"Which brings me, ma'am and sir, to the subject of wages between ourselves; and if it's handy, to the payment for my services in erecting a pig-pen and repairing a cow-manger. Let me see. Two hours, at a dollar an hour--Two dollars, I make it. Do you find me right?"

Well! Pa Babc.o.c.k might look like a simpleton, but he could use his queer voice to his own advantage!

John Chester shrugged his shoulders and Martha replied with considerable crispness:

"A dollar an hour! I never heard of such a thing. In Baltimore----"

"We are not in Baltimore, much as I should admire to visit that city.

Skilled labor, you know----"

"But the _skill_ was poor Jim Barlow's, and the lumber _mine_. At such a rate your farm services would be worth a fortune, and far more than I could pay. I hoped to get somebody to work 'on shares'; or at least, very cheaply."

"For the present, ma'am, there wouldn't be any 'shares.' The ground is absolutely profitless. But I am not exorbitant, nor would I grind the face of the poor. I am a poor man myself. I glory in it. I think that two dollars and a half a day would be fair to both sides."

With this the high, thin voice subsided and John Chester took up the theme, like his wife quoting their old city as a unit of measurement:

"In Baltimore, or its suburbs, a day or farm laborer would not earn more than a dollar and a half, or even so low as a dollar and a quarter."

"Per day, working on every consecutive day?" asked this would-be employee, leaning back in the rocker and folding his arms. It seemed he never could form a sentence without putting into it the largest words at his command, and listening to him, Martha almost hoped that their present discussion would prove fruitless. However could they endure his wordiness!

"Yes. Of course it would be every day," she answered.

But his next remark came with an originality worthy none other than himself:

"Very well. I have my price and my opinion--you have yours. Let us meet one another halfway. I will work only every other day--I can do as much as two ordinary men, anyway--and thus you will be called upon for no more than you would have had to pay some a.s.sistant from privileged Baltimore."

"But we could not board you!" protested John Chester. "I cannot have extra labor imposed upon my wife."

Pa Babc.o.c.k rose, stretching all his mighty limbs as if he would convince these strangers that he could, indeed, accomplish the work of two ordinary men per day; then, waving the trivial matter of board aside with an airy lightness which his recent exhibition of appet.i.te scarcely warranted, announced:

"We will consider the affair closed. I will work every other day, Sundays excluded, at two dollars and a half per day and find myself. I will enter upon my duties to-morrow morning, and I now wish you good-night. I go to establish the rule of equality in this unenlightened neighborhood."

So saying he slipped out of the house, a fearsome-looking but wholly harmless "crank," who seemed rather to have left his shadow behind him than to have taken it with him. As he departed the roar of thunder, the brilliant flash of lightning, filled the room; and, forestalling a remonstrance she feared might be forthcoming, mother Martha exclaimed:

"The storm is coming at last. I must go see to all the windows."

"I'll limp around and help you; and, wife dear, I can't help feeling we should think twice before we take up with that miller's offer. He's too sweet to be wholesome and I know that Mrs. Calvert----"

"The matter is settled, John. You reminded me that Skyrie was my property. I claim the right to use my own judgment in the case. I will send Dorothy to see that kind old Quaker early to-morrow."

She did. But as her husband went about with her that evening, making all secure against the tempest, the shadow that Pa Babc.o.c.k had left behind him--the shadow of almost their first disagreement--followed her light footsteps and the tap-tap of his crutches from room to room.

Till at last they came to the little upper chamber which they had both vied in making attractive for Dorothy's homecoming and saw her sleeping there; her lovely innocent face flushed in slumber and dearer to them both than anything else in life.

"It was for her, else I'd have let John have his way and ask Mrs. Cecil.

But I cannot have her drawn away from me--and she's being drawn, she's being drawn," thought mother Martha, stopping to straighten a moist curl and kiss the pretty cheek.

"Oh! if only for that darling's sake we had trusted Mrs. Cecil. She has trusted us: but Martha--Well, women are kittle cattle. I don't understand them, but somehow I'm sorry," was his reflection.

So they went down again, he limping, she skipping almost like a girl, but with a division of thought which saddened both.

CHAPTER XII

SETH WINTERS AND HIS FRIENDS

Seth Winters was known as the best blacksmith in the country. The horses he shod never went lame, the tires of the wheels he repaired rarely loosened: consequently his patronage was extensive and of the best.

Better than that, his patrons liked the man as well as his work and they were more than willing to grant him a favor--almost the first he had ever asked of them.

First, he visited Mrs. Cecil and counseled with her concerning the scheme he had formed: and she having most heartily approved it, he lost no time in mentioning it to each and all who came to his shop. The result was that on a sunny morning, not long after Dorothy's homecoming, there gathered before the little smithy an a.s.semblage of all sorts and conditions of men and vehicles, which filled the road for a long distance either way, and even strayed into the surrounding woods for a more comfortable waiting-place.

In the wagons were also many women, farm-wives mostly, all gay with the delight of an unexpected outing and the chance to bestow a kindness.

"Amazing! How it warms the c.o.c.kles of one's heart to be good to somebody!" cried Seth, his benign face aglow with the zest of the thing, as one after another team drew near and its occupants bade him a smiling "Good-morning!" "The very busiest time of all the year for farmer folk--haying, crop-raising, gardening--yet not a soul I asked has failed to respond, in some shape or other."

"Of course not! It's as good as a county fair or a Sunday-school picnic, Cousin Seth! I wouldn't have missed it for anything!" cried a merry old voice behind him, and he turned to see Mrs. Calvert nodding her handsome head in this direction and that, with that friendly simplicity of manner which had made her so generally liked. For, though she could be most austere and haughty with what she called "common and presumptuous people," she had an honest liking for all her fellow-creatures who were honest and simple themselves.

"Now, Betty! But I might have known you would come--you're always on hand for any 'doin's.' Though don't you dare to give your own generosity free rein. This is strictly a case 'of the people, by the people, for the people.' Blue-blooded aristocracy and full purses aren't 'in it,'"

warned the smith, in an alarm that was more real than feigned, knowing that his impulsive old friend could spoil the pleasure of many by exceeding them in giving.

"Oh! I shall take care. I've only sent one team, a couple of men--one the gardener, the other a carpenter who was working on the place, and--Do you know, Seth Winters, you barrier-destroying old 'Socialist!'--that the man positively refused to take pay for his day's labor, even though he can ill afford to lose his time? 'No, ma'am,' said this aristocrat of the saw and plane, 'I claim the right to do a decent turn to a neighbor, same as another.' Rich or poor it doesn't appear to make a bit of difference--give them a chance at this sort of thing and they all lose their heads."

Seth laughed. Such "Socialistic" principles as these were the ones he advocated, not only by word but by his whole n.o.ble life. For him wealth had but one purpose--the bettering of these other folk to whom wealth had not been given. Then he asked:

"What of Jim Barlow? Is he one of the 'men' you furnished for the day?"

"Will you believe me--he is not? When that young Herbert Montaigne rode around this morn-thing, before breakfast, to say that his father was sending two men with a mowing machine and that he, Herbert, was going to ride on the horse-rake himself, Jim was talking to me. He was full of enthusiasm and earnest to explain that nothing in our own home garden should suffer because of his taking this day off. He would work overtime to make up--as if I would let him! But as soon as Herbert came, just as enthusiastic himself, down goes my James's countenance to the very bottom of despair. What I love about that boy is his naturalness!"

exclaimed this lively old lady, irrelevantly.

"Keep to the subject in hand, please, Cousin Betty. The reason of Jim's gloom perplexes me. I should have thought he would have been----"

"Oh! he was; he did; he must have been, he should have been, he would have been--all the tenses in the grammar you choose. If it hadn't been for my precious little Dorothy. That small maid----"

She paused so long and seemed so amused that again he spoke:

"For her sake alone I should think he would be pleased to find others ready to befriend her."

"In a way, of course, he is, though man-like, or boy-like, he'd very much rather _do_ the befriending than have such a handsome young fellow as Herbert take it out of hand. That lad was just fetching! He'd dressed the part to perfection. Had on a loose white flannel blouse knotted with a blue tie--his color: his denim knickers might have been the finest riding trousers; and his long boots--I fancy there was more money went to the cost of them than you'd spend on yourself in a year. And all to make himself fair in the eyes of a little maid like Dorothy. But blood will tell. My Dolly----"

"Remember, she _isn't_ your Dolly, Elizabeth Somerset Cecil Calvert, however you may now love and covet her. She's a charming small woman, as many another lad than poor Jim or gay Herbert will find some day. But I didn't dream that jealousy began so early in life, or that such a matter-of-fact person as young James Barlow could be jealous."

"He is. He is intensely so, though probably he doesn't know it himself.

I fancy it is about the first time he has been brought into contact with other lads of his own age, and he is keen enough to see his own disadvantage. Herbert's nod to Jim was wholly friendly, I thought, but Jim resented it as patronizing. Silly fellow! And so he promptly changed his mind about affairs and decided that not for any consideration could he leave his garden and his 'duty' till the day's work was done. Then, if he had any time, my lord of the potato-crop may condescend to appear at Skyrie. Also by that time, he doubtless thinks, a white-handed aristocrat like Herbert will have tired of the affair and betaken himself back to the Towers where he belongs. Oh! I do love young folks!

They are so transparent and honest in showing their feelings that they're wonderfully interesting. As for my Dolly C.--Seth Winters, I believe that I will really have to ask those Chesters to let me have her for 'keeps,' as the children say."

"No, no, dear friend. Don't. You must not. It were most unwise. Leave the girl to grow up in the station to which G.o.d has a.s.signed her, no matter by whose human hands the deed was done. At present she is fair, affectionate, simple, and womanly. To be suddenly transplanted into a wealthy home would spoil her. For once, put your generous impulses aside and leave Dorothy Chester alone, to be a comfort to those who have devoted their lives to her. And now, that sermon's ended! Also, I believe that all have come who promised, which is a remarkable thing in itself. You're walking, I suppose? So am I; and we'll start on together, while I signal the rest to follow."