"Well, damn you and your beaux yeux!" said Ralph. There was a real
chagrin behind the amusement in his voice.
"Did you notice the muscular development of her back and shoulders?"
Frank Merrill asked eagerly.
"No," said Honey regretfully, "I don't seem to remember anything but her
face."
The next morning when they were working, Pete Murphy suddenly yelled in
an excited voice, "Here comes one of them!"
Everybody turned. There, heading straight towards them, an unbelievable
orange patch sailing through the blue sky, flew the "plain one."
"Lulu! Lulu! Here I am, Lulu," Honey called in his most coaxing tone and
with his most radiant smile. Lulu did not descend, but, involuntarily it
seemed, she turned her course a little nearer to Honey. She fluttered an
instant over his head, then flew straight as an arrow eastward.
"She's a looker, all right, all right," Ralph Addington said, gazing as
long as she was in sight. "I guess I'll trade my blonde for your
brunette, Honey."
"I bet you won't," answered Honey. "I've got Lulu half-tamed. She'll be
eating out of my hand in another week."
They found this incident exciting enough to justify them in laying off
from work the rest of the afternoon. But they had to get accustomed to
it in the week that followed. Thereafter, some time during the day, the
cry would ring out, "Here's your girl, Honey!" And Honey, not even
dropping his tools, would smile over his shoulder at the approaching
Lulu.
As time went by, she ventured nearer and nearer, stayed longer and
longer. Honey, calmly driving nails, addressed to her an endless,
chaffing monologue. At first, it was apparent she was as much repelled
by the tools as she was fascinated by Honey. For him to throw a nail to
the ground was the signal for her to speed to the zenith. But gradually,
in spite of the noise they made, she came to accept them as dumb,
inanimate, harmless. And one day, when Honey, working on the roof,
dropped a screw-driver, she flew down, picked it up, flew back, and
placed it within reach of his hand. She would hover over him for hours,
helping in many small ways. This only, however, when the other men were
sufficiently far away and only when Honey's two hands were occupied. If
any one of them - Honey and the rest - made the most casual of
accidental moves in her direction, her flight was that of an arrow. But
nobody could have been more careful than they not to frighten her.