Many people, I presume, long to fly from New York during a late June and early July hot spell. But n.o.body who does not possess a new place in the country, still unfurnished, with a garden crying for his attention and a brook wandering amid the pines, can possibly realize how the dust and heat of town affected me in the next ten days. It affected me the more because I saw how pale Stella was, how tired when the evenings came. With her woman's conscientiousness, she was struggling to do two weeks' work in one before leaving the dictionary.

She even toiled several evenings, denying herself to me, while I wandered disconsolate along Broadway, or worked over my ma.n.u.scripts at the club, surrounded by siphons of soda. At the luncheon hour and between five and six we shopped madly, getting a stair carpet, dining-room chairs (a present from her to herself and me, as she put it--fine Chippendale reproductions), a few rugs--as many as we could afford--and other necessary furnishings, including stuff for curtains. For the south room the curtains were gay j.a.panese silk from an Oriental store, to balance the Hiroshiges, and while we were buying them she slipped away from me and presently returned, the proud possessor of two small ivory elephants.

"Look, somebody has sent us another present!" she laughed. "Folks are so good to us! These are to stand on the twin mantels, under the prints."

"From whom are they?" I asked.

"Your best friend and my worst enemy," she answered.

For three days after she left the office of the dictionary I saw little of her. "There are some things you can't buy for me--or with me," she smiled. Then we went down together to the City Hall for our license, sneaking in after hours, thanks to the kindly offices of a cla.s.smate of mine, the city editor of a newspaper. The clerk beamed upon us like a munic.i.p.al Cupid.

That last evening she left me, to pack her trunks, and I went back to the club, and found there a letter from the magazine where I had submitted my story. It was a letter of acceptance! Misfortunes are not the only things which never come singly. I danced for joy. If the stores had been open I should have rushed out then and there and bought the mahogany secretary we had seen a few days before and wistfully pa.s.sed by. Fortunately, they were not open.

In the morning my cab stopped in front of the old house near Washington Square, and Stella came forth with a friend, a sober little person who appeared greatly impressed with her responsibilities, and bore the totally inappropriate name of Marguerite.

"Dear, dear!" she said, "I've never attended a bride before. It's very trying. And it's very mean of you, Mr. Upton, to take Stella from us, and leave me with a new and stupid co-worker. How do you expect the dictionary to come out?"

"I don't," said I, "nor do I care if it doesn't. There are too many words in the world already."

Bill Chadwick, another cla.s.smate of mine, came up from downtown, and met us at the church door. The rector was a friend and fellow alumnus of ours. It was like a tiny family party, suddenly and solemnly hushed by the organ as we stood before the altar, and in the warm dimness of the great vacant church Stella and I were made man and wife. The four of us went out to the cab again, and Bill insisted on a wedding breakfast at Sherry's.

"Good Lord!" he said, "you two gumshoe into an engagement, and get married without so much as a reporter in the church, and then expect to make a getaway like a pair of safe breakers! No, sir, you come with me, and get one real civilized meal before you go back to your farm fodder."

Bill had the solemn little bridesmaid laughing before the luncheon was over, but the last we saw of them they were waving us good-bye from behind the grating as we went down the platform to our train, and the poor girl was mopping her eyes.

"Isn't the best man supposed to fall in love with the bridesmaid?" I asked. "At least I hope he'll dry her tears."

"Good gracious, yes!" cried Stella. "I never thought of that. You don't know what we've done! Marguerite is a dear girl and an excellent cross-indexer, but she's no wife for your gay friend William. You'd best send him a telegram of warning."

"Never!" said I. "Bill has cruised so long in Petticoat Bay as a blockade runner that I hope she shoots him full of holes and boards him in triumph. Besides, _everybody_ ought to get married."

Stella's eyes looked up at mine, deep and happy below their twinkle, and we boarded the train.

The train started, it left New York behind, it ran into the suburbs, then into the country, and at last the hills began to mount beside the track, and a cooler, fresher air to come in through the windows. Still her eyes smiled into mine, but she said little, save now and then to lean forward and whisper, "Is it true, John, is it true?"

So we came to Bentford station, in the early dusk of evening, and the air was good as we alighted, and the silence. Suddenly Buster appeared, undulating with joyous yelps along the platform, and sprang at Stella's face. He almost ignored me.

Peter was waiting with the buggy. We sat him between us and drove home.

"Home--your home, our home," I whispered, pressing her hand behind Peter's back.

"Sold a lot o' peas and things," said Peter. "I got 'em all down in the book. Gee, I drove over 'most every day, an' I'm goin' to be on the ball team in the village, an' I wanter join the Boy Scouts, but ma won't let me 'less you say it's all right, an' ain't it?"

"We'll think it over, Peter," said I.

Stella was bouncing up and down on the seat with excitement as the buggy rattled over the bridge. Lamplight was streaming from Twin Fires.

On the kitchen porch stood Mrs. Pillig, dressed in her best, and Mrs.

Bert and Bert. As we climbed from the buggy, Bert raised his hand, and a shower of rice descended upon us. Stella ran up the path, and Mrs. Bert's ample arms closed about her. Both women were half laughing, half crying, when I got there with the grips.

"Ain't that jest like the s.e.x?" said Bert, with a jerk of his thumb--"so durn glad they gotter cry about it!"

"You shet up," said Mrs. Bert. "For all _you_ know, I'm pityin' the poor child!"

Mrs. Pillig had an ample dinner ready for us, with vegetables and salad fresh from the garden, and, as a crowning glory, a magnificent lemon pie.

"This is much better than anything at Sherry's," cried Stella, beaming upon her.

We sat a long while looking at each other across the small table, and then we wandered out into the dewy evening and our feet took us into the pines, where in the darkness we stopped by a now sacred spot and held each other close in silence. Then we went back into the south room.

"Oh, if the curtain stuff would only hurry up and come!" cried my wife.

"You must learn patience--Mrs. Upton," said I, while we both laughed sillily over the t.i.tle, as others have done before us, no doubt.

Presently Mrs. Pillig's anxious face appeared at the door. She seemed desirous of speaking, and doubtful how to begin.

"What is it, Mrs. Pillig?" I asked.

"Well, sir," she said, hesitantly, "I suppose now you are married you won't need me, after all." She paused. "I rented my house," she added.

"Need you!" I cried. "Why now I shall need you more than ever!"

She smiled faintly, still looking dubious. Stella went over to her.

"What he means is, that I'm a poor goose who doesn't know any more about keeping house than Buster does about astronomy," she laughed.

"Of course you'll stay, Mrs. Pillig, and teach me."

"Thank you, Miss--I mean Missus," said Mrs. Pillig, backing out.

"Be careful," I warned. "If you let Mrs. Pillig think you're so very green, she'll begin to boss you."

"That _would_ be a new sensation," laughed Stella. "I like new sensations as much as Peter Pan did. Oh, it's a new sensation having a home like this, and living in the country, and smelling good, cool air and--and having _you_."

She was suddenly beside me on the settle. We heard Mrs. Pillig going up to bed. The house was still. Outside the choral song of night insects sounded drowsily. Buster came softly in and plopped down on the rug. We were alone in Twin Fires, together, and she would not rise to go up the road to Bert's. She would never go! So we sat a long, long while--and the rest shall be silence.

Chapter XVIII

WE BUILD A POOL

It was the strangest, sweetest sensation I had ever known to wake in the morning and hear soft singing in the room where a fresh breeze was wandering. I saw Stella standing at the window, her hair about her shoulders, looking out. She turned when I stirred, came over to kiss me, while her hair fell about my face, and then cried, "Hurry! Hurry! I must get out into the garden!"

Presently, hand in hand, we went over the new lawn to the sundial which stood amid a ring of brilliant blooms--which, however, had become unbelievably choked with weeds in the ten days of my absence. The gnomon was throwing a long shadow westward across the VII. We filled the bird bath, which Peter had neglected. We hurried through the orchard to the brook, to see the flowers blooming there, and there, alas! we found the volume of the stream shrunk to less than half its former size.

We ran to the rows of berry vines to see how many had survived, and found the greater part of them sprouting nicely; we went up the slope into the rows of vegetables and inspected them; we rushed to see if all the roses were alive; we went to the barn where Mike had just begun to milk, and sniffed the warm, sweet odour.

"Yes, it's better for any man to be married," I heard Mike saying to her, as I moved back toward the door. Then he added something I could not hear, and she came to me with rosy face. "The horrid old man!" She was half laughing to herself.

The goods we had ordered began to arrive after breakfast, Bert bringing them from the freight house in his large wagon. I took the day off, and devoted the morning to laying a stair carpet, probably the hottest job I ever tackled. Thank goodness, the stairs went straight up, without curve or angle! As I worked, small feet pattered by me, up and down, and garments from a big trunk in the lower hall brushed my face as they were being carried past--brushed their faint feminine perfume into my nostrils and made my hammer pause in mid-air. After the carpet was laid, there were a thousand and one other things to do. There were pictures of Stella's to be hung, and them we put in the hitherto vacant room at the front of the house, next to the dining-room, where Stella's wall desk was also placed, and a case of her books, and some chairs.