As the night air grew sharper more wraps were called for. When Doctor
Lanning and Mrs. Whitney started after them they asked Gertrude what
they should bring her, but she said she needed nothing.
As she sat, she could see Glover, her sister Marie on a stool beside
him, watching the boiling taffy. With one foot doubled under him for a
seat, and an elbow supported on his knee he steadied himself like a
camp cook behind his modest fire; but even as he crouched the blaze
threw him up astonishingly tall. Heedless of the chatter around the
big fire the man whose business was to bridle rivers, fight snowslides,
raze granite hills, and dispute for their dizzy passes with the bighorn
and the bear, bent patiently above his pot of molasses, a coaxing stick
in one hand and a careful chip in the other.
"Where, pray, Mr. Glover, did you learn that?" demanded Marie Brock.
He had been explaining the chemical changes that follow each stage of
the boiling in sugar. "I learned the taffy business from the old negro
mammy that 'raised' me down on the Mississippi, Aunt Chloe. She taught
me everything I know--except mathematics--and mathematics I don't know
anyway." Mrs. Whitney was distributing the wraps. "I would have
brought your Newmarket if I could have found it, Gertrude."
"Her Newmarket!" exclaimed Allen Harrison. "Gertrude hasn't told the
Newmarket story, eh? She threw it over a tramp asleep in the rain down
at the Spider Water bridge."
"What?"
"--And was going to disown me because I wouldn't give up my overcoat
for a tarpaulin."
"Gertrude Brock!" exclaimed Mrs. Whitney. "Your Newmarket! Then you
deserve to freeze," she declared, settling under her fur cape. "What
will she do next? Now, Mr. Blood, we are all here; what about that
story?"
Morris Blood turned. Glover, Marie Brock watching, tested the foaming
candy. Doctor Lanning, on a cushion, strummed his banjo.
In front of Gertrude, Harrison, inhaling a cigarette, stretched before
the fire. Declining a stool, Gertrude was sitting on a chair of ties.
One, projecting at her side, made a rest for her elbow and she reclined
her head upon her hand as she watched the flames leap.
"The incident Miss Donner asked about occurred when I was despatching,"
began the superintendent.
"Oh, are you a despatcher, too?" asked Louise, clasping her hands upon
her knee as she leaned forward.
"They would hardly trust me with a train-sheet now; this was some time
ago."