Silent Stead was the first to throw a wet blanket upon the scheme, his reasons being purely personal, as it usually developed that they were; though he would bitterly have resented the idea of it. He found it difficult to put his objections into reasonable words, and so merely retired within himself, and was “grumpy,” as the Cub put it.
The Cub came back from the village a few days later with the rings and frame for the sign, which the blacksmith had fashioned; and Brooke, after varnishing the bread-board well to keep out the weather, had fitted it in place, and was looking at the result when Stead came in. In his arms he carried several packages of bulbs and garden seeds for her, which he dropped on the table. He had a lovely hillside garden of his own below the lodge, which he and José tended, and already he was planning a more elaborate arrangement of the old-fashioned kitchen garden at the farm than Miss Keith had attempted, saying, in answer to Brooke’s objection, that it would perhaps be more than they could care for:—
“Turn about is fair play; you give me, an idler, a daily resting spot between the valley and the hill; why may I not give you a spot to rest in between the day’s work? For God’s sake, do not make me feel more of a cumberer of the ground than necessary!”
As for the gifts of seeds and roots, to Mrs. Lawton, accustomed as she had been to the perfect southern courtesy of such things, that bore no obligation between neighbours and equals, they seemed quite matters of course, and of no special import.
Mrs. Fenton, when Brooke told her of the new venture, and consulted her as to the ways of the great folk of the neighbourhood, and their seasons for coming and going, had expressed her opinion that the first of May was time enough to begin, as then the people in general ran over from Boston and New York for a few days at a time to start the wheels in motion, and take a breath of air. This left Brooke a full month for her preparations, and both Robert Stead and the mail carrier noticed the frequency with which letters flew between herself and Lucy Dean during this time.
Brooke, at first being humble-minded as to her ability, and therefore as to the prices to be charged, was gradually convinced by her hard-headed friend that if her wares were the equal of those which Tokay furnished the same patrons at their houses in town, why might she not charge the same at the wayside tea garden of the Moosatuk, where such things had hitherto not only been unattainable but unknown?