His eyes wandered to the window; a glittering strip of green light
between the bowed shutters meant that the sun was in the trees. Yes;
to be sure, for the birds had suddenly stopped singing.
Dr. Lavendar yawned and looked at his watch; five o'clock. He would
have liked to get up, but Mary would be worried if she knew he was
awake so long before breakfast. Well; he must try to have a nap, no,
the room was too light for that. He could see all the furniture; he
could count the pleats in the sun-burst of the tester; he could,
perhaps, see to read? He put his hand out for Robinson Crusoe,
and after that he possessed his soul in patience until he knew that
Mary would allow him to come down-stairs.
It was in one of those peaceful dawns early in June that he decided
that the moment had come to strike a decisive blow: he would go and
talk to Benjamin of Sam's Sam, and though truth demanded that he
should report Mrs. Richie's good sense he did not mean to insist upon
it too much; Benjamin's anxiety was the Lord's opportunity--so Dr.
Lavendar thought. He would admit Sam's sentimentality and urge putting
the matter before his father. Then he would pin Benjamin down to a
date. That secured, he would present a definite proposal to Samuel.
"He is the lion in the way," he told himself anxiously; "I am pretty
sure I can manage Benjamin." Yet surely if he could only put it
properly to Samuel, if he could express the pitiful trouble in the old
father's soul, the senior warden's heart would soften. "It must touch
him!" Dr. Lavendar thought, and closed his eyes for a moment....
When he said Amen, the bird-calls were like flutes of triumph.
On his way up the hill that morning, he paused under a great chestnut
to talk to David Allison, who, a strapful of books over his shoulder,
was running down the path to school. David was willing to be detained;
he pulled some grass for Goliath and told Dr. Lavendar that Mrs.
Richie had bought him a pair of suspenders. "And I said a bad word
yesterday," he ended proudly.
"Well, now, I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's been in me a good while," David explained, "but yesterday I said
it. It was 'damn.'"
"It's a foolish word, David; I never use it."
"You don't?" David said blankly, and all his pride was gone.
They parted with some seriousness; but Dr. Lavendar was still
chuckling when he turned in at Benjamin Wright's neglected carriage
road where burdocks and plantains grew rank between the wheel-tracks.
As he came up to the house he saw Mr. Wright sitting out in the sun on
the gravel of the driveway, facing his veranda. A great locust was
dropping its honey-sweet blossoms all about--on his bent shoulders, on
his green cashmere dressing-gown, on his shrunken knees, even one or
two on the tall beaver hat. A dozen bird-cages had been placed in a
row along the edge of the veranda, and he was nibbling orange-skin and
watching the canaries twittering and hopping on their perches. As he
heard the wheels of the buggy, he looked around, and raised a
cautioning hand: "Look out! You scare my birds. Rein in that mettlesome steed of yours!
That green cock was just going to take a bath."