White Narcissus by Raymond Knister Read Free Book Online

could be accomplished. Meanwhile it seemed likely that smoke would contribute as much as heat to the texture of the toast. “I didn’t put your hat in the front hall,” she added, as instinctively the young man reached to the nail behind the door. “Doesn’t seem right to treat you like ordinary company so much –”
    Outside the shade was chill and the air quiet, as though the trees had forgotten the struggle with the wind of the night before. The dust of the lane appeared to have been swept by it, smoothed from so much as a leaf upon the surface. The spirit of those gusty hours had belatedly entered Carson Hymerson.
    “If he does stay it’ll be all right for us. He won’t know anything about it and people won’t –”
    The farmer was still ejaculating and gesturing, unaware of his guest’s approach. Arvin tried to warn him of it by smiling and leaving the rake with outstretched hand to greet his early friend. “Here! What’s the idea –” Then the other saw too.
    Arvin Hymerson was perhaps an inch taller than Richard Milne when he straightened, and his rather bashful smile was not belied by the freshet of reminiscent inquiry with which such meetings are accompanied. Still the interest was there, real, and Richard Milne found himself feeling that he had been away perhaps two weeks. For the first time he fully realized his return. When the weather had been canvassed Arvin said:
    “We’re fixing up the old side-delivery rake. Kind of late getting around to it, but we thought we’d better do it ourselves instead of sending it to the blacksmith.”
    The older man looked up from the teeth of the rake and grinned mockingly.
    “Arvin here’s been buying a cow. I was just telling him he’d ought to have been making a regular study of the market before he went out. Then he’d been sure not to get beat.”
    Richard smiled. “Oh, I should think that Arvin must know a good deal about cattle, Mr. Hymerson. I don’t think I’d care to have a trade with him myself.” He was not accusing Arvin of dishonesty. He found himself sympathetically taking on the attitude and locutions of a former time.
    “Not ’less you wanted to get beat, eh?” The man was somewhat mollified. “Well, go and look at his cow. Just go and look at it, and see what you think of the bargain. I’ll tell you how much he gave afterwards.” A challenging malice spoke here, as though his son were not present.
    The latter, Richard Milne reflected after looking at the cow, a goodly and not noteworthy Shorthorn, deserved consideration for his patience; for his industry also, since thefloors of the cow stable were as spotless as its whitewashed cement walls. As though conscious of his friend’s attitude, Arvin remarked:
    “Litter-carriers. Farming’s not so bad as it used to be. Things are getting a little handier.”
    They stood talking a few minutes at the doorway of the stable, which framed a green and grey landscape, and then went to breakfast. Richard Milne found himself in good spirits and inclined to play the part of the well-entertained guest. This would not hurt his cause with Mrs. Hymerson, he knew. He had decided not to go back to the city, and to let it rest with her whether he was to stay, “spend his vacation,” in that house. From Carson Hymerson, he divined, anything, or nothing, might be expected.
    The farmer had changed considerably with the years, from the young man’s memory of him – a surreptitiously waggish, brisk fellow taking chop to mill, striding about the muddy streets in a yellow raincoat and rubber boots, laughing and joking with other farmers on the steps of the store. This present swiftness of speech, innuendo, and attitude of not being taken in by anybody, was perhaps the result of forces in the man which the years could not but have brought out. Richard Milne had never ceased to admire the peripety of life, its myriad fugacious shadings like lake tints which become more intricate to the sight with care in