FullReads

The effect is impressionistic, like purple cows. Billy doesn’t care for it, but I do. And I adore the brilliant red of the roads. Billy says he’ll take good brown earth and white flocks. He might be reconciled to black sheep but never to pink ones.

We used to eat our supper on the porch of the Empty House. It had great pillars, and it was rather awe-inspiring to sit on the front steps and look up the whole length, of those Corinthian columns. Billy and I felt dwarfed and insignificant, but we forgot it when we turned our eyes to the hills.

The big door behind us and the blank windows were shut and shuttered close. There were flying squirrels on the roof and little blue-tailed lizards on the stone flagging in front of the house; and there was an old toad who used to keep us company. I called him Prince Charming, and I am sure he was as old as Methuselah, and lived under that stone in some prehistoric age.

We just loved our little suppers. We had coffee in our thermos bottle, and cold fried chicken and bread and butter sandwiches and chocolate cake. We never changed, because we were always afraid that we shouldn’t like anything else so well, and we were sure of the chicken and the chocolate cake.

And after we had eaten our suppers we would talk about what kind of house we would build when our ship came in. Billy and I both have nice tastes, and we know what we want; and we feel that the grocery store is just a stepping-stone to better things.

The sunsets were late in those spring days, and there would be pink and green and pale amethyst in the western sky, and after that deep sapphire and a silver moon. And as it grew darker the silver would turn to gold, and there would be a star–and then more stars until the night came on.

I can’t tell you how we used to feel. You see we were young and in love, and life was a pretty good thing to us. There was one perfect night when the hills were flooded with moonlight. We seemed all alone in a lovely world and I whispered:

“Oh, Billy, Billy, and some folks think that there isn’t any God–“

And Billy put his arm around me and patted my cheek, and we didn’t say anything for a long time.

It was just a week later that Lady Crusoe came. I knew that some one was in the house as soon as we passed the second gate. The door was still closed, and the shutters were not opened, but I heard a clock strike–a ship’s clock–with bells.

I clutched Billy. “Listen,” I said.

He heard it, too; “Who in the dickens?” he demanded.

“There’s somebody in the house–“

“Nonsense–“

“Billy, there must be, and we can’t sit on the porch.”

“You stay here, and I’ll go around to the back.”

But I wouldn’t let him go alone. At the back of the house a window was open, and then we were sure.

“We’d better leave,” I said, but Billy insisted that we stay. “If they are new people, I’ll find out their names, and come up to-morrow and get their orders.”

We went around to the front door and knocked and knocked, but nobody answered. So we sat down on the front step and presently Billy said that we might as well eat our supper, for very evidently nobody was at home.

I didn’t feel a bit comfortable about it, but I opened our basket and got out our cups and plates, and Billy poured the coffee and passed the chicken and the bread and butter sandwiches. And just then the door creaked and the knob turned!

My first impulse was to gather up the lunch and tumble it into the basket; but I didn’t. I just sat there looking up as calmly as if I were serving tea at my own table, and Billy sat there too looking up.