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VII
AN ACTIVE FAMILY
The Post Office clock was just striking seven, that fine midsummer morning when “Mother” and “Dad” and I drove out of town and took the seacoast road. “Dad” was a spare, spry little man, somewhere between fifty and sixty, with a shock of grey hair and an eye of burning fire; “Mother” was a buxom presence, comfortable and comforting, I just a stray guest; and we were all off, this rare mid-week holiday, to see how the up-country farm was getting on, and “the children,” who were in charge of it.
In less than five minutes the country spread all about us—the good, green, grassy country, rolling in gentle swells and undulations like a summer sea. Here and there one lonely cabbage tree stood up, curiously distinct; at long intervals we passed a squad of plantation-pines, or some homestead nestling in among the gentle hills; but otherwise all was wide sky and billowy grass, interspersed with browsing cattle. The skylark sang overhead; there was a fine fresh breeze; and away to the west, along the bright blue of the sky, there lay, straight and low, a dark blue band of sea.
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