I could scarcely have resisted

 
I could not repress a gleam of ironical amusement. She was absolutely truthful, yet it was a convention of hers that my word was law, and that I was the autocrat of the household. It was a postulate I dared not dispute.

"Yes, of course," I admitted, in response to her frigid, inquiring glance. "I'll—I'll think it over. In the meantime I'll have a look at him."

"Well, you'd better decide,—that is, I'm quite, quite willing to give the poor old man a trial."

Had I been of a different mind from Marion, William Wedder's persuasive arguments, and when I had talked with him for a few minutes I did not wonder that she had succumbed to his fascinating eloquence. I knew his praise of my semaphore must be flattery, and yet—I liked it. I felt sure from his manner, his appearance and his conversation that he was merely masquerading as a hired man, but I wanted to see him play[Pg 141] the part, although he looked more like a well-to-do retired farmer taking a holiday than a man who needed to travel about looking for work. He did not present credentials, but I ignored the question of references, which seemed quite unnecessary in view of his obvious respectability. He knew how to do farm work, he assured me; he was handy with tools, understood gardening, and could churn and make butter as well as milk the cow. As to terms, he would not take money, but he would be more than satisfied if he had his board and plenty of reading matter. In the slack time in midsummer,—his smooth-shaven jolly face grew solemn as he spoke,—perhaps, if it wouldn't be too much to ask, and if he needed a new suit of clothes, I might let him have just a township right to sell my gate-closer.

I fixed my curious gaze upon his rigid features. I knew instinctively that his earnest solemnity was assumed; I knew by experience that nothing was so effective in baffling any attempt to play off as a steady concentrated stare. His eyes drooped. slightly; he studied the names on the drawers of the spice-cabinet attentively; too attentively.

"William," I said, with deliberate, unbending determination, "I have avoided asking you embarrassing questions, but I must know the truth about this semaphore business before I decide whether to engage you or not. What prompted you to dig out my gate?"

I saw a faint flicker of almost contemptuous amusement in his face. "Why," he replied, as if he wondered at my asking such a simple question, "I seen that there notice up, of course."

"I want to know the truth," I repeated slowly, and this time I was almost startled by the perfection with which I imitated Marion's inflexible intonation.

His face assumed a pained and yet forgiving expression, and he regarded the hair broom with intense interest. I waited, as Marion had once waited for me, with the air of being willing to wait until he had time to compute the number of hairs it contained, and I tried to intimate silently[Pg 143] that my waiting could have but one result. This specialty of Marion's was more difficult, but I succeeded, for William suddenly laughed and looked me full in the face with engaging candor.

"Well, sir," he said, as if he found a difficulty in making the confession, "I didn't like to say so at first, but I thought—ha, ha!—it'd be a darn good joke on you."

I smiled appreciatively. William had done well; indeed I could not have done better myself, but I recognized a hollowness in his laugh. I waited with silent expectancy, as one of Paul's chickens might wait after receiving a grain of corn from his store.

He paused, looked a little blank, gulped, then with the air of one who reluctantly parts with his last coin, he added: "Besides, I wanted to see how the semaphore worked."

I shook my head, sighed, looked at him pityingly, for I saw the misguided man had persuaded himself it was the truth, and I divined, I know not how, that he was mistaken. I tried to recall what Marion would[Pg 144] have said at this juncture, and I said it; indeed, I said it so effectively that I wished Marion had been within earshot. If my voice had not been an octave lower than hers I might have doubted that it was mine.

William's peach-tinted cheeks flushed crimson; he wiped his brow with his red bandanna. "I ain't been cornered like this," he exclaimed, "since my miss—" He checked the utterance with an abrupt cough, and continued in a low soliloquizing tone, "Now I come to think of it, the wind was blowin' pretty fresh and jest when I come opposite the gate I caught a whiff that set me thinkin'."