nicknamed Toady Johnstone, because he could not help reflecting the air, tone, gestures and opinions of those he conversed with. But the major was of tried courage, and had a pistol wound from a duel in the thigh; and no one ever heard an ungentlemanly word from his lips. He had a store of singularly inept recollections in respect to such marriages, which had generally, turned out badly; but that was nothing. The major, like a novelist, believed he had done his whole duty in marrying a couple, and the deuce might take them after that.
Sue had not, at this time, shown any marked preference, though she liked Bob as a playmate, and had a sort of awe of her cousin Lind and his marvellous stories of adventures in the Lost Cause. It was her mother, who by no means approved of a match with the little plebeian, that first gave her daughter a hint of such pretensions.
It was the morning Sudie proposed that garden-party, and at Mrs. Brown's country-house. The view overlooked a jumble of village roofs very confusing to any conception of regular thoroughfares, and faced the meeting-house, in much disrepair, because the Masons and Methodists had agreed to put up a lodge and a church together, and had not yet put up something else necessary to such enterprise. The house had just been cleaned: fresh streaks of moisture dried off the porch and mixed with the fragrance of verbenas and the cool pungency of soot from the freshly-cleaned chimneys. The bees droned under the pear trees; the redbirds sang in the cedars; even the black cook, scouring her tins in the kitchen, caught the infection and shouted jubilant doxologies at the top of her voice. Sudie swung in a hammock on the porch. Mrs. Brown read the Woman in White, and held a feather-duster over the colored girl red-painting the pavements, as if it were a wand. Then Sue proposed that garden-party that made all the mischief.
"But the house just cleaned, and all the carpets to take up!" murmured Mrs. Brown, pursuing the indomitable Miss Holcombe across the page like a flea.
"Oh no, mamma: we'll dance out here," said Sue. "This house was just built for fun. It's so"—pouncing on the expressive word—"jolly!"
"Well, you must see your aunt," said Mrs. Brown, who dreaded the dowager.
"Why?" asked the little rebel. "She'll just say, 'There, child, don't trouble me with details;' and if I put in a lump of sugar or spike of cloves without telling her, she'll snub me before papa for extravagance. Besides, she'll say Bobby Nettles isn't aristocratic; and we can't have a garden-party without Bob."
"I don't understand the fuss you girls make over that little fellow," said Mrs. Brown. "Why, he is not as tall as you!"
"Yes he is, mamma," answered Sue, laughing at the recollection. "We measured, and Mr. Warrener bumped our heads and drove a hairpin clear into my wits. Bob hasn't any, but he's so accommodating."
"Your aunt won't like it," said Mrs. Brown with a peculiar stress on the pronoun.