And the milk-wagon, with its yellow letters, went trundling down the road, the sun beginning to shine pleasantly in on the cool tin vessels within, and the crisp red curls and blue eyes of the driver,—on the lantern, too, swinging from the roof inside, as Andy glanced back. He chuckled; even Mrs. Wart looked tidy and clean in the morning air; his lunch smelt savory in the basket. Then suddenly recalling the old machinist, and the history in which he was himself part actor, he abruptly altered his expression, drawing down his red eyebrows to a tragic scowl, and glaring out into the pleasant light as one who insults fate.
"Whatever is thee glowerin' thataway about?" snapped his companion.
Andy took out his handkerchief, and wiped his forehead deliberately.
"Men see passages in human life that women suspect nothing about, Mem. Darn this wagon, how it jolts! There's lots of genius trampled underfoot by yer purse-proud tyrants, Mem."
"Theeself, for instance. Thee'd best mind thy horse, boy."
But she patted her basket comfortably. It is so easy to think people cruel and coarse who have more money than ourselves! Not for Andy, however. His agrarian proclivities were shallow and transient enough. So presently, as they bowled along the level road, he forgot Joe Starke, and began drumming on the foot-board and humming a tune,—touching now and then the stuffed breast-pocket of his coat with an inward chuckle of mystery. And when little Ann Mipps, at the toll-gate, came out with her chubby cheeks burning, and her shy eyes down, he took no notice at all. Nice little midge of a thing; but what did she know of the thrilling "Personals" of the "Ledger" and their mysterious meaning, beginning at the matrimonial advertisements last May? or of these letters in his breast-pocket from the widow of an affectionate and generous disposition and easy income on Callowhill, or from the confiding Estelle, whose maiden aunt dragonized her on Ridge Road above Parrish? When he saw them once, fate would speak out. Something in him was made for better things than this flat life: "instincts of chivalry and kindred souls,"—quoting Estelle's last letter. Poor Ann! he wondered if they had toffy-pullings at Mipps's now. He hadn't been there since April. Such a dog-trot sort of love-making that used to be! And Andy stopped to give a quart of milk to a seamstress who came out of Poole's cheap boarding-house, and who, by the bye, had just been imbibing the fashion-book literature on which he had been living lately. A sort of weak wine-whey, that gives to the brains of that class a perpetual tipsiness.
Ann Mipps, meanwhile, who had been at her scrubbing since four o'clock, so that she should be through and have on her pink calico before the milk-cart rolled by, went in and cried herself sick: tasting the tears now and then to see how bitter they were,—what a hard time she had in the world; and then remembering she had not said her prayers last night, and so comprehending this judgment on her. For the Mippses were Calvinists, and pain was punishment and not a test. So Ann got up comforted; said her prayers twice with a will, and went out to milk. It might be different to-morrow. So as she had always thought how he needed somebody to make him happy, poor Andy! And she thought she understood him. She knew how brave and noble he was! And she always thought, if he could get the toll-gate, now that her father was so old, how snug that would be!
"Oh, if that should happen, and—there wouldn't be a house in the world so happy, if"—
And then her checks began to burn again, and the light came back in her eyes, until, by the time the day had grown into the hot August noon, she went laughing and buzzing in and out of the shady little toll-house as contented as any bee in the clover yonder. Andy would call again soon,—maybe to-night! While Andy, in the hot streets, was looking at every closed shutter, wondering if Estelle was behind it.