第8章 A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS(8)

The inquiry so dismally recalled Leonidas's late feelings that his face clouded, and he involuntarily sighed. The stranger instantly shifted his head and gazed curiously at him. Then he took the boy's sunburnt hand in his own, and held it a moment. "Well, go on," he said.

"Well, Mr.--Mr.--I can't go on--I won't!" said Leonidas, with a sudden fit of obstinacy. "I don't know what to call you."

"Call me 'Jack'--'Jack Hamlin' when you're not in a hurry. Ever heard of me before?" he added, suddenly turning his head towards Leonidas.

The boy shook his head. "No."

Mr. Jack Hamlin lifted his lashes in affected expostulation to the skies. "And this is Fame!" he murmured audibly.

But this Leonidas did not comprehend. Nor could he understand why the stranger, who clearly must have come to see HER, should not ask about her, should not rush to seek her, but should lie back there all the while so contentedly on the grass. HE wouldn't. He half resented it, and then it occurred to him that this fine gentleman was like himself--shy. Who could help being so before such an angel? HE would help him on.

And so, shyly at first, but bit by bit emboldened by a word or two from Jack, he began to talk of her--of her beauty--of her kindness--of his own unworthiness--of what she had said and done--until, finding in this gracious stranger the vent his pent-up feelings so long had sought, he sang then and there the little idyl of his boyish life. He told of his decline in her affections after his unpardonable sin in keeping her waiting while he went for the trout, and added the miserable mistake of the rattlesnake episode.

"For it was a mistake, Mr. Hamlin. I oughtn't to have let a lady like that know anything about snakes--just because I happen to know them."

"It WAS an awful slump, Lee," said Hamlin gravely. "Get a woman and a snake together--and where are you? Think of Adam and Eve and the serpent, you know."

"But it wasn't that way," said the boy earnestly. "And I want to tell you something else that's just makin' me sick, Mr. Hamlin.

You know I told you William Henry lives down at the bottom of Burroughs's garden, and how I showed Mrs. Burroughs his tricks!

Well, only two days ago I was down there looking for him, and couldn't find him anywhere. There's a sort of narrow trail from the garden to the hill, a short cut up to the Ridge, instead o' going by their gate. It's just the trail any one would take in a hurry, or if they didn't want to be seen from the road. Well! I was looking this way and that for William Henry, and whistlin' for him, when I slipped on to the trail. There, in the middle of it, was an old bucket turned upside down--just the thing a man would kick away or a woman lift up. Well, Mr. Hamlin, I kicked it away, and"--the boy stopped, with rounded eyes and bated breath, and added--"I just had time to give one jump and save myself! For under that pail, cramped down so he couldn't get out, and just bilin' over with rage, and chockful of pizen, was William Henry!

If it had been anybody else less spry, they'd have got bitten,--and that's just what the sneak who put it there knew."

Mr. Hamlin uttered an exclamation under his breath, and rose to his feet.

"What did you say?" asked the boy quickly.

"Nothing," said Mr. Hamlin.

But it had sounded to Leonidas like an oath.

Mr. Hamlin walked a few steps, as if stretching his limbs, and then said: "And you think Burroughs would have been bitten?"

"Why, no!" said Leonidas in astonished indignation; "of course not--not BURROUGHS. It would have been poor MRS. Burroughs. For, of course, HE set that trap for her--don't you see? Who else would do it?"

"Of course, of course! Certainly," said Mr. Hamlin coolly. "Of course, as you say, HE set the trap--yes--you just hang on to that idea."