"I wouldn't call my house after a thief," he said strongly. "There
are hundreds of prettier names. Why not--Pine Court, for example?"
"You haven't told me yet if you will accept the position I spoke of."
He passed his hand over his clean-shaven chin, a trick he had
inherited from his father, and surveyed her steadily from under
meditative brows.
"In the first place, I'm not a landscape gardener, Miss Orr," he
stated. "That's the sort of man you want. You can get one in Boston,
who'll group your evergreens, open vistas, build pergolas and all
that sort of thing."
"You appear to know exactly what I want," she laughed.
"Perhaps I do," he defied her.
"But, seriously, I don't want and won't have a landscape-gardener
from Boston--with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr.
Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other
day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on
paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things--wild
things out of the woods. You understand, I'm sure."
The dawning light in his eyes told her that he did.
"But I've had no experience," he hesitated. "Besides, I've
considerable farm-work of my own to do. I've been hoeing potatoes all
day. Tomorrow I shall have to go into the cornfield, or lose my crop.
Time, tide and weeds wait for no man."
"I supposed you were a hunter," she said. "I thought--"
He laughed unpleasantly.
"Oh, I see," he interrupted rudely: "you supposed, in other words,
that I was an idle chap, addicted to wandering about the woods, a gun
on my shoulder, a cur--quite as much of a ne'er-do-well as myself--at
my heels.
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