“You can be very agreeable when you like, and Ben has had enough of me for this time. Tomorrow he will have his work and do very well, but we must try to help him through to-day, because he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Besides, it is just the time to make a good impression on him, while grief for his father softens him and gives us a chance. I like him, and I’m sure he wants to do well; so it is our duty to help him, as there seems to be no one else.”
“Here goes, then. Where is he?” and Thorny stood up, won by his sister’s sweet earnestness, but very doubtful of his own success with the “horsey fellow.”
“Waiting with the chair. Randa has gone on with the hammock. Be a dear boy, and I’ll do as much for you some day.”
“Don’t see how you can be a dear boy. You’re the best sister that ever was, so I’ll love all the scallywags you ask me to.”
With a laugh and a kiss, Thorny shambled off to ascend his chariot, good-humoredly saluting his pusher, whom he found sitting on the high rail behind, with his feet on Sanch.
“Drive on, Benjamin. I don’t know the way, so I can’t direct. Don’t spill me out,—that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“All right, sir,”—and away Ben trundled down the long walk that led through the orchard to a little grove of seven pines.
A pleasant spot, for a soft rustle filled the air, a brown carpet of pine-needles, with fallen cones for a pattern, lay under foot, and over the tops of the tall brakes that fringed the knoll one had glimpses of hill and valley, farm-houses and winding river like a silver ribbon through the low green meadows.
“A regular summer house!” said Thorny, surveying it with approval. “What’s the matter, Randa? Wont it go?” he asked, as the stout maid dropped her arms with a puff, after vainly trying to throw the hammock rope over a branch.
“That end went up beautiful, but this one wont; the branches is so high I can’t reach ’em, and I’m no hand at flinging ropes round.”