"Well, I never saw the man yet who was too bashful to propose to the
right woman." And a great deal of decision went into the churning that
accompanied her words.
"Mebbe so, mebbe so," said the Squire. He felt that the vagaries of the
affections was too deep a subject for him. "Anyhow, Looizy, I don't want
no old maids and bachelors potterin' round this farm getting cranky
notions in their heads. Look at the professor. Why, a good woman would
have taken the nonsense out of him years ago."
Mrs. Bartlett did not have to go far to look at the professor. He was
flying about her front garden at that very moment in an apparently
distracted state, crouching, springing, hiding back of bushes and
reappearing with the startling swiftness of magic. The Bartletts were
quite used to these antics on the part of their well-paying summer
boarder. He was chasing butterflies--a manifestly insane proceeding, of
course, but if a man could afford to pay ten dollars a week for summer
board in the State of New Hampshire, he could afford to chase butterflies.
Professor Sterling was an old young man who had given up his life to
entomology; his collection of butterflies was more vital to him than any
living issue; the Bartletts regarded him as a mild order of lunatic,
whose madness might have taken a more dangerous form than making up long
names for every-day common bugs.
"Look at him, just look at him, Looizy, sweating himself a day like this,
over a common dusty miller. It beats all, and with his money."
"Well, it's a harmless amusement," said the kindly Louisa, "there's a
heap more harmful things that a man might chase than butterflies."
The stillness of the midsummer day was broken by the sound of far-off
singing. It came in full-toned volume across the fields, the high
soaring of women's voices blended with the deeper harmony of men.
"What's that?" said the Squire testily, looking in the direction of the
strawberry beds, from whence the singing came.
"It's only the berry-pickers, father," said David, coming through the
field gate and going over to the well for a drink.
"I wish they'd work more and sing less," said the Squire. "All this
singing business is too picturesque for me."
"They've about finished, father. I came for the money to pay them off."
It was characteristic of Dave to uphold the rights of the berry-pickers.
They were all friends of his, young men and women who sang in the village
choir and who went out among their neighbors' berry patches in summer,
and earned a little extra money in picking the fruit. The village
thought only the more of them for their thrift, and their singing at the
close of their work was generally regarded in the light of a favor.
Zeke, Sam, Cynthia and Amelia who formed the quartet, had all fine voices
and no social function for miles around Wakefield was complete without
their music.