What surprised George most of all, however, was to find how very much of womanly common sense and genuine intelligence lay hidden beneath Effie’s unfailing flow of high spirits.
Her smile did not in the least degree resemble the ready “lip service” of her stepmother, and it could give place in a moment to a very serious and earnest sort of meaning, and George Brayton caught himself, before long, suggesting subjects of talk and turning over one idea after another, for no better reason than simply to watch the shadows chase the sunshine on Euphemia Dryer’s face.
A very dangerous sort of amusement for a young man to indulge in. At all events, when the drive had lasted longer than the sober-minded Mrs. Dryer would have at all approved—the very thought of it had soured the Dorcas Society for her all that afternoon—George Brayton delivered Effie at her father’s door, took back the fast mare to Runner’s stable, and then walked up the main street of Ogleport with an idea that it was in every way a pleasanter sort of village than he had hitherto imagined.
He reached the green just as the boys—an unusually large crowd of them—were winding up a tremendous game of baseball.
“Been a tough one, I should say,” remarked George to himself. “Looks as if every fourth boy had tried to catch the ball in his mouth and got it on his nose. I begin to wonder how Zeb Fuller would look without a black eye. Bar and Val, though, seem to have escaped. I must put Bar through his Greek to-night. He can’t have fished to-day quite long enough to learn the grammar by heart. He’s a remarkable boy.”
If Brayton had been within hearing just after the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer left the green that afternoon, his admiration might have been transferred to Zebedee Fuller himself, for that cautious youth had followed up his magnanimous surrender by saying:
“Look here, boys. We’ve had our boxing lesson, but it won’t do now not to do up our baseball. Old Sol mustn’t be allowed a peg to hang his hat on. Our young friends from the prize-ring will comprehend the situation.”
“If you mean Val and me,” said Bar, laughing, “we’re ready.”
But that game of ball!
Never had Ogleport witnessed anything so curiously bewildering since the Indian braves finished their own last “match game” and carried their clubs away with them.