Jimmy was easily the life of the party. He had a good tenor voice and
knew all the new songs “hot off of the bat” from New York. He told the
funniest stories, and at the same time was so good-natured and kindly
and modest withal that you had to like him. He was not the typical funny
man. Edwin Green felt that he could not have stood Molly’s preferring a
typical funny man to him. She did prefer Jimmy, he felt almost sure, and
now he was trying to steel himself to take his medicine like a man. He
was determined not to whine and not to make Molly unhappy. He had seen
the meeting between Molly and Jimmy, and it was the flood of color that
had suffused Molly’s face and her almost painful agitation that had
convinced him of her regard for that brilliant young journalist. Had he
heard the conversation as well as seen the meeting, he might have been
spared some of his unhappiness. Jimmy had said, “Where’s my lemon?” and
Molly had answered, “Done et up.”
They piled out of the wagon. John, the woodsman of the crowd, busied
himself making a fire, demanding that the two “extra men” should come
and chop wood, determined that they should not get in too many words
with the beautiful Miss Hunt while he was working. Miss Hunt then
exercised her fascinations on Jimmy Lufton, on whom she had had her eye
ever since they left Chatsworth. Jimmy was polite, but had a
“nothing-doing” expression which quite baffled the practiced flirt. Poor
Molly’s foot had gone so fast asleep that she was forced to hop around
for at least five minutes before she could get out of the wagon and
begin to make herself useful. Kent, who had driven, with Judy on the
front seat with him, was busy taking out the four horses to let them
rest for the heavy pull home. The other young men were occupied in
various ways, lifting the hampers out of the wagon and getting water
from the beautiful spring at the foot of the huge black rock. Professor
Green came to Molly’s assistance.
“I was afraid your foot would go to sleep. You are too good to let that
girl crowd you so. She was the most deliberately selfish person I ever
saw.”
“Oh, there is always somebody like that on a hay ride. I have never been
on one yet that there wasn’t some girl along with a headache who took up
more than her share of room. I am too long to double up; but it is all
right now. The tingle has stopped, and I can bear my weight on it, I
see.”
“Did you ever see anything more beautiful than this valley? How clever
Miss Kean is in hitting off a description! I haven’t thought of the
Doone Valley for years, and now I can’t get it out of my head; these
overhanging cliffs and this green grass, green even by moonlight; and
the sensation of being in an impenetrable fortress! And the great black
rock might be Carver Doone petrified and very much magnified, left here
forever for his sins. It must be a magnificent sight when the creek is
full.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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