Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer (13 ebook reader txt) 📕

a philosopher, as well as all the rest we know he is?” asked Cyn, laughing.

“A very little one; five feet six!” replied Jo.

“Well, we will have no shadows today,” said Cyn.

“No shadows today!” echoed Jo; then turning to Mrs. Simonson, asked, “I hope you do not still regret Miss Kling!”

“I suppose she would spoil it all!” that good lady committed herself enough to say.

“Well, really, I must say,” remarked Celeste, who now gave herself many airs, and evidently looked upon Cyn and Nattie as commonplace creatures, not engaged!⁠—“I must say, now that you are speaking of her, that she does Kling in a way that is not pleasant sometimes. She actually annoys pa!”

“I thought she entertained a high regard for The Tor⁠—for your father,” said mischievous Cyn.

“That is exactly it!” replied Celeste. “Too high a regard! Truly, she behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate in a woman, you know!” with sublime unconsciousness of ever having indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! “Such an old creature, too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself in his room sometimes!”

The vision of “poor pa” thus pursued was too much for the gravity of the company, and there was a general laugh.

“It is true,” asserted Celeste. “Now; isn’t it, Ralfy?” appealing to her betrothed with appropriate bashfulness.

Everybody stared at this. No one before ever really knew that Quimby possessed a front door to his name, and he, as surprised as anyone at the cognomen Love had discovered, fell back on a rolling log, and clutched his legs to that extent that they must have been black and blue for a week afterwards.

Clem saved the discomfited “Ralfy” the necessity of replying, by interposing with,

“Come! come! let us not talk on such incongruous subjects this lovely day! let us rather talk sentiment!” and he gave a prodigious wink in Jo’s direction.

“I fear we are not a very sentimental party!” laughed Cyn; adding mischievously, “except, of course, Quimby and Celeste!”

“Oh! I⁠—I am not, I assure you! I am not in the least, you know!” protested Quimby, taking a roll on the log; “never felt less so in my life.”

“Why, Ralfy!” exclaimed Celeste, reproachfully, and to his distress went up close to him, and would have sat down by his side, but for the uncontrollable rolling propensity of that log, which made it impossible.

“How is it with you, Jo?” queried Cyn; “can you not for once, forget your horrible hobby, and be a little sentimental, in honor of the day?”

Jo, who was throwing sticks into the water, to the great disturbance of the bugs, and plainly-shown annoyance of a big frog, made a somewhat surprising reply. Decidedly seriously, he said,

“I fear if I should attempt it, I might get too much in earnest!”

“Oh! we will risk that, so please begin!” said Cyn, but staring at him a little as she spoke. “Jo, sentimental! Just imagine it!”

“Will you risk it?” he asked still seriously, and with so peculiar an expression that she could reply only by another astonished stare.

“But really, it does not pay to be sentimental, as you all ought to have found out long ago! as Jo and I have!” Nattie said, jestingly, yet with an undertone of earnestness.

“Then,” said Clem, dryly, “since it is so with us, let us fish!” and he threw his line into the stream.

Cyn, Jo, and Mrs. Simonson followed his example. Quimby declined joining in the sport, and perhaps, likening himself to the fish, balanced himself on the log, and looked on with a pathetic face. Celeste, as in duty bound, remained by his side. Nattie, too, was an observer only, and from the expression off her face was decidedly not amused.

“I think it is cruel!” she exclaimed, as Jo took a fish off Cyn’s hook.

“I⁠—I quite agree with you!” Quimby replied quickly, in answer to Nattie’s observation. “It is cruel!”

“But perhaps the fish were made for people to catch,” suggested the pacific Mrs. Simonson, who had not yet been able to get a bite.

“Yes,” acquiesced Clem, pulling up a skinny little fish. “They are no worse off than we poor mortals after all. We must each fulfill our destiny, whether man or fish.”

“Yes! it is all fate!” exclaimed Quimby vehemently. “We cannot help ourselves!”

“You believe in fate then? I don’t think I do!” said Cyn, with a glance half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; “what incentive would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out for us in advance?”

“That is a question requiring too much effort for us to discuss on a warm day,” said Nattie.

“Certain circumstances must bring about certain results, you will acknowledge,” Clem gravely remarked.

“But, it is said that every soul that is born has a twin somewhere; and if so, that must be fate!” said Mrs. Simonson.

“Miss Kling’s theory, I believe!” laughed Nattie.

“If it is so, the right ones don’t often come together,” said Quimby gloomily.

“We are an exception, then, to the general rule!” simpered Celeste.

Quimby groaned, and then murmured something about the toothache.

“Poor fellow!” said Cyn, in a low voice, to Nattie.

“After all, there is something in fate,” Nattie sighed.

“Perhaps so,” she said.

“Well, we will not get solemn over fate,” said Jo, cheerily; then, in a lower voice, as he glanced at Cyn, he added⁠—“yet.”

“And do not frighten away what few fish there are here, with your theories,” commanded Clem.

Although this mandate was obeyed, and for a time silence reigned, it was not long before they were all singing a gay song, started by Clem himself, even Quimby joining in the chorus with a feeble tenor. But they were tired of fishing by that time, and began to feel as if a little refreshment would not be out of place, and would indeed enhance the loveliness of Nature, so a fire was made, and lunch-baskets unpacked.

“It will take a good many of those fish for a mouthful,” declared Clem, who was cook.

“You may have my