" The rustic mania possessed him unabatedly.
"I can do up a cowpenful of you slow hayseeds," he proclaimed,
vaingloriously. "Bring on your bulldogs, your hired men and your
log-rollers."
He turned handsprings on the grass that prodded Tom to envious
sarcasm. And then, with a whoop, he clattered to the rear and brought
back Uncle Ike, a battered colored retainer of the family, with his
banjo, and strewed sand on the porch and danced "Chicken in the
Bread Tray" and did buck-and-wing wonders for half an hour longer.
Incredibly, wild and boisterous things he did. He sang, he told
stories that set all but one shrieking, he played the yokel, the
humorous clodhopper; he was mad, mad with the revival of the old life
in his blood.
He became so extravagant that once his mother sought gently to
reprove him. Then Alicia moved as though she were about to speak, but
she did not. Through it all she sat immovable, a slim, white spirit
in the dusk that no man might question or read.
By and by she asked permission to ascend to her room, saying that she
was tired. On her way she passed Robert. He was standing in the door,
the figure of vulgar comedy, with ruffled hair, reddened face and
unpardonable confusion of attire--no trace there of the immaculate
Robert Walmsley, the courted clubman and ornament of select circles.
He was doing a conjuring trick with some household utensils, and the
family, now won over to him without exception, was beholding him with
worshipful admiration.
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