Why, look at this poplar leaf that blew across the road; I've studied the pattern of it for half an hour, and I've found out that such a wonder is worth going ten miles to see." "Oh, I can't understand you," sighed Cynthia hopelessly."I wish I could, but I can't--I was born different--so different." "Bless your heart, honey, I was born different myself, and if I'd kept my leg and my arm I dare say I'd be strutting round on one and shaking the other in the face of God Almighty just as I used to do.Atwo-legged man is so busy getting about the world that he never has time to sit down and take a look around him.I tell you I see more in one hour as I am now than I saw in all the rest of my life when I was sound and whole.Why, I could sit here all day long and stare up at that blue sky, and then go to bed feeling that my twelve hours were full and brimming over.If I'd never seen anything in my life but that sky above the old pine, Ishould say at the end 'Thank God for that one good look.'" "Ican't understand--I can't understand," repeated Cynthia, in a broken voice, though her face shed a clear, white beam."I only know that we are all in awful straights, and that to-morrow is the day when I must get up at five o'clock and travel all the way to town to get my sewing." He laid his large pink hand on hers, "Why not let Lila go for you?" "What! to wait like a servant for the bundle and walk the streets all day--I'd go twenty times first!" "My dear, you needn't envy me," he responded, patting her knotted hand."I took less courage with me when I stormed my heights."CHAPTER X.Sentimental and Otherwise In the gray dawn Cynthia came softly downstairs and, passing her mother's door on tiptoe, went out into the kitchen to begin preparations for her early breakfast.She wore a severe black alpaca dress, made from a cast-off one of her mother's, and below her white linen collar she had pinned a cameo brooch bearing the head of Minerva, which had once belonged to Aunt Susannah.On the bed upstairs she had left her shawl and bonnet and a pair of carefully mended black silk mitts, for her monthly visits to the little country town were endured with something of the frozen dignity which supported Marie Antoinette in the tumbrel.It was a case where family pride was found more potent than Christian resignation.When she opened the kitchen door, with her arms full of resinous pine from the pile beside the steps, she found that Tucker had risen before her and was fumbling awkwardly in the safe with his single hand."Why, Uncle Tucker!" she exclaimed in surprise, "what on earth has happened?" Turning his cheerful face upon her, he motioned to a little wooden tobacco box on the bare table."A nest full of swallows tumbled down my chimney log in the night," he explained, "and they cried so loud I couldn't sleep, so I thought I might as well get up and dig 'em a worm or two.Do you happen to know where a bit of wool is?" Cynthia threw her bundle of kindling-wood on the hearth and stood regarding him with apathetic eyes."You'd much better wring their necks," she responded indifferently; "but there's a basketful of wool Aunt Polly has just carded in the closet.How in the world did you manage to dress yourself?" "Oh, it's wonderful what one hand can do when it's put to it.Would you mind fastening my collar, by the way, and any buttons that you happen to see loose?" She glanced over him critically, pulling his clothes in place and adjusting a button here and there."I do hate to see you in this old jean suit," she said; "you used to look so nice in your other clothes." With a laugh he settled his empty sleeve."Oh, they're good for warm weather," he responded; "and they wash easily, which is something.Think, too, what a waste it would be to dress half a man in a whole suit of broadcloth." "Oh, don't, don't,"she protested, on the point of tears, but he smiled and patted her bowed shoulder."I got over that long ago, honey," he said gently."I kicked powerful hard with my one foot at first, but the dust I raised wasn't a speck in the face of God Almighty.
There, there, we'll have a fine sunrise, and I'm going out to watch it from my old bench--unless you'll find something for a single hand to do." She shook her head, smiling with misty eyes.
"You'll have breakfast with me, I suppose," she said."I got up early because I couldn't sleep, but it's not yet four o'clock."For an instant he looked at her gravely."Worrying about the day?" "A little." "If I could only manage to hobble along with you." "Oh, but you couldn't, dear--and the worst of it is having to wait so long in town for the afternoon stage.I get my sewing, and then I eat my lunch on the old church steps, and then there are four mortal hours when I walk about aimlessly in the sun.""And you wouldn't go to see anybody?" "With my bundle of work, and in this alpaca? Not for worlds!" He sighed, not reproachfully, but with the sympathy which projects itself into states of feeling other than its own."Well, I wish all the same you'd let Lila go in with you.I think you make a mistake about her, Cynthia; she wouldn't feel the strain of it half so much as you do.""But I'd feel it for her.No, no, it's better as it is; and she does walk to the cross-roads with me, you know.Old Jacob Weatherby brings her back in his wagon.Christopher can't get off, but he'll come for me at sundown." "Are you sure it isn't young Jim who fetches Lila?" She frowned."If it were young Jim, her going would be impossible--but the old man knows his place and keeps it." "It's a better place than ours to-day, I reckon,"returned Tucker, smiling."To an observer across the road I dare say the odds would seem considerably in his favour.I met him in the turnpike last Sunday in a brand new broadcloth.""Oh, I can't bear to hear you," returned Cynthia passionately.
