Man to Man Page 27

  CHAPTER XXVII

  IN HONOR OF THE FAIRY QUEEN!

  "Guy Little!"

  The old man's voice boomed out mightily as the old man himself strodeback and forth impatiently in the big barn-like library of his ranchhome. Guy Little appeared with a promptness savoring either of magicor prepared expectancy.

  "You rang, your majesty?"

  "Rang, your foot!" shouted old Packard. "I hollered my ol' head off.What's the day of the week, Guy Little?"

  "It's Wednesday, your----"

  "An' what's the day of the month?"

  "It's the nineteenth, your----"

  "Then tell me, sir," and the old man's tone was angry and challengingto a remarkable degree, "why in the name of the devil my gran'son,Stephen, ain't showed up yet!"

  Guy Little might have remarked that it was rather early to expect anyone to show up. It was not yet six o'clock of a morning which promisedto be one of the very finest mornings ever known. The old man had, asGuy Little expressed it, "been prancin' an' pawin' aroun'," for an hour.

  Guy Little grinned like any cherub.

  "He has showed up," he chuckled, though he had meant to hold back thetidings teasingly. "He come in late las' night. You was asleep an'sleepin' soun', so----"

  "He did, did he?" bellowed the old man. "Crept in like a damn' thiefin the night, did he? Well, where is he now? Sleepin' yet, I'll bebound. When he ought to be up an'-- Why, when I was a young devil hisage----"

  "He's outside somewhere," said Guy Little. "He has been down to thecrick for a mornin' dip, I'd guess, your majesty."

  "Why would you guess that?"

  "Because pretty near all he had on was a towel an' a--a sort ofa----immodes' britch-cloth," explained Guy Little confidentially.

  "An'," continued old man Packard, "where's--she?"

  "Meanin' the Fairy Queen, your majesty?" Guy Little's voice was now awhisper.

  "Meanin' her--the Fairy Queen," said the old man gently. "Sleepin',Guy Little? I won't have her woke!"

  "Woke, your eyebrow!" chuckled Guy Little. "I'd say she's gone fora--a dip, too, your majesty. An'--an', between just the two of us ol'fellers, hers is purty near as immodes' as his! Fact, an' I don't carewhose granddaughter she is. Blue, you know; an' not very much of it.An' a red cap. An'--I couldn't see very well through the curtains an'I dasn't let 'em know I was lookin'. Only don't you let her know weknow; why, bless her little simple heart, she ain't got the least ideahow pretty an'--an'----immodes'----"

  Old man Packard fixed him with a knowing eye.

  "Ain't she?" he demanded. "Ain't she, Guy Little? Why, if there's onething in this world worth knowin' that my granddaughter don't know--Go order breakfas' ready in two shakes, Guy Little."

  "I did," said Guy Little. "It's ready already. There they come.Happy-lookin', ain't they? Like a couple kids."

  "An' see that them two new saddle-horses is ready right after breakfas'for 'em, Guy Little."

  "They're ready now," chuckled Guy Little. "I remembered."

  "An--an' she likes----"

  "Flowers on the table? An' her grapefruit stacked high with sugar?An' the coffee with hot milk? Don't I know nothin' a-tall, Packard?"

  Steve and Terry, dripping and laughing, breaking into a run as theycame on across the meadow, spied the big man and the little at thewindow and shouted a joyous good morning and Terry threw them a kissapiece. And old man Packard, his hands on his hips, a look ofabsolute, ineffable content in his eyes, said softly:

  "I've made a mistake or two in my life, Guy Little. But ain't I livedlong enough to squeeze in a blunder or so here an' there? An' I'vemade a mistake a time or two on a man."

  "Blenham did fool you pretty slick," suggested Guy Little.

  "But," went on the old man hurriedly, "I know a real, upstandin',thoroughbred----"

  "Fairy Queen of a woman."

  "Fairy Queen of a woman when I see her. An' that little thing outthere, her eyes shinin' like I ain't seen a pair of eyes shine formore'n fifty year, Guy Little--why, sir, she's what I call a-- Why,she's a Packard, man!"