Fair Tomorrow by Emilie Loring

Author:Emilie Loring [Loring, Emilie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-05-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter XII

“Make the Babe stop wriggling, Terry, while I scrub his legs.”

The sun brought out curious red-gold glints in Pamela’s black hair, rouged the magnolia tints of her face and arms. A green rubber apron protected the front of her gay, sleeveless print frock as she vigorously applied a brush to the lavishly lathered dog who shivered violently in the galvanized iron tub set on a lawn, freshly, velvety, springily green. Terrence held the Babe’s hind legs down with one hand while with the other he grasped the leather strap about the black and tan neck. His red hair, ablaze in the sunlight, stood on end. His handsome face was crimson and moist from exertion.

“Easy enough to say. ‘Make him stop wriggling.’ Try it yourself.” His indignation worked off in a chuckle. “Looks’s if he’d bust right out crying, doesn’t he?”

A soft, salty breeze blew from the shore, picked up the scent of spring from the brown earth and danced on. Between house and barn a clump of white birches, with a vague misty aura of unborn leaves, murmured among themselves. Distant sand dunes gleamed like nuggets of gold in a lapis lazuli sea. Fluffs of feathery clouds, scattered haphazard over a radiant sky, added the last perfect touch, the dreamlike quality of a Daubigny pastoral. From somewhere in infinite space drifted the faint far drone of a plane. From the shore came the thud of hammers on wood, the voices of men. A tipsy bee lighted on the girl’s bare arm. She cautiously brushed it off before she tenderly removed the lather from around the dejected Belgian’s jaws.

“Cheer’o, Babe! The agony is almost over.”

The dog shook himself violently. A monster dab of suds landed in Terrence’s eye.

“Boy! That smarts.”

Stinging discomfort loosed his hold. The Babe leaped to freedom. He dashed madly across the lawn, shaking himself as he ran, showering suds like foam from a waterwheel. He raced toward gaunt, gray Mehitable Betts coming from the poultry house with a basket.

“Go ’way, you pesky fella!”

Repulsed by her shrill squeak he ran toward Harold Leigh in a wicker chair in a sunny corner of the porch. Pamela scrambled to her feet.

“Why didn’t you hold him, Terry? Hitty, who boasts that she ‘ain’t afraid of any man livin’,’ is frightened to death of a dog. Lucky she didn’t drop those eggs when he charged at her. If he spatters Father there will be a riot.”

The green and red parrot, sunning on his gilded perch, mewed like a cat. Mocked stridently:

“Bad boy!”

The dog barked furiously at his tormentor. Harold Leigh put hands to ears. Called fretfully:

“Terrence, make him stop that infernal racket!”

“Come Babe! Come!”

The dog started toward Pamela in answer to her call, noted the galvanized tub. With soapy tail between his soapier legs he streaked for the long, white barn. The girl pulled off the green apron.

“That’s that. We won’t see him again for a while. His first fisherman master must have sent him into the sea for a swim. The Babe has been perfectly trained in every way except in the little matter of being tubbed.

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