Summer had come to the mountains, and with it the onrush of tourists from the low country, fleeing from the heat of city sidewalks and tall buildings. With the coming of the tourists the tempo of life at the county seat had been speeded up. The tourists had to be entertained; and their entertainment had to be quite different from anything they were accustomed to at home. Thus, there were taffy-pulls, fish-fries, square dances and picnics.
The Lodge was overflowing with fishing guests. Cherry was so busy that she scarcely realized the change in Loyce until one night, the first in a week or more, when there were only the two girls, the Judge and Jonathan at dinner, she looked across the table and saw Loyce was flushed and bright-eyed and pretty. She noticed the look in Jonathan’s eyes and barely restrained a faint whistle of surprise.
“There’s going to be a shindig down at Joe Mason’s barn tonight,” Cherry announced. “Job’s coming for me. Wouldn’t you like to go, Loyce? It would do you good.”
Loyce looked up and met Jonathan’s eyes, and his own widened with surprise and delight.
“Would you like to go, Jonny?” she asked.
Jonathan held himself sternly in check, unwilling to allow a hope that had been smacked down so often to rear its head again.
“I’m the city slicker myself,” he pointed out. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know what a ‘shindig’ is. Sounds like fun, though.”
“Oh, it’s a mountain name for square dancing,” Cherry explained gaily even as she coverertly watched the two. “A barn dance. You’ve never heard such music and may never again, unless it’s in another mountain community. But it is fun. Loyce is a marvelous square-dancer.”
“I’m not, really,” Loyce began, and caught her breath beneath the look in Jonathan’s eyes. “Well, maybe I am, if Cherry says I am. Cherry’s the expert in the family.”
“Well, I’m the fellow with two left feet and a tin ear when it comes to square dancing,” Jonathan said, and smiled warmly at Loyce. “But I’m supposed to be a fast study. Maybe you could teach me. That is, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Loyce assured him radiantly, and for just an instant Cherry exchanged startled glances with the Judge, who was also watching Loyce and Jonathan.
“Swell! That is, Cherry, if your invitation included me?” Jonathan grinned at Cherry.
“As if you didn’t know it did!” Cherry sniffed gaily. “You and Loyce can go in her car and Job and I in his car. And we’ll all meet at Joe Mason’s barn.”
Later, upstairs, Loyce asked Cherry, “I haven’t been to a barn dance in so long, Cherry. Do I have anything suitable to wear?”
“Well, of course,” said Cherry judiciously, her eyes merry, “you really should have something simple but exquisite in gold lamé or black velvet, with a yard or so of pearls — you zany! Anything suitable for a barn dance? There’s just one thing in your wardrobe I forbid you to wear, and that’s your overalls. Them’s for daytime, not for dances.”
Loyce laughed joyously and it was such a lovely sound and so unaccustomed that Cherry blinked in surprised delight as Loyce danced off to get dressed.
Downstairs, waiting for Job, Cherry perched on the arm of a chair across from the Judge and asked curiously, “What do you think, Gran’sir?”
“About what, chick?”
“Now don’t be coy with me, Gran’sir!” Cherry protested. “What do you think about Loyce and Jonny?”
“I think they make a very handsome couple, and they seem to be discovering that fact,” the Judge answered. “Do you mind?”
“Mind? Saints preserve us, Gran’sir, you asked me that ages ago because you had some crazy idea that I wanted Jonny for myself. But how could I, when I’ve got Job?”
“Oh?” The Judge’s eyebrows went up slightly. “Have you?”
“That,” Cherry told him firmly, “is what I propose to find out tonight.”
“Oh, then you’ve made up your mind?” asked the Judge.
Cherry chuckled like an amused child.
“Do you know something, Gran’sir? I don’t think there’s ever been the faintest doubt in my mind about that,” she admitted frankly. “I just had to have a good hard jolt to wake me up to the truth.”
“And the fact that Betty was after Job was the jolt?” asked the Judge.
Cherry nodded soberly. “I’m terribly sorry for Betty; she’s had a rough deal. Oh, I suppose it was her own fault she eloped with that creature her family couldn’t stand. But she probably thought she was in love with him. Anyway, I’m sorry for her. But I’m not sorry enough to give her my Job.”
The Judge eyed her curiously for a moment.
“So you aren’t going to give her Job?” he repeated.
“I certainly am not!”
“Well, could you, if you wanted to?”
Puzzled, Cherry stared at him, frowning.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, Gran’sir?” she asked him cautiously.
“Only that it always puzzles me how women can feel they can hand a man over as if they’d bought and paid for him and were taking him back to the exchange desk.”
Cherry colored faintly.
“Did I sound like that about Job, Gran’sir?” she asked humbly. “I didn’t mean to. What I meant was that if Betty wants him, I’ll fight her for him; but if Job wants her instead of me, I’ll be a lady about it if it kills me, even if I have to go into a decline and be a permanent old maid.”
“Who’s going to be an old maid?” demanded Job as he swung open the door and came into the house.
Cherry jumped and flushed scarlet as she scowled at him.
“Job Tallent, how long have you been standing there eavesdropping?” she demanded.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Job protested with some heat. “I just opened the door, and somebody said something about being a permanent old maid, and my curiosity was aroused. That’s all. Shall I go back outside and ring? I thought you’d hear the car and be warned I was approaching.”
Cherry smiled warmly at him and bent to kiss her grandfather’s cheek.
“See you all of a sudden, honey-lamb,” she told him, and turned to Job just as Jonathan and Loyce came down the stairs. Loyce wore a wide-skirted cotton print gown that hugged her upper body and spilled out into many gores below the narrow waist.
“Hi, you two, are you going to the shindig?” Job demanded.
“In my car, Job honey, so don’t worry,” Loyce told him. “Is that all right with you? Cherry invited us.”
“Well, of course,” Job answered. “I just didn’t know that you cared about barn dances, Loyce. It’s been much too long since you’ve been to one. You’ll be the belle of the ball. You’ll have your hands full, Jonny, fighting off the stags.”
“It’ll be a pleasure.” Jonathan grinned. “But I’m no good at square dancing, so maybe she’d rather dance with somebody else.”
Loyce said gaily, “Don’t be silly. What’s that crazy old song: ‘I always dance with the guy what brung me’?”
Job looked almost as startled at Loyce’s unaccustomed gaiety as Cherry and the Judge had been. But nobody remarked on it, and Loyce swept Jonathan out of the house, the bright scarf of her laughter floating back to them as they exchanged swift glances.
Job whistled softly and looked at Cherry with raised brows.
“That really was Loyce, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Or a reasonable facsimile.” Cherry laughed. “Oh, Job, isn’t it wonderful? She’s beginning to live again.”
“Well, hooray for her!” said Job with deep sincerity. “Well, shall we get going?”
They said good night to the Judge and went out to where Job’s car was waiting. Job put Cherry into it and slid beneath the wheel, and as the car rolled down the drive, picking up speed as it neared the county road, Cherry glanced at him in the dim light from the instrument panel.
“I suppose Betty will be there?” she asked sweetly.
“Betty?” Job glanced at her and back at the road as he negotiated the turn. “Betty who?”
“Oh, now, Job, please!”
“I suppose you mean Betty Marshall.” Job’s tone was a trifle stiff.
“Well, who else would I mean?”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” Job said, and then his tone sharpened. “I can’t understand why all you girls have your knives out for that girl. She’s a decent, honest, straightforward girl and she’s had a very rough deal.”
“Do tell!” Cherry murmured dryly, but her hands were clenched tightly in her lap.
“Well, it’s true,” said Job harshly. “It can’t be much fun for her living there with that old sourpuss of a father and that stepmother with her own brood of youngsters, resenting every bite Betty eats and working her half to death. And Betty can’t get a job and leave them, because she has no training that would make it possible for her to earn enough to live on. But to hear the girls around town talk, you’d think Betty was a siren out of an old movie.”
“Well, simmer down, pal, simmer down,” Cherry said. “I only asked if she would be at the dance. I know you’ve been seeing a lot of her, and I thought you would probably know.”
Job drew the car to a halt beside the road, well over on the edge, and turned to her with an air of a man who had something on his mind.
“I haven’t been seeing a lot of Betty, as you express it,” he stated flatly. “I took her to a box supper at the church one Saturday night when you were all tied up at the Lodge with a houseful of fishing guests. I’ve seen her a few times on the street; we went to a movie one night because I felt sorry for her. I would have told you about it.”
“Why should you?” Cherry could not keep back the words.
“Because I was fool enough to think you might be interested,” he told her swiftly. “And then you made it plain that very little interested you except Jonathan Gayle, so I kept my mouth shut. I like Betty; I feel sorry for her. But you have known for a long time how I feel about you. And you seem to get quite a bang out of keeping me dangling while you gallop gaily off with somebody like Jonathan Gayle. Well, let’s get one thing clear here and now. I’m getting a trifle tired of dangling. I want a wife and a home. And I’d like you to be that wife; I’d like it more than anything in the world. That is, if you can ever make up your mind. But if you don’t, Cherry, we are going to call the whole thing off.”
Cherry caught her breath soundlessly and fought for a tone that was reasonably steady before she asked, “In which case, Betty gets elected?”
“Could be,” snapped Job.
“Well, I’m sorry for Betty, too,” Cherry managed after a moment, her voice shaking slightly, “but not sorry enough to let her marry you. Because that’s what I’m going to do, and it’s illegal for a man to have two wives.”
There was a stunned moment before Job could convince himself that he had really heard what he had wanted so long to hear.
“What did you say?” he asked at last, his own voice far from steady.
“I said that I wanted to marry you, Job; that is, if you still want me to,” Cherry managed shakily.
“If I still want you to!” Job said barely above his breath. His arms reached for her and drew her close and hard against him, and his lips sought and found her own in a kiss that seemed to close like warm, gentle fingers about her heart and lift it to her lips for his taking.
There was an interval that might have been minutes or only seconds while they savored to the full the perfection of that exquisite time. Then Job lifted his head and put her a few inches away from him, and in the dim light from the instrument panel he saw that his face was twisted by a puzzled scowl.
“Is this on the level, Cherry?” he asked her huskily. “You’re not just taking me for a ride? You mean it? You want to marry me?”
Quick tears sprang to Cherry’s eyes at the aching humility in his voice, and she framed his face between her two palms and raised her own face to set her mouth against his.
“Oh, darling, yes, with all my heart,” she whispered when her lips were free for speech. “And I’m a low-down so-and-so to have taken so long to know the truth. You’ll despise me.”
“Now that I doubt.”
“You will when I tell you that it was jealousy of Betty that made me realize I loved you. Isn’t that a terrible confession? Now do you despise me?”
Job laughed and his arms tightened about her.
“You want to know something?” he told her confidentially. “I’ve been in love with you since we went to school together. But I wasn’t in any great hurry for us to be married until Gayle showed up at the Lodge. And then I knew that if you didn’t marry me, I’d have a very lonely old age; because there couldn’t be anybody else for me but you.”
“Not even Betty?” she teased.
“Not anybody,” Job assured her firmly.
“Poor Betty!” said Cherry later as they finally remembered the dance and Job drove on.
“Don’t make fun of her, Cherry,” said Job sharply.
“Darling!” Cherry was hurt that he should misunderstand. “How could I? I was just thinking. Do you suppose she’d like to come and live at the Lodge? She would be very useful, and we could pay her enough for spending money, and she’d have no expenses. Do you think she’d like that?”
“I think she’d love it, and I love you for thinking of it,” Job told her. “It adds one more to the several million reasons I love you, come to think of it.”
Ahead of them a wide sweep of driveway opened up, and at the end of it the Mason barn, a huge square building with a few windows here and there, blazed with yellow light.
As Job parked the car beside the drive, thrusting its nose in between those of cars of all vintages and makes, he looked down at Cherry
“I suppose we’ll have to go in?” he asked reluctantly.
“I’m afraid so.” Cherry sounded equally reluctant, and then she asked lightly, “Will your boss object to your living at the Lodge instead of at your station?”
Job frowned in bewilderment.
“What a silly question! We’ll be living at the station, of course; where else? It’s my job, honey, and I wouldn’t want any other.”
Cherry sat erect. “Oh, but, Job, I can’t go away and leave Gran’sir,” she protested.
“Now look, Cherry, we’re going to be married and of course you are coming to live at the station,” he told her sternly. “Mother has been wanting to go to Florida and live with my sister and that will leave the house for you to boss single-handed. Don’t tell me you won’t live there. Cherry, it’s a beautiful place! You’ll love it!”
“Oh, I’m sure I will, darling. Any place where you are will be a beautiful place to me,” Cherry assured him, and was suitably rewarded “It’s just that I hate to leave Gran’sir. Still, Loyce will still be there, and I can train Betty to take over my job.”
Job said quietly, “For a moment you had me worried.”
Cherry looked up at him in swift compunction.
“Did I, darling? I’m sorry. Forgive me?”
“I doubt you could do anything I wouldn’t forgive,” he admitted, and drew her close. “It’s just that it’s taken you so long to make up your mind to marry me that I was a bit uneasy; afraid you’d suddenly change your mind.”
Cherry framed his face between her two hands and set her mouth on his in a kiss of lingering tenderness.
“That, my darling, is something you need never worry about again,” she told him softly.
When at last they left the car and walked toward the barn, they were hand in hand. Just before they reached the entrance, double doors large enough to permit a two-horse team to enter, Loyce and Jonathan came to greet them.
“Where have you been?” Loyce asked. “I was worried about you, afraid you’d had an accident.”
Cherry looked up at Job, and her smile was a lovely thing to see.
“Shall we tell her?” she asked lightly.
“Why not? I’ll climb up on the roof and broadcast it to the world if you like,” Job answered with an expansive grin.
“We’ve been getting ourselves engaged,” beamed Cherry.
She was so absorbed, so wrapped in her own happiness that she did not catch the swift flicker of expression that crossed Loyce’s face; an expression of dismay that was swallowed up almost immediately by Loyce’s protestations of delight and congratulations. But Jonathan, who had been watching Loyce, saw that swift flicker of dismay, and for a moment his jaw hardened and his eyes were bleak.
Cherry, bubbling with happiness, said eagerly, “You boys trot along inside. I want to talk to Loyce a minute.”
Job chuckled. “Might as well start learning to obey orders, I suppose. She’s a very managing female. Come on, Gayle. Let’s see if we can find ourselves partners for the next hoe-down.”
When they were alone, Cherry drew Loyce to a spot near a big oak tree that shaded the corner of the barn and said eagerly, “Job says we’ll have to live at the ranger station.”
“Well, of course. It’s nice his mother and you are such good friends. There won’t be any mother-in-law trouble.” Loyce kept her tone light.
“Golly, can you imagine anybody ever having trouble with Miss Lucy? She’s the grandest person. Maybe one reason I fell in love with Job was because I was so crazy about Miss Lucy,” Cherry laughed and rushed on. “But I had an idea coming down. What would you think of asking Betty Marshall to come and live at the Lodge? I could teach her how to handle reservations and the books and all. And of course, you’ll be there.”
The shadows beneath the oak, newly leaved and rustling slightly in the crisp air, concealed Loyce’s face from her, and Loyce’s voice was quite steady as she answered, “Yes, of course I’ll be there.”
“Betty is having a rotten time of it at home and she hasn’t any business training. But I remember she was a whiz at arithemetic in school, so she won’t have any trouble with the bookkeeping, I know,” Cherry rushed on. “And she’ll be company for you and Gran’sir. What do you think?”
Loyce said quietly, “I think it’s a wonderful idea. Betty’s here tonight. Why don’t you talk to her and see what she thinks.”
“You don’t think I ought to talk to Gran’sir first?” asked Cherry.
“I am sure he will be perfectly agreeable. Betty’s a nice girl and a very deserving one. She would get along beautifully with the Mitchells. If Betty would like to come to the Lodge and take over for you, I think it would be a wonderful arrangement,” said Loyce and her voice was completely steady. “I’m so happy for you and Job, Cherry. You’ve known each other so long, it couldn’t be anything but a perfect marriage.”
“You’re sweet, Loyce. And I hope some day — ” Cherry broke off awkwardly and added, “We’d better get into the dancing and protect our men folks from predatory females. I don’t trust these ‘tourister gals’ worth a cent.”
Loyce managed a smile and walked, head up, eyes straight ahead, back into the big, noisy barn.