Читать книгу The Heart of Arethusa - Frances Barton Fox - Страница 8

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Timothy Jarvis was making preparations to salt the cattle down in the "V" lot on his place (so-called because a wedge of the Redfield property carved out a bit of its very centre) when those angry black clouds began piling up.

He was not very weather wise as yet, this sturdy boy farmer, Timothy, and so his study of the brooding sky did not help him as much, in his prognostication of what it would bring forth, as it might have helped older folk more acquainted with the vagaries of weather. Mandy or Miss Eliza or Blish could have told him that black clouds in the north west always meant a bad storm, and one that came quickly. But Timothy thought of his sleek red cattle, of which he was so proud, which were needing salt so dreadfully, and he decided that he had plenty of time in which to go on ahead and finish his job before the storm should really break. He hated to leave them until every last one had had a chance at the coarse salt he spread out for them on the rocks by the Branch. And the clouds would probably go on piling up that way for some hours.

So sure was he that this prediction was correct that he sent the man who was helping him back to the barn with the mule and spring-wagon, and planned to walk himself. He wanted a look at the bunch in the wood-lot, and now, while he was so near it, was as good a time as he could find in which to visit that other herd.

But the first falling drops caught him before he was half way to the wood-lot, so he turned around without attempting that visit and started for home. Then that great downpour which had trapped Arethusa under the hollow tree caught him just as he was passing Miss Asenath's Woods, and he decided to go on up to the Redfield house, as it was so much nearer than his own; nearly a mile and a half nearer, this way.

He climbed the snake fence into the woodland and splashed rapidly through the wet growth. The big leaves that he brushed in passing, emptied their load of water upon him; Timothy was getting wetter and wetter, but rather enjoying it all. Then he spied Arethusa propped up against her tree with her eyes shut tight, and he stopped short in amazement.

"A—re—thusa Worthington!"

Her eyes flew open. She screamed; for Timothy had appeared before her as suddenly as though he had come in that clap of thunder.

"Timothy! You nasty thing! You scared me almost to death!"

"What on earth are you doing out here?"

"Picking water lilies!" she replied pertly.

"You must have fallen in then, because I never did see anything just as wet! But I thought you weren't afraid of storms?"

"I'm not. I love 'em."

"Why do you screw up your eyes for when it thunders then?" he asked, teasingly, as at another terrific sound her eyes shut just as tight as before.

But she only made a face at him in reply.

"Does Miss 'Liza know you're out here?" Timothy demanded next.

"She does."

"I'll just bet she doesn't," he contradicted calmly. "You better come go in. You are wet clear through."

"So are you," retorted Arethusa.

"I think you had better come go in," persisted Timothy. "Honest, Arethusa! It's dangerous," he added, quickly, for just as he spoke a great tree in the outer edge of the woodland went crashing to the ground.

"I shan't go in." She stamped her foot for emphasis. "Run along, Timothy, if you're afraid. I'm going to stay. I love it!"

That implication of fear put him on his masculine mettle at once.

"I'm not afraid," he declared, stoutly. "It's just foolish, that's all. Come on, Arethusa."

She resented this tone of authority.

"No!" she said, most positively.

"Well, then … I'll take you," announced Timothy, equally positive. "I just can't let you tempt Providence this way."

Her eyes blazed dark. "If you so much as dare touch me, Timothy Jarvis, even; I'll … I'll. … " Words failed her.

Timothy regarded her in helpless exasperation. Being very well acquainted with Arethusa and Arethusa's ways, he knew that she would have retaliated in some very real and immediate fashion, had he made a single move to carry out his threat. And nothing he could do along this line would have brought the going in any nearer, for in a scuffle she was quite as strong as he was.

They had been forced to converse in shouts in order to be heard above the noise of the storm through the swaying and bending trees, and the whole affair:—the loud argument which got nowhere, and the subsequent tableau of the girl and himself standing here under the big tree glaring at each other while the fury of the rain lashed against them and the storm dinned about them, suddenly struck Timothy as funny.

He laughed.

"Stop laughing!" screamed Arethusa, angrily.

"I can't help it! You—you look so perfectly funny!" Timothy's mirth pealed forth again.

Arethusa's hair hung about her face in long, wet locks; her eyes, in her white face, were like great, dark pools of wrath; and she had spread her arms out behind her against the tree as if she had gripped it to hold should Timothy attempt force to make her leave her stronghold.

"You look just like a drowned rat, yourself!" she exclaimed furiously. "And—and you've got a whole pond in your Jimmy!"

So Timothy took off his big Jimmy hat and shook the pool of rain water out of the curved brim.

Had she not been so angry with him, Arethusa might have likened him then to a young river god instead of a "drowned rat," and the comparison would have fitted much better. And with his blonde head, which the dampness had merely made to wave a little more, for his thickly plaited straw hat had somewhat protected it from a thorough wetting, she might even have called him a young Viking, without any very great misuse of metaphor; Timothy was so thoroughly of the outdoors in his appearance, with all his youthful strength.

His deep blue eyes gleamed with determination as plainly as the grey eyes opposite him gleamed with anger, for Timothy meant that Arethusa should go into the house; and that without much more delay.

But he changed his tactics to accomplish this. Although he was nothing of a weather prophet, he displayed, at times, wisdom rather beyond his years.

"Arethusa, do be reasonable, now," he said, in the most friendly of coaxing tones. "Suppose that tree should be struck; you'd be killed. I would too."

"That wouldn't make very much difference," she replied, naughtily.

But he ignored this interruption. "I might enjoy doing this some other time, Arethusa, when the lightning and thunder aren't so bad. This is the very worst electrical storm we've had this whole summer. And you know that I never do mind being out in the rain, don't you? I've always been quite wilting to play Alpheus for you, whenever you wanted." (Timothy had studied mythology when he was in Freeport at college.) "But think," he added, much more seriously, "think of poor Miss 'Titia. You can be sure she's just having one fit right after the other with you out here. I call it dirt mean to make her suffer so. And it's not a bit like you to be mean, Arethusa, not a bit."

Arethusa yielded.

The picture Timothy presented of Miss Letitia's distress was all the more sad to contemplate because she knew it, only too well, to be true. She was getting a trifle tired of it, besides: it was only obstinacy that had kept her out so long. Yet it would never do to have him find that out. She conveyed the intelligence to him that nothing in the wide world but the thought of Miss Letitia and Miss Letitia's unhappiness would ever have dragged her away from the tree, lest he become unduly convinced of the idea that any of his other, and more immediately personal, arguments had influenced.

"And," she added, "I wanted to get real wet, for just once. But I couldn't get any wetter if I stayed. My shoes slosh now."

He agreed with her perfectly. "Without a doubt they do; I can hear 'em. You were certainly well named Arethusa, you crazy thing!" He tucked her arm in his with an authoritative air, "Let's run for it."

Nothing suited Arethusa better.

They had a glorious race through the wet orchard and brought up with a grand flourish on the back porch, where Mandy greeted their finale with many horrified exclamations and much gesturing.

"Ef Mis' 'Liza wuz to see you! Ef Mis' 'Liza wuz jes' to see you all now!"

"Well, she mustn't," cautioned Timothy. "Stop making so much noise, Mandy, and smuggle Arethusa in."

"I don't really care if she does see me," Arethusa herself announced most recklessly. "I've had so much fun! Listen. … " She slapped her wet dress against her, "Doesn't that make a funny sound? And, oh, Timothy, see what a puddle I've made already, just running off me!! Look!"

"Mis' Titia's ben havin' one hystik after anothah, Arethusie, she were so sure you wuz struck w'en we heered that big tree go down in Mis' 'Senath's Woods. An' Mis' 'Liza's. … "

"Well, Arethusa! I must say that this is a performance!"

And the three on the back porch turned to see Miss Eliza regarding them grimly from the kitchen doorway.

Timothy gallantly removed his Jimmy hat and bowed, but Miss Eliza's expression did not soften in the least.

"I don't think she's hurt at all, Miss 'Liza," he said, with the worthy intent to soothe, "I found her in Miss 'Senath's Woods and brought her in."

"I can see she isn't," replied Miss Eliza.

Arethusa glared at Timothy for his statement of the situation.

"Arethusa," continued Miss Eliza, "I must say that I think this is going a little bit too far. You have almost made your Aunt 'Titia ill by running off in this storm. You know perfectly well just how they affect her. And I brought you into the house—once. You were certainly expected to stay. Sometimes you seem to me to be absolutely lacking in any finer sensibilities; especially in consideration for others. And you behave just like a child!"

"Oh, Miss 'Liza," interposed Timothy, "please don't jack Arethusa up so hard! I know she didn't mean to make Miss 'Titia ill. She loves a storm herself, so much, that she doesn't always remember that other people are afraid of them. But she did come in just as soon as she remembered it. She. … "

"You needn't say all that stuff, Timothy Jarvis," interrupted Arethusa, angrily, "I reckon I can tell Aunt 'Liza anything I want, without you butting in. I'm sorry about Aunt 'Titia, Aunt 'Liza, I truly am, and I'll go right straight and tell her so; but. … "

"That will do, Arethusa," interrupted Miss Eliza, in her turn. "Don't add rudeness to Timothy to the rest of your behaviour. And you've been told a number of times not to use that vulgar expression. Timothy is not a goat. But there is not the slightest use in my standing here arguing with you over your disobedience while you and Timothy are catching your death of cold. You'd better take off those wet shoes and go right up to your room and change the rest of your things—immediately. Mandy will make you a hot lemonade. And I want it drunk this time. We won't take any risks from this escapade." (Arethusa hated hot lemonade.) "And, Timothy, you will stay to supper, of course. We are a household of women, and I have nothing to offer you as dry clothes except those old garments of Mr. Worthington's. But at least they are warm and dry, and will be better than what you have on. You just go on up to the west bed-room and I'll send them to you there."

"Timothy shan't wear Father's clothes!"

"Arethusa!"

Arethusa toed the mark, although with a very bad grace.

"It wasn't me that invited you to supper, Timothy Jarvis," she announced, as a small measure of retaliation, "remember that, please! And I don't want you, either!"

"I'm sorry," replied Timothy calmly, and his eyes danced, "because I'm going to stay. Miss 'Liza asked me. Mandy's going to have hot biscuit—I see 'em; and Miss 'Liza'll get me out some of her strawberry preserves, I know."

Miss Eliza smiled indulgently at this request, and reached down into her leather pocket for the key to the preserve closet.

"You better make lots of biscuit, Mandy," continued Timothy; "I'm as hungry as a bear."

Arethusa sniffed disdainfully and, with her red head high in the air, started off down the passage in the direction of the sitting-room.

"Where are you going?" called Miss Eliza after her.

"To tell Aunt 'Titia I'm sorry I scared her."

"Did you hear me tell you to take off your shoes and go straight to your room?" Miss Eliza's tone was awful.

Although Arethusa towered a good head and shoulders over Miss Eliza, she obeyed as meekly as the tiniest child. She returned to the kitchen to remove her shoes and then went down the side passage to the boxed-in steps, Miss Eliza surveying her sternly all the while.

As Arethusa passed Timothy on her way out of the kitchen, she leaned close to him and whispered, "I'll fix you for all this, Timothy Jarvis! You just wait and see if I don't!"

It was hardly fair to blame Timothy for any of it, but if she had threatened to "fix" Miss Eliza total annihilation would have followed immediately. Yet overcharged feelings must be somehow relieved.

With the disappearance of her niece, Miss Eliza took occasion to apologize to the guest of the evening for any and all of her behaviour, which might have appeared unseemly. This proceeding so delighted Timothy he could hardly repress a whoop; for he well knew that nothing would make Arethusa so furious as to know her aunt had apologized (to him) for anything she had done.

One of the chief joys of Timothy's existence was teasing Arethusa.

What fun to tell her of this!