Algy is four; till last year he was always called the baby. Now, of course, there is no excuse; but the name still clings to him in spite of his indignant protestations. Father called upstairs to him the other day: 'Baby, bring me down my gaiters.' He walked straight up to the cradle and woke up the baby. 'Get up,' I heard him say--I was just outside the door--'and take your father down his gaiters. Don't you hear him calling you?' He is a droll little fellow. Father took him to Oxford last Saturday. He is small for his age. The ticket-collector, quite contented, threw him a glance, and merely as a matter of form asked if he was under three. 'No,' he shouted before father could reply; 'I 'sists on being honest. I'se four.' It is father's pet phrase."
"What view do you take of the exchange," I asked her, "from stockbroking with its larger income to farming with its smaller?"
"Perhaps it was selfish," she answered, "but I am afraid I rather encouraged father. It seems to me mean, making your living out of work that does no good to anyone. I hate the bargaining, but the farming itself I love. Of course, it means having only one evening dress a year and making that myself. But even when I had a lot I always preferred wearing the one that I thought suited me the best.
As for the children, they are as healthy as young savages, and everything they want to make them happy is just outside the door.
The boys won't go to college; but seeing they will have to earn their own living, that, perhaps, is just as well. It is mother, poor dear, that worries so." She laughed again. "Her favourite walk is to the workhouse. She came back quite excited the other day because she had heard the Guardians intend to try the experiment of building separate houses for old married couples. She is convinced she and father are going to end their days there."
"You, as the business partner," I asked her, "are hopeful that the farm will pay?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, "it will pay all right--it does pay, for the matter of that. We live on it and live comfortably. But, of course, I can see mother's point of view, with seven young children to bring up. And it is not only that." She stopped herself abruptly. "Oh, well," she continued with a laugh, "you have got to know us. Father is trying. He loves experiments, and a woman hates experiments.
Last year it was bare feet. I daresay it is healthier. But children who have been about in bare feet all the morning--well, it isn't pleasant when they sit down to lunch; I don't care what you say. You can't be always washing. He is so unpractical. He was quite angry with mother and myself because we wouldn't. And a man in bare feet looks so ridiculous. This summer it is short hair and no hats; and Sally had such pretty hair. Next year it will be sabots or turbans--something or other suggesting the idea that we've lately escaped from a fair. On Mondays and Thursdays we talk French. We have got a French nurse; and those are the only days in the week on which she doesn't understand a word that's said to her. We can none of us understand father, and that makes him furious. He won't say it in English; he makes a note of it, meaning to tell us on Tuesday or Friday, and then, of course, he forgets, and wonders why we haven't done it. He's the dearest fellow alive. When I think of him as a big boy, then he is charming, and if he really were only a big boy there are times when I would shake him and feel better for it."
She laughed again. I wanted her to go on talking, because her laugh was so delightful. But we had reached the road, and she said she must go back: there were so many things she had to do.
"We have not settled about Dick," I reminded her.
"Mother took rather a liking to him," she murmured.
"If Dick could make a living," I said, "by getting people to like him, I should not be so anxious about his future--lazy young devil!"
"He has promised to work hard if you let him take up farming," said Miss Janie.
"He has been talking to you?" I said.
She admitted it.
"He will begin well," I said. "I know him. In a month he will have tired of it, and be clamouring to do something else."
"I shall be very disappointed in him if he does," she said.
"I will tell him that," I said, "it may help. People don't like other people to be disappointed in them."
"I would rather you didn't," she said. "You could say that father will be disappointed in him. Father formed rather a good opinion of him, I know."
"I will tell him," I suggested, "that we shall all be disappointed in him."
She agreed to that, and we parted. I remembered, when she was gone, that after all we had not settled terms.
Dick overtook me a little way from home.
"I have settled your business," I told him.
"It's awfully good of you," said Dick.
"Mind," I continued, "it's on the understanding that you throw yourself into the thing and work hard. If you don't, I shall be disappointed in you, I tell you so frankly."
"That's all right, governor," he answered cheerfully. "Don't you worry."
"Mr. St. Leonard will also be disappointed in you, Dick," I informed him. "He has formed a very high opinion of you. Don't give him cause to change it."
"I'll get on all right with him," answered Dick. "Jolly old duffer, ain't he?"
"Miss Janie will also be disappointed in you," I added.
"Did she say that?" he asked.
"She mentioned it casually," I explained: "though now I come to think of it she asked me not to say so. What she wanted me to impress upon you was that her father would be disappointed in you."
Dick walked beside me in silence for awhile.
"Sorry I've been a worry to you, dad," he said at last "Glad to hear you say so," I replied.
"I'm going to turn over a new leaf, dad," he said. "I'm going to work hard."
"About time," I said.