第66章

"Mrs. Bangs," said the schoolmistress, as if it was the most casual thing in the world, "I want to borrow your husband to-morrow."It was Friday evening, and supper at the perfect boarding house had advanced as far as the stewed prunes and fruit-cake stage.

Keturah, who was carefully dealing out the prunes, exactly four to each saucer, stopped short, spoon in air, and gazed at Miss Dawes.

"You--you want to WHAT?" she asked.

"I want to borrow your husband. I want him all day, too, because I'm thinking of driving over to Trumet, and I need a coachman.

You'll go, won't you, Mr. Bangs?"

Bailey, who had been considering the advisability of asking for a second cup of tea, brightened up and looked pleased.

"Why, yes," he answered, "I'll go. I can go just as well as not.

Fact is, I'd like to. Ain't been to Trumet I don't know when."Miss Phinney and the widow Tripp looked at each other. Then they both looked at Keturah. That lady's mouth closed tightly, and she resumed her prune distribution.

"I'm sorry," she said crisply, "but I'm 'fraid he can't go. It's Saturday, and I'll need him round the house. Do you care for cake to-night, Elviry? I'm 'fraid it's pretty dry; I ain't had time to do much bakin' this week.""Of course," continued the smiling Phoebe, "I shouldn't think of asking him to go for nothing. I didn't mean borrow him in just that way. I was thinking of hiring your horse and buggy, and, as I'm not used to driving, I thought perhaps I might engage Mr. Bangs to drive for me. I expected to pay for the privilege. But, as you need him, I suppose I must get my rig and driver somewhere else.

I'm so sorry."

The landlady's expression changed. This was the dull season, and opportunities to "let" the family steed and buggy--"horse and team," we call it in Bayport--were few.

"Well," she observed, "I don't want to be unlikely and disobligin'.

Far's he's concerned, he'd rather be traipsin' round the country than stay to home, any day; though it's been so long sence he took ME to ride that I don't know's I'd know how to act.""Why, Ketury!" protested her husband. "How you talk! Didn't Idrive you down to the graveyard only last Sunday--or the Sunday afore?""Graveyard! Yes, I notice our rides always fetch up at the graveyard. You're always willin' to take me THERE. Seems sometimes as if you enjoyed doin' it.""Now, Keturah! you know yourself that 'twas you proposed goin' there. You said you wanted to look at our lot, 'cause you was afraid 'twan't big enough, and you didn't know but we'd ought to add on another piece. You said that it kept you awake nights worryin' for fear when I passed away you wouldn't have room in that lot for me. Land sakes! don't I remember? Didn't you give me the blue creeps talkin' about it?"Mrs. Bangs ignored this outburst. Turning to the school teacher, she said with a sigh:

"Well, I guess he can go. I'll get along somehow. I hope he'll be careful of the buggy; we had it painted only last January."Mrs. Tripp ventured a hinted question concerning the teacher's errand at Trumet. The reply being noncommittal, the widow cheerfully prophesied that she guessed 'twas going to rain or snow next day. "It's about time for the line storm," she added.

But it did not storm, although a brisk, cold gale was blowing when, after breakfast next morning, the "horse and team," with Bailey in his Sunday suit and overcoat, and Miss Dawes on the buggy seat beside him, turned out of the boarding-house yard and started on the twelve-mile journey to Trumet.

It was a bleak ride. Denboro, the village adjoining Bayport on the bay side, is a pretty place, with old elms and silverleafs shading the main street in summer, and with substantial houses set each in its trim yard. But beyond Denboro the Trumet road winds out over rolling, bare hills, with cranberry bogs, now flooded and skimmed with ice, in the hollows between them, clumps of bayberry and beach-plum bushes scattered over their rounded slopes, and white scars in their sides showing where the cranberry growers have cut away the thin layer of coarse grass and moss to reach the sand beneath, sand which they use in preparing their bogs for the new vines.

And the wind! There is always a breeze along the Trumet road, even in summer--when the mosquitoes lie in wait to leeward like buccaneers until, sighting the luckless wayfarer in the offing, they drive down before the wind in clouds, literally to eat him alive. They are skilled navigators, those Trumet road mosquitoes, and they know the advantage of snug harbors under hat brims and behind spreading ears. And each individual smashed by a frantic palm leaves a thousand blood relatives to attend his funeral and exact revenge after the Corsican fashion.

Now, in December, there were, of course, no mosquitoes, but the wind tore across those bare hilltops in gusts that rocked the buggy on its springs. The bayberry bushes huddled and crouched before it. The sky was covered with tumbling, flying clouds, which changed shape continually, and ripped into long, fleecy ravelings, that broke loose and pelted on until merged into the next billowy mass. The bay was gray and white, and in the spots where an occasional sunbeam broke through and struck it, flashed like a turned knife blade.

Bailey drove with one hand and held his hat on his head with the other. The road had been deeply rutted during the November rains, and now the ruts were frozen. The buggy wheels twisted and scraped as they turned in the furrows.

"What's the matter?" asked the schoolmistress, shouting so as to be heard above the flapping of the buggy curtains. "Why do you watch that wheel?""'Fraid of the axle," whooped Mr. Bangs in reply. "Nut's kind of loose, for one thing, and the way the wheel wobbles I'm scart she'll come off. Call this a road!" he snorted indignantly. "More like a plowed field a consider'ble sight. Jerushy, how she blows!