Sunlight Patch. Credo Fitch Harris
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When the mountaineer had been assisted to his feet, he stood for a moment, with his legs apart, swaying with giddiness; then, aware that they were observing this, he looked at the Colonel and laughed. It was a silent laugh, of the eyes and mouth and a movement in the throat. One could not help thinking that should he let it out it would be deep and musical.
With growing interest, and no slight amusement, they followed him to the door where he gave a low whinnying sound that made Bob's stylish chestnut look up with intelligent expectancy. Then back in the thicket sounded a faint answer, followed by a crackling of brush, as the old mare came obediently forward. Jane's horse, also, spoke inquisitively from the shed where it was stabled, and the night sounds hushed again at this intrusion of noises.
"I am Colonel May, of this county, sir," the old gentleman said, smiling at the man's knack of mimicry. "My home, Arden, is but a few miles off."
"Howdy," replied the mountaineer, taking the proffered hand an instant late and not seeming to realize they might want to be knowing who he was. The Colonel and Bob exchanged glances.
"Perhaps," he ventured again, "you should drive with me and let Mr. Hart here ride your horse. This is Mr. Hart, sir!"
"Howdy," Bob soberly put out his hand. "My whole name is Bob Hart, this county, sir; and my home is known as Flat Rock—also at your service!"
The mountaineer thanked the Colonel with one perfunctory word, said "Howdy" to Bob, then stepped out to Lucy who gave another low whinny of welcome and rubbed her nose fondly into his hand. But something seemed to be weighing heavily on his mind; his brows were contracted, his head inclined in thought; and at last, having apparently worked it out, he turned to them, announcing simply:
"This is Lucy!"
"Howdy," said Bob, still keeping an impassive face.
There came another moment of thought. Then:
"I'm Dale Dawson, of Sunlight Patch, in the mountings, suh." He said this in so clever an imitation of their own introductions that it seemed a caricature.
"Chapeaux bas!" the Colonel murmured, throwing Jane into the most unlady-like fit of giggles.
"Where did it come from?" Bob asked later. He was riding with her a hundred yards behind the buggy that held the Colonel and Dale, the old rifle sticking out at the back like a bean pole.
"A heaven-sent deliverer," she quietly answered.
"I appreciate that," he said, in a more serious vein.
Her very reticence told him how deeply she had been shocked, and that it was a subject to be avoided, for the present, at least. Bob was quick to divine situations. For the moment, then, he drifted into another channel, saying with a laugh that could hardly have been called spontaneous:
"If he's an example of celestial types I'll—"
"Lead a different life?" she interrupted, smiling.
"No such plagiarism, thank you," he retorted. "I was about to say something else!"
"You've been giving Bip some most unfatherly theories about that place, by the way," she observed. "He has confided in me."
"Bip," Bob quietly remarked, with an oozing pride in the subject of his six-year-old son, "has reached the age of embarrassing questions."
"And is being fed unpardonable answers," she said. "Between old Aunt Timmie's declaration that it'll smell like heliotrope and taste like possum the year 'round, and Uncle Zack swearing it's just a big race track where everybody's horse will win, and doubtless the Colonel's word for it that it's a perpetual spring flowing with ice-cold mint juleps, I quite despair of the child's salvation. How have you been picturing it?"
"I passed that on," he ruefully admitted. "You and Ann can tackle it."
"I wasn't home this afternoon at his lesson time. Did he miss me?"
"Miss you! Ann says he went to your room about five o'clock, and then came running to her saying something had happened to you. She was quite a while getting him settled. And then, much shame to us, we realized you'd not got back. I drove over to the Colonel's really expecting you had stopped there." After a brief pause he asked: "Was that fellow much unruly? I wouldn't disturb you about it, but think you ought to tell us."
"About five o'clock," the girl mused. "That's most interesting, Bob. I've told you, haven't I, that the child is tremendously psychic?"
"I don't know just what psychic is," he laughed. "It sounds like medicine." And then repeated his other question: "Was Tusk much unruly?"
"Oh, no," she lightly answered. "Has Mr. McElroy been up in the hills today?"
"There's the laziest chap in clothes," he declared. "I don't believe he's done a lick of work since he came—and that's two months ago! Personally, I don't care. He's bully company, and I'm not rabid for that dinky little railroad, anyhow."
"It'll make all the difference to the mountaineers' future," she said.
"Quite right," he agreed, "and cut through my best pasture."
"Not your best pasture, surely!"
"My dear Jane, don't you know that when a railroad kills your cow it's always your best cow? Pastures accordingly! Still," he added with a wry look, "the people's good comes first, doesn't it! That's the proper motto!" And suddenly he began to laugh. "Brent and your new friend up there in the buggy ought to be a combination to keep the Colonel amused for awhile! What do you think?"
She, too, had to laugh. The mental picture of the immaculate, devil-may-care Brent McElroy—sent down in behalf of his father's corporation to develop coal fields, to run a line for the little railroad which Bob had just characterized as "dinky," and otherwise to put into practice college experiences not included in its curriculum—chumming with this new child of nature, threw them again into peals of mirth.
"I wish someone would urge him on faster, anyhow," she said, more seriously now.
"Why don't you try," he suggested.
They had turned into the lane, a mile of cool meanderings that led from the pike to hospitable Arden, and for awhile rode in contemplative silence. Faintly glimmering lights, yellow between the trees, from time to time twinkled a welcome from the classic old house. Through four generations of the Colonel's family this place had stood; occasionally being altered to meet the requirements of comfort, but its stately colonial front and thick brick walls remained intact. And for four generations the neighborhood had looked at it with deep respect.
Valiantly had it held the fortification against encroaching modernism, yet by slow degrees surrendering. A telephone had taken the place of the more picturesque negro on a mule; the rural delivery of mail had made another breach in the walls of seclusion. Only an automobile the Colonel would not essay, declaring himself too much a lover of horseflesh to offend his thoroughbreds with this; but when a touring car occasionally penetrated as far as Arden, it was noticeable that his horses viewed it with less suspicion than their master. Fortunately for the old gentleman's peace of mind such a form of vehicle remained a novelty in this section of Kentucky. The pike out of Buckville was good for a few miles only, and then came almost impassable stretches of unworked roads before connecting with those beautiful highways which wind and interwind through the creamier centers of the State—a condition that did not invite motorists.
Now as they drew near to the vine and tree entangled yard, the massive white columns stood out through the gloom to meet them. From some of the outlying cabins, former quarters of slaves, came low, minor singing of present day field hands. However many times Bob approached this place, his thoughts reverted to the evenings—half a score of years behind him—when he would ride across from his own farm to court the Colonel's daughter. He was thinking of this, of its sweetness to him then, of its blessings to him now, and quietly said:
"When you marry I hope you will be as happy as I am."
"Existence