"Why, I should be very pleased to," said Una.
§ 2
Mr. Schwirtz seemed to know everybody at the farm. He had been there only thirty-six hours, but already he called Mr. Cannon "Sam," and knew that Miss Vincent's married sister's youngest child had recently passed away with a severe and quite unexpected attack of cholera morbus. Mr. Schwirtz introduced Una to the others so fulsomely that she was immediately taken into the inner political ring. He gave her a first lesson in auction pinochle also. They had music and recitations at ten, and Una's shyness was so warmed away that she found herself reciting, "I'm Only Mammy's Pickaninny Coon."
She went candle-lighted up to a four-poster bed. As she lay awake, her job-branded mind could not keep entirely away from the office, the work she would have to do when she returned, the familiar series of indefinite worries and disconnected office pictures. But mostly she let the rustle of the breathing land inspirit her while she thought of Mr. Julius Edward Schwirtz.
She knew that he was ungrammatical, but she denied that he was uncouth. His deep voice had been very kindly; his clipped mustache was trim; his nails, which had been ragged at that commercial-college lunch, were manicured now; he was sure of himself, while Walter Babson doubted and thrashed about. All of which meant that the tired office-woman was touchily defensive of the man who liked her.
She couldn't remember just where she had learned it, but she knew that Mr. Schwirtz was a widower.
§ 3
The fact that she did not have to get up and go to the office was Una's chief impression at awakening, but she was not entirely obtuse to the morning, to the chirp of a robin, the cluck of the hens, the creak of a hay-wagon, and the sweet smell of cattle. When she arose she looked down a slope of fields so far away that they seemed smooth as a lawn. Solitary, majestic trees cast long shadows over a hilly pasture of crisp grass worn to inviting paths by the cropping cattle. Beyond the valley was a range of the Berkshires with every tree distinct.
Una was tired, but the morning's radiance inspired her. "My America-so beautiful! Why do we turn you into stuffy offices and ugly towns?" she marveled while she was dressing.
But as breakfast was not ready, her sudden wish to do something magnificent for America turned into what she called a "before-coffee grouch," and she sat on the porch waiting for the bell, and hoping that the conversational Mr. Schwirtz wouldn't come and converse. It was to his glory that he didn't. He appeared in masterful white-flannel trousers and a pressed blue coat and a new Panama, which looked well on his fleshy but trim head. He said, "Mornin'," cheerfully, and went to prowl about the farm.
All through the breakfast Una caught the effulgence of Mr. Schwirtz's prosperous-looking solidness, and almost persuaded herself that his jowls and the slabs of fat along his neck were powerful muscles.
He asked her to play croquet. Una played a game which had been respected in the smartest croqueting circles of Panama; she defeated him; and while she blushed and insisted that he ought to have won, Mr. Schwirtz chuckled about his defeat and boasted of it to the group on the porch.
"I was afraid," he told her, "I was going to find this farm kinda tame. Usually expect a few more good fellows and highballs in mine, but thanks to you, little sister, looks like I'll have a bigger time than a high-line poker Party."
He seemed deeply to respect her, and Una, who had never had the débutante's privilege of ordering men about, who had avoided Henry Carson and responded to Walter Babson and obeyed chiefs in offices, was now at last demanding that privilege. She developed feminine whims and desires. She asked Mr. Schwirtz to look for her handkerchief, and bring her magazine, and arrange her chair cushions, and take her for a walk to "the Glade."
He obeyed breathlessly.
Following an old and rutted woodland road to the Glade, they passed a Berkshire abandoned farm-a solid house of stone and red timbers, softened by the long grasses that made the orchard a pleasant place. They passed berry-bushes-raspberry and blackberry and currant, now turned wild; green-gold bushes that were a net for sunbeams. They saw yellow warblers flicker away, a king-bird swoop, a scarlet tanager glisten in flight.
"Wonder what that red bird is?" He admiringly looked to her to know.
"Why, I think that's a cardinal."
"Golly! I wish I knew about nature."
"So do I! I don't really know a thing-"
"Huh! I bet you do!"
"-though I ought to, living in a small town so long. I'd planned to buy me a bird-book," she rambled on, giddy with sunshine, "and a flower-book and bring them along, but I was so busy getting away from the office that I came off without them. Don't you just love to know about birds and things?"
"Yuh, I cer'nly do; I cer'nly do. Say, this beats New York, eh? I don't care if I never see another show or a cocktail. Cer'nly do beat New York. Cer'nly does! I was saying to Sam Cannon, 'Lord,' I says, 'I wonder what a fellow ever stays in the city for; never catch me there if I could rake in the coin out in the country, no, sir!' And he laughed and said he guessed it was the same way with him. No, sir; my idea of perfect happiness is to be hiking along here with you, Miss Golden."
He gazed down upon her with a mixture of amorousness and awe. The leaves of scrub-oaks along the road crinkled and shone in the sun. She was lulled to slumberous content. She lazily beamed her pleasure back at him, though a tiny hope that he would be circumspect, not be too ardent, stirred in her. He was touching in his desire to express his interest without ruffling her. He began to talk about Miss Vincent's affair with Mr. Starr, the wealthy old boarder at the farm. In that topic they passed safely through the torrid wilderness of summer shine and tangled blooms.
The thwarted boyish soul that persisted in Mr. Schwirtz's barbered, unexercised, coffee-soaked, tobacco-filled, whisky-rotted, fattily degenerated city body shone through his red-veined eyes. He was having a fête champêtre. He gathered berries and sang all that he remembered of "Nut Brown Ale," and chased a cow and pantingly stopped under a tree and smoked a cigar as though he enjoyed it. In his simple pleasure Una was glad. She admired him when he showed his trained, professional side and explained (with rather confusing details) why the Ætna Automobile Varnish Company was a success. But she fluttered up to her feet, became the wilful débutante again, and commanded, "Come on, Mr. Slow! We'll never reach the Glade." He promptly struggled up to his feet. There was lordly devotion in the way he threw away his half-smoked cigar. It indicated perfect chivalry.... Even though he did light another in about three minutes.
The Glade was filled with a pale-green light; arching trees shut off the heat of the summer afternoon, and the leaves shone translucent. Ferns were in wild abundance. They sat on a fallen tree, thick upholstered with moss, and listened to the trickle of a brook. Una was utterly happy. In her very weariness there was a voluptuous feeling that the air was dissolving the stains of the office.