第75章

It was a Sabbath day in late August, and in no month of the year does a Sabbath day so chime with the time. For the Sabbath day is a day for rest and holy thought, and the late August is the rest time of the year, when the woods and fields are all asleep in a slumberous blue haze; the sacred time, too, for in late August old Mother Earth is breathing her holiest aspirations heavenward, having made offering of her best in the full fruitage of the year.

Hence a Sabbath day in late August chimes marvellously well with the time.

And this particular Sabbath day was perfect of its kind, a dreamy, drowsy day, a day when genial suns and hazy cool airs mingle in excellent harmony, and the tired worker, freed from his week's toil, basks and stretches, yawns and revels in rest under the orchard trees; unless, indeed, he goes to morning church. And to morning church Cameron went as a rule, but to-day, owing to a dull ache in his head and a general sense of languor pervading his limbs, he had chosen instead, as likely to be more healing to his aching head and his languid limbs, the genial sun, tempered with cool and lazy airs under the orchard trees. And hence he lay watching the democrat down the lane driven off to church by Perkins, with Mandy beside him in the front seat, the seat of authority and of activity, and Mr. Haley alone in the back seat, the seat of honour and of retirement. Mrs. Haley was too overborne by the heat and rush of the busy week to adventure the heat and dust of the road, and to sustain the somewhat strenuous discourse of the Reverend Harper Freeman, to whose flock the Haleys belonged.

This, however, was not Mrs. Haley's invariable custom. In the cooler weather it was her habit to drive on a Sunday morning to church, sitting in the back seat beside her husband, with Tim and Mandy occupying the front seat beside the hired man, but during the heat and hurry of the harvest time she would take advantage of the quietness of the house and of the two or three hours' respite from the burden of household duties to make up arrears of sleep accumulated during the preceding week, salving her conscience, for she had a conscience in the matter, with a promise that she might go in the evening when it was cooler and when she was more rested.

This promise, however, having served its turn, was never fulfilled, for by the evening the wheels of household toil began once more to turn, and Mrs. Haley found it easier to worship vicariously, sending Mandy and Tim to the evening service. And to this service the young people were by no means loath to go, for it was held on fair evenings in MacBurney's woods, two miles away by the road, one mile by the path through the woods. On occasion Perkins would hitch up in the single buggy Dexter, the fiery young colt, too fiery for any other to drive, and, as a special attention to his employer's daughter, would drive her to the service. But since the coming of Cameron, Mandy had allowed this custom to fall into disuse, at first somewhat to Perkins' relief, for the colt was restless and fretted against the tie rein; and, besides, Perkins was not as yet quite prepared to acknowledge any special relationship between himself and the young lady in question before the assembled congregation, preferring to regard himself and to be regarded by others as a free lance. Later, however, as Mandy's preference for a walk through the woods became more marked, Perkins, much to his disgust, found himself reduced to the attitude of a suppliant, urging the superior attraction of a swift drive behind Dexter as against a weary walk to the service. Mandy, however, with the directness of her simple nature, had no compunction in frankly maintaining her preference for a walk with Tim and Cameron through the woods; indeed, more than once she allowed Perkins to drive off with his fiery colt, alone in his glory.

But this Sabbath morning, as Cameron lay under the orchard trees, he was firmly resolved that he would give the whole day to the nursing of the ache in his head and the painful languor in his body. And so lying he allowed his mind to wander uncontrolled over the happenings of the past months, troubled by a lazy consciousness of a sore spot somewhere in his life. Gradually there grew into clearness the realisation of the cause of this sore spot.

"What is the matter with Perkins?" he asked of Tim, who had declined to go to church, and who had strolled into the orchard to be near his friend.

"What is the matter with Perkins?" Cameron asked a second time, for Tim was apparently too much engaged with a late harvest apple to answer.

"How?" said the boy at length.

"He is so infernally grumpy with me."

"Grumpy? He's sore, I guess."

"Sore?"

"You bet! Ever since I beat him in the turnips that day."

"Ever since YOU beat him?" asked Cameron in amazement. "Why should he be sore against me?"

"He knows it was you done it," said Tim.

"Nonsense, Tim! Besides, Perkins isn't a baby. He surely doesn't hold that against me."

"Huh, huh," said Tim, "everybody's pokin' fun at him, and he hates that, and ever since the picnic, too, he hates you."

"But why in the world?"

"Oh, shucks!" said Tim, impatient at Cameron's density. "I guess you know all right."

"Know? Not I!"

"Git out?"

"Honor bright, Tim," replied Cameron, sitting up. "Now, honestly, tell me, Tim, why in the world Perkins should hate me."

"You put his nose out of joint, I guess," said Tim with a grin.

"Oh, rot, Tim! How?"

"Every how," said Tim, proceeding to elaborate. "First when you came here you were no good--I mean--" Tim checked himself hastily.

"I know what you mean, Tim. Go on. You are quite right. I couldn't do anything on the farm."

"Now," continued Tim, "you can do anything jist as good as him--except bindin', of course. He's a terror at bindin', but at pitchin' and shockin' and loadin' you're jist as good."

"But, Tim, that's all nonsense. Perkins isn't such a fool as to hate me because I can keep up my end."

"He don't like you," said Tim stubbornly.

"But why? Why in the name of common sense?"