CHAPTER VII.

A SUMMER SHOWER.

“Isn’t it fun to dash off this way!” Connie was wont to exclaim, as day after day driving trips were planned. “I believe, after all, we have lost something by the invention of steam. The good old way of coaching it must have been very satisfactory.”

“I’d like you to try it for a year,” Walter replied. “You’d be glad enough to go back to Pullman cars and rapid service.”

“I suppose I should, having once had it, but I do think this leisurely way of travel is fine. We see so much, and are so independent, without the bother of time-tables or trunk checks.”

They were on their way to one of the many springs which are so plentiful in that part of the country. Basil, Walter, Mrs. Dixon, Connie, and Persis were in one three-seated carriage, the remainder of the party occupying another. They were wont to change about on every trip, “So as not to be clannish,” Mrs. Wickes said, and the plan worked very well. If the distance to be covered were great, and there were no hostelries along the way, luncheon was provided, and was eaten along the road-side. And so long as they reached comfortable lodgings by night it was all that was asked. A little luggage was carried in case they elected to remain two or three days at some specially attractive spot. And thus, with care thrown to the winds, the days were slipping along in an ideally happy manner.

“No matter where we go, I’m always glad to get back to the Bridge,” Persis declared over and over again. The place never lost its fascination for her, and in after years she looked back upon the time spent there as one of her happiest memories. There were days when the driving trips were set aside, and those who did not care to spend their time on the porches of the old inn could wander at will over the mountain-paths; and this, too, was a delight.

“At last the time has come for folding our tents,” Mrs. Wickes announced one morning at breakfast. “I suppose you young people never would be ready to go back, but as I have left behind a long-suffering and patient husband, I shall have to return to Washington. You all, however, do not need to go just because I do, much as I want you.”

“As if we would desert our general,” cried the boys. “No, we must see that beautiful Shenandoah Valley and those wonderful caves. Give us your orders.”

“Suppose, then, we spend one more day here, and then go right through to Luray.”

“The fiat has gone forth. One more day of respite. Who will, may follow my example. I am going to spend that one day above, about, and below the bridge,” announced Persis.

“Above, around, about, athwart,” Walter repeated; “sounds like a list of prepositions.”

“No matter what it sounds like, I’m off. I’ll pack my trunk after dinner. I can’t miss these morning sights.” And Persis sprang off the porch and was proceeding towards a little nook in among the bushes, where she loved “to sit and hold her breath,” as she said.

This morning Basil joined her before she reached the spot. “The grass is damp, don’t go there yet,” he warned her. “Let’s keep to the road for a while.”

“I just hate to think of leaving, don’t you, Basil.”

“Why, I’m about ready for a change of base. I think we’ve seen all there is to see.”

“We never could see all there is to see, for every day is different. How beautiful it must be in the winter and at early spring. I’d like to see the place under all aspects.”

“You are the most enthusiastic visitor the bridge has ever had, I believe.”

“I wonder if I am. Ever since I was a little child and used to pore over those old volumes of _Harper’s Magazine_ that are in our library I have longed for just this trip. You remember Porte Crayon’s ‘Virginia Illustrated,’ don’t you? Well, that I used to read and re-read, and now I have realized my dream of going over the same ground.”

“So, you’ve had your heart’s desire.”

“Yes, and the beauty of it is that I’m not in the least disappointed.”

“Don’t you want to take one more horseback ride this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes, I should love to.”

“Just you and I will go. Will Mrs. Wickes object?”

“Aunt Esther? No, I think not. Who could be a safer companion than my brother Basil?”

Basil frowned slightly, but he made no comment. And no objection being made by Mrs. Wickes, the two started off down the mountain-road, Persis’s bright face glowing with happiness under her ridinghat, her neat habit showing off her pretty figure to advantage. She looked back and waved her hand as she rode away.

“How well Perse looks on horseback,” Walter remarked. “I wish you liked to ride, Connie.”

“I wish I did, but I don’t. Persis rides just as she does everything, as well as possible. She never lets anything down her; whatever she undertakes she goes into heart and soul. Now, I’m not that way. I feel timid and doubtful over most things which I undertake. I’m scared to death on a horse. I might ride on a pillion, if you choose to take me behind you in that fashion.”

Walter laughed. “I don’t choose. We’ll take a walk instead. What’s become of Annis?”

“She said she was going to pack her trunk, and Porter has gone down to the junction on the stage.”

“Oh, all right. The mater is giving herself up to a nap, and told me to see after you. She’s afraid you might fall off the bridge. So we seem to be left to follow our noses.”

“Will you follow mine, or shall I follow yours?”

“You shall walk by the side of mine.”

“Don’t let’s pursue the subject, we might say something silly. Suppose we talk sense for a change.” And the two started forth and were soon out of sight.

“What have you decided to do with yourself next winter?” Persis was asking Basil at the same moment.

“I’ve about concluded to settle down somewhere. Where would you advise a fellow to live?”

“Right here.”

“Nonsense! How many houses should I be likely to plan in a year?”

“You might plan a great many. You’d have plenty of time for it.”

“You’re right; but who would want to build them?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I didn’t agree to inform you on that point. I’m not at all practical on this occasion. I can’t think of anything but sky and trees and summer weather; weeds by the wayside and flowers in the fields. Don’t let us take thought for the morrow.”

“But summer will not last always.”

“No, there’s the pity of it. Yet I want to enjoy it, and be as care-free as I can, during this outing. Don’t talk about planning houses and suggesting bricks and mortar, or even fat bank accounts.”

“All right; we’ll wait till the summer-time has gone and we’re home again. I was going to ask what are your plans, Persis?”

“I don’t know. I’ll sit down some day after we are all at home again, and I’ll think very hard over the problem of life; then you shall know the result.”

“If I am there; and if I’m not, you can write to me about it.”

“If you’re not there? Why, where will you be?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to think about it.”

“I don’t; but I suppose all women are contradictory, and since you have started the train of thought I must needs follow it out; and then——”

“And then—— Go on.”

“I don’t like the idea of your being in some too distant place where a body can never get a chance to mend your gloves, or sew up a rip in the lining of your overcoat.”

“Persis!”

“Is that spoken in a tone of reproach, mockery, or appeal?”

“It is a combination of so many emotions, I’d better not attempt to describe them.”

“Well, that, too, can be ‘another story.’ Now let us settle your settlement.”

“I had thought of Washington as a desirable place for a young and ambitious architect.”

“Yes, Washington will do finely. Let’s call it Washington, and be done with it.”

“You’re not particular, after all.”

“Oh, yes; only I don’t want you to be beyond the possibility of occasional reach.”

“Persis!”

“There is that same ‘Persis!’ I shall be so curious about her presently that I shall repent my decision to let explanations go till another time.”

“Shall I explain?”

Persis shot him a glance. Basil had an earnest face, but just now it was more than usually so, and his companion, seeing it, felt close to a confession. Truly, women are contradictory. She gave a little nervous laugh, and, touching her horse lightly, she briskly cantered down the road.

Basil was not long in overtaking her.

“‘Seeing riding’s a joy for me, I ride,’” she quoted. “I want to ride fast. I want just this day of sweetness to linger. No past, no future. Will any one hear me, Basil, if I sing or shout?”

“I shall.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t mind. I can’t express the voice of my mountain spirit in ordinary speech.”

“Then don’t try.” Basil felt that somehow a golden moment had slipped him. The elusiveness of Persis’s mood had piqued him a little.

“Oh, you dry old body, why don’t you, too, feel the strange music of the Pan pipes and the songs of the wood-nymphs on every side?”

“Because something else speaks to me so loudly that I can hear nothing else.”

Persis gave him a second quick look, and again touched up her horse. “Then I’ll go off yonder and answer the forest voices, and you needn’t come; you can just watch me from afar. Oh, no, I can’t go, either. We’re coming to a little town, and I must be on my good behavior. Oh, Basil, see! there are beehives in that garden. Do you believe we could get some bread and honey if we turned up that lane and asked at that house? I’m half starved. This mountain air gives one sixteen appetites a day.”

“I confess to a similar experience. We’ll try for the bread and honey.”

They rode towards the house and accosted a little tow-headed child who stood among the flaming rows of zinnias.

“Have you any honey?” Persis asked.

The little girl ran swiftly to the house, and came back with a motherly looking woman, who smilingly granted the request made her, sending out by a colored boy a plate of biscuits, a dish of honey, and glasses, herself bringing a pitcher of milk.

“This mountain air does make us so hungry,” Persis explained, as she took the biscuit Basil had spread for her.

“Won’t you alight and come in?” asked the woman. “It is kind of unhandy eating perched up there.”

“Oh, no; I like it,” Persis returned. “What good biscuits! and such delicious milk!”

“Can’t I get you something else?” the woman asked, hospitably,—“a piece of cold chicken or ham?”

“Oh, no; this is just what we want.”

“You all are not from anywhere around here, are you?” was the next question addressed to Persis.

“No; we are stopping over at the Bridge, and are only out for a ride. We’ve never been in this direction before. That’s quite a little town beyond here, I should judge.”

“Yes, it’s right smart of a place; but mighty few strangers come to it, being off the line of the railroad.”

“Oh, I see.”

Persis instinctively felt that it would not do to offer pay to this kindly woman who proffered her food so promptly and plentifully, but she saw that Basil closed the fingers of the child’s little fat hand over a coin, and noticed that the colored boy grinned from ear to ear as he bowed and scraped; so she knew the kindness was not unrecognized.

“It looks like we’d have a thunder-gust,” said their entertainer, as they turned to go. “You’d better wait till it’s over.”

“Oh!” Persis looked at the clouds rolling up from the horizon. “Do you think it is near?”

“I can’t say. One doesn’t know; up here in the mountains these summer showers come up very quickly sometimes.”

“I think if we ride fast we can get back,” Basil assured her; and with a nod and a pleasant good-bye, they started at a smart pace up the road.

“We didn’t get to the village after all, and I wanted to see it,” Persis said, regretfully. “It is truly a land flowing with milk and honey.”

“Yet you would not make it a land of promise,” Basil remarked, under his breath.

Persis did not reply, for just then a flash of lightning startled her, and the big drops began to patter down. They were scarce a mile beyond the house where they had stopped, when the storm broke in all its fury.

“There, ahead,” Basil cried. “There is some sort of a little house in the woods.” And they turned their horses towards it, going at full gallop.

A rude school-house with a rough porch in front it proved to be, but it was a shelter for them and even for their horses.

“We’d better get as far in as possible,” Basil said, lifting Persis from her saddle. “Are you very wet?”

“Scarcely any, worth mentioning. My habit is quite heavy, you know, and we really only had a fair sprinkle. But, dear me, how it is coming down now!”

“Well, we’re in luck to come upon this place. Of course, we could have gone back to that house, but we should have been drenched getting there.”

“At any rate, we’re not hungry; and if the storm does not keep up too long we can get back before dark, can’t we?”

“I think so. The roads will be muddy, but that will be all. There’s not much danger on horseback even if there should be washouts.”

“We’ll hope there’ll not be——” A terrific crash of thunder interrupted her, and Persis started. Basil took her hand in a protecting clasp. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered; “only, it is awe-inspiring.”

The storm was at its worst now. The two standing under the old porch said very little. Once there came a rivening bolt which shattered a tree in the forest beyond, and the rain fell in torrents; but the shelter was secure, and no leaks of any account gave them discomfort. A second terrific roar made Persis cower closer to her companion. He looked down at her with a gently assuring smile, but said nothing except, “We’re safe, Persis.”

“Yes, I know; only, it’s startling,” she answered.

At last the mutterings of thunder became fainter and fainter. Away off the rolling clouds displayed zigzag streaks incessantly, but above them there was a rift in the gray.

“We’ll get pretty wet as it is,” Basil remarked. “Shall we wait a little, Persis? the trees drip so; if we were in an open road it wouldn’t matter much.”

“I think we’d better not wait long, for it will soon be dark, and that will be worse than a wetting.”

It was rather precarious riding, after all. Little purling brooks had become swift torrents, which the horses breasted bravely, but which gave Persis cold shivers to cross; and once she had to draw her feet up on the saddle, so near did the water come to the horse’s head. The sun was setting in a gorgeous sky and a half-moon was faintly struggling through broken masses of clouds when the two finally reached the inn, and found an anxious company on the outlook for them.

Persis noticed that Annis looked particularly pale and wistful. “Did you think we were drowned?” she asked. “Why, Annis dear, one would think you were the one worst scared. Was the storm very sharp here?”

Annis turned away abruptly, murmuring something about a headache, and Persis followed her up the stairs to their rooms; but Annis shut her door, and Persis stood longingly outside before she concluded not to disturb her. “She must have a bad headache, poor dear, and now that she knows we are safe she has gone to lie down,” she told herself.

The next evening found them at Luray, looking across the mountains, over which the moon shone softly. One day there was given to the caves, which Persis declared roused her wonder less than the bridge. “They make me feel my insignificance, I must confess,” she told her aunt. “And when I consider that it took hundreds of years to form an inch of those giant stalactites and stalagmites, I feel that I could comprehend a little better that man ‘cometh up like a flower.’ It is all so weird and wonderful that I cannot talk much about it, Aunt Esther. Basil would tell me I don’t have to,” she added, smiling.

“We American women do talk too much, I suspect,” Mrs. Wickes replied. “We are a restless set, and like to hear ourselves chatter, whether we say anything worth hearing or not.”

“Perhaps I would do well to cultivate that golden silence which grandma used to talk to me so much about.” And Persis smiled, remembering some episodes of her earlier girlhood. “I wonder what sort of an experience it would take to develop taciturnity in me.”

“Nothing less than solitary confinement,” avowed Porter, at her elbow.

“Now, Porter, that is mean of you,” Persis answered. “I’ll remember that the next time you are moping by yourself and wishing for a little friendly notice. Then I’ll treat you with spurn.”

“I take it all back,” Porter responded. “I was just chaffing. Honest, Perse.”

“All right, we’ll see. Oh, dear! I’m beginning to realize that our trip is about over.”

“What are you going to do next?” Porter inquired. “Have you heard from the family?”

“Yes; a budget came for me this morning. Grandma and Mell have left the Pier and have joined mamma and papa at some little unhay-feverish place up near the White Mountains.”

“I suppose Mellicent had a fine time.”

“She did, indeed, and mourns that she does not possess a cottage at Narragansett. Mamma says I may either join them or go with Mrs. Brown and Annis.”

“And which shall you do?”

“I haven’t decided. I shall stay a few days with Aunt Esther. You know we haven’t quite come to the end of our junketing. There are plans to be made all around.”

“Yes, so my mother says. We, too, have to settle the rest of our summer’s campaign. There, the others are ready to start. The train must be coming.”

[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]