Wired Love - Ella Cheever Thayer (read any book txt) 📗

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"Come! come! let us not talk on such incongruous subjects this lovely day! let us rather talk sentiment!" and he gave a prodigious wink in Jo's direction.

"I fear we are not a very sentimental party!" laughed Cyn; adding mischievously, "except, of course, Quimby and Celeste!"

"Oh! I—I am not, I assure you! I am not in the least, you know!" protested Quimby, taking a roll on the log; "never felt less so in my life."

"Why, Ralfy!" exclaimed Celeste, reproachfully, and to his distress went up close to him, and would have sat down by his side, but for the uncontrollable rolling propensity of that log, which made it impossible.

"How is it with you, Jo?" queried Cyn; "can you not for once, forget your horrible hobby, and be a little sentimental, in honor of the day?"

Jo, who was throwing sticks into the water, to the great disturbance of the bugs, and plainly-shown annoyance of a big frog, made a somewhat surprising reply. Decidedly seriously, he said,

"I fear if I should attempt it, I might get too much in earnest!"

"Oh! we will risk that, so please begin!" said Cyn, but staring at him a little as she spoke. "Jo, sentimental! Just imagine it!"

"Will you risk it?" he asked still seriously, and with so peculiar an expression that she could reply only by another astonished stare.

"But really, it does not pay to be sentimental, as you all ought to have found out long ago! as Jo and I have!" Nattie said, jestingly, yet with an undertone of earnestness.

"Then," said Clem, dryly, "since it is so with us, let us fish!" and he threw his line into the stream.

Cyn, Jo, and Mrs. Simonson followed his example. Quimby declined joining in the sport, and perhaps, likening himself to the fish, balanced himself on the log, and looked on with a pathetic face. Celeste, as in duty bound, remained by his side. Nattie, too, was an observer only, and from the expression off her face was decidedly not amused.

"I think it is cruel!" she exclaimed, as Jo took a fish off Cyn's hook.

"I—I quite agree with you!" Quimby replied quickly, in answer to
Nattie's observation. "It is cruel!"

"But perhaps the fish were made for people to catch," suggested the pacific Mrs. Simonson, who had not yet been able to get a bite.

"Yes," acquiesced Clem, pulling up a skinny little fish. "They are no worse off than we poor mortals after all. We must each fulfill our destiny, whether man or fish."

"Yes! it is all fate!" exclaimed Quimby vehemently. "We cannot help ourselves!"

"You believe in fate then? I don't think I do!" said Cyn, with a glance half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; "what incentive would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out for us in advance?"

"That is a question requiring too much effort for us to discuss on a warm day," said Nattie.

"Certain circumstances must bring about certain results, you will acknowledge," Clem gravely remarked.

"But, it is said that every soul that is born has a twin somewhere; and if so, that must be fate!" said Mrs. Simonson.

"Miss Kling's theory, I believe!" laughed Nattie.

"If it is so, the right ones don't often come together," said Quimby gloomily.

"We are an exception, then, to the general rule!" simpered Celeste.

Quimby groaned, and then murmured something about the toothache.

"Poor fellow!" said Cyn, in a low voice, to Nattie.

"After all, there is something in fate," Nattie sighed.

"Perhaps so," she said.

"Well, we will not get solemn over fate," said Jo, cheerily; then, in a lower voice, as he glanced at Cyn, he added—"yet."

"And do not frighten away what few fish there are here, with your theories," commanded Clem.

Although this mandate was obeyed, and for a time silence reigned, it was not long before they were all singing a gay song, started by Clem himself, even Quimby joining in the chorus with a feeble tenor. But they were tired of fishing by that time, and began to feel as if a little refreshment would not be out of place, and would indeed enhance the loveliness of Nature, so a fire was made, and lunch-baskets unpacked.

"It will take a good many of those fish for a mouthful," declared Clem, who was cook.

"You may have my share, I can't eat creatures I have seen squirm," said
Nattie.

"Ah, you fastidious young woman! what shall I ever do with you, if you are cast away on a desert island with me?" exclaimed Clem, in mock despair.

"Set up a telegraph wire, and then she would need nothing more," insinuated Cyn.

"And get snubbed for my pains!" muttered Clem, sotto voce. But Nattie caught the words, and an expression of distress passed over her face.

"This reminds me of that feast!" Cyn declared, as they sealed themselves wherever convenient, with a dish of whatever was handy.

"Only more so," added Clem.

"What feast?" asked Celeste, curiously.

"One we had once," Cyn replied evasively, glad there was something Celeste did not know about. In fact, in the matter of curiosity, Celeste was an embryo Miss Kling.

"I am sorry we have no Charlotte Russes to-day, Quimby," remarked Clem, with an expression of transparent innocence.

Quimby could only reply with a groan. The recollections awakened were too much.

"What is the matter now, Ralfy?" asked the loving Celeste.

Again Quimby muttered something about "that tooth."

"Oh!" said Celeste, tenderly, "you really must have it out, Ralfy!"

The possibility of being obliged to part with a sound tooth in self-defense, restored him for the time being. But he was not the only one to whom the retrospect brought a momentary pain. Nattie sighed as she looked back to the day that had brought Clem, but not restored as she then supposed, but taken away, her "C."

"The salubrious air and the invigorating odor of the forest adds immeasurably to the natural capacity of the appetite!" commented Jo, gravely, as he passed his plate for the seventh fish.

"Ah!" sighed Celeste, who prided herself on her delicacy, "I never could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement," simpering, "I cannot swallow enough to scarce keep me alive!"

Quimby looked up eagerly.

"I—I beg pardon, but if the—if the engagement weighs upon you, I—I am willing to release you, you know!" he exclaimed, hopefully.

"You jealous creature!" replied Celeste, archly. "You know, Ralfy, that no consideration could make me release you!"

Quimby knew it only too well, and sighed as he picked a chicken bone.

"A great objection to dining in the woods is that one is apt to find his food unexpectedly seasoned!" said Clem, as he captured a six-legged bug of an adventurous spirit, that had sought to investigate the contents of his plate.

"Isn't it strange that bugs don't seem half so bad in our food here as they would at home!" said Mrs. Simonson.

"Oh! we can get used to anything, if we only think so!" said Cyn, bringing her cheery philosophy to the front.

"Yes!" assented Quimby, mournfully, "I—I am used to it, you know!"

Cyn laughed, and then proposed the health of the betrothed pair, which was drank in lager beer, and to which Quimby, bolstered up by Celeste, attempted to respond, but collapsed in the middle of the third sentence, and with the words,

"Thank you! and I—I am used to it, you know!" sat down, wiped his forehead on his napkin, and looked intensely miserable.

After that they toasted Cyn, and then "Dots and Dashes," and last, Jo with mock solemnity proposed "Fate."

And just then Quimby met with a fresh mishap, and came near ending his sufferings in a watery grave, only the water did not happen to be quite deep enough. Arising from the sharp-pointed rock that had served him for a pivot on which to eat his dinner, he stumbled, fell and rolled over and over down the bank, and into the river, with a tremendous splash.

Every one jumped up in consternation.

"Oh, Clem! Jo!" shrieked Celeste, wringing her hands, and rushing down to the water's edge. "Save him! Save my darling Ralfy!"

"Ralfy," however, was equal to saving his own life this time. The water was only up to his waist, and he had already picked himself up and was wading ashore.

"I—I am all right!" he said looking up at his anxious friends with a reassuring smile. "I—I am used to it, you know!"

As Clem assisted him up the bank, the thought came into Cyn's head, why would it not be a good idea to push Nat—accidentally—into the river, so Clem might rescue her, and thus bring about that much to be desired crisis? But remembering that water would run the colors of her dress, and farther, how dreadfully unbecoming it was to be wet—a fact fully demonstrated by the present appearance of Quimby—Cyn rejected the idea as not exactly feasible.

They left Quimby drying on a sunny bank, with Celeste as guardian angel, love, and the remains of the repast to cheer her, and the consciousness that his clothes were shrinking on him as they dried, to divert him, and wandered off through the woods, and over the hills, gathering on the way so many flowers and green things, that Cyn declared they looked like Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.

At first they were all together, then straggled apart; Mrs. Simonson being the first dereliction, as she was not quite equal to climbing as fast as the young people. Thus it came about that Nattie found herself alone with Clem, and suddenly stopping, with some embarrassment, but steadily, said,

"There is something I wish to say to you. You have spoken several times of late about my 'snubbing' you. I want to say, I have not intentionally done so; that I have the same—the same friendship for you as always, and that I wish you every happiness. What may have appeared to you as strange or cold in my conduct of late, is due to secrets of my own."

Clem look at her scrutinizingly, as she spoke, and the flowers he had gathered fell unheeded from his hands.

"It has never been my wish that any coldness should come between us; you know that, Nattie," he replied earnestly. "From our first acquaintance, the old acquaintance over the wire, you have held the same place in my heart!"

"The place next to Cyn!" was Nattie's involuntary bitter thought, but she instantly stifled the feeling, and answered,

"Thank you, Clem; and I hope we may always be the same friends."

At this Clem took an impetuous step towards her, and would have said—who can tell what?—had not at the same moment Mrs. Simonson, very much out of breath, come up with them. Nattie was not sorry. She had wished to say to him what she had, that he might not think her changed manner of late had been caused by any feeling of dislike, and might understand she wished him success with Cyn. But she had no desire to prolong the interview, and gladly walked on by the side of the puffing Mrs. Simonson.

Clem, however, looked displeased, and followed with a thoughtful face; so thoughtful that Mrs. Simonson noticed and wondered at his preoccupation.

Meanwhile, Cyn, with Jo, were far in advance, and had turned into a by-path that led toward a slight rising, sauntering on, Cyn talking merrily, Jo unusually quiet, until suddenly stopping, she exclaimed,

"Dear me! we have lost sight of every one! Had we not better return?"

"No! I do not want to!" answered Jo, bluntly.

"Do you not? As you say, only we must not lose them. Possibly they may stroll this way; shall we sit down?" and without waiting for a response Cyn seated herself on a big rock by the side of the pathway.

Although Jo was not romantic, he had an artist-eye, and could not but note the beauty of the scene before him, a scene he did not need to reproduce on canvas to remember ever after;—the mountains in the background, the narrow path sloping down from the near hill to where, on the gray and moss-covered rock, Cyn sat, her dark eyes mellow with the summer sunshine, and the cherry ribbons of her hat giving the requisite touch of color to make the picture perfect.

For a moment he stood in silent admiration, then, taking off his hat, and smoothing down his shaven locks, he said,

"To tell the truth, Cyn, I