Sometimes in the afternoon when he went
for one of his long drives through the country he asked his daughter to
accompany him, and although he had little to say a kind of gallantry crept
into his attitude toward the awakening girl. While she was in the buggy
with him, he did not chew tobacco, and after one or two attempts to indulge
in the habit without having the smoke blow in her face, he gave up smoking
his pipe during the drives.
Always before that summer Clara had spent the months when there was no
school in the company of the farm hands. She rode on wagons, visited the
barns, and when she grew weary of the company of older people, went into
town to spend an afternoon with one of her friends among the town girls.
In the summer of her seventeenth year she did none of these things. At the
table she ate in silence. The Butterworth household was at that time run
on the old-fashioned American plan, and the farm hands, the men who drove
the ice and milk wagons and even the men who killed and dressed cattle and
sheep, ate at the same table with Tom Butterworth, his sister, who was the
housekeeper, and his daughter. Three hired girls were employed in the house
and after all had been served they also came and took their places at
table. The older men among the farmer's employees, many of whom had known
her from childhood, had got into the habit of teasing the daughter of the
house.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164