She laughed again with sheer delight, like a child, and ran to the corner
and got the cotton umbrella and placed it in the old man's hand. As he
reached the door, she called after him: "Wait!" and went to him and knelt
before him, and, with the humblest, proudest grace in the world, turned up
his trousers to keep them from the mud. Ross Schofield had never
considered Mr. Fisbee a particularly sacred sort of person, but he did
from that moment. The old man made some timid protest, at his daughter's
action, But she answered; "The great ladies used to buckle the Chevalier
Bayard's spurs for him, and you're a great deal nicer than the Chev----
You haven't any rubbers! I don't believe any of you have any rubbers!"
And not until both Fisbee and Mr. Schofield had promised to purchase
overshoes at once, and in the meantime not to step in any puddles, would
she let her father depart upon his errand. He crossed the Square with the
strangest, jauntiest step ever seen in Plattville. Solomon Tibbs had a
warm argument with Miss Selina as to his identity. Miss Selina maintaining
that the figure under the big umbrella--only the legs and coat-tails were
visible to them--was that of a stranger, probably an Englishman.
In the "Herald" office the editor turned, smiling, to the paper's
remaining vassal. "Mr. Schofield, I heard some talk in Rouen of an oil
company that had been formed to prospect for kerosene in Carlow County. Do
you know anything about it?"
Ross, surfeited with honor, terror, and possessed by a sweet distress at
finding himself tete-a-tete with the lady, looked at the wall and replied: "Oh, it's that Eph Watts's foolishness."
"Do you know if they have begun to dig for it yet?"
"Ma'am?" said Ross.
"Have they begun the diggings yet?"
"No, ma'am; I think not. They've got a contrapshun fixed up about three
mile south. I don't reckon they've begun yet, hardly; they're gittin' the
machinery in place. I heard Eph say they'd begin to bore--dig, I mean,
ma'am, I meant to say dig----" He stopped, utterly confused and unhappy;
and she understood his manly purpose, and knew him for a gentleman whom
she liked.
"You mustn't be too much surprised," she said; "but in spite of my
ignorance about such things, I mean to devote a good deal of space to the
oil company; it may come to be of great importance to Carlow. We won't go
into it in to-morrow's paper, beyond an item or so; but do you think you
could possibly find Mr. Watts and ask him for some information as to their
progress, and if it would be too much trouble for him to call here some
time to-morrow afternoon, or the day after? I want him to give me an
interview if he will. Tell him, please, he will very greatly oblige us."