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diff --git a/12164-0.txt b/12164-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce3b79d --- /dev/null +++ b/12164-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8739 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12164 *** + + Strawberry Acres + + By GRACE S. RICHMOND + + 1911 + + + + +TO THE OWNER OF "GRASSLANDS" + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT + +CHAPTER + + I. Five Miles Out + + II. Everybody Explores + + III. The Apartment Overflows + + IV. Arguments and Answers + + V. Telephones and Tents + + VI. In the Pine Grove + + VII. Everybody is Satisfied + + VIII. Problems and Hearts + + IX. Max Compromises + + X. Jack-O'-Lantern + + +PART II.--THE LANES AND THE ACRES + + I. What's in a Name + + II. In the Old Garden + + III. Afternoon Tea + + IV. Two and Two + + V. On an August Evening + + VI. Time-Tables + + VII. The Southbound Limited + + VIII. From April North + + IX. Round the Corner + + X. Green Leaves + + + + +Strawberry Acres + + + + +PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FIVE MILES OUT + + +The four Lanes--Max, Sally, Alec and Robert--climbed the five flights of +stairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus of +high but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly, +reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear what +seemed to be the first outburst. + +"Well, what do you think now?" + +"Forty-two acres _and_ the house! Open the windows and give us air!" + +"Acres run to seed, and the house tumbling down about its own ears! A +magnificent inheritance that!" Max cast his hat upon a chair as if he +flung it away with the inheritance. + +"But who ever thought Uncle Maxwell Lane would ever leave his poor +relations anything?" This was Sally. + +"Five miles out by road--a bit less by trolley. Let's go and see it +to-morrow afternoon. Thank goodness a half holiday is so near." + +"Anybody been by the place lately?" + +"I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked so +awfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old. + +As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. She +had thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxen +hair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks were +warmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hours +now--during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the period +spent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will and +the business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home--she had +worn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screen +behind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted by +those masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of the +young face beneath. + +"I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she was saying. "Here's +Max, killing himself in the bank, and Alec growing pale and grouchy in +the office, and even Bob--" She was interrupted by a chorus of protests +against her terms of description. + +"I'm not killing myself!" + +"Pale and grouchy! I'm not a patch on--" + +"What's the matter with Bob, Sally Lunn?" + +"And Uncle Timmy," continued Sally, undisturbed by interpolations to +which she was quite accustomed, "pining for fresh air--." + +"I walk in the park every day, my dear," Uncle Timothy felt obliged to +remind her. + +"Yes, I know. But you've lived in a little city flat just as long as it's +good for you, and you need to be turned outdoors. So do we all. Oh, boys, +and Uncle Timmy!--I just sat there, crying and smiling under my veil in +that dreadful office--crying to think that I _couldn't_ cry for Uncle +Maxwell, because he was so cold and queer to us always, and yet he had +given us this property, after all--." + +"And a mighty small fraction of the estate it is, I hope you understand!" +growled Max. + +But Sally went on without minding. Everybody was used to Max's growls. +"And smiling because I couldn't help it just to think we had a chance at +last to get out of the city. We can do it. Five miles by trolley is +nothing for you boys, or for me, when I need to come in." + +"You're not talking about our going to live out there!" Max's tone +was derisive. + +"Why not?" + +"Have you seen the place lately?" + +"Not since I was a little girl, but I remember I thought it was +lovely then." + +"It isn't lovely now, if it ever was--which I doubt. In the first place +it belongs to that little suburb of Wybury--as commonplace a village as +ever existed within five miles of as big a city as this. In the second +place it's as much an abandoned farm as neglect can make a place that was +once, I suppose, an aristocratic sort of country home. The old mansion is +as big as a barn, and as hopeless. You couldn't any more make a home out +of it!--Why, you could put this whole apartment into the room at the left +of the hall!" + +"How do you know so much about it?" demanded Sally. "None of us has been +there since Aunt Alicia died--that was when we were children, and Uncle +Maxwell used to spend his summers there." + +"He hasn't spent them there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know +so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His +father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it +himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea +while we were going about." + +"It makes no difference," persisted Sally, removing her hat and +folding the veil with care. "I want to see it. We'll go out +to-morrow, won't we?" + +She appealed to her second brother, Alec, a young fellow of twenty, who +had thrown himself listlessly into a chair but who was listening +attentively to the discussion. He nodded. "Of course. You couldn't keep +one of us away, even Max. He wouldn't be done out of the pleasure of +showing us over the place and pointing out the defects, if, by keeping +still, he could own the whole ranch himself." + +"It'll be jolly fun to go!" cried Bob, quickly. He could not bear sounds +of disagreement between the members of his family, because he knew Sally +did not like it. + +"What do you think about the old place, Uncle Timmy?" questioned Sally +presently. She had taken off her one carefully-used street suit, and had +put on a fresh little black-and-white print, in which she was setting the +table for dinner. All the others except Uncle Timothy had gone out on +various errands. + +"Well, Sally," said Mr. Timothy Rudd, thoughtfully, "I don't know that +I'm a competent judge. Your Uncle Maxwell's place was considered a fine +one in its day. Before he made so much money and took to living in town, +he used to like it there, I think, though he didn't say much about it. +I'm sorry it's been allowed to run down. There was a pine grove on it, +and a splendid young apple orchard, and a timber tract at the back that +ought to be worth considerable money by this time, if it hasn't been cut. +Probably it has, with timber bringing the prices it does now." + +"About the house," inquired Sally, after Uncle Timothy had gone into +more or less detail concerning the place itself. "I'm especially +interested in the house. Do you think it would be out of the question +for us to live there?" + +"I don't know. It would be something of a change from this," he admitted, +looking about the little dining-room. "You've managed to make us all +pretty comfortable here, with what there was left of the furniture after +the sale. I don't know how far it would go in Maxwell's big house. It's +pretty large, that's a fact. According to Max, it's in need of a good +deal of repair. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, I should like to live +out in the country among the green things, as I used to do, up in New +Hampshire. It would be good for us all. But you can tell better after +you've seen the place again." + +There was no denying this. Sally's head was so full of plans it was +difficult to wait until the afternoon of the next day, when everybody +should be at liberty to make the trip to Wybury. The moment luncheon was +over they started, and by two o'clock the trolley-car, whizzing out +through the suburbs to the open country, then following the curve along +the river edge to pass through the small settlement called Wybury, had +deposited them in the centre of that village. + +The Maxwell place lay a quarter of a mile down the river road, and the +party set off promptly to cover the short distance. It was early April, +sunny and mild, but still rather damp under foot. After leaving the board +sidewalks of Wybury there was no accommodation for foot passengers except +the path at the side of the road. + +"Imagine tramping through this mud every night and morning," was Max's +first contribution to the effort he meant to make to disillusionize his +romantic sister, whose dreams of life in the country he considered worse +than folly. He turned up his trousers widely at the bottom as he spoke. + +"It's such a little way, we could soon have a better path," Sally +replied. "Look, there are the chimneys, I'm sure, just beyond that grove +of pines. It's hardly more than five minutes' walk from the car." + +"Five minutes through a February blizzard is five minutes too much." + +"But five minutes through a midsummer evening is an hour too little," +Sally gave him back. + +"That pine grove belongs to the place," called back Bob, who was +considerably in advance of the others. Sally, in spite of her eagerness, +was adapting her pace to the limitations of Uncle Timothy, who at sixty +could hardly be expected to walk in competition with nineteen. + +"Pine groves are worth something these days," said Max, eyeing the thick +tops critically. + +Sally had charmed eyes for the pine grove; but she did not look at it +long, for beyond showed the great chimney-tops she remembered from her +childhood, when it had been the happiest treat she knew to be invited by +Aunt Alicia to spend the day at Uncle Maxwell's country place. + +The young Lanes had all been born and brought up in the city. Their home +had been one of moderate luxury until, three years before, their father +had died suddenly, leaving the mere remnant of an estate which had been +supposed to be a large one. The shock, and the change from a life of ease +to one of close economy, had weakened the always delicate constitution of +the wife and mother until, a year after her husband's death, she had +followed him. + +Max had left college at the end of his third year and gone into the bank +of which his Uncle Maxwell was vice-president. Alec, just ready for +college, had reluctantly resigned his purpose and taken a position in the +drafting-office of a firm of contractors, friends of his father. Even +Robert, the youngest, had found something to do. The family had sold the +old home to obtain money with which to meet expenses until the salaries +of the workers should begin to count, and had moved into the little flat +where the nineteen-year-old sister had, for a year now, done her girlish +best to make a home for her "four men," as she called them, while she +kept many violent attacks of heartache bravely hidden--for the most +part--under a bright exterior. Nobody knew how Sally disliked the +flat--unless it was Bob, who was her closest confidant. + +"There's your fine family mansion!" called Max, pointing from the curve +of the road, which he had reached close after Bob. + +Sally stood still in astonished surprise. Could that really be the +aristocratic old place of her memory? Max could hardly be blamed for his +derisive comments. + +A noble house gone to decay is a sight infinitely more depressing than +that of an humble one. This once had been an imposing structure; it +looked now like a relic of war times. + +"Look at the tumbling chimneys!" crowed Alec. "Look at the broken +shutters, swinging by one hinge. See those porch pillars--were they ever +white? Behold that side entrance--looks as if a cyclone had struck it!" + +Sally was silent. Even her buoyant hopes fell before the indisputable +evidence given by her eyes. It was so big--the old place! A small house +one might hope to repair, but a large building like this--it would cost +more than they would have to spare in years. If the outside were any +indication of the inside, the situation was hopeless. + +She followed Alec in through the gateway, at the dilapidated stone +side-posts of which Max gave a significant wave of the hand as he passed. +An overgrown hedge ran along the entire front of the place, its untrimmed +wildness adding to the general unkempt look, as did the sodden, tangled +surface of what had once been a lawn, the rank bunches of shrubbery which +half hid the front windows from sight, and the broken bricks in the old +walk which led, beside a grass-grown driveway, from gate-post to porch. + +"How did Maxwell ever come to let this place go to seed like this?" +lamented Uncle Timothy. "He must have cared nothing at all for it. One +would think it was forty years instead of only ten that it had been left +to wind and weather." + +"It's a wonder that some passing tramp hasn't set fire to it," commented +Max, searching in his pocket for the key which had been delivered to him +by Mr. Sidway, his uncle's executor. "Take a long breath before I let you +in. It'll be musty and fusty enough to stifle you, probably." + +With considerable difficulty he turned the key in the rusty lock and +opened the door, which turned creakingly upon its long unused hinges. But +with the first step inside Sally's drooping spirits leaped up again. + +"Oh Max," she cried, "what a beautiful old hall!" + +"Beautiful, is it?" inquired Max, laughing contemptuously. "Well, I can't +say I see it." + +"Looks just like a barracks to me!" sniffed Alec. "Phew-w--what air--or +lack of it!" + +"But it _is_ beautiful," persisted Sally, in genuine enthusiasm. "See how +wide and high, sweeping straight through to that door at the back. And +see the wide, low staircase with the spindle railing and the curved posts +at the bottom. See the carving over the doors--and the fanlight over the +outside ones. And look at that fireplace!" + +She dragged Max by one arm and Uncle Timothy by the other, to stand in +front of it. Halfway down the hall, sharing one of the great chimneys +with another fireplace on the other side of the wall, was a chimney-piece +of fine old colonial design. The proportions were colossal. + +"It would take a cord of wood to keep the thing going an evening," +asserted Max. + +"And then nobody'd be warm unless he was sitting with his head inside the +hood," supplemented Alec. + +But Sally was already off upon explorations. She rushed into the room +upon the left of the hall; it was a drawing-room thirty feet long by +twenty wide. She darted into the room on the right--it was twenty feet +square, and back of it lay another of similar size. She could no longer +wait for her party, with their slow and indifferent following of her, +but ran from room to room, calling back injunctions to note special +points of interest. + +Bob kept close behind her. If he cared little for old houses, he cared +much for Sally, and he liked to see her eyes sparkle and her lips laugh. +Sally had times of being very sad and discouraged, as no one knew so well +as he, and if she could find interest in this old barracks--he thought +Alec had struck the right word--he was not the boy to dampen it. + +"Let's skip up this back staircase, Bobby," proposed Sally, as they +turned about from exploring the kitchen and store-rooms. "I'm crazy to +find if there aren't some smaller rooms--nice, cozy ones, you know. It +can't be all so big everywhere." + +"Don't you suppose the upstairs rooms are just the shape of the lower +ones?" suggested Bob, as they ran up. + +"In front, perhaps, but not back here. There ought to be some lovely +rambling passageways, and steps up and steps down, and rooms where you +don't expect them, and a splendid attic--and perhaps a secret staircase. +Bob--what if there should actually be a secret staircase!" + +Bob laughed. "You've been reading spooky stories. I suppose--" + +"Robert Rudd Lane! Will you behold that little flight of five steps, +leading up to that door!" + +Sally was down the hall and up the five steps in a flash. She would have +burst into the unknown region beyond, but a locked door barred her way. +Bob stood below and laughed at her baffled expression. "You'd rather see +through that door than into any other spot in the house that isn't locked +up, wouldn't you, Sally Lunn?" he commented, knowingly. + +"Run down to Max for the keys, will you, dear?" she begged, and Bob ran. + +The others came up. Max and Bob, Alec, and even Uncle Timothy, tried +every key in the bunch in vain. Sally attempted to peer through the +key-hole. Bob ran outside, and returning reported that there were no +shutters in the region opposite the probable position of the door. + +"It's undoubtedly a dark store-room, with a row of empty shelves," said +Max. "Give it up, Sally. There are places enough to explore. A regiment +of infantry could be bivouacked in this second story. See the rooms, and +rooms inside of rooms." + +"Oh, come away home!" cried Alec, impatiently, before Sally was half +satisfied. + +"I'm going over to the timber tract. You'd better come along, Al. Let +Sally stay here and plan her hotel. Maxwell Inn--eh, Sally? A number on +each door, and a fire-escape at each end of the hall. A bell-boy and two +chambermaids for this floor; in time, an elevator and a manicure shop!" +And Max clattered laughing away down the front staircase, the shallow +steps of which he took two at a time. + +"It isn't a very cozy nest, is it, Sis?" said Bob, sympathetically, as +Sally, after one look into the great square rooms over the front, closed +the doors with a bang. + +At mention of the timber tract Uncle Timothy had gone downstairs after +the others. They heard him shut the front door, and from an upper window +saw him walking briskly away. + +"No, it isn't--now," she admitted, soberly, "but--what a home it +could be made!" + +"It's pretty near twice as big as our old one, and that was a fairly good +size. We could camp out in a corner of it, but that would be lonesome, +don't you think so? We might keep summer boarders." + +Sally shook her head. She began to walk back through the upper halls. Bob +followed her, and they climbed the attic stairs, finding a great space +above, lighted by low windows shut in by patterns of ironwork. + +"Jolly, what a place for rainy days!" ejaculated the boy, moved to +greater enthusiasm than he had felt anywhere below stairs. "You could +have a workshop and a gymnasium and all sorts of things. You could make +it really festive with a few rugs and pillows and hammocks and things. +How the fellows I know would like to get up here!" + +He lingered behind his sister, who, after one comprehensive look round +the big, bare, dusty place, had slipped away downstairs again, guarding +her skirts carefully. When Bob, after planning in detail a possible +and desirable arrangement of the attic, reluctantly descended, he found +her at the top of the little flight of steps which led to the one +locked door. + +"Look out! The family skeleton may be hidden behind that door!" he +called, racing down the hall. "Or worse. Come away, Fatima!" + +"Bob," said Sally, regarding him from the top of the steps, her cheeks +brightly flushed, her eyes alight with interest, "I simply have to know +what's beyond this door." + +"What are you expecting to find there, Sis? Trunks full of gold? +Family papers, leaving all the Maxwell Lane estate to the Lanes of +Henley Street?" + +She shook her head with a laughing challenge. "Wait till I get a +locksmith here!" she said. + +"I'll wait," and Bob sat composedly down on the bottom step, grinning up +at his excited sister. "Going to get him out by wireless?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EVERYBODY EXPLORES + + +Alighting from her mother's carriage in front of the Winona apartments in +Henley Street, Josephine Burnside dismissed her coachman and hurried +eagerly into the florid vestibule. + +"I don't see how Sally endures this sort of thing," she thought, for the +hundredth time since the Lane house, near her own in Grosvenor Place, had +been sold. The door-latch clicked promptly in answer to her ring, and at +the top of the third flight she met Sally. + +"I was sure it was you! I'm so glad! I'm all alone," was Sally's joyful +welcome; and the next minute Josephine found herself inside the small +passage, her outer garments being forcibly removed, and herself borne +into the little living-room and established in Uncle Timothy's reading +chair, which was the most comfortable one in the place. + +"Sewing--as usual? What are you making now? Something lovely out of +nothing at all, I suppose?" + +"Of course. It's a convenient accomplishment. You didn't know that four +and a half yards of Swiss muslin would make a whole frock, did you? Well, +it will--under some conditions." And Sally proudly held up the work of +her hands, a nearly finished product at which her friend, attired at the +moment in some fifteen yards of silk, stared in amazement. + +"Sally Lunn! You didn't--you couldn't! It's not skimpy in the least. You +must have pieced out with something else. But where?" + +"The remains of my old one, re-enforced underneath, and used where the +least wear will come on it. It's not an exact match, but I don't think it +will show." + +"Show! Not a bit. But I thought putting old and new wash goods together +wouldn't do." + +"I've shrunk the new, and, as I told you, re-enforced the old with some +very thin, cheap lawn. I shall wash it myself--with the ends of my +fingers, and my eyes looking the other way. Find the old parts!" + +Thus challenged, Josephine brought a pair of very bright black eyes to +bear upon the pretty frock, turning it over critically, and after some +search discovered the resourceful trick which had made the whole lower +half of the skirt and part of the sleeves out of the old muslin. + +"You genius!" she cried. "I wish I were half as clever as you." She +regarded her friend with the genuine admiration and affection which had +carried the comradeship of the two girls safely through the test of the +Lanes' altered fortunes. + +"How good it is to have you back!" said Sally, returning the look. "You +haven't half told me about your winter." + +"Yes--but never mind that just now," said Josephine. "I've come to hear +about you. Jarvis met Max this morning, heard the news, and told it at +luncheon. I simply flew down to show you how glad I am, and to hear more. +Tell me, is it a beautiful old place, and shall you go there to live? I +suppose I've seen it, but I've forgotten." + +"It's a forlorn old place, dreadfully run down, but I want to live in +it. The boys won't hear of it--as yet. We've only been there once. +We're going again Saturday--you know that's the only time they can all +get away." + +"What fun. Can't I go, too? There must be something nice about it, or you +wouldn't want to live there." + +"There's a locked door in it," said Sally, smiling, as her thoughts +turned to the mystery. She described the finding of the door to +Josephine, who exclaimed: + +"I must be there to see it opened! What do you suppose you'll find?" + +"Dust and empty shelves, Max says. Blue-beard's murdered wives, says Bob. +Alec guesses a lot of broken-backed chairs and a desk with the hinges +off. Uncle Timothy thinks it merely leads to the roof. But the steps from +the attic do that." + +"What do _you_ think?" + +"I think everything," admitted Sally, "from antique mirrors and old +clothes to empty flower pots and battered and rons. I'm prepared for +anything--except the empty shelves. Why should the door be locked so +securely if there's nothing behind it?" + +"Why, indeed? I don't know why, but my imagination shudders deliciously +at the thought of seeing it opened. May I go on Saturday? May Jarvis go? +He wanted me to ask. He's having a bad time with his eyes again, can't +read, and pines for something to do. A locked closet will interest him." + +"Of course you may both go, if you'll get Jarvis to promise not to throw +any cold water on my schemes." + +"He's not likely to discourage any of your schemes, you know well enough. +Hasn't he always taken your part, even against me, since we used to +quarrel over which should have the shady side of the sand pile? 'Sun +won't hurt your gipsy face, Joey,' he'd say. 'Give Sally the shade, like +a gentleman.'" + +Both girls laughed. Then Sally grew sober. "Seems to me it's only a +little while since Jarvis had his last siege with his eyes," she +observed. "Are they quite as bad again?" + +"He's not shut up in the dark this time, but has to wear blue goggles in +the daytime, is forbidden reading and writing absolutely for weeks, and +goes to Doctor Meyer every other day for treatment. He's getting as +rampageous as a caged lion, and vows he'll go off to the South Seas, or +Labrador, or some other place where books and libraries and literary work +won't tantalize him. He'd go to-morrow, I believe, if it weren't for +mother. She can't bear the idea." + +"It was that last awful year's work at college," said Sally regretfully. +"Why did he ever conceive the idea of doing two years' work in one--and +why did his friends let him do it?" + +"I know--that's what we all say now. So does he." + +"Of course he must go Saturday; tell him I particularly want him." + +"That will please him. Now do tell me about the whole place," and +Josephine settled herself to listen. + +Long before Sally had finished, her friend was as eager as herself to +see the old house, and was planning with all the help of a vivid +imagination what it would be like when it should be "restored." When she +went away, just before Sally set about getting dinner for her family, it +was with assurances that she and her brother would help Sally, to the +best of their ability, to realize her hopes. + +This assurance was renewed when, on Saturday afternoon, the Lanes met the +Burnsides at the appointed hour to take the trolley-car. With the +exception of Uncle Timothy, they were all there, even Max, who had +declared his only interest in the place was to sell it. But, hearing that +Jarvis Burnside was to inspect it, he had decided to point out to Jarvis +the impracticability of making a home out of the property--unless for +some rich man who might be induced to buy it at a figure worth while. He +sat beside Jarvis in the car, talking to him, as Sally could see, in a +way intended to prejudice him against the place. + +But as the party left the car, Jarvis joined Sally, smiled at her from +behind the ugly goggles which half disguised a face by no means ugly, and +said in an undertone: + +"I believe I'm in possession of all the facts. From now on I intend to +let the fancies have full play." + +"Good for you! I knew you'd never desert me, no matter how much in the +wrong I might be," answered Sally, gratefully. + +Jarvis had been a fourth brother to her for so long that it seemed a +matter of course for her to depend upon his support, but she appreciated +it when occasionally the real brothers failed to remember how lonely the +young sister was, with no mother at hand to love or advise her. All but +Bob. He, the youngest of the family, was like a faithful dog, always +beside her when the others jeered or reproached, and always her +strongest, most faithful, ally. + +"The walking is better today," Sally called out, as they started. Max, +true to his cause, promptly denied the truth of this statement. Josephine +came to the rescue. + +"Who cares what the walking is like, on an April day like this?" she +challenged Max. "Isn't the air glorious? And won't it be lovely, across +the bridge and along the river, as soon as the leaves are out?" + +Max was escorting Josephine, and as they turned the bend in the road he +pointed out to her the boundary lines of the estate. She asked him about +the values of land in this neighbourhood and the possibilities of making +such a place profitable. + +"You sound like a business woman," was his comment. "Thinking of +investing out here? You ought to get Sally to talk the place up to +you. She estimates that by raising violets on the whole forty-two +acres and selling them to the florists in town we can be millionaires +the first year." + +"Why not, at a dollar a bunch?" laughed Josephine. "And think how +picturesque your property will look, all a soft purple in the sunshine!" + +"Won't it!" agreed Max. "There, that's the house. I suppose you're +prepared to fall into ecstasies with Sally on the door-step, and dance a +reel with her down the hall." + +"Of course I am. But what I really came for is the locked door." + +"The door! I believe Sally's forgotten the subject of her dreams. We +haven't a tool, any more than we had a week ago." + +"Haven't we though?" shouted Bob, from the rear. He began to extract +various implements from his pockets on the spot. Sally herself waved her +shopping-bag. Jarvis Burnside pulled off his glove and began to search +his own pockets. + +"I think we'll effect an entrance," he declared, and produced a +curious-looking skeleton key. "This will open any ordinary lock." + +Josephine said everything Sally could have hoped for about the exterior +of the house, and a few things more. It did seem a little less forlorn +than before, the effect, perhaps, of the April sunshine, which lighted +its red brick walls into warm and cheerful hues. Jarvis, within the door, +removed his goggles and blinked approvingly at the fine colonial features +of the wood-work, the lines of the stairway, and the proportions of the +fireplace. + +"Anybody can see those two are loaded," complained Alec in Max's ear, as +they brought up the rear of the procession. "Trust Jarve Burnside to back +up Sally every time, and Josephine to join 'em. It's all right enough for +him to talk about restoration. He could do it by putting his hand into +his pocket. Between 'em they'll get Sally completely off her head." + +"There's no harm in looking the thing over," Max replied, absently, but +Alec continued to rail. Bob turned and frowned at him as meaningly as +Bob's round and sunny face could frown. Why must Alec follow Max's lead? +he thought. One could gain one's point quite as readily and much more +agreeably by being amiable. At least, this was Bob's philosophy. + +"The door, Sally, the door!" urged Josephine, as the party finished the +survey of the lower floor. "I can't take an interest in any more open +rooms while I know there's a closed one waiting. Do lead the way up that +impressive staircase and take us straight to the place of mystery!" + +"Sally's still young enough to want to save the plums in the cake till +the last," said Jarvis, as they went up. "Well, well, this stairway is +certainly a quaint one--risers about five inches, aren't they, Max? +Treads fourteen, at least. Fine for infants and invalids. And comfortable +for sitting out dances, Sally!" + +"But not so interesting as the five steep steps we are coming to," and +Sally led the way down the hall to the side passage, from the end of +which rose the little flight which approached the locked door. "Here we +are. Now who'll let us in?" + +It took the combined efforts of Jarvis and Max, working with one tool +after another, to effect an entrance. Clearly this was not an ordinary +closet lock which barred the way. But at last, with a vigorous wrench, +Jarvis held the yielding door under his hand. From the top step he waved +his free arm at the company, standing below. + +"One last guess apiece," he demanded of them, "before you look." + +"Old seed catalogues and empty hair-oil bottles," said Alec. + +"A skeleton in armour!" cried Bob. + +"All your Aunt Alicia's ball-dresses and your Uncle Maxwell's wedding +clothes," guessed Josephine. + +"A mahogany sideboard, dining-table and chairs," murmured Sally, at which +there was a general shout. + +"Dead beetles, fallen plaster, and a musty copy of 'Plutarch's Lives,'" +was Max's cynical contribution. + +"Open the door!" cried Bob. + +But Jarvis still held it. "I think I'll let in one at a time," he +declared. "Who'll venture first?" + +Sally walked up the steps. + +"Oh, don't send her in all alone!" begged Josephine. "Think, what if +there _should_ be--" + +"The skeleton in armour," urged Bob. + +"Go on, Sally, you're game," and Max grinned at Josephine and Bob. "It +doesn't take much to rouse some people's imaginations. Go ahead, and +confront the seed catalogues and the beetles with a bold front." + +Jarvis, smiling at Sally and taking note of her pink cheeks, detained her +with an injunction. "Whatever you find," he stipulated, "make no outcry. +Retain your composure. Remember your friends are close at hand. Three +raps on the inside of this door will summon four stout retainers to your +side. Are you ready?" + +"Ready." + +"Remember that defunct beetles are harmless, old clothes retain no +characteristics of their former owners, no matter how blood-thirsty, and +empty bottles probably never contained fatal potions. If the place is +dark, press your finger on this"--he thrust a small electric search-light +into her hand--"and the mystery will be illumined. Brave lady, enter!" + +He opened the door just wide enough to admit the slim figure in black, +which slipped through and promptly closed the door upon itself. + +Josephine interfered. + +"Jarvis, don't let her shut that door! Something might happen! There +might be a--hole in the floor." + +"She has blue eyes and you black!" retorted Jarvis. "She has golden +locks, you raven. Don't let the outward attributes belie themselves +like that." + +"_Sh!--Sh-h!_" Josephine held up a beseeching finger. + +Everybody listened. A silence ensued, unbroken by raps or sounds of any +sort. When this had continued for some five minutes, Josephine spoke +urgently: "Jarvis Burnside, open that door! It's all right to joke, but +things do happen, and it's not right to fool this way!" + +"What's the matter with you, Jo Burnside?" demanded Max, while Jarvis, +looking quizzical, still held the door. "Don't you know Sally well enough +to know she's not afraid of her shadow? She's playing the game through. +She'll come back in her own good time, when she's thoroughly explored +whatever's behind that door. A mouse won't give her hysterics, or a +flapping window-shade make her scream." + +Josephine held her peace, but she looked at Bob. Bob was genuinely +uneasy, though determined not to show it. There is undeniably a peculiar +atmosphere about old and unused houses, and queer fancies are prone to +take possession of those who explore them. It was ten years since this +house had been lived in. There was something odd about its having been so +completely deserted, with not even a tenant left to occupy its kitchen +regions and look after it. And the lock on this door had been strangely +resistant. + +Josephine suddenly opened her lips to say: "I shall not stand here +waiting another minute!" when three raps on the door brought back her +composure. + +Jarvis, himself looking a trifle relieved, promptly turned the knob. But +he could not open the door. + +"It must be a spring-lock," he grunted disgustedly. "Idiot that I was! +All right, Sally!" he called. "Got to work the tools over again." + +"Sally, O Sally, are you all right?" called Josephine. + +There was no reply. Jarvis worked rapidly, repeating his former processes +with an impatient hand. When the lock yielded once more, he threw the +door open, and the others crowded up the steps. + +"A staircase!" was the common ejaculation. + +Bob pushed by the rest and ran up it, closely followed by all except +Jarvis. "I'll stay on the outside of this fool lock!" he called. But a +moment later, investigating, he found that it could be rendered +inoperative by a catch on the inside, which, being set, allowed the door +to open and close freely. So, after the others, he hurried up the stairs. + +These ascended straight between the walls until a sharp curve at the top +brought them to a door now wide open. Within the room beyond stood the +party, exclaiming at the tops of their voices. + +They might well exclaim. Of all the guesses, none had come within +distant range of the real thing. + +The room was that of a collector of old books, and it had been closed and +left precisely as its former owner had arranged it, so far as could be +judged by its present appearance. A faded Turkey carpet covered the +floor; sun-rotted and dusty draperies hung at the windows, which were of +the same sort as those in the attic, close under the eaves, and shut in +by a pattern of ironwork. All around the walls stood bookcases, filled +with a large collection of books, the greater proportion of them of an +age suggestive, to the inexperienced eye, of worthlessness, to the more +discerning, of value. An antique desk and a few straight-backed chairs +were all the other furnishings of the room, but of these it needed none. +Even in its dust-covered condition it was a room to command respectful +consideration. + +As Jarvis came in, Max was studying the rows of books. He turned about +with a small calf-bound volume in his hand, and his eye fell on +Jarvis, entering. + +"Jarve," he exclaimed, "I believe this is treasure-trove, sure enough! If +this isn't a 'first edition,' I'll eat the book, covers and all!" + +Jarvis hurried to his side. He took the book, examined the fly-leaf, and +turned its pages. His eyes lighted with interest. "Of course it is!" he +declared. "And by the looks of them, there are plenty more. How on earth +do they come to be here? This is a gold mine that beats the mahogany +sideboard out of sight." + +"It's more than I know. Uncle Maxwell was no book-lover, as far as I've +ever heard. Perhaps Uncle Tim can tell, though he's on mother's side, and +never was here much." + +Bob's eyes were round with delight. He did not know much about books, but +the flush on Sally's cheeks and the excitement in Max's voice were enough +for him. He could not resist giving his elder brother a rap on the back. + +"How about the dead beetles now, Max?" he exulted. + +Alec was poking in the pigeon-holes of the desk. There were no papers to +be found except one bundle of letters, yellow with age. In one of the +drawers, there were a few old daguerreo-types in velvet cases and a +yellowed meer-schaum pipe. + +"'Eliphalet Lane, Esquire,'" read Sally, from the addresses on the +letters, which were written on the folded outer sheet of the letters +themselves. "Why, I know who he was. He was Uncle Maxwell's elder +brother. He lived with them all his life. He died before we were born, +but I've heard father tell about him. He was a queer old man when father +was a boy. This must be his collection." + +"And Uncle Maxwell didn't think enough of it to take it to town with +him--just locked it up and left it." This was Max's theory. "Uncle +Maxwell knew nothing about books and cared less; he was all for +business." + +"Luckily for you. This must be worth a good deal, if you care to sell +it," said Jarvis, who, close by one of the odd windows, was studying the +fine text of a set of English dramatists. + +Sally walked over and gently took the books out of his hand. "Jarvis +Burnside," said she, decidedly, "the value of this collection is nothing +beside the value of your eyes. Put on your goggles, and don't look at +another line of type!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE APARTMENT OVERFLOWS + + +The telephone bell in the Lanes' apartment rang sharply. It had rung +once before, but Sally, half-asleep on the couch in the middle of a warm +April morning, had not roused enough to notice. She moved reluctantly +toward it. Max's voice speaking urgently brought her back to her senses +with a jump. + +"Sally, where on earth are you? I've just had a wire from the Chases that +they're coming through, and will stop off to see us. We'll have to put +them up somehow. Of course they don't know how we're fixed, but they'll +find out." + +"Oh, Max!" Sally's tones were dismayed. "Why, we _can't_!" + +"We'll have to. What would you have me do--wire them not to stop? +Besides, I couldn't get them. They've left the place they wired +from--reach here to-night at nine. You'll have to have some kind of +supper for them." + +"But, Max--where--" + +"Oh, figure it out somehow--you can, you know. I haven't a minute more +to talk--inspector's here--everybody busy--" and the click of the +receiver in Sally's ear ended the interview. + +The Chases! They were young married people, who had been neighbours and +schoolmates of the Lanes. Dorothy Eustis, as an older girl, had been much +admired by Sally and Josephine until she married Neil Chase; that event +had made a great difference in their warmth of feeling. Sally did not +like Neil, never had liked him, and never would like him. A certain +pomposity of manner, which had been a characteristic of his, ever since +the days when he wore dresses and lorded it over the other infants in the +park, had made him unpopular. He had, however, become a successful young +attorney in his father's law firm, and had within the last year gone to a +larger city several hundred miles away to start practice for himself. + +The thought of entertaining Neil and Dorothy Chase in the little +apartment was almost too much for Sally Lane. The Chases had gone away +just before the Lanes had sold the old house, and knew nothing of the new +quarters--evidently realized nothing of their small dimensions. It had +been characteristic of them to telegraph that they were coming, without +waiting for a reply. That was precisely like Neil. + +Something must be done, and at once. It was now eleven o'clock. There was +none too much time in which to make ready. Sally began reluctantly to +plan. The Chases must have her room, of course; it was the best in the +flat, measuring eight feet by ten. Bob would have to go in with Uncle +Timothy and let Sally have his usual quarters, the couch in the +living-room. Sally's room must be hastily put in guest-room order--no +easy task, in a space where every inch counts because it must be made the +most of. She was thankful, for once, that she need expect none of her +family home to luncheon. + +At noon, however, quite unexpectedly Bob ran in upon her, an errand from +the office where he worked having brought him within a stone's throw of +home. He liked to surprise Sally with two-minute visits, when he could do +so by making time over the rest of his course. + +"Hello, what's up?" was his greeting, as he surveyed his sister standing +in the centre of an extraordinary confusion of furnishings which seemed +to him to extend over the entire flat. + +Sally flung down her dust-cloth and sank into a chair, showing a flushed +face and disturbed eyes. + +"Max telephoned that the Chases are coming to-night--Neil and Dorothy, +on their way somewhere. Isn't it horrible? What do you suppose they'll +think of things here?" + +"Well, well--old Neil's coming to show us his chest expansion, is he? And +my Lady Dolly! Hum--well--I guess it will do'em good to see how some +people live. Mrs. Chase will bring four trunks and a lot of hand stuff, +will she? If she does, we'll move out and leave them the place." + +"Mercy! They're only going to stay overnight--at least, I _think_ that's +all. The only thing that keeps me up is the thought that at this time +to-morrow they'll be gone! A hospitable hostess I am, Bob. But--Oh, +Bobby, my head aches so this morning I just can't rise to the occasion!" + +"Your head aches? What's the reason for that?" Bob asked, in some dismay. +"You're not a headache sort of girl." + +"No, and that's why it seems to take the pluck out of me so. It ached +yesterday, too. And I feel just heavy and stupid." + +As she spoke, she turned and laid her head down on her arms on the back +of her chair. Bob darted across from the doorway and laid an awkwardly +sympathetic young hand on the flaxen masses of his sister's hair. + +"It's a shame!" he said, warmly. "I wish I could stay and help you. But +I tell you what I'll do. I'll be up the minute I get out of the office. +Leave the heavy things for me to do. And don't try to house-clean the +whole flat just because of Mrs. Dorothy Chase. She isn't worth it." + +He was as good as his word. Five o'clock in the afternoon saw him at home +again, helping Sally in every way he could think of. Bob was good help, +and she had seldom needed him more than to-day. She went about with +flushed cheeks, moving languidly, yet keeping steadily at work with the +determination of the young hostess who sees nothing else to do. + +She had spent the afternoon in the kitchen; she spent the evening in all +those little final tasks which seem so small and yet in the aggregate do +weigh heavily, upon the eve of entertaining. + +Work at the bank kept Max until he had barely time to go to the station +for his guests. Alec, coming home to dinner, and finding himself put off +with what he hungrily characterized as a mere "bite," on account of the +necessities of the occasion, went off again somewhere, declaring that he +did not see the occasion for starving the family just on account of +entertaining two already overfed visitors. Uncle Timothy, as was to be +expected, as soon as he heard of the emergency, joined Bob in coming to +Sally's aid, and at half past seven in the evening might have been +discovered by the curious, sitting in the small kitchen, a blue-checked +apron tied about his neck, busily polishing silver. + +"It seemed to me pretty bright before, Sally," was his only comment as he +worked. "But I suppose no man could really comprehend the difference +between the degree of brightness suitable for one's family and that +demanded by company." + +"If you had seen Dorothy Chase's wedding silver--" responded Sally, and +stopped there, as if words could no further go. + +"Yes, yes, I suppose so." Uncle Timothy was rubbing away at a set of thin +old teaspoons which had belonged to Sally's grandmother. "Still, my dear, +it seems as if things taste better out of these old spoons than out of +those handsome new ones the boys gave you Christmas." + +"Oh, I love the old things." Sally held a china sugar bowl with a gold +band round it up to the light as she wiped it. She had taken all the best +old china out of its hiding place under the couch, and was giving it a +hot-water bath, drying each article herself, not daring to trust the +frail pieces to Bob's hands. "But Dorothy hates old stuff, and wants +everything modern." + +"I remember," said Uncle Timothy, mildly. "I was always too antique for +her to notice. I sha'n't be surprised if she stumbles over me to-night, +not noticing that I'm here." + +"If she does," called Bob, from the depths of a closet which he was +sweeping out under Sally's direction, "she'll settle with me! She'll find +I've grown a few inches since she used to call me Sally's 'everlasting +little brother.'" + +It was all done at last. Sally went to dress, wearily exhorting herself +to remember that her room was not her room to-night, and that she must +not forget and leave so much as a stray hair-pin on the freshly washed +and ironed linen of the little toilet-table. + +She stowed away, under the couch on which she was to sleep, the clean +cambric house-dress she meant to put on the next morning, feeling that it +would not be at all surprising if she were unable to rise from that couch +to get breakfast, and wondering what Dorothy Chase could do about +breakfast if thrown upon her own resources. It was so unusual for Sally's +vigorous young frame to experience such exhaustion after even more severe +effort than that of the past day that she could only wonder what it +meant, and finally decided, after some speculation, that it was the +effect of these first warm days of spring, combined with the stress of +entertaining under difficulties. + +"Well, here we are!" Max's voice could be heard in the hall outside, +ushering in his guests. "Go single file down this passage--you can't get +through side by side!" + +Sally went hurriedly forward and met Dorothy Chase's smartly tailored +figure in the middle of the tiny passage. + +"Goodness gracious!" Bob and Alec and Mr. Timothy Rudd heard a familiar +high-pitched voice exclaim. "You don't mean to tell us you live in this +mouse-hole! Actually, my hat hits on both sides!" + +Then came Neil Chase's barytone drawl--how well Bob remembered hating the +sound of it with a profound hatred when it had been addressed +contemptuously to him! "Really, Dorothy--you know--I told you that brim +of yours was an inch and a half beyond the limit, and this proves it!" + +But Sally's pretty head was held high. If she had a headache, its effect +was visible only in her brilliant cheeks. + +"You always ran to extremes, Dorothy, dear. Why didn't you take that +absurd creation off in the vestibule? Neil, how are you? Have you your +best Chesterfieldian manner with you? Because you'd better leave it +outside; the apartment's not large enough for you and it, too!" + +"The same impertinent child," declared Mrs. Chase, surveying her hostess +in the light of the living-room. "And here's smart Alec," as that youth +came forward, his smile of welcome undergoing a wry twist at this +somewhat unusual greeting. "And Bob--heavens, child, how you've grown! +And this is--oh, yes--Mr. Rudd!" + +Her careless hand, in its travelling glove, met Uncle Timothy's grasp, +and left it as casually as her bright hazel eyes left the glance of his +faded blue ones. Bob, watching, grinned at Uncle Timothy meaningly, and +received in return the mild sparkle of amusement with which the "antique" +was accustomed to show himself invulnerable to neglect from young persons +of Dorothy Chase's stamp. + +Neil's greetings of the family were also highly characteristic. One who +had never before seen him might have argued many things from the style of +his opening address: + +"This is Alec, eh? Well, Alec, I see you're still the flower of the +family. Bob--how do you like sweeping out offices? Better than going to +school? And here's Uncle Thomas--beg pardon--Uncle Joshua. Not got it +right yet, Sally? Confound my memory--yes, yes--Uncle Timothy. How are +you, my dear sir?" + +"I see," responded Mr. Rudd, suddenly grown quietly dignified, as he +surveyed this jocular young man whom he remembered as a youth whom he had +frequently longed to thrash, "that in spite of the pressure of years and +responsibility you happily retain your boyish characteristics." + +Young Mr. Chase regarded Uncle Timothy for an instant without speaking. +Then he turned to Sally with a quite audible comment: "The old gentleman +hasn't changed much, has he? Keep him with you all the time?" + +"We couldn't live without him," was Sally's quick reply. Uncle Timothy, +catching the answer, smiled to himself. It would take more than the +advent of these gay comets in his sky to disturb his content in the stars +which revolved loyally about him. + +The two hours which followed were occupied in instructing the guests how +to bestow themselves in the unaccustomed limitations of the Lane +apartment without doing themselves physical injury. The Chases evidently +felt that the surest way to show their appreciation of the hospitality +offered them was to be uninterruptedly mirthful at its character. + +"For goodness' sake, Sally," cried Mrs. Chase, with a little shriek, +"you're not going to put us both in here! Neil, don't you dare to come in +until I get out--there isn't room. Where shall I hang my coat? Oh, is +there a closet behind that curtain? Six hooks! Neil, you can't have but +one of them--I want the rest. Sally, how did you ever come to it, after +that great roomy old house of yours? I should suffocate in a week! It's +lucky we're going on to-morrow. I couldn't change my gowns in here." + +"I thought you were an experienced traveller," retorted Sally, lightly +enough. She had known quite what to expect from Dorothy; it did not +disturb her seriously. "Good travellers can tuck themselves away +anywhere. Besides, this room is palatial in comparison with Uncle +Timothy's. There's not room for a dressing-table in his. You should be +thankful that you have one, and a mirror. The mirror's the one real +essential for Dorothy Eustis Chase. I made sure you had that." + +"It's just like you not to own up that you're cramped." Dorothy was +taking full advantage of the mirror pointed out. Her elaborately waved +chestnut locks received her full attention for a space, and Sally slipped +away to the kitchen. + +They sat down presently to something which was not a dinner, and proved +decidedly more than a lunch. The guests ate ravenously, but did not +forget to take note of their surroundings. Neil's back was too close to +the wall for Sally to squeeze by him when she rose to change the plates, +and this amused him very much. "Two more guests, and the room would +burst, wouldn't it?" he suggested, as he handed a plate at her request. +"I didn't know they ever made a flat as small as this" + +"They make them much smaller," declared Max, with a sparkle of the eye. +"I assure you we have never felt crowded--until to-night." + +"Oh, don't mind us!" Dorothy cried. "You see, we've just come from +visiting the Grandons, and their house is so enormous it makes everything +seem small. It was a day's journey across our room, and Neil's +dressing-room was as big as this whole flat. It's a lovely place to +visit, they do everything for you. They have so many servants, and such +well trained ones, you absolutely forget how to wait on yourself." + +"How long were you there?" Alec inquired. + +"Why, from Wednesday to--when did we leave there, Neil? Oh, yes, it must +have been yesterday morning." + +"Three days? No wonder you became too used to such luxury to be able to +come down to waiting on yourselves." And Alec applied himself to his +plate with a sense of having evened things up with Mrs. Chase in return +for her "smart Alec." + +It was Sally who kept matters running smoothly, her head throbbing all +the while. When the Chases had been finally tucked away--still +ironic--in their quarters, and the rest of the family had bestowed +themselves in the space belonging to them, she sat down by the open +window, too weary to undress. Here Bob, emerging from Uncle Timothy's +room in search of belongings necessary to his comfort, found her. + +"Why don't you go to bed?" he asked. + +"I'm going. But I'd like to sit here all night." + +"You'll catch cold by that window. Head still ache?" + +"I suppose so. I'm too tired to feel anything any more." + +"Cheer up. I'll be around bright and early and do everything I know." + +"Of course you will, Bobby," and she held out her hand. He grasped it. + +"Your hand's hot," he observed. "Aren't sick, are you?" + +"Of course not. I'm never sick. Go to bed, dear. I'll be all right in +the morning." + +Optimistically, Bob thought she would. The next morning, however, the +Sally who confronted him looked so far from herself, as she went slowly +about the little kitchen, that he was worried, and said so. + +"Never mind. Don't say anything. After breakfast I can rest." + +"Can you brace up to get through breakfast?" demanded Bob, anxiously. +Sally assured him that she could, and proved it. Somehow, after the +manner of women, she came to the table with a smile so bright that nobody +noticed that she ate almost nothing, that her hand shook as she poured +the coffee, and that her long-lashed blue eyes were very heavy. + +Immediately after breakfast the Chases were off--in a cab engaged by Max, +in deference to Sally's wishes. Neil and Dorothy took a jocose farewell, +the one declaring that their presence had stretched the apartment till it +could be seen to gape at the seams, the other vowing that Sally must come +to see her soon, in order to be able to take a full breath again. Then +the cab bore them away. + +"Well, of all the--" Alec left the sentence unfinished. + +Max completed it for him. "Nerve! If that's a sample of legal brilliancy +of wit, I'm sorry for the defendant who employs him," he grunted. + +The Chases had arrived on Saturday night, and were continuing their +journey without reference to the fact that it was Sunday. Sally turned +back into the passage, remembering that on Sundays her family were to be +provided for in the matter of luncheon, and that they were in the habit +of looking forward to the extra good things she was accustomed to serve +them upon that day. She sank into a chair and stared at the +breakfast-table standing just as they had all left it. + +"Don't you stir, Sis!" cried Bob, returning with the others. "Al and I'll +do the dishes." Then, as he saw an expression of disfavour cross his +brother's face at this unwelcome proposal, he added quickly, "She's sick, +Sally is, with all this, and it's time somebody noticed it." + +They all looked at her. She tried to smile up at them, but the +unwilling tears came instead. "I'll be all right, if I can just lie +down a while," she said. + +Then they rallied, in alarm. Not one of them but loved Sally as the +dearest thing in the world, however careless of her comfort one or +another of them might now and then seem to be. + +Max put a brotherly arm round her. "Tired out, little girl?" he asked, +gently, and led her toward the couch in the living-room. + +"All for those ungrateful duffers!" As he followed to put a pillow under +his sister's head Alec looked as if he would like to knock at least one +of the "duffers" down. + +"She's had all she could do to keep up, for twenty-four hours!" cried +Bob, pulling a small knit rug over Sally's feet. + +She managed to smile at them, choking back quite unwonted tears--Sally +was no baby, to cry at a touch of fatigue. She had known they would be +very good to her, once they understood. + +It was Uncle Timothy who at once became practical. He drew up a chair +beside the couch and took Sally's wrist in his, counting carefully. Then +he laid his hand on her forehead, against her flushed cheeks. He bade her +put out her tongue, and surveying that tell-tale member through his +spectacles, came to his conclusions. These he did not inflict upon Sally, +who had closed her eyes, and lay like a tired child. Instead, he beckoned +Max into another room, and said, "She's sick, sure enough. Pulse jumping, +skin hot and dry--and too tired to move. Suppose you telephone Doctor +Wood to look in this morning." + +Max lost no time. He went down stairs to telephone, that Sally-might not +hear, and in his suddenly roused anxiety made his message so urgent that +the doctor arrived within the hour. He was the family physician long +employed by the Lanes, and he had known Sally from her babyhood. It took +him but the space of a brief, yet thorough, examination to form his +opinion. He communicated it, under his breath, to Sally's "four men," who +had tiptoed anxiously out into the hall where he had beckoned them. + +"It looks mighty like typhoid," he said--and they winced at the word. +"It's too soon to be certain, but there's more or less of it about. You +can't take care of her here, and she'll be far better off at the +hospital. I'll send a carriage and a nurse by twelve o'clock." + +So do hours change outlooks. The last thing any one of the Lanes had +expected to be doing at noon on that peaceful spring Sunday was to be +standing in the vestibule of the Winona flats, watching the little sister +being conveyed away, in the care of a nurse. But so it was. + +"Don't look so blue, dears," Sally had murmured, as she left them. "I'll +soon be back, you know." + +"Heaven grant it!" ejaculated Uncle Timothy, in his heart. As for the +others, they filed silently up stairs again, and into the empty room. It +was full of all the things that had seemed to make it home--with Sally +there. But somehow it looked empty now. + +Nobody said much of anything unless it became necessary, but before +bedtime four pregnant sentences had been uttered. + +"That nurse looked as if she knew something," said Max, suddenly. + +"There's not a man in the city equal to Wood," declared Alec. + +"Seems as if she couldn't smile quite like that if she was going to be +awfully sick," was Bob's contribution to the sum total of hopefulness. + +But it was Uncle Timothy, as usual, who hit the nail on the head. "Boys," +said he, "we can do our part--on our knees." + +And, to a man, they nodded. Suddenly, they could not speak. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ARGUMENTS AND ANSWERS + + +"I'm sure that's as good a report as we could hope for," urged Josephine +Burnside. But the anxiety in her eyes somewhat qualified her +cheerfulness. + +Maxwell Lane shook his head doubtfully. + +"'Holding her own'--that's all they've said the last three days," he +said. + +"Yes, but that's a good deal at this stage. It's the end of the +second week." + +"She's out of her head." + +"They usually are, I think." + +The pair emerged from the door of the hospital. + +"Well, I'm glad I met you here," said Max. "It's kind of you to come +so often." + +"It's not kind at all. I couldn't stay away. And if I could, Jarvis +wouldn't let me. No telephone messages will satisfy him." + +"Good old fellow. How are his eyes?" + +"Worse than ever. Mother and I take turns reading to him, while he tramps +the floor. We should try to get him off somewhere into the country, but +he won't leave until Sally is out of the hospital. And I've no idea he +will leave then, he'll be so anxious to do things for her." + +"Good old chap," murmured Max again, absently. He was looking at +Josephine as if an idea had struck him. "Are you going to do anything in +particular the rest of the afternoon?" + +"I don't know that I am. Why?" + +"Don't you want to invite me to drive out into the country in your trap? +The roads are pretty good now, and I ought to go out and take a look at +the farm. Besides, I'm too restless to keep still. Saturday afternoons +and Sundays are tough to get through with, just now." + +"I shall be delighted. Come home with me, and we'll start right away. I +should like to see the place again, too." + +Fifteen minutes by trolley-car, and ten to allow for the ordering of the +trap, and the two young people were driving away. Josephine held the +reins over the back of a fine gray mare that seemed glad to get out of +the stable on this sunny May afternoon. The roads were even better than +Max had predicted, and the seven-mile drive was soon over. + +"There are the pines." Josephine pointed with her whip. "How far away +they show, against the lighter foliage. I'm fond of pines--they make me +think of the mountains. You're lucky to have that grove. If you ever live +here, it will be a lovely spot for hot summer afternoons." + +"We'll never live here, if I can help it," answered Max. "As for the pine +grove, the best thing to do with that is to cut it down and get the money +out of it." + +"Max!" exclaimed Josephine. "Don't do that without the permission of +every member of your family and most of your friends. What's the money?" + +"The money's a good deal to me. This illness of Sally's--" + +"Sell the books, if you must, but not the trees. Of course you ought to +keep both, but don't--_don't_ cut down those trees!" + +"You're as bad as Sally about this old place. Hello, there's some one in +the grove now! What's he doing? Standing on his head?" + +For a leg could be descried waving in the air, while its owner apparently +lay partly on his back, his shoulders against a tree trunk. As the trap +came nearer, the man could be seen distinctly; he was reading, with one +leg balancing across the knee of the other. + +"Seems to have taken possession of my grounds. I suppose he also would +object if I offered to cut down the grove. Is he going to see us? No--too +absorbed in his yellow novel." + +"He sees us. But we're nothing to him. He's turned back to his page. +Shall we drive in? Are you going to get out?" + +"Yes, of course, if only to show that chap I'm the owner of his +lounging place." + +Josephine turned in, and the trap swung through the gateway and on past +the pine grove. Max saw the reader get to his feet. + +"Coming to apologize," murmured Max. "Well, if he asks permission, he can +stay--till I cut down the grove." + +Before the horse had been tied, the stranger was at hand. "Since I'm +caught in the act, I'll come and ask if I may," he said, genially. "This +is Mr. Lane, I believe. I'm Donald Ferry, a neighbour of yours. Your fine +grove is a sort of 'call of the wild' to me." + +Max shook hands, attracted at once by both voice and face. Donald Ferry +was a sturdy young man, with broad shoulders and a thick thatch of +reddish-brown hair; he possessed a pair of searching but friendly hazel +eyes. He was dressed in a rough suit of blue serge, and a gray flannel +shirt with a rolling collar and flowing blue tie gave him an out-door +air confirmed by the tan and freckles on his face and the sinewy grip of +his brown hand. He had closed his book and tucked it under his arm, so +that its title could not be observed, but it had not exactly the look of +a "yellow novel." + +"You're entirely welcome to make use of the grove as much as you like," +Max answered, with the cordiality he could not help feeling toward the +possessor of so frank and genial a look as that with which the strange +young man continued to regard him. + +"I live with my mother in the little house on the other side of the +grove," explained Mr. Ferry. "We've been living there for a fortnight, +but this is the first time I've caught sight of anybody about the place. +It seemed so completely deserted I've been proposing to my mother that we +appropriate the house. But she seems a trifle appalled by the size of it. +On the whole, for us, ours is rather the better fit." + +"This house is too big to fit anything but an orphan asylum," said Max, +with a wave toward the brick walls now heavily vine-clad with the tender +green leafage of May. "It's in bad shape, from chimneys to cellar. Just +the same, I've a sister who is wild to live here." + +"Yet you are the one who comes out to look over the place? Perhaps you +have a sort of sneaking fondness for it, after all!" + +"My sister would come if she could. She's in the hospital with typhoid," +explained Max, wondering, as he did so, how he came to be giving details +like these in his first conversation with a stranger. He really liked the +look of the fellow extraordinarily well. + +"This will be a great place for her to grow strong in, by and by," +suggested the other, his tone indicating his sympathy with the situation. +"The pine grove, in June, will be better than a sanatorium." + +Max shook his head. "It's not practical for us to think of living here. +Of course we can bring her out for a day at a time." + +"You might put up a tent in the grove. Nothing like out-doors for +convalescents--and for well people. Well, Mr. Lane, thank you immensely +for letting me feel free of the grove--until you come to live. I am +fairly sure you will come to live here some day. It's an irresistible +old place." + +He took his leave with a pleasant grace of manner which, in spite of the +rough old suit and flannel shirt, spoke of training in other places than +pine groves. + +When he had gone off among the pines toward the hedge, which lay between +the grove and the little white cottage on the side toward Wybury, Max +rejoined Josephine. "He looked a pretty good sort, didn't he? If anybody +did live here, he'd be an interesting neighbour. I hardly knew there was +a house there, did you?" + +"Oh, yes, I saw it as we came by. It had been freshly painted white, and +I noticed how pleasant it looked. It's a tiny house. Unless his mother is +smaller than he is, it certainly must be a tight fit." + +"She's probably about the size of a pint pot. Mothers of strapping +fellows like that usually are." + +"He wasn't any taller than you." + +"Wasn't he? I thought he was a giant. He'd outweigh me by fifty pounds." + +Josephine glanced at him. It struck her that Max, never of stalwart +build, looked paler and thinner than usual. There was a slight stoop in +his shoulders. She recalled the straight set of those belonging to the +strange young man. + +"Max," she asked, quite suddenly, "how much light do you have in +your office?" + +"Floods of it," replied Max, promptly. "I have to wear a shade +sometimes." + +"Daylight?" + +"Bless your soul, no! What do you think a ground-floor banking house +gets, between a lot of ten-story buildings? Electrics, of course, are the +only things possible." + +"Then you don't have the daylight at all?" + +"I have plenty of light to work by." + +"I think it's dreadful!" cried Josephine. She had never thought of it +before, or considered Max's pale skin as the direct result of spending +his days under such conditions. "If you could see the difference between +your face and Mr. Ferry's--" + +Max stared at her. "That red-headed, freckle-faced chap seems to have +made a great impression on you," he complained. "He probably has an +out-door job of some sort--his clothes showed it. Engineering, more than +likely. That was undoubtedly a book on dynamics or hydraulics, or +something of that sort. You can't expect a bank clerk to have a skin like +an Indian's--under electric light. Come on, shall we walk back to the +timber tract? That's what I want to look at. I suppose you won't object +to my cutting there? There must be a lot of stuff fit to sell, and, as I +told you, I need the money. When Sally gets out of the hospital, it will +be a long time before she's fit to work. Uncle Tim says typhoid +convalescents are pretty slow at getting back to the working stage. We'll +have to keep on hiring that Mary Ann Flinders. She polishes the stove +with the napkins, I think--they look it." + +"Goodness! How poor Sally would feel if she knew!" + +"She does know. I told her the last time I saw her--before she got these +funny notions in her head. To-day she thought I was an Episcopal bishop +come to marry her to the doctor--they got me out right away." + +"Max! You must not tell Sally disturbing things about home. She will be +anxious enough when she's herself, without hearing about napkins and +things from you." + +"I suppose so. But I've been so blue ever since she went I couldn't +keep in." + +"Then keep out." + +Max looked at her. Josephine's dark cheeks were pink, partly with +indignation, partly with the brisk progress over the slightly rising +grade of the cartpath through the fields toward the timber tract. + +"Well, you _are_ sort of down on your friends to-day, aren't you? I'm an +idiot to think of cutting down the pine grove. I'm a milksop compared +with a red-headed Indian you never saw before. Now I'm a blunderbuss for +answering a simple question asked me by my sister. What do you think I +am, anyhow? Fit to cumber the earth?" + +Josephine returned his gaze. She seemed not in the least awed by this +burst of wrath. She replied with spirit, not unmixed with good humour: + +"I think you're peppery--as usual. Hasn't an old friend like me a right +to try to keep things straight? You ought to know better than to say one +word to Sally that will give her a minute's anxiety. Goodness knows +she's had enough of it, keeping house for you four people for three +whole years." + +"Haven't we been taking care of her all that time?" demanded Max, with +rising colour of his own. "Haven't we all been working our heads off to +pay expenses, and giving her every cent we could get to run things with?" + +"Of course you have. It's what you ought to do, but I certainly give you +credit for doing it. Only I don't think you've fully appreciated Sally's +part. She's worked harder than any of you." + +"Has she told you so?" Max was looking straight in front of him, and his +eyes were angry. + +"Never! You know she hasn't. She's not that kind of girl. But I'm another +girl, and I can see for myself. Sally's worked hard to make that +apartment seem like home. No matter how blue she felt herself, she's +never acted blue before you--now has she?" + +"I can't say that she has. She's a light-hearted girl--always was, and--" + +"Don't you think it. Sally's been putting on a brave face and letting +everybody suppose she's cheerful. She's kept you all up when she was +bluer than you are now." + +Max stopped short, stood still in the cart-path and looked Josephine in +the eye. She stopped also, and faced him coolly. + +"Will you tell me how you know all this?" he inquired, fiercely. + +"I've put two and two together, and found they make four," replied +Josephine. "See here, Max "--she spoke more gently, but quite as +decidedly as before--"you mustn't think I'm trying to be disagreeable, +now, of all times. Of course I know you boys all love Sally as devotedly +as brothers can, and do a great deal to show it. But when it comes to +sparing her anxiety and letting her have her way about things she has set +her heart on, I don't think you're always quite as considerate as you +might be. I didn't dream of saying all this to-day. But when you began to +talk about cutting down that pine grove, though you knew what a fancy +Sally took to it, it came over me that you would be just as likely as +anything to do it right now, while Sally is sick--and I just couldn't +help speaking out." + +The two walked on in silence for some distance. Then Max spoke, gloomily: + +"It's all right enough to consider sentiment, and I know you well enough +to understand what you mean by pitching into me this way. But the craze +Sally's been in over this old place seems to me a thing out of all +reason. What are we, a family of bank clerks and office boys, to shoulder +a proposition like this? We can't think of moving out here and living in +that barracks, and trying to make a living off the soil. Neither can we +put a tenant on here, and fit him out with farm tools, and take the +responsibility and the risk of his running the place. He'd undoubtedly +run us into the ground the first year. I've thought it over and thought +it over, and the only course seems to me to be to find a buyer for the +place. Money isn't easy just now, and I've no doubt we'd have a hard time +to get a decent price. Meanwhile it seems to me only common sense to get +what income we can out of it. If I could sell that big pine grove, and +cut off what timber is ready for the axe up here, it would bring us +something quite substantial." + +Now this certainly was a presentation of the case which called for a +considerate listening. But, quite as if she had not heard a word of his +argument, Josephine cried out: + +"Max, why not do what Mr. Ferry proposed, if you think the house can't be +lived in? Put up a tent in the grove and bring Sally there as soon as +she's fit for it. She'd get strong twice as fast as in that stuffy flat!" + +Max gazed at her. "That's just what you get," he ejaculated, "when you +try to talk business with a girl. Show her a good and sufficient reason +why you can't do a thing, and she instantly asks why you can't do +something ten times harder. Will you tell me how, with Sally out here in +a tent, we fellows are going to get along in the flat? And what would she +do out here, all by herself?" + +It was now Josephine's turn to gaze with scorn at her companion. "Do you +think I'm proposing for Sally to camp by herself out here, while Mary Ann +Flinders keeps house for you in town? No; bring Mary Ann out here to cook +for Sally, and you boys come out for the nights. If you had a bit of camp +spirit, you'd jump at the chance to get a real outing right along with +your work." + +"Camp," exclaimed Max, "in your own front yard!" + +"The pine grove isn't your front yard, and the farther end of it is so +far away from the road, nobody could tell who was who, back there. +Besides, what difference, if Sally gets strong again as fast as out-door +life can make her?" + +"It's not practical," Max continued to object, and Josephine realized +afresh that the Lane temperament was not one easily swayed by argument or +appeal. There was a stubborn streak in Max which was as hard to deal with +now as it had been in the days when Josephine had fought it out with him +in playground affairs. Yet she did not lose hope. She had known Max to +come round, if left to himself, convinced in the end by logic derived +from his own consideration of the case. If he could once see a course as +fair and right he would accept it. Clearly, he did not yet see this thing +in any such light, and it was of no use to persist in heated argument +which would only result in prejudicing him yet further against the plan +which seemed to Josephine so wise a one. + +The two walked through the timber tract, Max pointing out trees which he +thought could be sacrificed with a real gain to the timber to be left +standing. Josephine listened and agreed, finding genuine interest in the +long vistas of oak and chestnut pillars stretching away to what seemed an +infinite distance, for dense undergrowth at the back of the wood +prevented the appearance of an outlet anywhere. + +As they drove away, they noted with new interest the small white cottage +on the farther side of the dividing hedge. + +"There's your friend Ferry," observed Max, as they flew by at the gray +mare's smartest pace, "working away in a strawberry patch as if his life +depended on it. That's where he gets his beautiful Indian complexion you +admire so much, when he isn't doing engineering stunts. Probably he's +home just now between jobs, fixing up his mother in her new place. Well, +we can't all grow strawberries and lie round on our backs reading +hydraulics. Some of us have to do the in-door jobs. Of course those are +useless--mere folly. All the really sensible chaps are looking after the +colour of their skins!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +TELEPHONES AND TENTS + + +"Hello, Jarve! This you?" + +Over the telephone Jarvis Burnside recognized Max Lane's voice, eager and +cheerful. The last time he had heard it, it had been so despondent that +his own anxiety had been heavily increased. He answered eagerly: + +"Yes. What is it?" + +"There's a break in her temperature." + +"A break! You mean--" + +"A drop--a landslide--during the last twelve hours. She's sleeping +quietly. She's--" + +But something suddenly interfered with the speaker's articulation. +Although Jarvis continued to listen with strained attention, a silence +succeeded. His imagination filled the gap. He essayed to offer +congratulations, but found something the matter with his own powers of +speech. After a moment's struggle, however, he was able to say, "I'll be +round as quick as I can get there." + +Mrs. Burnside, passing the telephone closet at the back of the hall, +heard a rush therefrom, and found herself suddenly embraced by a pair of +long arms. Although blue goggles concealed her son's eyes from her look +of sympathetic inquiry, the smile which transformed his face was not to +be mistaken. + +"Jarvis, dear--you've had good news!" + +"Max couldn't say much, but his voice told. The fever's down--she's +sleeping!" + +"Oh, I am glad--so glad! The dear child! I couldn't sleep last night, +after the discouraging news." + +Her son did not say that he had not slept, but he looked it. His finely +cut features showed plainly that for more than one night he had been +suffering severe and increasing strain. + +"We must tell Josephine," said his mother happily, proceeding on her way +with Jarvis's arm about her shoulders. + +"You look her up, please. I'm going to bolt down to see Max and the +rest. Uncle Timothy was about all in last night when I met him. These +last five days--" + +Jarvis released his mother, seized his hat from a tree they were passing, +and escaped out of a side door. Mrs. Burnside hurried away upstairs to +find her daughter. If the Burnside family had been bound to the Lanes by +ties of blood, each member of it could hardly have been more intimately +concerned with the issue of Sally's illness. + +Away down town, at the Winona flats, Jarvis's ring brought an instant +response, and a minute later Bob was shaking his hand off at the half-way +landing. Then Alec was rushing to the top of the stairs, and Max was +shouting from the bath-room, where he was shaving. Uncle Timothy alone +remained quiet in his chair, but his worn face was bright. + +"It's great news, Mr. Rudd, great news!" cried Jarvis, wringing Uncle +Timothy's out-stretched hand of welcome. + +"Yes, Jarvis--yes. But--I must warn you all to make haste slowly in the +matter of assurance. It looks favourable, certainly, but the child has +been through a hard fight, and she is not out of danger yet. You know I +don't want to dampen your happiness, boys--" and Uncle Timothy looked +tenderly from one face to another, out of the wisdom of his greater +experience. + +Their faces had sobered. "I understand, sir, of course," Jarvis +agreed. "But the drop in the fever and the quiet sleep surely mean a +promising change?" + +"Very promising--no doubt of it. And we are thankful--thankful. It is a +wonderful relief after the reports we have been getting." He took off +his spectacles and wiped them. Then he wiped his eyes. "With care, now--" +he began again, cheerfully. + +But Bob could not help interrupting. "She's getting splendid care," he +cried. He could not endure the thought that it was still necessary to +exercise caution lest they rejoice prematurely. He had taken the leap +from boyish despair to boyish confidence at a bound, and he had no mind +to drop back to a half-way point of doubt and depression. + +"I suppose we ought to wait a few days before we run up any flags," Max +admitted, and the others reluctantly agreed. + +During the following week they learned the reasons for respecting Mr. +Rudd's advice. Though Sally's bark had certainly rounded the most +threatening danger point, there yet remained seas by no means smooth to +be traversed, and more than once wind and waves rose again sufficiently +to cause a return of anxiety to those who watched but could not go to the +rescue. But, in due time, recovery became assured, convalescence was +established, and finally the great day was at hand, when she should come +home from the hospital. She looked still very pale and weak, as they saw +her lying in her high white bed in the long ward--how they had mourned +that they could not afford to give her a private room!--But she was Sally +herself once more, and looking so eagerly forward to being at home again +that it was a joy to see her smile at the thought of it. + +"I wish it were not so excessively hot," said Uncle Timothy, regretfully. + +He stood in the doorway of Sally's room. It had been put in order by Mary +Ann Flinders--or, to be more exact, Mary Ann Flinders had attempted to +put it in order for Sally's reception the next day. + +Max looked in over his uncle's shoulder. "I don't know that it's any +hotter in here than anywhere else!" he demurred, irritably. He was in his +shirt-sleeves, and he had that moment removed his collar and neck-tie. +Uncle Timothy had got as far as taking off his waistcoat and donning an +old alpaca coat, in which he had been striving to imagine himself +comfortable. + +"I think it must be several degrees warmer in this small room than in the +dining-room," asserted Uncle Timothy. "And it is ninety-two there. It is +unfortunate that the poor child should have to come back to such an oven +as this. At the hospital a breeze circulates through the wards. Here +there seems to be none." + +"She could sleep on the couch in the living-room." suggested Max. +"_Whew!_ It _is_ hot! What possesses the weather to start in like this, +before June's half over? I believe it was one hundred and twelve in the +office to-day." + +He threw himself on the couch. After a moment of reclining upon it, +during which he mopped his brow and drew his handkerchief about his neck, +he rose and jerked the couch toward one of the two open windows. When he +had lain in this new situation for the space of two minutes more, he got +up again and sought the tiny kitchen, where he could be heard drawing +water from the tap. "Ugh--warm as dish water!" Uncle Timothy could hear +his distant splutter. + +Bob and Alec were out somewhere--presumably cooling off in one of the +city parks or on the river front. Also, they were getting impatiently +through the hours before Sally's return. The entire Lane household had +reached the point where her coming home seemed a thing never to be +attained. To a man, they felt that one week more without her would be +unendurable. + +But the next day--it was Sunday again--she came home. Josephine and Max, +with the Burnside carriage and horses, brought her to the door. Max and +Alec, making a "chair" of hands and wrists, carried the pitifully light +figure up the four flights of stairs, and Josephine hovered over the +convalescent as she was established upon the couch, among many pillows. +The rest of them stood about in a smiling circle. + +"Oh, but it's good to be home!" sighed Sally, happily, looking from one +to another with eyes which seemed to them all as big as saucers, so deep +were the hollows about them and so thin her cheeks. "But how pale and +tired you all look! What in the world is the matter with you?" + +"The truth is, I think, dear," explained Josephine, glancing from Max to +Uncle Timothy, "your family have been having typhoid." Then, at Sally's +startled expression, she added, gently, "It's almost as wearing, you +know, to have a fever of anxiety over somebody you love as to have the +real thing in the hospital." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Sally, softly, and her eyes fell. Then she drooped +limply against her pillows. "It's--just a little hot to-day, isn't it?" +she murmured. + +Alec consulted the thermometer. "It's ninety here now," he announced. "At +ten o'clock in the morning! About three this afternoon, Sally, you'll +see what we can do here. And no let-up promised by the weather man." + +Bob brought a palm-leaf fan, and perching himself at the head of Sally's +couch, began to fan her. "I'll produce 'breezes from the north and +east,'" he promised. "Al, why don't you get her some ice-water? We began +to take ice yesterday." + +"Only yesterday?" questioned Sally, with her eyes closed. But she forbore +to ask why they had delayed so long. Well she knew that illnesses are +expensive affairs. + +"If you only had let us take you to our house!" cried Josephine, for the +tenth time since she had first proposed that plan. "We could have made +you so much more comfortable." + +Sally opened her eyes again. "No, you couldn't, Joey," she said, +"unless you had taken all the rest of them. I couldn't spare my family +another day!" + +"May we come in?" + +It was Jarvis Burnside, bringing his mother to see Sally. Neither of them +had yet set eyes upon her since her illness. Sally had been at home for +two days now, two intemperately hot days. During this entire period she +had lain on the couch, which was drawn as close to the window as it +could be placed. Uncle Timothy had remained at hand with fans and iced +lemonade and every other expedient he could think of for mitigating the +perfervid temperature of the flat. Just now, at five o'clock in the +afternoon, with no breeze whatever entering at the window, the small +living-room was at its worst. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" Sally held out a languid hand, but her face +lighted up with pleasure. + +While his mother bent over Sally, Jarvis pushed up his goggles, then +pulled them off. The room was shaded, but even so, the daylight made him +blink painfully for a minute. But by the time he got his chance at +greeting the invalid, he was able to see clearly for himself just how +Sally was looking. He stared hard at her, noting with a contraction of +the heart all the evidences of the fight for life she had been through. +There was no doubt about it, it was as Josephine had said: she looked as +if a breath might blow her away. + +"I look like a little boy now, don't I?" suggested Sally, smiling up at +him as his hand closed over hers. She put up her other hand to her head, +where the heavy masses of fair hair had given way to a short, curly crop +most childish in its clustering framing of her now delicate face. "It's +a blow to my vanity, but it's growing fast, and by the time I can hold my +head up good and strong, like a six-months-old baby, it will be long +enough to tie with a bow at my neck." + +"You can't hold your head up yet?" questioned Jarvis anxiously. + +"Oh, yes, I can," declared Sally, cheerfully. "I just don't seem to want +to--not when there's a convenient pillow to lay it on. But I shall get +strong pretty soon now. When the weather changes--why, even to-day, if I +were lying down on the bank of a brook somewhere, or in the woods--or +almost anywhere out-doors--I believe I'd feel quite a lot stiffer in my +backbone." + +"And still you won't come to us and let us make you comfortable?" Mrs. +Burnside looked as if she would enjoy doing it. + +But Sally looked over at Uncle Timothy, and her shake of the head was +as decided as ever. "Not while Uncle Timmy and the boys stay here. Have +you seen Max and Alec lately, Mrs. Burnside? I don't believe I'm a bit +paler than they are, working in those hot offices in the artificial +light. I shall grow strong fast enough--the nurse told me people always +feel like this after typhoid. And when I do get strong I shall be a +Trojan--just wait." + +"We don't like to wait," said Jarvis, still watching Sally, although his +eyes were feeling the adverse influences of the white daylight which beat +into the room underneath the shades. He put up his hand for an instant to +shield them, and Sally was quick to notice. + +"I thought you were wearing goggles, Jarvis," she said. Mrs. Burnside +turned with a reproachful expression, and with a laugh Jarvis drew the +goggles out of his pocket and replaced them. + +"A fellow gets tired of viewing life through these things," he explained. +"And I've been seeing you in imagination through blue spectacles, so to +speak, for five weeks now. I thought I'd like a glimpse of your true +complexion." + +Sally put up two thin hands and pinched her cheeks fiercely. "I believe I +must resemble a tallow candle," she complained. "What can you people +expect of a patient just out of the hospital?" + +"We'd like to get you where nature would attend to putting on the +rouge--eh, mother?" and Jarvis thought of his friend Max with a strong +desire to take that refractory young man by the collar and argue with him +with his fists. If it had not been for Max's stubbornness, Sally would +not now be suffering the discomfort of this unspeakable apartment. + +When he and his mother had reached the outer air again and were driving +away, Jarvis burst out: "Something must be done! If Sally won't let you +and Jo have her--and that wouldn't be getting her out of the city, only +into a more bearable in-door atmosphere--she must be taken into the +country. Jo's plan is perfectly feasible. A tent in that pine grove would +do the business. Mother, I'm going to put one there. If Max doesn't like +it, he can stay away." + +"Jarvis, dear, how can you do that? Max would resent that high-handed way +of managing his affairs." + +"I dare say he would. What of that? If ever a frail child needed to get +out-doors, Sally does. Aren't we old friends enough to take things into +our own hands?" + +"Max won't accept a tent from you--or Sally, either." + +"Won't they? They won't have to. It'll be my tent; I'll lend it to them." +Jarvis grinned, his white teeth making a striking contrast to the sombre +effect of his big goggles. + +"Hold on, Cheney," he said to the coachman. "Let me out at the corner of +Seventeenth. I will look up the tent business right here and now." + +His mother looked after his tall figure as he hurried away through the +down town crowds, his straw hat a little pushed back, as it was wont +to be in moments of excitement. She herself felt like heartily aiding +and abetting his friendly schemes, for Sally was very dear to her +motherly heart, and it had seemed to her impossible that the girl +should recover her strength while shut up in the little flat. If the +heat lasted--and there were no indications of any near break in the +high temperature--it would certainly be a severe test on the young +convalescent, and might seriously retard her in the important business +of getting back her old vigour. + +Within an hour Jarvis was at home again, in time for dinner. He came to +the table with a catalogue in his hand. Determination was written large +upon his face. Josephine had heard from her mother of his expressed +intention, and she eyed the catalogue eagerly. + +"Are you really going to do it, Jarve?" she cried. + +"Of course I'm going to do it--with your help." + +"Help! I'll do any thing. Have you told Max?" + +"I'll tell him nothing till the tent's up--and furnished. Here, look at +this list, and advise me as to size. Would an eighteen by twenty-four +wall-tent--of the heaviest duck--be about right?" + +"Eighteen by twenty-four! Why, that's--how big would that be?" + +"About the size of this dining-room. I could get an eighteen by +thirty-four--" + +Josephine interrupted him with a burst of delighted laughter. + +"You might get Sally a circus tent," she cried. "As big as this +dining-room! Why, Jarve--" + +"She wants the whole family with her," explained Jarvis, with composure. +"That means the tent must be divided off into rooms. And she must have +one section for a living-room. I'm going to have a floor made--the +carpenter will go out in the morning, if he keeps his word. By quick work +we ought to be able to take her out there to-morrow night, but allowing +for delays, the next evening will have to do. Mother, have we any cots?" + +"I'm afraid we have no cots. There are two single-width white iron beds +in the attic--" + +"All the better. May I have them?" + +"I wonder you stop to ask permission of anybody for anything," observed +Josephine. "Mother, have you seen Jarvis look so waked up since he put +on goggles?" + +Mrs. Burnside smiled. She was very glad to see her son so interested, +although she felt decidedly doubtful as to the way in which the Lanes +would take his interference in their affairs. Still, as Jarvis had +urged, people who have been friends from childhood, with an old family +friendship of fathers and grandfathers behind them, should have some +rights when it comes to matters so important. And if anybody could manage +Max's proud and intolerant temper, Jarvis, with his quiet firmness, +should be the one. Josephine, also, was of the make-up which can fight +for that which seems right. Between them, if they could not put the thing +through, it would be rather remarkable. + +"Joey, will you and mother drive out with me this evening and decide on +where to put the tent?" Jarvis rose from the table, after having made a +hasty meal which did not include any superfluous courses. + +"Of course I will." Josephine pushed aside her dessert. + +"I will stay at home and look up blankets and bedding," announced Mrs. +Burnside. "Have you thought of the cooking question? Shall we try to +supply the utensils?" + +"If you can spare them, mother. I'll buy what you can't contribute. I've +bargained for a little gasolene stove and a small tent for a kitchen. As +for the cooking, is that specimen they have in the flat now good enough +to import to the camp?" + +"She's pretty poor. I had luncheon there yesterday with Sally." +Josephine's face spoke louder than her words. + +"Mother, could you spare Joanna for a week or two, till they can find +somebody? She can cook almost as well as Sarah, you know. She cooked for +me last fall, when you were away and Sarah was taken ill." + +Jarvis's mother looked at him doubtfully. "I think you had better not go +as far as that. Be content with supplying the tent and its equipment, and +see how Max and Alec take it. The young girl they have now will do for a +time, surely." + +"All right--if you think that's the better plan. Ready, Sis?" + +Jarvis put the gray mare through her paces, and there was still an hour +of daylight left when he and Josephine reached the pine grove. + +"It's ten degrees cooler out here than it is in town at this hour," +declared Jarvis, with satisfaction. He pushed up the goggles and lowered +them again quickly. Even the subdued light in the grove, at a point where +the setting sun did not penetrate, was too much for his eyes. "Confound +the things!" he exploded. "Shall I ever be anything again but an owl in +daylight? Well, where shall the tent go?" + +"Over there," replied Josephine, promptly. "There's just one perfect +spot for it--on the top of that little rise, looking toward the south, +and away from the grove." + +"Right you are. But the trees are too thick." + +He pulled out a foot-rule and began to measure. Presently he announced +the result: "One tree, this little fellow, will have to come down." + +"Do you dare?" + +"Of course I dare. Where can I get an axe?" + +Josephine glanced toward the house. Then she thought of the Ferry +cottage. "The little house beyond the hedge--I know the people--at least, +I've met one of them. Shall we go and ask?" + +Jarvis was already hurrying toward a distant gap in the hedge. "I'll go!" +he called back. + +In two minutes he reappeared. With him was a sturdy figure. Josephine +recognized the broad shoulders, the thick reddish-brown hair, the gleam +of the hazel eyes. She nodded at Donald Ferry, noting that he was not now +clad in a gray flannel shirt, but in one of white, with a low collar and +silk neck-tie, similar to Jarvis's--hot-weather dress with an urban air +about it. He carried an axe. + +"Thank you," said Jarvis, when they had reached the spot which Josephine +had designated. He held out his hand for the axe. + +Ferry shook his head, smiling. "Which is the tree?" he inquired. + +"Give me the axe, please," repeated Jarvis. "There's no reason why you +should chop down trees for us on a sweltering night like this." + +"It won't make me swelter as much as it will you," asserted Ferry +retaining his hold on the axe. "I'm an old woodman. Come, show me the +tree, or I'll chop at a venture. Miss Burnside?" + +Josephine pointed out the tree. Ferry lifted the axe and swung it, and it +sank deeply into the trunk. Another blow; it struck the same spot. +Another and another, with an unerring aim. "You are a woodman," admitted +Jarvis, admiringly, watching the powerful swing and the telling blows. + +Ferry laughed, without abating the vigour of his work. "There's no better +out-door fun that I know of," said he, "than chopping down a tree. I +couldn't think of missing this chance." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE PINE GROVE + + +"Sally, will you and Max go for a drive with us? It will cool you off for +sleep." Josephine stood looking in on them, herself in white from head to +foot, a refreshing sight for tired eyes to rest upon. + +Sally drew herself up eagerly upon her couch pillows. Max yawned and +stretched in the chair in which he had been half asleep. + +"Oh, it would be so good to get out!" Sally rose unsteadily to her feet. + +Max rubbed his eyes. "Sally can go. I think I'll go to bed. Much +obliged." + +"Please go, Max. We want you very much, and it's too hot here to sleep." + +"He's worn out," explained Sally. "But the drive will rest you, boy," +she insisted. + +"Jarvis is driving. He has something to talk over with you," urged +Josephine. + +Max unwillingly put on his coat. He felt tired enough. He had never known +so trying a period of work as that which had been driving him now for +weeks at the bank, with this accompaniment of intense heat which made his +labours seem doubly hard. He gave Sally his arm, down the stairs, +wondering if she felt much weaker than he did, and reflecting that in one +thing she had the advantage over him--she need not work until she should +feel fit. As for himself, he must work, fit or not. + +The rest of Sally's family were out. She had been sending them away +nightly to sit in the park by the river bank, allowing only one to remain +with her. Although she had been at home nearly a week, it was difficult +for them to see that she had made any gain in acquiring strength. Each +evening Bob and Uncle Timothy searched the daily paper in vain for +prophecy of change in the weather, and each morning they eyed the flags +upon a certain tall building with a distinct sense of resentment toward +them for persistently indicating "Fair and dry." + +"Good! Delighted to be able to lure you out!" called Jarvis, from his +driver's seat. Although it was evening, he wore his goggles, on account +of the myriad bright lights of this down-town district, and they shone +upon his guests like welcoming lamps above his satisfied smile. + +"Tired out, old fellow?" he asked Max, as he wheeled the horses about. + +"Absolutely done. This heat is the worst I ever knew. The place where my +desk stands is the hottest corner in the hottest bank in the hottest city +in the universe!" + +"This certainly has been the worst day yet. That's why I thought you +might like to get out into the country." + +"Don't care where I go," said Max. "Excuse me if I shut my eyes and keep +quiet. I haven't energy enough to say any more for a mile." + +"All right. Shut your eyes, and I'll tell you when to open them." + +Max turned sidewise in his seat, rested his elbow on the back, propped +his head upon his hand, closed his eyes, and appeared to slumber. Jarvis +drove on silently, noting with pleasure the subdued murmur of talk going +on behind him, where Sally, after a long and lonely day, was enjoying the +chance to visit with her friend. The girl lay back against the luxurious +padding of the Burnside carriage, resting and drinking in the refreshing +sense of coolness caused more by the motion than by a greatly lowered +temperature, for the evening was very warm. Presently, however, as they +left the city and turned out upon a country road, the lessening heat and +freer stirring of the air became distinctly perceptible. + +A passing stream of automobiles, setting out for some scene of festivity +at a popular resort several miles away, roused Max from his lethargy with +their tooting horns and brilliant lights. "Lucky ducks!" he muttered, in +surly tones. "They can always stir up a breeze." + +"They're not the only ones who can stir up breezes," rejoined Jarvis. +"I'm about to stir up one myself." + +"I should think you'd own a runabout," remarked Max. + +"Perhaps I will some day--when you people get to living out here." + +Max looked about him. "Headed for the farm, are we? You seem to have a +fancy for this road." + +"It's the prettiest outside the city. Look here, Max"--he lowered his +voice, that Sally might not catch a word of the coming talk--"I want +to own up to something. I've been taking liberties with your place +out here." + +Jarvis pulled off his goggles and turned his eyes upon his companion. Max +yawned once more--it was the last time he yawned that evening. From that +moment he became thoroughly awake. + +"Well, what is it?" he asked. "Had the house painted and moved in?" + +"Not quite so bad as that. I've put up a tent in your grove and +moved out." + +Max stared. "_What_?" + +"Let's keep our voices low for a bit," urged Jarvis. "I want to surprise +Sally. I knew if I asked your permission to camp in your grove you'd +give it to me without a minute's hesitation, so, banking on your +generosity, I took possession. I wanted to surprise you all. It struck +me that every last one of you needed an outing, and I thought if you +found a tent all in order out here, perhaps you'd like to try camping +through this hot spell." + +Max was still staring. Jarvis faced him silently, straining his eyes in +the darkness to see what manner of expression might be discovered upon +the face beside him, showing so whitely through the obscurity. Max did +not reply for the space of a full minute. When he did it was not +necessary for Jarvis to strain his eyes to make out the expression. He +could tell what it was quite without seeing it. + +"It may be the proper thing to bank on a person's generosity," said Max, +in a tone of deep displeasure, "but as a rule I think it pays to consult +a man before you take possession of his property." + +Now this speech was highly characteristic and therefore not unexpected. +Nevertheless, it made Jarvis Burnside feel exceedingly like kicking his +friend violently from his seat into the road. For a moment, all he could +command himself to do was to tighten his grip on his horses and send them +at a considerably accelerated pace along the smooth turnpike. When he +spoke, however, it was with no change from the quiet good humour of his +former tone. + +"You don't mean just that, with an old friend like me. Mother and Jo are +with me in this attempt at a pleasant surprise. They will be tremendously +hurt if you get up on your dignity and take it this way. We knew you had +no time to be arranging camps, here or anywhere else, yet we saw you +working yourself to death, and Sally needing to get out of the heat--" + +"I understand. Jo talked this thing at me the last time we were out +here. It's a trick to get round my refusal to live here. You think you +can get in an entering wedge. It's no use won't live out here. It's +nonsense, and--" + +Sally's voice interrupted from behind: "Max, isn't this glorious? Don't +you feel like a new person? We must be almost at the farm. Just think, I +haven't seen the farm since April, before a leaf was out!" + +But Josephine, who understood the situation, and was anxious to prevent +any interference with the conversation now going on upon the front seat, +promptly drew Sally back to their own interview. + +"Max, listen to me." Jarvis spoke in a still lower voice. "Do one thing +for the sake of my pride, if not for yours. I may have blundered, but +you know I didn't mean to. I thought I could count on your understanding +my motives. But anyhow, just for to-night, give way to my schemes, and +don't let the others see that you're offended with us. If after a night +here you still honestly think I'm a fool and a meddler, I won't say +another word--" + +"A night here! Do you expect to keep us here all night?" + +"Why not?" + +"You must think I'm--" + +"I think you're a reasonable being and a kind-hearted brother. If Sally +likes the plan and wants to stay, let her. If she doesn't, I'll +cheerfully take you both home. Mother's here to welcome us and make the +thing proper, and we've all planned to stay. Think of the oven your flat +is to-night. Come, be good, and you'll be cool!" + +"Do you realize you're treating me like a small boy?" + +"I feel rather like one myself--one who has stolen a cake out of the +pantry and is in danger of a thrashing," was Jarvis's whimsical +admission. "See here. I'll give you leave to take it out of me all you +like. I'll agree to meet you at midnight in the timber tract, and take +whatever you see fit to administer--provided you'll keep in before the +rest. What do you say?" In making this preposterous proposition he was +apparently perfectly serious. + +It was as Mrs. Burnside had said. If anybody could manage Max's proud +stubbornness, it was Jarvis, with his cool command of himself and his +inborn habit of courtesy to everybody. Yet even Jarvis had his hands full +to-night. Max's physical condition of fatigue and overwrought nerves made +him more than ordinarily captious and difficult to handle. + +"Confound you, you've got me in a corner!" he muttered. "That's what I +don't like. If you had come out in the open with your plans--" + +"You'd have refused me." + +"You just said you counted on my generosity. If you were so sure of it, +why didn't you ask for it?" + +Jarvis laughed. "Oh, be reasonable! Don't you let people plot, at +Christmas time and on birthdays, to take you by surprise? You hardly +call it not being in the open because they don't ask your permission to +present you with a house-jacket or a fountain-pen!" + +The horses trotted briskly on, quiet ensuing behind them for a little +while. Max fell into a sulky silence; Sally into a happy one, as she +leaned out, watching for the final turn in the road before the pines +should come into sight. Jarvis was wondering just how Max would behave, +and hoping that Sally's pleasure would blind her eyes to her brother's +dissatisfaction. He was counting a good deal on the impression his camp +would make. As he thought it would look in the moonlight, with a little +camp fire before it, it seemed to him it must appeal to anybody. + +Sally gave a little cry. "There's the grove! How big and dark it looms up +at night! I can smell it before I get near it--in my imagination. I've +been smelling it all these hot days, and longing for it. Oh, what's that +at the back? Didn't you see a flash of something?" + +Sally was fairly hanging out of the carriage, her gaze feasting on the +cool depths of gloom under the tall trees, when she caught sight of the +little leaping flames of the camp fire. + +"Somebody must be in there," agreed Josephine. "Perhaps it's Mr. Ferry, +who lives next door, in the white cottage. Remember my telling you about +him? Max gave him leave to inhabit the grove all he liked." + +"Everything's so dry, he might set it on fire," considered Sally +anxiously. + +"You won't fear any such carelessness on his part when you see him," +Josephine assured her confidently. + +The carriage turned in at the gate. In another minute it had reached a +point where the tent began to show from behind a clump of bushes. Sally's +hand clutched Max's shoulder. Her brother was ill-humouredly surveying +the signs of occupancy of the debatable ground. + +"Why, there's a tent there!" she cried. "A big tent, and some one in +front! Who is it--do you know?" She turned excitedly to Josephine; then +she touched Jarvis's shoulder. "I seem to be doing all the exclaiming," +she declared. "You people must know about this. Is it--is it a +_surprise_?" + +"It seems to be," replied Jarvis, turning to see her face, as the +fire-light struck it, aglow with wonder and anticipation. + +Josephine caught her hand. "It's on your land, Sally dear," she said. "Do +you mind?" + +"Did it ever strike you," said Jarvis, quickly, in Max's ear, "that this +_is_ Sally's land, and Alec's, and Bob's, quite as much as yours?" + +Mrs. Burnside came out to greet the party, and Sally tumbled into her +welcoming arms, hugging her frantically, and pulling away from her again +to look about her. She seemed a different girl from the limp and languid +one who had climbed into the carriage an hour before. + +"Isn't it absolutely enchanting?" she exclaimed, gazing eagerly into the +big tent, the open flaps of which showed an outer room arranged with +rugs, chairs, couch, and table. Other open flaps at the corners of this +outer enclosure invited exploration, and Sally promptly obeyed the +summons. She found four smaller rooms, securely partitioned by high, +tightly stretched canvas walls. She came back beaming. + +"What does it all mean?" she begged. "Are we to stay here to-night? Was +there ever anything so inviting as those beds and cots? I could hardly +keep from falling into one of them." + +"You may fall into one as soon as you choose," said Josephine, +gleefully. "The one on the southeast corner is yours, the one with the +blue Japanese rug on the floor and the wicker chair with the blue +cushion. We've sent a telephone message to the rest of your family, so +they won't expect you back." + +Jarvis, returning with Max from the bestowal of his horses in the barn, +found his mother and the two girls sitting in a row upon a rustic seat +at a little distance from the tent, their faces toward the camp fire, now +a mere flicker, which nobody had taken the trouble to revive. It was too +hot a night for camp fires, except as welcoming beacons. + +"Well?" questioned Jarvis, standing before the three, upon whom the +bright midsummer moonlight streamed so luminously that the white figures +were visible in every detail. + +"Well?" responded Josephine. + +"Very well, I think," added Mrs. Burnside. + +"More than well!" And Sally clasped her hands in a way both +characteristic and eloquent. "A dozen tonics couldn't have made me feel +so much stronger as the notion of sleeping in that big white tent. I +wish I knew just what the thermometer says it is in the flat at home. +Oh, poor Uncle Timmy, and Bob and Alec! How I wish they were here--don't +you, Max?" + +It would have taken a harder heart than that which beat wearily in Max's +breast to allow him to answer his sister sullenly. + +"You like it, Sally?" he asked, taking a position where the moonlight did +not illumine his face. + +"Like it!" she exclaimed. "Jo says we're to stay if you are willing--live +in this tent, and have the others out, and Mary Ann Flinders! We won't +need Mary Ann long. I'll be strong enough myself to cook in another week. +Oh, wasn't it dear and kind of these people to plan this for us?" + +What could he do or say against it all without seeming a churl and an +ingrate? But before he could formulate the inwardly grudging yet +outwardly appreciative reply he felt forced to make, Jarvis himself had +interposed with a flow of lively talk, explaining to Sally various +details of arrangement, and sparing Max the necessity of making any +insincere speeches. And the next thing that happened was the setting +forth by Josephine, on the table in the tent's outer room, of a light but +tempting supper, brought from home in a hamper--the product of no Mary +Ann Flinders, but of the Burnside cook. + +"Mm--mm!" The soft but eloquent sound came from Sally's closed lips when +she had taken her first taste of a sandwich of unknown but delicious +compound. "Was ever anything so good? Max, boy, please try one, quick! +What is this perfect drink, Joey?--how it does go to the spot! Oh, if you +are all half as happy as Sally Lunn, you don't know how to express it!" + +"We're even happier," said Josephine, laughing softly, "for it seems at +last as if we have Sally Lunn back." + +Jarvis had hard work to keep his own pleasure properly subdued. He sat +just across the table from Max, and the light from two candles shone +revealingly into his satisfied face. He put on his goggles to screen his +eyes, hoping that they might assist in concealing his content. Until Max +gave in and agreed to it all, it would never do to let anybody but Sally +crow with delight. + +Mrs. Burnside insisted on an early bedtime for Sally, and the +convalescent reluctantly admitted that not even joy was wholly +sustaining to such weakness of limb as was still hers. So she submitted, +with a sigh of appreciation, to being tucked away in the bed in the +southeast enclosure of the tent, and soon was lying peacefully there, +watching through her open tent-flap the moonlight as it lay on the open +lawn, beyond the vista of trees. The air was now stirring refreshingly +through the grove, and Sally, under the thinnest of light summer +blankets, was absolutely comfortable and restful, as she had not been +for many weary nights. + +In the adjoining room, Max was asleep in two minutes after he had +stretched himself upon his cot. Outside, by the embers of the camp fire, +Jarvis and Josephine exchanged a brief conversation. + +"Is he taking it worse or better than you expected?" Josephine asked, in +the lowest of whispers. + +"He took it like the bumptious idiot he can be, at first. He's a trifle +calmer now. I'm hoping by morning he'll be reasonable." + +"Don't you think he must see the beauty of it when he looks at Sally?" + +"One would think so. I suppose we mustn't blame him too much, for he +certainly is worn out with work in this heat, and isn't himself. If he'll +only be sensible, the staying here will do him as much good as it will +Sally. She is pleased isn't she?" + +"Pleased doesn't express it. But she thinks it's all my doing." + +"Don't let her think anything else. It was your suggestion, and you've +done half the work." + +"It was Mr. Ferry's suggestion. Did you know he put up that rustic bench +out there this afternoon? Made it out of the tree he chopped down." + +"I didn't stop to wonder how it came there. I wonder if Max noticed it? I +suppose he will think that was more of our impudence. It was kind of +Ferry, though. He'll be a good neighbour for them." + +"Oh, Jarvis, how I wish we could all stay here, too!" + +Her brother gave vent to a curious little ejaculation, whether of +agreement or dissent she could not tell. "Of course we can't," he +said shortly. + +"Perhaps Max will come round and ask us to put up another tent for +ourselves." + +"Not much he won't. Never mind, I'm satisfied if he submits to this." + +When Max opened his eyes the next morning it was difficult for him to +realize where he was. He lay staring at the flecks of sunlight on the +pine-needle-strewn ground, wondering how it happened that he had not +wakened in damp discomfort from hot and perspiring slumbers. Before he +felt himself fully awake he was conscious of a voice a few feet away, +exclaiming: + +"Oh, Mr. Ferry, how kind of you! What splendid strawberries! Out of +your own garden? You must be an accomplished gardener." It was +Josephine's voice. + +"Only a novice, but I'm rather proud of these. I hope the first night was +a comfortable one?" + +"Perfect! Our friends are still sleeping--though they won't be long if I +shout like this." + +"I've been up so long I didn't realize it was barely seven o'clock. But +I wanted to make sure of your having these for the first camp breakfast. +I'll disappear now, and perhaps I can venture to appear again, later in +the day, with my mother. We want to offer our services as neighbours from +whom anything, from axes to apricots, can be borrowed." + +Max could hear Josephine's low laugh echoed by a small ecstatic chuckle +from the other side of the canvas wall which separated his head from +Sally's. Her whisper came from very near his ear: + +"Max, are you awake? Did you hear what Jo said? We're to have fresh +strawberries, right out of a garden, for breakfast. Aren't you glad +you're alive?" + +Where was his ill-temper? He felt for it, in the recesses of his inner +man, and couldn't seem to find it. He had had nine long hours of +refreshing sleep, in the purest air to be found in the country, and had +wakened with a sense of refreshment and well-being such as he had not +experienced in many months. A faint, but appetizing, odour of cookery, +including that of fragrant coffee, was in the air, and there were to be +freshly picked strawberries for breakfast. And on the other side of the +tent wall was a happy young convalescent, demanding of him whether it +was not good to be alive. He found himself answering, in a genuinely +cheerful tone: + +"I'm certainly mighty glad you're alive, Sally Lunn!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +EVERYBODY IS SATISFIED + + +"Bobby, let's have a garden, you and I." Bob looked up from the front of +the tent platform, where he sat polishing a pair of much-worn russet +shoes. Riding back and forth, nights and mornings, on a bicycle, over +very dusty roads, made it necessary to polish often. But Bob didn't mind. +The two weeks of camp life he had enjoyed had made him indifferent to any +extra trouble involved. + +"Looks as if you had a garden somewhere," he responded, eyeing with +favour the pailful of red raspberries Sally held up. "You must have got +up with the lark, to have picked all those. Mary Ann hasn't more than +started the fire in the kitchen tent. I had to go and help her. That girl +doesn't know how to boil an egg. She cracks it getting it in. Her coffee +is a thick, dark, wicked looking stuff. What do you suppose she does to +it?" he asked in a whisper. + +"Never mind. I'm growing stronger every minute, and mean to begin to +cook, next week." + +"Thank goodness!" murmured Bob. "I mean," he explained quickly, "that +I'm thankful you're well enough." + +Sally laughed, pulled off her wide straw hat, and sat down beside Bob. + +"Your cheeks are pink as hollyhocks," he observed, eyeing her with +satisfaction. + +"I had a lovely time picking those raspberries," she said. "There must +have been a big patch of them back there once. Bob, I want to start a +kitchen garden. Max and Alec haven't waked up yet to the fun it would be +to grow things on this old place, but you're always awake. Come on!" + +Bob stood up. + +"I'm ready for anything you say, but I don't know any more about planting +gardens than I do about building bridges. You don't plant a garden in +July--I'm sure of that." + +"Isn't there a thing that can go in late, and produce a late crop?" + +"Don't ask me. Maybe our friend Ferry would know. If there's anything he +doesn't know, I haven't found it out. It's funny a preacher should be +such an all-round sort of fellow, isn't it?" + +"A--what?" Sally nearly dropped her raspberries, she was so astonished. + +"A preacher. He preaches in the old white church with the big pillars, +away down town in the middle of everything. I just found it out yesterday +from a fellow in the office." + +"Why, it can't be! He's always busy round that garden--or chopping wood +up in our timber tract. He asked Max to let him work at that--for the +sake of his muscle, he said." + +"If you'll just stop and think, you'll find he isn't round all the time. +He's in the city every day--has to be. He holds a half-hour noon service +in the old church every day in the week for men. Fred Kentner says they +flock in there like sheep--says he goes in often. It's cool in there, and +he likes the things Ferry says. I'm going in with Fred some day soon. I'd +like to find out what a fellow that can chop trees and fight with his +fists can find to say in a pulpit." + +"Fight with his fists!" + +Bob chuckled. "I tackled him the other evening, out behind his house, +just for fun. I got all I wanted in about two minutes. He was laughing +all the time, but I couldn't get near him. He laid me on my back as +helpless as a baby. Say, if Mary Ann doesn't get round with the oatmeal +pretty soon, I'll have to go without. It's twenty minutes past six now." + +"I'll see about it," and Sally hurried away, revolving in her mind this +astonishing news. + +"He can't be as young as he looks, then," she said to herself. "I +shouldn't say he was a minute over twenty-five, but he must be." + +Her mind turned later that day to a project more immediately promising +than the garden. She wanted to have a house party--a tent party, to be +accurate. The Burnsides had driven out twice to see them since they had +become established, but Jarvis had been having another siege with his +eyes, and Josephine had been entertaining visitors. Sally, in the +fast-increasing strength and enthusiasm of returning health, longed for +her friends, and began to plan how she could have all three with her for +the space of at least two days. + +"Wait a little longer," counselled Uncle Timothy. "Your strength is more +that of happiness than of real physical gain, though you are certainly +acquiring health rapidly. There will be plenty of hot weather in August, +and you will be better fit to exert yourself." + +Max and Alec backed him, for they were still more or less indifferent to +the charms of active exercise, and when they had been fed, each evening, +were in the habit of falling into postures of ease on the ground before +the tent, while they discussed the happenings of the day. + +At the end of another fortnight, however, everybody admitted that Sally +seemed enough like herself to be permitted the mild dissipation of a tent +party, and she proceeded joyfully to plan for the occasion. + +"Alec and Bob will have to sleep outside," she decided. + +"Thank you, not for me!" said Alec. + +"Oh, don't go and be a spoil-sport now, Al!" cried Bob. "I'd a good deal +rather sleep outdoors than not." + +"You have my permission," rejoined Alec. + +"I will sleep out-doors, with pleasure," said Uncle Timothy. + +"Never, if I give you my room!" and Sally looked indignant. + +"I should enjoy it," Mr. Rudd insisted. "This out-door life has renewed +my youth. If the weather is favourable during your friends' visit you can +count on having my room for them." + +Of course Alec could not allow such a reversal of the natural order of +things, and he announced the fact with firmness mixed with irritation. +Uncle Timothy, however, also persisted, went into town and bought a +hammock, and returning hung it under the trees. + +Sally, with the help of Mary Ann, did considerable preliminary baking, +and the Ferrys, hearing of the coming event, contributed a large +basketful of garden produce. Sally, running over to thank Mrs. Ferry, +told her all about her plans. She had already grown very fond of the +little lady, whose happiness at being with her son, after a long period +of separation from him, made her a cheery companion. + +"I hope you and Mr. Ferry will come over this evening," urged Sally. "We +want to make it a jolly time for our friends, and I'm sure you'll enjoy +knowing Mrs. Burnside." + +"Mother's a little shy," said a voice from behind Mrs. Ferry, who stood +in the small porch, looking down at her visitor. Sally, in a crisp frock +of white with tiny black figures, her sunny head uplifted, and her +cheeks now round and rosy with returning health, looked past Mrs. +Ferry's shoulder, smiling. "She is decidedly modest about showing off +before people, but she could entertain your guests quite by herself, if +she would." + +"Donald!" The small lady faced about, as her son's arm came round her +shoulders. "What an idea!" + +"She's the finest reader in the state," asserted the young man. "She's a +scholar, she's--" + +"Donald, you will lose your car!" + +"She taught me all I know, and a great deal more that I don't know, +because my head wouldn't hold it. + +'And still the wonder grew, + That one small head could carry all she knew.' + +Now I shall have to run for it, which will be most undignified. Good-by, +mother!" He kissed her. "Good-by, Miss Sally! We'll be there to-night." + +He swung away down the road at a brisk pace, turning once to wave his hat +at the figure on the porch. + +"Such a boy!" breathed the mother. "Yet such a man, Miss Sally, though +his mother says it. And he'll go off with all that nonsense on his lips, +and a head full of talk for those men in the church at noon--talk that +will go straight to their hearts--and, better, to their judgments." + +"I haven't yet been able to realize that he's a minister," Sally +ventured. "Somehow, seeing him out-doors here--" + +Mrs. Ferry nodded. "I know. Nobody takes him for what he is, because he +will not do what he calls 'dress the part every day.' And he is such a +believer in making the physical life offset the mental and spiritual--if +I may put it so--that I tell him he may be in danger of becoming so +athletic--and so agricultural"--she smiled--"that he will crowd out the +spiritual. Yet he knows I don't mean that. He turns up many a rich +nugget of thought, when he is hoeing the ground--and chops down many an +error when he fells a tree, perhaps!" + +"I don't doubt it," agreed Sally, regarding the proud little mother with +real envy of her fortunate son. "Please come over early," she begged, as +she took her leave, after lingering a little to tell Mrs. Ferry more +about her plans for the evening. + +"Sally Lunn!" Josephine exclaimed, a few hours later. "What have you been +doing to yourself? You never looked so well. Behold her, Jarvis! But +don't dare take off your blue goggles. Her radiance is fairly dazzling, +and is liable to blind you." + +"It's partly sunburn," confessed Sally. "I go deliberately out and let +the sun smite me, first on the right cheek and then on the left. For +awhile I burned my nose at the same time, which was not picturesque. But +now I put a thick coating of talcum powder on my nose, and burn myself +only where it is artistic." + +"There's an honest confession for you," and Jarvis shook hands so +heartily that Sally's fingers ached for a minute afterward. "I can see +some of the rouge through my glasses." + +"I must look purple to you, then. Red and blue make purple, on cheeks as +well as palettes, don't they? Joey, what made you put on a white dress? I +planned to take you all blackberrying over in the pasture." + +"Lovely! Lend me an apron, and I'll risk the dress. This is a beautiful +time of day to pick blackberries." + +The three set off. As they passed the garden on the farther side of the +hedge they were hailed by Donald Ferry. "May I go, too?" called the young +man, and he leaped lightly over the hedge. + +Jarvis Burnside went forward and held out his hand. "I heard you speak, +this noon," he said, in a low tone. + +Ferry returned the pressure heartily. "I saw you," he answered. + +"You did? I was away back by the door." + +"My eyes are pretty good. And it's easy to see a friend, you know." + +"I'll be glad to have you call me that," said Jarvis. + +"I've wanted to since I saw you first," replied Ferry, with the +simplicity of manner which won him confidence and warm liking +wherever he went. + +He was in a holiday mood. He insisted on carrying all the pails, and +juggled with them, producing a clash of sound which echoed through the +meadows. In his gray flannels and flowing blue tie, he looked much more +like a college boy than a member of the most dignified of professions. + +"How strong and healthy he looks!" observed Jarvis to Sally, as they led +the way toward the blackberry pasture. "He couldn't have got his +education without spending more or less time in-doors, but he must have +put in every spare minute in the open air. The sight of him makes me feel +more than ever that I was a fool to dig away as I did, ruining my eyes +for the sake of doing two years' work in one. Gained a lot, didn't I? Do +you realize it's more than a year since I took my degree? And not a +blessed thing since but idle around, waiting for these eyes to get back +into shape." + +"It must have seemed a long year," agreed Sally, sympathetically. "But +haven't you made things worse by using your eyes every now and then +against orders?" + +"Guilty. The sight of a book is like cheese to a mouse, to me. Just after +a visit to Doctor Meyer I'm meek and obedient as a lamb; then I pass a +book-shop, look in at the windows, glance round to see if any oculists or +mothers observe me, dodge in, get into a corner with some book--and an +hour is gone before I think I've done more than inspect the table of +contents." + +"I knew you must be breaking rules, when you had so many relapses, after +Jo had said the eyes were better. It's a pity you live in a stone block, +instead of a place like this, where there is out-doors enough to keep any +one busy." + +"It is a pity. I wish we lived on a farm like this. I'd like nothing +better than trying my hand at scientific farming. If I'm going to be +everlastingly handicapped by these eyes I might as well look round for an +out-door job. You can't think how I wish now I'd put in my time studying +civil engineering." + +"I thought scientific farming called for lots of reading." + +"It does, properly. I should have to have a partner to do the studying. +But it also calls for plenty of open-air work, and that--well, it's +getting to have more and more attraction for me. Look up the pasture +there. Isn't that a beautiful scene at this hour of day, even through +blue glasses?" + +"If Max only felt as you do! But don't you think he's looking better +since he's been sleeping out here? He actually owned this morning that he +was sorry he couldn't get back in time for the blackberry picking." + +"Really? The old boy must be waking up a bit. I'm thinking of offering +to rent a few acres out here, so as to start a market-garden next +spring--if my eyes still need favouring, and there's not much doubt of +that. Perhaps the sight of me digging round here will stir him up." + +"If it only would! Oh, Jarvis, how I'd love to spend the winter in that +house!" and Sally turned to gaze back at it. + +"Would you--clear off out here among the snow-drifts? Well, I could +imagine myself doing it with enthusiasm--under two conditions. The use of +my eyes and the use of the library at the top of those stairs. By the +way, has Max taken any steps to sell that?" + +"He's been consulting a man or two, and he had one out here not long ago. +I've begged him to be careful, if he must sell it, lest he shouldn't get +all it's worth." + +"He'd better be mighty careful. I wish he'd trust me with that +commission. I believe I'll mention it to him to-night. I understood he +didn't intend to do anything about it at present, but if he has his mind +on selling it I must have a word with him. I believe the collection is +worth a good deal more than any of us appreciate." + +Jarvis did not fail to follow up this idea. When the party returned to +the tent Max was coming from the house. Jarvis talked with him for some +time, and the conference ended with both of them looking cheerful. + +Max was undoubtedly feeling the benefit of his taste of out-door life. He +joined in the festivities of the evening with more zest than he had shown +in a long time, greatly to the delight of everybody. It was a merry +evening, and was followed by much jollity over the bestowing of so many +people comfortably for the night. + +Going to occupy his hammock, Mr. Rudd found a long figure swinging +reposefully in it. + +"Why, Jarvis!" he ejaculated. "This is my place. You are to have a room +in the tent." + +"Not while you sleep outside, sir," returned the guest, remaining +composed for slumber. "Beside, I don't get a chance to sleep outdoors +very often, and on such a night as this I wouldn't miss it." + +"I don't suppose I can forcibly eject you," admitted Mr. Rudd. + +"No, I think not. I may not be as muscular as our friend Ferry, but I +haven't given up my morning exercise before my cold plunge since I left +college, and I'm in fair shape to hold my own with whoever attempts to +take this hammock away from me. Go back to your room, please, Mr. Rudd. +I never was more comfortable in my life." + +To prove it, Jarvis went promptly to sleep, and nearly every one else did +the same. Mrs. Burnside was awake for some time, but she, too, fell +asleep at last, leaving only one pair of wide-awake eyes in the tent. +Sally, for some unknown reason, could not feel the first inclination to +repose. She was up and sitting on a pillow beside her open tent flap, +gazing out into the night, when she heard a singular noise. + +It was like the distant roar of the sea, but there was no sea within many +miles. It did not sound in the least like wind, yet wind it must be, she +thought, and in the space of a half minute the roar had so gained in +volume that it appeared to be approaching with great rapidity. Sally rose +and peered up toward the sky, for usually she could see a small patch of +it beyond the grove. But she could discern no appearance of the sky, +although a few minutes before the stars had been shining brilliantly. + +She had no time within which to take any further observations. Before she +had fairly begun to wonder what might be coming, and to tell herself that +she had heard no growl of thunder and that therefore this could not be +the approach of one of those severe electrical storms with which a +period of intense heat sometimes terminates, the thing had happened. With +a burst, a tremendous blast of wind struck the tent. It swayed and +strained at its guy-ropes, the poles creaked and cracked, and in less +time than it takes to tell it, the whole flapping structure had gone down +with one ballooning heave, flat upon the ground, covering its inmates +with billowing canvas. + +Then came a terrific clap of thunder and a flash of the fiercest +lightning Sally had ever seen. Instantly there was a sudden and +overwhelming downpour of rain, as if the heavens had opened. Then +everybody was shouting or calling. Outside the tent, Jarvis, in his +hammock, and Bob, on his blankets on the ground, had been soaked to the +skin before they knew what had happened, and were trying to discover a +place where they could crawl under the wrecked canvas and find a shelter +from the deluge. + +"Where are you all? Anybody hurt?" cried Jarvis, groping in the +blackness. + +"All right!" screamed Josephine, who had put her hand under the canvas +partition and found her mother, whose bed was next her own. + +"All right!" shrieked Sally, who had received a soaking by having been +close to the open tent-flap when the flood came. But she did not mention +that just now. + +"Here's a place to get under!" cried Bob to Jarvis, and the two managed +to work themselves under cover. A convenient table made a nook to receive +them, and kept the tent off their heads. + +"I've crawled under my cot!" announced Alec, at the top of his lungs. + +"So have I!" called Mr. Rudd. He was congratulating himself that he +had not slept in the hammock, but he was much worried concerning +Jarvis and Bob. + +Then Max fired the shot that, sooner or later, he might have been +expected to fire. As loudly as he could vociferate against the roar of +the storm, he sent a triumphant challenge to the party: "I hope you're +all--_satisfied_--with the beauty of sleeping in the--_open air_!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PROBLEMS AND HEARTS + + +The storm had passed almost as abruptly as it had come. The rain ceased +as if a trap-door in the heavens had been suddenly closed. The wind had +gone when the rain came, so that the moment the downfall was over the +whole affair was ended. It had not occupied the space of more than four +minutes, but it had managed to make as complete a wreck of the sleeping +arrangements in the pine grove as if it had been of an hour's duration. + +"The stars are shining!" announced Bob, putting his head under the edge +of the canvas the moment the rain had stopped. "The show is over." + +"So is the tent--and sleep," added Alec. Crawling along under the +wreckage, he had encountered Bob's heel. "This is a nice mess! What on +earth are we to do now?" + +"Get everybody out under the sky," commanded Jarvis, working his way out. +He ran round to the back of the tent and found Sally emerging. He gave +her a hand. + +"Why, you're wet!" he said, as his hand touched the sleeve of the blue +kimono she had been wearing when she sat in the open doorway. + +She felt of his sleeve in turn. "I'm not a circumstance to you," she +answered. "You must be soaked to the skin, you and Bob." + +"That's no matter, this warm night. Mother, Jo, where are you? Max, lend +a hand here, and let's lift this canvas so they can get out." + +"But it's not a warm night now," declared Mrs. Burnside, when she had +reached the open air, and had found out for herself how wet at least +three of the party were. "We must manage to dry you all, somehow." + +"I hope you people are satisfied," Max reiterated. It was the fourth time +he had said it. + +"Of course we're satisfied!" cried Sally, with spirit. "Who wants a +camping party without any adventures? We can't have bears here in our +pine grove, so we have thunderstorms." + +"Thunderstorms! That was a cyclone, if it was anything!" growled Max. + +"If it was, we're safe from ever having another!" cried Bob. "They never +hit the same place twice, I'm told. Hello, there comes a lantern through +the hedge. Thought Mr. Ferry'd be looking us up." + +"Ship ahoy!" called a hailing voice. "All hands on deck? Shall I man a +lifeboat? Well, well," in astonishment, as he came nearer, "where are +you, anyhow? Where's the tent?" + +"Don't look so high up!" Jarvis called back. "Lower your glass to the +horizon line. We're out in the open sea!" + +Ferry surveyed the group by the light of his lantern. "Anybody get wet?" +he asked. "Yes, I should say you did. See here, you wet ones, don't delay +a minute, for the storm has made the air twenty degrees cooler. Run over +to our house. Mother's expecting you all." + +"We can't all get inside your house!" chuckled Bob. + +"Let's go into our own," urged Sally. "Max has the key, and we can carry +in the cots--they're not wet--and have a fire in the big fireplace--" + +Bob pinched her arm. "Say, Sis, it's a chance for you to get into +the house." + +"Of course it is," Sally whispered back, her eyes dancing in the light +from the lantern. + +"I think that is the best plan, don't you, Max?" questioned Jarvis. + +Max nodded reluctantly. No matter how hospitably the tiny cottage might +be thrown open for their reception, it would certainly be overtaxing its +capacity to attempt to make nine extra people comfortable there for the +remainder of the night--it was barely one o'clock. + +"We'll gladly stretch the walls to take you all in," said Donald Ferry, +"but perhaps the big house plan is the better. Suppose you ladies go over +and let mother satisfy her longing to be of use by making Miss Sally dry, +while we fellows get the cots into the house, and bring over some wood +from our pile for the fireplace. It will need open windows and a rousing +fire in there to freshen the musty air." + +"Jarvis, you must come, too--you and Bob. You're both very wet," urged +Mrs. Burnside. + +"Yes, go over, Burnside, and ask mother for some dry clothes of mine," +said Ferry. "Bob--" + +"I've got some dry clothes packed away somewhere in the tent, if I can +only find where they've gone to," answered Bob. + +"I'll work myself dry," and Jarvis suited the action to the word by +beginning to unfasten the guy ropes. + +"Jarvis!" It was his mother's voice. At the note in it, he stood up +again, laughing. "All right, mother," he agreed, and walked away with her +toward the cottage. + +"These people who have been so anxious to camp," said Max to Ferry, "I +hope they're satisfied now." + +"Oh, such experiences are a part of the fun of camping," asserted Ferry. +"Mr. Rudd certainly looks cheerful," and he held up his lantern so that +its rays illumined Uncle Timothy's face. + +The elder man smiled. "It seems to me we are fortunate to have had +no worse happen," said he. "That was the most violent wind I have +ever known." + +"It shook our little house to its foundations," replied Ferry. "I think +it took down a chimney, but I didn't stop to find out. Mother was certain +your camp must be blown over into the next township, and could hardly +wait for me to get out and see. Well, shall we go to work? Tent down +first--and that will take all hands, for wet canvas is heavy." + +They fell to, Jarvis soon returning to join them. It took considerable +time to remove the tent from its position, for much care was necessary to +prevent its dampening the tent furniture beneath. But after that it was +easy to move the cots and bedding to the house, the hallway of which was +now lighted by two lamps brought over from the cottage. + +"We'll make up the beds!" cried Sally, appearing with Josephine in +the big hall, her face radiant. "I can't lose any more time tamely +discussing this event over there, when I can be here in the midst +of things." + +"Good for you! Now, Bob, suppose you and I leave the others to bring over +the rest of the stuff, while we haul some wood for the fireplace," and +Ferry beckoned Bob away to the next job. He was smiling back at Sally as +he went, for her joy, though he did not quite understand its cause, was +contagious. + +So it was not long before a cheerful blaze was throwing grotesque lights +and shadows down the hall, showing up the odd array of cots and beds +which had been brought, without regard to final disposition, into the +hall. Sally selected the long room on the left of the hall, its doorway +directly opposite the fireplace, for the feminine portion of the family, +announcing that the others could sleep in the hall itself. Into this room +she directed Uncle Timothy and Alec to move four of the cots, and set +Mary Ann at work making up the beds in the hall. + +"Isn't this more fun than the jolliest picnic you ever went to?" exulted +Sally, as she and Josephine spread sheets and blankets upon the beds. + +"It's great! I'm so glad it happened to-night, when we were here. +Sally, do you suppose they can dry the tent and get it up again by +to-morrow night?" + +"I hope not! If it would only rain again to-morrow! I'd give worlds to +be forced to stay here in the house, much as I've enjoyed sleeping in +the tent. If I could only make Max take a little liking to the +house--and I could if I just had our things out here from town. But of +course he'll never let me. Hasn't he been funny to-night, with his +solemn 'hoping we're satisfied'? Oh, if the poor dear only had just a +tiny sense of humour!" + +"I'm sure he has, if we could wake it up. This scene ought to do it, if +anything would," agreed Josephine. "Look at Mr. Rudd, with his hair all +rumpled and his sleeping-cap still on. See Mary Ann out there; doesn't +she look dazed and serious? Here I am, with my hair in two tails down my +back--and it's the first time I've thought of it. As for you, in that red +sweater jacket, with your curly mop of hair, you look more like a lively +small boy than ever before." + +"I'd like to be one. Do you suppose we can ever settle down to slumber +again to-night? I'd like to have larks the rest of the time, till +morning. We will have them to-morrow night, Joey Burnside, if we can +manage to stay in this house." + +It certainly was hard to get to sleep under these new conditions. Even +after everybody was quiet, there were still sources of amusement for +Sally. The sound of a low growl in the hall was enough to set her off, +and she leaned over to Josephine's cot to whisper: "That's Max, +muttering, 'I hope you're satisfied!'"--at which Josephine began to +laugh, and the two shook together for some time thereafter. + +The first thing in the morning of which Josephine was conscious was Sally +again, breathing joyously in her ear, "Jo, Jo--it's raining!" + +So it was. The long dry spell had been broken by the severe storm of the +night, and a heavy rain was now falling. As she dressed, Sally gazed out +upon it with satisfaction. + +"How on earth are we to have any breakfast?" came booming from the hall, +as Max, reluctantly getting to his feet, took in the situation. + +"Mr. Ferry and I brought all the kitchen tent stuff into the back of this +house," said Bob. "He said it was best in time of peace to prepare for +war, and we might get another storm before morning. So we're all fixed." + +"Very nice for those who can stay here, but not so fine for the ones who +have to catch the trolley." Max applied himself discontentedly to the +business of dressing. + +"Oh, what's that! Who minds a little walk in the rain? I wouldn't be +such a granny. You've done nothing but fuss ever since the tent came +down. Nobody else has howled a minute. You must enjoy being everlastingly +in a grouch." + +It was not often that Bob's good humour forsook him to the point of +addressing his elder brother in such disrespectful terms, and Max glared +at him wrathfully. + +"Cut that! I'm a few years older than you are, and you've no business to +be impudent. When you work the way I do, you'll earn the right to have +your rest undisturbed." + +"Yes, grandpa," mocked Bob. Alec, sitting on the edge of his cot, +laughed. This was too much for Max. He seized his younger brother by the +collar and attempted to shake him. But Bob was more athletic than Max had +realized. The sturdy young figure resisted doughtily, and Max, who was by +no means muscular, found his hands full. Uncle Timothy and Alec looked on +in amusement as the battle raged, and when Bob finally succeeded in +depositing Max on the latter's own cot, back downward, the victor's knee +on the conquered one's chest, they applauded heartily. + +"Take it good-naturedly, nephew," advised Mr. Rudd, catching sight of +Max's angry countenance. "It was a fair encounter, and the lad is +stronger than you." + +"If there was any way of pounding a laugh into Maxwell Lane, I'd tackle +him myself," declared Alec. + +"Boys, what are you doing?" called Sally. "Are you dressed? May we come +through? We want to help Mary Ann about breakfast." + +Max rose to his feet, his face red and his collar awry. As the girls +appeared he strode away up the stairs affecting not to see them. + +"Max, are you going up to find out if any burglars got in overnight?" +called Sally after him, "If you are, please see if my jewel case is +undisturbed." + +To Sally's intense gratification, it rained all day. To be sure, she had +invited her friends to a tent party, not to stay in an empty house, but +it seemed to be so much more fun for everybody to roam about the house, +exploring it from attic to cellar, suggesting what could be done to make +it all inviting and attractive, that the hours by no means dragged. Mrs. +Burnside, especially, seemed to take deep interest in every detail of the +rooms, declaring them to be susceptible to treatment which should easily +make them homelike and beautiful. + +The rugs from the tent had been laid in the hall, by the fireplace, +where a small fire burned, its cheer and warmth grateful to those who +gathered round it, for the change in the weather had become more +pronounced as the day advanced, and a north-east wind was doing its part +in making indoors desirable. Such of the camp furniture as fitted the +uses of a sitting-room had also been placed in the hall, and the result +was that at least one spot in the big house presented a highly inviting +appearance. + +"I wish we had some books and magazines now," said Josephine, disposing +herself comfortably in a steamer chair, with her back toward the fire. +"I've read all those we had in the tent." + +"I'll find you some," and Sally disappeared--by way of the kitchen, where +Mary Ann was sure to need coaching from time to time. Thence she ran up a +back stairway to the floor above, and on to the small flight of steps +which led to the door opening on the stairway between the walls, above +which was the old library. She meant to make a selection of volumes for +Josephine's delectation, more as a joke than as an offer of reading +matter, for she did not suppose there was much in the collection which +might serve to entertain her friend. To her surprise, she found it +unnecessary to use her key, and went on up the stairs, remembering that +she had not seen Jarvis for the last hour. If he should be up here +reading, it was well that she had come, for the fine print of the old +books was the worst thing possible for his eyes. + +But Jarvis was not reading. Instead, she found him standing by one of the +windows, staring out through the curious old wrought-iron latticework, +which, after the fashion in many old houses, made the upper windows +impregnable. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes were fixed on the +outlook of field and meadow stretching away up the slope of the hillside +to the woods beyond. It was a fine prospect, even through the falling +rain, and Jarvis appeared to be fascinated by it, so that he did not hear +the light fall of Sally's footsteps on the stairs. + +She came softly up and stood beside him. "Isn't that lovely off there?" +she asked, and Jarvis started. Then he laughed, bringing his gaze back to +rest with a look of pleasure upon the girl at his side. + +"It certainly is. From this height one gets a better idea of the way the +farm lies than from below." + +"Do you wonder I want to live here?" + +"Not a bit. The idea of it grows more attractive to me every time I come +here. If it were any place but yours, I should be strongly tempted to +buy it myself--mother and I, of course, I mean. She would jump at the +idea, I fancy, of this for a summer home." + +"Oh, Jarvis!" Sally looked so dismayed that he reassured her in haste: + +"Of course I'd never mention such a thing unless you yourself wanted to +sell. But you can see I'm in sympathy with your longing to live here. I +only wish I could see you carry out your plan. If there were anything I +could do to bring it about, I certainly would do it. Look here." He +paused to consider an idea which had just occurred to him. "Do you +suppose if I were seriously to talk of buying the place it might make Max +want to keep it? By all the laws of human nature, the thing ought to work +that way." + +"I don't know. You never know how Max is going to take things. If you +offered a good price he might jump at it." + +"I wouldn't offer a good price--that is, not the price I would give if I +were very anxious to get it." + +Sally thought it over. "I don't know," she said again. "You told me you +were thinking of offering to rent a few acres of us and try some market +gardening." + +"I have thought of that. If I could only get 'the leader of the +opposition' interested to go in with me, your case would be won." + +"You never can. He'll have to see somebody making a success of it before +he will think of it for a minute. There's nothing anybody can do before +spring, I suppose." + +"There's considerable to be done in winter, I understand. And the spring +work begins so early it's practically winter then." + +"You can't think how I want to stay here this winter!" sighed Sally. + +"You really mean it? Snow-drifts and isolation, empty rooms and cold +winds, and all?" + +"The Ferrys don't think it isolated. When they came, they expected to go +back to rooms in town for the winter, but they've fallen so in love with +their cottage they're going to stay. This isn't the country; it's only +the suburbs, eight minutes' walk from the electrics." + +"True enough. It depends upon one's point of view, doesn't it? There's a +lot of fun made of the commuters, but they're not by any means to be +placed all in the same class. To people who genuinely love the country +it's a delight to get out here, no matter how many minutes it takes to +make the run. And it really takes only about twenty-five minutes to get +into the heart of the city. So you honestly want to stay here, do you, +Sally Lunn? From this hour I'm committed to the task of trying to bring +that thing about." + +"Jarvis! That's lovely of you! You did bring about my getting out here in +the tent. Yes, I've heard the whole story from Jo--I know what a +strategist you were. You're such a good friend, to take so much trouble." + +"Am I? There's nobody I'd rather take trouble for. You know that, +don't you?" + +If there were more than friendship in his eyes and voice, Sally did not +perceive it. She was so accustomed to kindness and consideration from +this young man, who had grown up only a few years ahead of her, and who +had been her champion so long that she had never thought of him in any +other light, that no such declaration of his friendly feeling for her was +likely to impress her as at all out of the ordinary. The eyes behind the +blue goggles were hidden from her, the voice to her ear had merely its +usual warm ring of comradeship, and she did not note the fact that upon +the smooth, dark cheek a touch of unwonted colour spoke of feeling deeper +than that hinted at in the simple words. + +"I know you're my stand-by, and you know I appreciate it. If you can +possibly bring such a thing about, I'll bless you forever. Now help me +find some books that will entertain Jo and your mother, for I must go +down to them." + +He pointed out a number of quaint volumes whose contents he thought might +prove interesting, and she selected several, with which she departed, +taking a gay farewell of him and adjuring him not to use his eyes. + +"Thank you, I'll use my brains instead," he answered. + +"It will take all you've got!" she called back. + +"I wonder if hearts are any help in solving problems?" Jarvis thought, +half-smiling to himself when she had gone. "Hers certainly isn't +concerned with anybody at present. But I wonder if I'm a wise fellow to +be plotting to help her spend the winter next door to the finest chap I +know. I wonder! But I'm certainly committed to the endeavour." + +Whatever was the result of his use of the brains with which he had been +endowed, he lost no time in making his first effort. That evening, as the +company finished their dinner and strolled back into the hall, Jarvis +challenged Max to a walk up the cartpath toward the timber tract. + +"Too wet," objected Max. "The rain stopped only an hour ago; +everything's soaking." + +"I know it, but we've both been shut up all day in-doors, and need the +exercise. Besides, while we were at dinner I saw Ferry making for the +woods with his axe over his shoulder. We'll find him there and have a +jolly visit. He's great company when he's at work--which is saying a good +deal, for better company at any time I don't know of." + +Max reluctantly submitted, turned up his trousers widely, shouldered an +umbrella, and the two set out. Sally looked after them, her hopes +following them, for she had received a meaning look from Jarvis which +told her that his schemes were already on foot. She had seen him in +conference with his mother that afternoon, and was sure the two were +agreed upon whatever suggestion of purchase Jarvis might be about to +make. Yet Sally held her breath. What if--what if--Max should, after all, +jump at the offer? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MAX COMPROMISES + + +"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Maxwell Lane. "I'll compromise. If +Sally and the rest of you will let up on your nonsensical plan of staying +in this barracks all winter, I'll agree to stick it out till--November." + +He encountered Sally's gaze. They were all upon the great, high-columned +porch which gave to the front of the house its impressive air of being an +old family mansion. It was a fortnight after the tent party--a fine +August evening. Josephine and Jarvis Burnside had just driven out, and +Donald Ferry, seeing them come, had strolled over. So not only Sally, but +six other people, were hanging on Max's decision. + +He had meant to say "till October." But as he met his sister's eyes it +occurred to him that a compromise, which offered one month instead of +six, might perhaps be considered a trifle too one-sided to be accepted as +a compromise at all. So he finished the sentence, after a perceptible +pause, with "till November." That, surely, was being generous, he +considered. Just why all decisions should be made by him, as supreme +arbiter, can hardly be explained, except that he had assumed that +position three years before, when the other young Lanes had been +negligible factors in all matters of business, and he, by the divine +right of his twenty-one years, had, upon the death of his father, taken +the management of the family affairs into his own hands. + +Sally drew a long breath of relief. Anyhow, she now had more than two +months' reprieve. By the end of that period something might happen to +make Max willing to extend it. The tent had been put up again, and all +but Max had returned to sleeping in it. He had announced that he cared to +take no more chances with thunderstorms and cyclones, so Sally had +arranged comfortable quarters for him in the house, in one of the smaller +downstairs rooms, looking out upon the grove. There was a fireplace in +this room, and Bob had placed a well-stocked wood-box beside it, so that +his brother might have no excuse for feeling himself neglected. + +"Your compromise gives you so much the bigger half of the bargain," said +Josephine, her brilliant dark eyes fixed on Max, "that I think you ought +to give Sally something to boot. Isn't that the word?" + +"What does she want? The house furnished for the two months?" + +"Much simpler than that. Sally and I want to have our friends out for +a frolic." + +"In an empty house?" + +"Yes. What jollier place for a lot of fun? Only it wouldn't seem empty by +the time we had put up a lot of flags and bunting and goldenrod and +balsam branches. That long drawing-room of yours, with crash on the +floor--and a harp and violins behind a screen--and Chinese lanterns all +over the rooms and on the porch and down the driveway--" + +Josephine's imagination worked fast. She had gone into a dozen +specifications before Max could get a chance to interpose. + +"Very fine, very fine! And a supper-table, loaded with salads and +ices. Glorious idea! How much do you think all this would cost? Of +course that's of no consequence, but just out of curiosity I should +like to know." + +"Goodness, we've boxes of lanterns, rolls of bunting and flags, and yards +of crash left from parties way back to my first birthday ones," Josephine +assured him. "As for the supper--" She paused to think it out, for party +suppers are unquestionably expensive details. + +"Wait till October and make it a husking-bee," suggested Donald Ferry. +He had become in these few weeks as much a member of this circle of +friends as if he had always belonged to it. "Then you'll need only coffee +and doughnuts and apples and that sort of thing. There'll be corn enough +in my patch to trim your rooms, and plenty for the husking." + +"Jolly!" exploded Bob. + +"Fine!" cried Alec. + +Sally's eyes were radiant. Even Uncle Timothy smiled. Max himself, +being, after all, in spite of his grave air, only twenty-four, and +capable of enjoying gay times like the rest of them, felt his +indifference melt away. + +"That would give us a chance to do something in return for all the +invitations we've had ever since we've been in the apartment," urged +Sally. "Wouldn't you like to ask your friends in the bank, Max?" + +"If we had the thing, I shouldn't mind asking two of the fellows--Harper +and Ward," Max admitted. "Oh, I suppose we'll have it. When Jo and Sally +get their minds on anything, it has to go through. If you can figure it +out so it doesn't mean a big bill, it may do very well as a wind-up to +this out-door business." + +This was being condescending, for Max; and Jarvis smiled to himself as he +reflected that there's nothing like having your own way in big matters +to make you decently amiable as regards small ones. + +From this evening the arrangements for the October husking-bee occupied a +more or less prominent part in the plans of the Lanes and their friends. +Meanwhile everybody, including Max himself--although he could seldom be +made to admit it--thoroughly enjoyed the intervening weeks. + +"Did you ever see finer corn than this?" asked Ferry, as he and Bob set +up a great shock of rustling stalks at one end of the "drawing-room." "To +be sure, I didn't plant it--I owe the owner of the place for that--but I +hoed it, and I cut it, and I'm reaping the credit." + +"It's magnificent, Mr. Ferry," Sally agreed readily, from the floor where +she sat, fitting candles into Chinese lanterns of every form and hue, +from small round ones to gorgeous great affairs of fantastic shape and +design. It was Saturday afternoon, and the entire force was busy. On the +front porch Max and Josephine were hanging lanterns, while Alec was +stringing wires among the trees and down the driveway. It was +extraordinary how many lanterns the Burnsides seemed to have stored away, +and in what fresh condition they were; the bunting and the flags, also. +Although some of this material showed unmistakable signs of use, bales +more of it had had to be hastily rumpled by Josephine, to get it into the +proper condition for lending. + +"I'll tell you where I've put in my fine touches," chuckled Bob. "Those +twenty jack-o'-lanterns of mine have teeth, every one of 'em. Maybe you +don't think that was some work." + +"Not only was it work, but it shows a trained sense of artistic effect," +Ferry assured him. "That monster you've put on the porch, with four faces +pointing to the four points of the compass, has Janus, the god of +beginnings, beaten to a finish." + +"Sally," Josephine called in at one of the front windows, "I've forgotten +to tell you who are in town! Neil and Dorothy Chase. They just came last +night. Don't you want to ask them out to-night?" + +Alec, down the driveway, heard, and was first to shout his approbation of +this idea: "_Sure_! Get 'em here and ask 'em if they think there's room +enough to turn round in!" + +Max, from the top of the step-ladder, added his approval: "Have them, +whatever you do, Sally. Of all the chumps!" + +Bob whistled. "Neil was afraid he'd burst our rooms in town," he +recalled. "He can get as chesty as he likes out here. You'll have him, +won't you, Sally?" + +Sally looked up at their neighbour, who was laughing quietly at the +comments. "You must think we have odd motives for our invitations." + +"I think the house is going to give the impression to-night of being a +hospitable mansion," he returned. "It will be just the time to invite +anybody who likes space and effect." + +There could be no doubt of this. When all was done, even before the +lanterns and the fires were lighted, the drawing-room, the hall, and the +dining-room all had taken on such a festal air that it could occur to +nobody to miss the furniture which ordinarily occupies houses of this +character. Across the hall two rooms had been arranged for +dressing-rooms, and even these were highly attractive. + +After the lanterns were lighted, outside was fairyland! Inside, with the +fireplaces burning huge logs and flashing intermittently over the scene, +the jack-o'-lanterns grinning cheerfully from every corner, the flags and +bunting contributing colour, and the masses of evergreen and clumps of +corn-shocks adding nooks and corners for shadows to dance in, there +certainly could have been no quainter or prettier background for a party. + +"What I want to know is, whether the lady of the manor feels her part. +She certainly looks it!" + +It was Jarvis's greeting as he came up the steps into the big porch, +after a hasty trip home to dress. Just as he approached the house a +figure in white had come out of the doorway, and he congratulated himself +on having caught Sally alone for the first time in several days. + +Sally met him with an eager welcome: "Oh, I'm so glad you got back before +the rest came! I wanted you here to help make things go from the +beginning. Max is having fits with his tie, and Alec is in distress +because his pumps don't look as smart as he thinks they ought. Even Bob +is more than usually fussy about the parting of his hair!" + +"Too bad, but such small anxieties always go along with dress occasions. +You don't answer my question. Do you feel like the mistress of an +ancestral home?" + +"Do I? I should say I didn't. I feel like a small girl giving her first +party. I hadn't a thing to wear but this old white frock--it's lucky +for me our lights are the sort they are. Electrics would show me up for +what I am." + +"Do you know what you are?" + +"Hardly--to-night. What am I, do you think?" + +"A healthy, happy, sensible girl, who doesn't care if she isn't wearing +a fussy frock from the most expensive place in town. And if you were, you +couldn't look nicer." + +"Thank you. That's a straight masculine compliment, and I appreciate it. +How good it seems to see you without those blue glasses! Are you going to +leave them off to-night?" + +"I certainly am. I don't care to contribute to the weird effects among +the jack-o'-lanterns. I want to see everything as it is +to-night--including Sally Lane." + +She looked straight into his eyes, with the frank friendliness which +never dreamed of turning these pleasant speeches into meaning ones. She +was heartily pleased to see him without the disfiguring glasses, for the +brown eyes were fine ones, and the face was full of character as well as +comeliness. + +"No girl ever had such good friends as Sally Lunn," she said. "Do you +think I don't know that no decorations of your house in town ever called +for so much bunting and crash and so many flags and lanterns as we have +here to-night? The others haven't thought of it, but I've done a bit of +estimating, if you please." + +Jarvis laughed. "It's hard to get round you. But you don't mind? Mother +and Jo are certainly near enough to being mother and sister to you to be +allowed a bit of fun like this." + +"You are sure brother Jarvis didn't have a hand?" + +It was on his lips to tell her that whatever relation he might hold to +her, that of brother wouldn't do--but he restrained the words. Not yet! +It would be a pity to risk anything yet--certainly not now, when her mind +was full of the coming party. Beside, he was not at all sure that a word +might not spoil all his chances. Sally, in spite of her twenty years, +was, in some ways, still such a girl. + +So he only answered gayly: "Both hands, if you don't mind. It took hands, +shoulders, and back to get the stuff down from our attic!" + +Donald Ferry and his mother now came up the steps, and Jarvis and Sally +turned to greet them. Ferry had given them both a quick look of keen +scrutiny as he saw them standing there alone together under the lanterns. +For some time he had been observing that the two seemed to be close +friends. What he thought, however, could not have been told from his +manner, for he had never seemed in a blither mood as he shook hands and +presented himself to Sally in the capacity of one of her right-hand men. + +"Thank you," she answered, looking at him precisely as she had looked at +Jarvis, with the girlish fearlessness and absence of coquetry which is so +charming at her age, much as a younger brother sometimes looks at an +elder one whom he sincerely likes and admires. "I've just been telling +Jarvis that no girl ever had nicer friends. You've all worked like +slaves, and I do hope you'll have good times enough to-night to half pay +you. Jarvis, please present Mr. Ferry to the prettiest, jolliest girls we +know, won't you? And don't forget to take advantage of your chance to +dance with the nicest ones yourself," she added, laughing, and leading +the way into the house with Mrs. Ferry, who, with Mrs. Burnside, was to +chaperon the party. + +Both Jarvis's and Ferry's eyes followed the graceful young figure as it +made its way with the elder one down the hall, among the parti-coloured +lights. Then, for some reason, they turned to look at each other, and +smiled. "Are you prepared to do your duty by those prettiest and jolliest +girls?" inquired Ferry. + +"If you are. It's the surest way of pleasing Sally," replied Jarvis, with +conviction. + +Sally's characterization of the girls who were her guests was undoubtedly +a true one. They were attractive young people, indeed, who shortly came +trooping up the steps, in gauzy gowns of all hues. Youth and happiness +are always good to look upon, and freshness of skin and brightness of eye +make features not strictly beautiful charming in their own way. + +There were plenty of young men and youths, Max's companion bank-clerks +were among them, clear-eyed, keen-faced fellows whom the Lanes liked upon +sight and were glad to entertain both for Max's sake and their own. Alec +and Bob had not been denied the privilege of inviting certain youthful +intimates, so it was a somewhat diversified company, in point of age, +which laughed and danced and talked and sang, under the lanterns. For +sing they did now and then, when tempted by some popular air from the +little orchestra--which somehow had been enlarged to include several +other instruments besides harp and violin, Josephine arguing that there +must be sound enough to be heard upon the porch and lawn. It was a gay +company, and the fun was at its height when the last guests to arrive +drove up with a proclaiming flourish of a musical horn. + +"It's the Chases--we must go out and meet them, Max," and Sally caught at +her brother as he was hastening by. They reached the porch as Neil and +Dorothy descended from their car and looked about them. + +"Well, of all the surprises!" was young Mrs. Chase's greeting, as she +swept across the porch in a Paris gown which fairly took one's breath +away, as it was disclosed by the falling open of a gorgeous evening wrap. + +Jarvis Burnside, looking out of a porch window at the moment, as he +fanned one of the "prettiest and jolliest girls," after a brisk +"two-step," noted the contrast between Dorothy and Sally. Mrs. Chase was +twenty-four, as he happened to know, but she looked considerably older, +and one would have said there were at least eight years between them. Yet +Sally, although she seemed so girlish, had the hostess's pretty air of +self-possession which is equal to greeting any number of Parisian gowns +and their wearers. + +"Yes, we hoped you would enjoy seeing us again with room enough to shake +hands in," and Sally made them welcome with a hearty greeting apiece. + +"This you, Sally?" asked Neil Chase, surveying her with interest. "You +look more like sixteen than ever. Going to put your hair up when you get +to be thirty or forty?" + +"My hair is as much up as it can be in the circumstances," retorted +Sally, gayly. "Unless I wear a wig, the best I can do is to tie it this +way with a bow." + +"That's so; we did hear you had a fever in the spring. You don't look +much like it now--more like an infant cherub. Well, Max, this the old +place you had left you? My congratulations. It's not half bad, you +know--at least as it looked coming up the drive, by the light of the +lanterns. You must hug yourselves to get out of that six-by-nine flat, +if this _is_ a good way out in the country. Country places are getting +to be the thing these days. Anybody here we know, or is it a +neighbourhood blowout?" + +Max stiffened--as he usually did by the time Neil Chase had got out a few +of his patronizing sentences. "I think you'll find the same set here +you'd find in town," he answered. "We haven't asked a crowd--just enough +to be comfortable and have plenty of room. But we have some of our +neighbours here, and jolly people they are, too." + +"Sally, I can't possibly husk any corn," Mrs. Chase murmured, as Sally +led her into the drawing-room. "This gauze is a fright now, and I've worn +it only three times. It's awfully expensive--but it's the thing now, you +know, so one must have it." Her eyes fell on Sally's dress as she spoke. +"Sally Lane!" she half-shrieked into Sally's ear, as, at the moment, the +orchestra burst into a swinging waltz, "if that isn't the very same +embroidered Swiss that you had for my wedding, almost four years ago, +when you were a mere child!" + +"Absolutely the same. Doesn't it wear well?" Sally answered, serenely. +"Much better than gauze. No, you needn't husk any corn. That's just for +those who want a little fun for a few minutes by and by. Mr. Ferry!"--as +that young man passed with an inquiring look at her which meant, "Do you +want me for anything in connection with these new arrivals?"--and Ferry +was at her side. + +She enjoyed presenting him to the Chases, for she wanted to see what +would happen. She had noted a new side of their neighbour to-night. Thus +far their acquaintance had been carried on in tents and wood-lots, in an +out-door, every-day environment, so to speak. Donald Ferry as a good +comrade she had come to know well; Donald Ferry as a popular preacher she +knew by many an enthusiastic report from Jarvis, Alec, and Bob; but the +same person as a society man in evening dress, with most engaging +manners, was a new acquaintance! She observed him with interest as he +made himself entertaining to Neil and Dorothy, and blessed him for his +tact when he presently went off with Mrs. Chase, to do her special honour +as the only young matron present. She observed that Dorothy seemed very +ready to accompany him. + +Neil looked after his wife and her companion with an expression of +curiosity. "I'd like to know how you came to have him here?" he +suggested. "Isn't he that chap the papers are full of, who holds forth to +a crowd of men every day down in the Old Dutch Church?" + +"He's the one," Max replied. "I haven't heard him yet, though I +mean to soon. Burnside and the boys say he's great. He lives next +door to us here." + +"He's not at all the sort I expected to see, from the stories about him. +Still, the sanctimonious sort probably couldn't hold the class of men +they say go there regularly. He lives next door to you here, does he? +That's odd. My brother Ches didn't talk about anything else than Ferry +this morning at breakfast. Says he refused a flattering invitation to a +church in Washington because he preferred to stay by the Old Dutch. +Well, Dorothy didn't realize he was a parson, or she wouldn't have gone +off with him with such a flourish. If she finds it out, you can look to +see her begin to be demure. I say, you've certainly got a stunning old +place here." + +"Think so?" + +Chase gazed about him at the details of the long drawing-room, noting its +wood-work and general proportions. "I'd rather like to look it over," he +proposed. "Mind taking me about?" + +"No, only it's not furnished, nor lighted, except down here where we're +entertaining." + +"No electricity, or gas, I suppose, out here. Well, you can raise some +kind of a light to trot round by, can't you? I'm a crank on ancient +houses and furniture. Wish you had some old mahogany--that's what you +need in these rooms." + +Max procured a small hand-lamp from the kitchen, and proceeded to +escort his guest about. Neil began by showing a patronizing approval +of details here and there, but as the survey continued he became less +conversational, and walked about in silent inspection of everything, +floors, walls, windows, and ceilings, putting on a pair of +eye-glasses and assuming a hypercritical expression in excess even of +his ordinary attitude. + +"Very fair, very fair," was his reply, when Max asked him, at the +conclusion of the round of the second story, how he liked it. Determined +to make the most of his chance to interest this ordinarily bored young +man, Max led the way up the stairs to the old library. Here Neil opened +his eyes. But as he immediately narrowed them again, and began to examine +books with an indifferent air, Max was not sure how much of an impression +the collection was making. + +Neil presently sat down. "Suppose we stay a few minutes. Quiet spot. +Rather enjoy getting away from the crowd. Er--not intending to furnish up +and stay here, are you? Quite a distance from town, isn't it?" + +"That's the objection to living out here." + +"Have you heard that I'm coming back to practise in the city?" + +"No. That so? With your father's firm?" + +"Yes. Dad's made me a pretty good offer, and while it was considerable of +a sacrifice to leave the business I've built up down there, I'm willing +to humour the old man." He crossed his legs in a superior sort of way, +his head thrown back after a fashion which always made Max want to throw +something at him and disturb his pose. His tone was immensely +condescending. + +"When do you make the move?" + +"Right away. The governor's in a hurry, and I've agreed to lose no time. +Don't care to live with the old folks again, so I shall look round a bit +for a place. I drive a car, you know, and I've rather taken a fancy to +having a country place, something on the old-style order. I've picked up +rather a decent collection of old mahogany and prints, Sheffield plate +and Lowestoft china--that sort of thing--that needs a certain background +to show it off. I've heard of a number of places that might suit me; +there are a good many abandoned country places these days--people like to +get into town. Not many care, like me, for the artistic point of view in +such matters. Er--I suppose you'll sell this place?" + +His tone was careless, but Max, who was watching him closely, saw a +peculiar gleam in his eye which put him on his guard. Neil Chase was +nothing if not shrewd and sharp to the point where the man who dealt with +him must look closely after his own interests. + +"Oh, I don't know," Max replied, slowly. "Haven't made up my mind. I'm +considering an offer now for the place. Some people like to get into +town, as you say, but plenty more appreciate life in the country, when +they can get such a spot as this. Values in such property are going up, +not down, in my opinion." + +If Sally could have heard him! + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JACK-O'-LANTERNS + + +To the strains of the intermezzo from the "Cavalleria Rusticana," which +the orchestra was sending out through the open windows, Max was returning +from the gateway to the house. The October night was so mild that he had +stolen out bareheaded upon the errand which had taken him to the road. +The errand might have been considered an odd one: he wanted to look at +the house! + +To be sure, illuminated as it was by many gayly coloured lights, the +lanterns glowing all across the porch and down the driveway, it was well +worth looking at. But it was not this decorative effect which the young +host had come out to exult over. And, viewed as a residence only, he had +certainly observed it many times before, and under varying conditions. He +knew to a nicety just how many slats were lacking from certain of the +blinds, just how the ragged edge of the great chimney showed against the +sky line, precisely where the big pillared porch needed repairing. No, +it was not in any of these aspects that he had come curiously out to view +it now. He wanted to see it with the eyes of the prospective purchasers, +Jarvis Burnside and Neil Chase. He wanted particularly to see it as Chase +saw it, that upon mention of the fact that Max had already been +interviewed by a prospective buyer, he had, in spite of his effort to +appear indifferent, really shown such eagerness to be given an option +upon the place. + +Max walked slowly back toward the house, under the shadow of the row of +great trees bordering what had once been a lawn. Two figures had just +come out upon the porch; he recognized them, even at this distance, as +the Chases. At the moment, nobody else occupied the porch. Neil and +Dorothy stood for a moment under the lanterns, looking back into the +hall, then turned and descended the steps. They surveyed the house as +they did so; they backed farther away from it; they strolled round to the +west side, and viewed it from that point. Finally, as Max halted beside a +tree-trunk, watching them, they began to walk slowly down the driveway, +turning from time to time to gaze back at the house-front. + +As they passed Max, catching no hint of his presence in the shadow, they +conversed in phrases which were of interest to him, and to which, since +they intimately concerned himself, he might be excused for listening. + +"It's simply stunning," Dorothy was saying eagerly, as they passed. "I'd +rather have it than forty new houses. When it's restored it will have +such an air! I don't suppose they appreciate it at all, do they? Oh, do +get hold of it before anybody tells them!" + +"Max says Sally is crazy to live in it. But that can't be because she +realizes its value." + +"No, she's just old-fashioned child enough to like it because it's +homelike, and her uncle and grandfather lived in it, not because it's +such a swell type of the real old thing that people rave over now." + +"Max isn't the sort to care for it either. But he has an eye on the cash. +I shall have to put up a fair price, all right, to get it. I'll try +bluffing first, though. He's too much of an office grind to care for +anything else, so long as he gets his money. I say, won't that gateway be +a corker, when it's put right?" + +They walked on out of hearing, but Max had heard all that was necessary +to make him tingle. + +"Oh, it will be a corker, will it?" he said to himself, as he made for +the back of the house by way of the pine grove. "Maybe it will, old, +man--but not when _you_ put it right! An office grind, am I? Too dull to +know a good thing when I own it, eh? And you'll try bluffing, will you? +All right, bluff away--and much good may it do you! I'd sell it to Jarve +Burnside before I'd sell it to you, but I--Hello, where are you going?" + +He had almost run into Jarvis, hastily emerging from the kitchen door +with a smoking jack-o'-lantern, the declining candle of which had made of +it both a wreck and the source of a horrible odour. Jarvis cast the +pumpkin to one side and wiped his hands on his handkerchief. "Just +prevented a small conflagration of corn-stalks," he explained. "What are +you doing, prowling round your own back door?" + +"Making up my mind not to sell this place to you or to anybody else," +said Max, promptly, speaking under the impulse of his irritation. + +"Good work! I don't blame you. I certainly don't want it--_if you do_. I +hope you won't go back on letting me rent a few acres, though, to try my +hand at farming, in the spring?" + +"Jarve,"--Max sat down on the kitchen step--"do you seriously think a +fellow could make a living off this land--taking into account all the +squash-bugs and fruit-tree pests and tomato-grubs and every other thing +that I've always understood makes the life of the farmer miserable?" + +"I think," replied Jarvis, laughing a little at Max's way of putting it, +but awake to the importance of discussing the matter seriously, if Max +showed an inclination to do so, "that trying to do it, with the help of +all the experience that modern experiment stations have placed at our +hands, would be about the most interesting thing possible. You might not +want to give up all other business till you had proved that you really +could do it, but I certainly do think the thing would be well worth +trying. It's being attempted more and more these days by educated men, +college graduates and professional men of all ranks, partly for the pure +interest of the thing, partly because the out-door life is about the best +worth living. Look at Don Ferry, for an example. Could he possibly have +the hold he has on that crowd of his at the Old Dutch if he weren't a man +made of substantial flesh and blood, his brain as healthy and his heart +as warm as exercise and oxygen can make them?--Well, perhaps he could, if +he were one of your pale and scholarly ghosts, but I doubt it." + +"This idea of living out here in winter--" Max went off on a new +tack--"it's seemed to me absolute foolishness. But if Neil Chase is so, +confoundedly anxious to move in before we can move out--" + +"Neil Chase!" + +"Yes. He practically made me an offer for the place to-night." + +"Well, well!" Jarvis's eyes gleamed with satisfaction in the darkness. So +old Neil was helping the thing along, was he? Nothing could have been +better. "Going to consider it?" + +"Hardly! See here, could we keep warm in that barracks this winter?" + +"You don't have to live all over it. With those fireplaces and waste wood +enough in your lot up there to run a blast-furnace, I don't see why you +should have any fear of freezing." + +"Our little stock of furniture wouldn't go anywhere in furnishing." + +"It would furnish a certain amount of space. Keep the rest shut up till +you could furnish it." + +"I shouldn't think of the thing for a minute," said Max, in the tone of +one who explains the inconsistency of so sudden a change of attitude, "if +I hadn't this day been notified that the price of our flat is to go up +ten dollars a month on the first of November. It's an outrage!" + +"It's an extraordinary piece of luck," said Jarvis to himself. But aloud +he admitted that it was a good deal of a jump, and a pretty high price +for the flat. + +At this moment some one looked out of the kitchen window, and then asked +Mary Ann inside if she had seen anything lately of Mr. Max. + +"I suppose we'll have to go back to the crowd," admitted Max, and they +returned just in time to see the first guests taking their leave. + +When all had gone, Jarvis hunted up Sally. He found her in one of the +dressing-rooms, extinguishing candles which had nearly burned to the +bottoms of the lanterns, and were threatening their inflammable +surroundings. + +"Here, don't touch those things, with your thin clothes on!" Jarvis +cried. "We fellows must go round and make all safe--no taking any chances +with the house full of dry corn-stalks. But first--have you had a good +time to-night?" + +"A glorious time. All the evening I've felt as if I lived here--it looked +so furnished, somehow, with all the lights and decorations." + +"It made you want to live here more than ever, didn't it?" + +"It did, indeed. And in ten days we shall be going back to town," + +"Perhaps you won't." + +She stared at him. "What in the world do you mean?" + +"I don't mean anything," said he, laughing. "I'm like a small boy +bursting with the secret information that there's to be ice-cream for +dinner. So I don't mean anything--but I'd like to shake hands on it, just +the same." + +"Jarvis!" She let him seize both her hands and shake them up and down. +"You do mean something!" + +"Come out in the hall and do the corn-stalk prance with me." + +"The corn-stalk prance! What in the world is that? Are you crazy?" + +"I'll teach it to you," and he led her out into the wide hall, which had +been all the evening the most attractive spot in the house. He pulled two +stalks from one of the sheaves which stood on each side of the great +fireplace. He handed her one, and throwing the other across his shoulder +as if it were a gun, marched to the drawing-room door. The musicians were +just putting away their instruments, having played till the last guests +were out of hearing. + +"Just one more, will you?" he asked, grinning at them in a way which they +understood meant an extra fee. + +Then he came back to Sally. "Now for it!" he said. "I never did this +myself,--nor heard of it--but if we can't do an impromptu turn to-night, +on our high spirits, we never can again. Come on!"--as the music burst +forth. And he made her an impressive bow. + +Smiling, and ready enough to follow his lead, Sally returned him a +sweeping courtesy, in minuet style. + +"Hi, what's this?" cried Bob, returning from the porch, where he, with +the others, had been watching the departure of the procession of +carriages and automobiles which had borne the guests away. + +"Here, come and see what's going on!" he shouted back to the porch, and +they came hurrying in. Mrs. Burnside and Donald Ferry, Josephine and +Max, Mrs. Ferry and Alec and Uncle Timothy ranged themselves along the +walls, their faces all enjoyment of the somewhat remarkable affair now +in progress. + +Jarvis and Sally might have been improvising, there was no doubt that +they were, but the result was the product of inspiration. Up and down, +double and single, in and out, round and round, with all manner of fancy +steps, both surprising and picturesque, saluting each other every now and +then with bows, with wavings of the corn-stalks, with gestures of +greeting and farewell. + +Jarvis, without his glasses, his face brilliant with life and merriment, +looked a different fellow from the one his friends had been accustomed to +see of late; and Sally, her cheeks like crimson carnations, her eyes dark +with fun and happiness, her steps the embodiment of youthful grace, was a +fascinating figure to watch. + +"Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever saw?" asked Josephine of Donald +Ferry, as he stood beside her with folded arms. + +He nodded. + +"I suppose they're making it up as they go along," he said, "but it's +very clever and charming. I didn't know your brother had it in him to +be so gay." + +"Oh, he has. It's this long bother with his eyes that has made him look +like an owl, and feel like one. He has plenty of fun and energy in him +when it gets a chance." + +"I'm beginning to find him out. I like a chap who can relax like that, +and show the boyish side of himself now and then." + +"And isn't Sally perfectly dear? I never saw her look prettier than +to-night," declared Josephine, with an unconscious glance from Sally's +white frock, which she knew was an old and much mended one, down at her +own pale blue gown, just home from an expensive shop. She was thinking +that if she looked half as well in her fine things as Sally in her +simple old ones, she should be quite content. + +Ferry looked down at the dark head beside him. He remembered no less than +three fair maids who had, that evening, called his attention, by one +means and another, to points less attractive than their own in other +girls. It struck him, as it had done more than once before, that a very +warm generosity characterized the friendship between Josephine and Sally, +inasmuch as each had seemed to him to be most anxious to have him +appreciate the charms of the other. + +As for Josephine herself, though he would not bluntly tell her so, she +had seldom presented a more winsome picture than to-night. Her dark +colouring and piquant features possessed a quality very close to beauty, +and her smile at Sally, at a moment when the girl, sweeping close, made +her friend a special salutation, was undoubtedly a very attractive thing. + +A burst of enthusiastic applause greeted the final whirl and bows of the +"corn-stalk prance," and Sally, breathless, dropped upon the bottom step +of the wide staircase. Jarvis, coming close to Max, whose hand-clapping +was of the heartiest, said in his friend's ear, "Why not tell her now +that you've decided to stay here? If you do, you'll make this the +happiest night of her life." + +Max looked at him. Sally's elder brother was in a more genial mood than +he had been in for some time. Somehow his new understanding that the +Lanes possessed a more valuable piece of property than they had realized, +property for which two buyers were ready at any hour to give them a +satisfactory price, had put him into good humour. Then he had been all +the evening playing the pleasant part of host under conditions which had +called forth many complimentary remarks from guests whose opinions he +valued, and he was experiencing the comfortable glow which comes with +such a role. + +Just now, the sight of his little sister making of herself so charming a +spectacle, had caused him to feel an unusual stirring of pride in her. +All these factors combined to help Jarvis's suggestion. + +He approached his sister as she sat, rosy cheeked and laughing, on the +lowest stair, and stood before her. "That wasn't so bad," he said, +approvingly. "You and Jarve had better get out a copyright on +that--you worked in some pretty fancy steps. Got your skates on +to-night, haven't you?" + +Sally thrust forward a small, white-shod foot. "No, only some badly +used-up pumps. If it hadn't been for Bob and his pipe-clay they would +never have been presentable again." + +"You're certainly great on making things go. Er--that is--suppose you +could make six chairs, a table, and an old couch furnish that room in +there--for the winter?" + +Their eyes met. Those who happened to be observing from a little +distance--and of these there were at least three who had as yet been +unable to take their eyes off Sally--saw such a wave of delight sweep +over her expressive face as made it even more vivid than they had ever +seen it. After an instant's wide-eyed silence, her lips parted, the girl +was on her feet. + +"Max! Do you mean it? Are we to stay? Oh--you old dear! Make our things +furnish that room? Of course I can!" + +Her arms were round his neck for the space of two seconds; then she had +seized his hand, and was pulling him toward the others. Jarvis, watching +Max's face, saw there more amiability than he could have hoped. Yet it +would have been a strangely flinty heart, he thought, that could have +resisted Sally to-night. + +"Ladies and gentlemen,"--Sally made them a low bow,--"we are so glad +you've enjoyed our hospitality. Allow us to express our hope that we may +have the pleasure of entertaining you often during the winter. We shall +be at home here every Saturday evening throughout the season--pop-corn +refreshments and corn-stalk-fiddle music, with conversation!" + +Bob was first to respond. With a shout, he dashed into the long +drawing-room, from which the musicians had now departed, and relieved +his feelings by turning a series of handsprings from one end of it to +the other. + +Alec, who had not much cared to spend the winter in the country, but had +of late become immensely drawn toward Donald Ferry, reflected that there +might be good times forthcoming out here which would never happen in +town. So he grinned pleasantly enough. + +Uncle Timothy, beaming, said, "That's very good!" to Mrs. Burnside, and +she returned warmly: + +"Indeed, I think it is, Mr. Rudd." + +Josephine clapped both her hands, then ran to wring Sally's and Max's, +declaring joyfully: + +"You'll be the most popular resort outside the city." + +Jarvis followed, to observe, in a calm tone--to cover his delight, though +he succeeded in only partially concealing it from Max, and not at all +from Sally--"I think it's a wise decision, and I hope it will mean a +partnership in strawberries and squashes next summer. You'll see me out +soon with seed-catalogues--since we didn't find any behind that locked +door last April." + +"We shall be so glad to have such neighbours for the winter," said Mrs. +Ferry, with genuine pleasure in her face. "And I hope Donald and I can do +something toward making you feel that you have real country neighbours of +the kind who are counted as assets." + +"If it weren't for you people, I don't think I should have the courage to +try it," acknowledged Max. + +"We'll make it such a winter you'll never have the courage to go back," +prophesied Ferry. "I have a pair of toboggans stowed away somewhere; I'll +send for them when the snow comes. That slope from your timber lot down +across the fields--" + +Bob, returning from the handspring episode, caught these words and raised +a whoop of anticipation. "Hi--toboggans!" he was heard to ejaculate at +intervals during the next ten minutes. + +"Sally," said Uncle Timothy Rudd, "up in New Hampshire, where I used to +live before I came to stay with your family, there is an attic full of +old furniture which belonged to my father. I have never disposed of it, +because certain associations made me have an affection for it. It is +pretty old style, and not, I am afraid, in very good condition, but if +you care for it--" + +"Oh, Uncle Timmy! No matter how old it is or how shaky, we can use it." + +"Probably the older and shakier it is, the more valuable when it has been +restored," suggested Mrs. Burnside. + +"I should say so," declared Jarvis, with emphasis. "You should have heard +the Neil Chases rave over some of theirs. Neil found a sideboard in an +old cabin down South; it had the doors nailed on with strips of leather; +they kept corn meal and molasses in it. He wouldn't take five hundred +dollars for it now." + +"I don't imagine," said Uncle Timothy, cautiously, "that any of my things +are as valuable as that, so don't get your expectations too high, Sally. +But they may help you in the matter of supplying chairs and beds for your +friends. I take it this will be a hospitable homestead, when Sally is +mistress of it." + +"How could it help being hospitable," cried Sally, happily, "with friends +like ours for guests?" + +"Let's make a circle on the hearth, for good luck," proposed Josephine. + +Beckoning, she led the way toward the fireplace, where the flames of +the big logs, which had leaped and danced there all the evening, +carefully fed by Bob from time to time, had now died down into a mass +of brilliant coals. + +On either side the sheaves of yellow corn-stalks stood like sentinels, +and above a row of jack-o'-lanterns, whose candles had been renewed when +they threatened to burn low, looked cheerfully down from the high +chimney-piece. + +"All join hands," commanded Josephine, "and sing 'Auld Lang Syne.'" + +"Will you let such new acquaintances join in that song?" asked Mrs. +Ferry, as Alec, who was next her, caught her hand in obedience to orders. + +"Of course we will. We hope that time will make you old friends," +answered Uncle Timothy, gallantly, stretching out his hand, as he stood +next upon her other side. + +It is rather curious how, in any such grouping, certain combinations come +about. Neither Jarvis Burnside nor Donald Ferry seemed to make any abrupt +moves, and there certainly was a moment when it might have seemed the +natural thing that Jarvis should grasp Uncle Timothy's hand, Ferry seize +upon Bob's. But so it did not turn out. + +When the circle began slowly to revolve before the fire, one of Sally's +hands was in Jarvis's, the other in that of the neighbour who could chop +down trees as easily as he could address audiences, and whose hand, +therefore, possessed a warm and even grip which suggested both +friendliness and strength. Upon Donald Ferry's farther side was +Josephine, and Max clasped her other hand. As for Alec and Bob, it did +not matter much to them whose hands they held, so that the circle moved +briskly and sang lustily. And this it surely did. + +"Are you happy, little girl?" asked Jarvis, bending to speak into Sally's +ear, as the circle broke up. + +Smiling, Sally dashed away a tear. "So happy I'm almost crying," she +owned. "It's beginning to seem as if we were going to have a--home, a +real home once more--as much as we ever can--without--" + +"I understand," he whispered, and led her away down the hall, that she +might recover the poise the singing of the old song had shaken. + +"They must have been here often when we children were little," she +murmured, pausing by the open door under the staircase, which led to a +side porch. Just here she was hidden from the rest. + +"I'm sure they were. I remember driving out here once with your father, +and seeing him sit in front of that hall fireplace with your Uncle +Maxwell, talking business. They were here more, I imagine, when you were +very small, than afterward, when you were old enough to remember." + +"They've been here," said Sally softly. "They've walked about these old +floors and looked out of these windows. That makes it home to me. And if +I can only make it home to the others--" + +"You couldn't help making it home--anywhere." + +"Oh, Jarvis, you're such a good friend!--I keep telling you that, till +you must be tired of hearing it." + +"I'm not tired of hearing it." + +There followed an eloquent little silence, during which Jarvis took the +girl's hand in both his own and held it close in a way which meant to her +the comprehending sympathy with all her joys and sorrows which he had +long given her. To him it meant so much more that he dared not give +expression to it in any but this mute fashion. But his heart beat high +with longing and with hope, though he was firmly bidding himself +wait--and wait a long time yet before he put his fortune to the touch, +"to win or lose it all!" + +Then Sally wiped her eyes, put her handkerchief away, and faced about. + +"Now I can go back," she said. "Thank you for giving me a chance to put +Sally Lunn in order. The mistress of a mansion like this must always have +herself in hand, mustn't she?" + +Standing on her own hearth-stone, Sally said good-night to all her guests +like the grand lady she gayly affected to be. But like the girl she was, +she ran after them to wave her hand at them from the big porch, crying, +"Come again--please _all_ do come again--oh, _very_ soon!" + + + + +PART TWO + +THE LANES AND THE ACRES + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WHAT'S IN A NAME? + + +"Well, here he comes," announced Maxwell Lane. With his hands in his +pockets he was standing by a window which commanded a view of the gateway +and approach to the house. "He 'phoned me this morning he'd be +out--loaded for bear. I'll wager if he has one treatise on farming in +that cutter he has forty." + +Sally ran to look. "I don't see anything unusual," said she, her eyes on +the trim sleigh drawn by a pair of fine grays, the driver waving an arm +at the window as he caught sight of the faces thereat. "Expect to see +horse-hoes and threshing machines sticking out from under his furs? +Jolly!--that's a magnificent fox-skin robe he has over his knees. Looks +like a farmer, doesn't he, now? Think a fellow in a silk-lined overcoat +and driving-gloves like those knows anything about farming?--Or ever can +know?" he added skeptically. + +"I don't see why not. There's nothing about a silk-lined overcoat to +prevent." Sally's tone was spirited. She thrust her hands into the +pockets of the small ruffled apron she wore, and her elbows assumed an +argumentative air. The black ribbon which tied her lengthening curly +locks into a knot upon her head seemed to acquire a defiant effect. +Evidently she was prepared to take sides in this matter. "If rich men's +sons can learn railroading and mining and every other kind of business +that soils their hands, I don't know what's to prevent one of them from +learning farming." + +"Oh, he'll get hold of a tremendous amount of book wisdom--I'm prepared +for that," admitted Max. "But it takes a practical man to be a farmer. +He'll want to use up a lot of money in experiments, of course--" + +But Sally had disappeared into the hall, and was throwing open the front +door. The sleigh, however, was going on past the house to the barn. "That +means he intends to stay," reflected the girl and ran back to the kitchen +for a few hurried words with Mary Ann Flinders. It was not the habit of +the house materially to change any plans for the table on account of +unexpected arrivals, but there were certain dishes Jarvis was known to +enjoy so much that Sally liked to confront him with at least one of them, +when she could. + +"Make some of the apple-fry to go with the baked beans, please, Mary," +she directed. "And be sure to put in plenty of sugar so it will get brown +and candied, the way we like it. Use the Baldwin apples, and leave the +red skins on the slices--that makes it look prettiest." + +She peeped into the small kitchen mirror as she went by, the mirror whose +presence was designed to point out to Mary Ann that her rough red locks +might now and then need smoothing. Sally's own hair was the source of +considerable bother at present, it having reached that stage, in its +growth since her fever, when it was neither short nor long, and called +for much skill in arrangement. She tucked in a stray curl or two, gave a +perk to the black bow, stood on her tip-toes to make sure that the silk +knot which fastened her sailor collar was in trim shape, and felt of the +crisp strings which tied her decidedly coquettish apron, to ascertain +that that bow was also snug. Then she looked round at Mary Ann, and +caught that young person eyeing her slyly, but with great admiration. +Sally laughed, and Mary Ann giggled. Then the latter glanced +significantly out of the kitchen window toward the barn, whence a tall +figure was issuing with its arms full of books and magazines. + +"I guess I'd know, Miss Sally," ventured Mary Ann, "who was comin' if I +didn't see for myself. Apple-fry, an' you primpin' up like that when you +don't need it at all, bein' always tidy--" + +"Mary, I'm surprised at you," said Sally severely, and walked out of +the kitchen with her head up. But she had laughed, and Mary Ann was +not afraid. + +"Ridiculous!" said Sally to herself, in the hall. "I shall never look in +that kitchen glass again, when anybody is here. As if I ever did any +special 'primpin'' for an old friend like Jarvis! Girls like that are +always thinking silly things." And she walked on to the hall door, of +half a mind not to open it after all, lest Jarvis himself think his +welcome too eager. Yet, as she always did open it for him, or for any +other of their special friends whom she chanced to see approaching, she +promptly discarded this line of conduct as absurd, and threw the door +wide with the hospitable sweep to which he was so accustomed that he +would have been surprised and puzzled at its absence. + +He looked at her over his armful of books, his face red with the sting of +the sharp January air, his eyes keen through the eye-glasses astride his +nose. Goggles were now a thing of the past, but the eyeglasses, their +lenses thick with the combination of formulae which had ruled their +grinding, were a permanent necessity. It was the first time Sally had +seen him since he had acquired them. + +"Very becoming," she said, critically, as he put down the books on the +hall table, pulled off the handsome driving-gloves which, according to +Max, helped to disqualify him for his present ambitions, and shook hands +with heartiness. "You no longer look pathetic, but distinguished--even +scientific." + +"'Scientific' is the word, if you want to flatter me," he declared, +throwing off his overcoat and gathering up the books again. "I'm +acquiring agricultural science by the peck measure--chock full and +running over. I've reached the point where I must get rid of some of it +upon my partners or suffer serious consequences. Max here? Was it he at +the window? I can't see more than a rod through these things yet--not +used to them." + +"Yes, he's here. He always spends his Saturday half-holiday at home now. +The rest are away. Alec and Bob are off on the hill by the timber lot, +trying Mr. Ferry's toboggan with him--it's just come. Uncle Tim has gone +over to see how they're making it go." + +"Glad the coast is clear. It might embarrass me to set forth my schemes +to more than two at once." + +Sally led the way to the living-room--in old times the "drawing-room," +but now deserving the less imposing title after a fashion which made it +the most homelike of apartments. It was the only room on the lower +floor--except the dining-room and kitchen--which the Lanes had attempted +to furnish for the winter, so the rugs and chairs, tables and couch, of +the little flat had been all that was necessary to make it habitable and +pleasant. A brisk fire burned on the wide hearth, of itself a furnishing +without which many a sumptuous room may seem cheerless and in-hospitable. +The walls were covered with a quaint old paper of white, with gold +stripes about which green ivy leaves wound conventionally. This might +have given the room a cold aspect, but Sally had hung curtains of +Turkey-red print at the windows, and had covered the couch and its +pillows with the same warm-coloured fabric, with a result so pleasing to +the eye that visitors, at the first sight, were wont to exclaim: "Who +would think you could have made this big room look so homelike? How have +you done it?" + +"Thirty-two yards of Turkey-red," was Sally's customary demure answer, +and the visitor, if a woman, was sure to respond, "Oh, yes, of course. +Such a lovely idea for winter." If a man, he was more apt merely to stare +at Sally, with real respect for the feminine comprehension of the +influence of a hue upon a general effect, not understanding the matter +himself, but dimly comprehending that the result had been accomplished +and the room made to look like a refuge from the bitterest storms which +might sweep outside. + +"Well, primed to the muzzle?" was Max's greeting. He had not taken the +trouble to go to the hall to welcome the guest, but had thrown himself +among the red pillows, facing the fire. The wide couch stood always in +comfortable proximity to the hearth, and was a favourite resort for the +entire household. Not unadvisedly had Sally covered the eight pillows +with the strong red fabric. It could withstand the wear and tear of +pillow fights and of use as seats upon the floor before the fire better +than almost any material that could be found at the price. + +"Look at the titles of these, and see if I haven't a right to be primed. +Mother and Jo have taken turns reading to me for a week--they too are +possessed of an extraordinary amount of miscellaneous information." + +"Miscellaneous--that's undoubtedly the word. It will be a long day before +any of us have any classified and usable knowledge to work with." + +With a critical eye Max scanned the titles of the books as Jarvis set +them forth in an impressive row upon the old mahogany table where the +reading lamp stood, surrounded by books, magazines, and papers, in +generous quantity. + +"Strawberries--Market Gardening--Analyses of the +Soil--Bacteria--Nitrogen--Drainage--Agricultural Implements--Increasing +the Fertility of the Land--and so forth--and so forth," Max murmured, as +his eye ran hurriedly along the subjects represented. "Well, you've +certainly gone in deep." + +"Nearly submerged, at times. But I think I've got my head out of water +now, and have evolved a scheme that will do to begin on--with your +approval. I wish you'd go at the reading of these--some of them, +anyhow. I've marked what seemed to be the most important. You can do it +while I'm away. I'm planning to take a trip around to the best farms I +can hear of, and have a series of talks with the owners. I shall end up +with a scientific experiment station, for by that time I ought to have +some working knowledge to build on, and can understand what I'm trying +to get at." + +From among his pillows Max gazed at his friend. Saturday afternoon was +always a time of relaxation for the bank clerk, when he could get through +with his work and hurry home. He did not as yet feel a particle of +enthusiasm over the farming plans, and it was difficult for him to +comprehend Jarvis's interest. But he had ceased to oppose the project, +except by comments skeptical to a degree. Jarvis was to assume the risk +of all expensive experiments during the first two seasons, and Max was +not to leave the bank, so there was everything to be gained and nothing +to be lost by giving the experimenter a free hand. + +Jarvis was sitting bolt upright by the table, his shoulders back, his +head up, energy in every outline. Sally, studying him, and remembering +his long exile from all active labour while his eyes were recovering from +their misuse at college, silently rejoiced in his appearance of vigour. +Just now, as he spoke of his plans, he seemed especially full of life and +determination, and the contrast between the two young men was one which +made the girl wonder rather anxiously if they could really become +partners in this new enterprise. + +"When will you go?" Max inquired. "Wish I weren't tied to a desk. I'd go +too--for the trip." + +"I wish you could. You'd enjoy not only the trip but the interviews. I'd +guarantee your interest before we'd made half our rounds." + +"Any idea what you'll make the chief crop?" Max inquired, his eyes again +wandering over the titles of the books. + +"Strawberries," his prospective partner responded, at once. + +"Strawberries! Expect to make a living off those?" + +"Strawberries!"--This was Sally, in a tone of delight. "Lovely! I'll +help pick. Can we have them next June? Oughtn't we to have sowed them +last fall?" + +A roar from the young man on the couch, and an irrepressible broad smile +on the face of the one by the table, made Sally colour with chagrin. "I +suppose I've said something awful?" she queried. + +"Max and I'll make worse blunders than that before we are through," +Jarvis consoled her, while Max, chuckling, attempted to instruct his +sister and prove that after all he did know a thing or two about farming. + +"You don't sow strawberries for a crop," he explained, wisely, "you set +out plants. And you don't get a crop the first year, either--eh, Jarve? +So Sally needn't begin to make a sun-bonnet to wear picking berries +next June." + +"Nor the second June, either, perhaps," admitted Jarvis, reluctantly. +"To get the best results we shouldn't use land that's just been ploughed +where there's been only sod for years. We ought to plant potatoes or +cabbages the first year, to get the ground in shape. Then it'll need a +lot of fertilizing after that. We have to get rid of the grubs in the +old sod--" + +"Grubs!" Max sat upright with a jerk. "There you are, at the first drop +of the hat. Grubs--pests--not only after you get your plants out but two +seasons beforehand." + +He eyed his friend, as if he had presented a conclusive argument against +strawberry raising. But Jarvis only laughed good-humouredly. + +"That's part of the game," said he. "Meanwhile, there are some quick +crops we ought to be able to market the first year. But, after talking +with several city dealers and commission men, I'm confident it will pay +us to go about strawberry culture with the most careful preparation we +can make. Some cities are surrounded by strawberry gardeners, but there's +almost nobody in that business around here. No reason why not--soil and +climate all right enough--so it seems to me it's our chance. The city +gets most of its 'home-grown' strawberries from a hundred miles away, +which means that they can't be marketed as fresh as ours can be. I +propose to build up a demand for absolutely fresh berries, picked at dawn +and marketed before the dew is off, strictly fine to the bottom of the +full-sized basket. Several grades, but our reputation on the big ones, of +course. There's no reason why we can't do it--" + +But he had gone as far as could have been expected without an ironic +comment from Max. "Oh, it's all clear as daylight!" that young man +agreed. "Even the grubs that infest the soil now will take to the woods +when they hear of the onslaught that's coming. We've only to set out the +plants, sit on the fence till the gigantic berries are ripe, than haul in +the nets. No May freezes, no droughts, no--" + +"You _are_ a pessimist, aren't you?" Jarvis broke in. "I know of only one +thing that will ever work a reformation in you--and that's a summer's +work in the open air." + +"Pessimist, am I? Well--" + +It was Sally who interrupted, this time. During Jarvis's explanation of +his plan she had been absorbed in the contemplation of a new idea. She +proceeded to launch it against the tide of Max's retort, and her +enthusiastic shriek overbore his deeper-toned growl. "I've a name for +this place!" she cried, clapping her hands. "A name! I've tried and +tried to think of one, you know, Jarvis, and nothing has suited. Uncle +Maxwell never named it anything. Uncle Timothy thinks '_The Pines_' +would be a good name but I'm sure there are hundreds of country places +called '_The Pines_.' Alec says '_Woodlands_,' and Bob votes for +'_Farview_'--though there's no far view at all till you get up to the +hill by the timber lot. But now--I have the name!" + +She spoke impressively, and they both looked at her, waiting for the +revelation about to fall from her lips. She did not keep them +waiting long. + +"'_Strawberry Acres_.'" + +Silence ensued. Sally looked from one to the other. Max began to laugh. + +"Better call it '_Prospective Strawberry Acres_'" said he. + +"It's certainly an original name," mused Jarvis. "Not a high-sounding +one, certainly. But you don't want a high-sounding name--for a farm." + +"It's a nice, colourful name," argued Sally. + +"'Colourful!'--Now, by all that's eccentric, what's a colourful name?" +demanded Jarvis, laughing. + +"Think of strawberries among the green leaves, in the sun--Jarvis, let's +have green leaves on all the baskets!--and think of crushed strawberries, +and the beautiful, rich, red juice. It's a nice, rich name, just as my +Turkey-red curtains make a warm, homey-looking room." + +Jarvis shook his head. "These are mysteries too deep for my imagination," +he owned. "But you can call it '_Pumpkin Hollow_,' if you like--that's a +colourful name, too, I should judge--a fine natural yellow." + +"Oh," Sally exclaimed, "we must raise pumpkins, among the corn--of course +we'll have corn. Pumpkins lying about among shocks of corn in the fall +sunshine make the most delightful picture." + +Max lay back among his pillows, apparently overcome with emotion. "Oh, +you're a practical person for a farmer's housekeeper!" he jeered. "Your +one idea will be to have the crops look pretty in the sunshine. You'll be +tying ribbons on the strawberry baskets to match the fruit." + +Sally nodded. "Maybe I shall," she acknowledged. "Anyhow, I know people +buy the things that are most artfully put up." + +A loud bang of the front door made her pause to listen. Hurried footsteps +clattering through the hall prepared the party for the bursting open of +the door. Bob, his cheeks like winter apples, his boots crusted with +snow, shouted at the company: + +"Oh, pull yourselves loose from this stuffy fire and come up on the +hill. Mr. Ferry's toboggan goes like lightning express from the top of +the hill clear down to the big elm in the middle of the south meadow. +He's a dandy at it. I can't steer the thing yet, at all, but he'll teach +me. Put on your duds and come on--he sent me for you." + +Max settled himself more reposefully than ever among his pillows. "Go +'way," he commanded. "My half-holidays are not for work." + +But Sally sprang to her feet, seeing which Jarvis got promptly to his. + +"Sorry we haven't blanket tobogganing suits, Bob," said Jarvis, "but we +can try it in derby hats and kid gloves. I'm ready." + +Sally rushed away to array herself in a miscellaneous costume composed of +Max's gray sweater-jacket, Bob's crimson skating cap, Uncle Timothy's +white muffler, and a short, rainy-day skirt of her own. The others eyed +her approvingly as she rejoined them, the crimson cap on her blonde curls +proving most picturesque. Out of doors the colour in her cheeks, stung by +the frosty air, presently brought them to match the cap. By the time the +three reached the hill they looked as ready for sport as Donald Ferry +himself. That young man, in a regulation toboggan suit of gray blanket +cloth, with a cap of the same, looked like a jolly boy as he brought the +toboggan into place with a flourish and invited his guests to "pile on." + +It was glorious fun. Certainly Ferry was an accomplished tobogganist, +for he steered with great skill over a somewhat complicated course, +including excursions between trees set rather closely together, over +hummocks and through erratic dips, at a pace which quite took his +passengers' breath away. + +"It's the best fun I ever had in my life," cried Sally, as they climbed +the hill for the third time. "What a shame for Max not to come." + +"We'll have him out next time. To taste tobogganing is to become an +enthusiast," declared Ferry, walking at one side of the crimson cap, +while Jarvis kept close upon the other. Alec and Bob were doing tricks in +the snow all the way up the hill, to the amusement of Uncle Timothy Rudd, +who watched interestedly from the top, but could not be prevailed upon to +try a journey. + +Suddenly Sally looked down toward the house. She shielded her eyes +with one hand. + +"There's Mary Ann Flinders, watching at the kitchen window," she +exclaimed. "Poor child, how she must envy us!" She stopped short and +looked at the toboggan's owner. "Why can't we ask her up for a little +while, Mr. Ferry?" she suggested. "You wouldn't mind, would you?" + +"Not in the least. Shall I go for her?" + +"I'll go. Please don't come." And Sally was off like the wind, down over +the path which much tramping had made through the snow. Jarvis and Ferry +looked at one another and smiled. + +"Do you know another girl in the world who would have thought of doing +that?" asked Jarvis, with amusement. + +"Not many, out of those who happened to have devoted cavaliers beside +them, certainly," admitted the other young man, looking after the rapid +transit of the crimson cap across the snowy fields. "But Miss Sally is a +law unto herself--and the unexpected is the thing one may expect from her +every time. Yet she's not capricious purely for the sake of being +capricious, like so many girls. She can be counted on--at the same time +that one doesn't know exactly where to find her." He laughed. "There's a +paradox for you." + +"Counted on to do the thing you're glad afterward she has done," +supplemented Sally's old friend. + +If Sally could have heard them, her small ears--burning with the +transition from cold air to warm, as in the kitchen she hurriedly forced +Mary Ann, protesting with feeble giggles, into whatsoever garments could +be adapted to the purpose--would have burned even more fiercely. But it +is quite safe to say that she had no thought whatever of the effect her +impulsive little act might have upon anybody--except Mary Ann herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN THE OLD GARDEN + + +"Mother, won't you drive out to the farm with us? Jo will tell you I +drive like a veteran, and the roads aren't bad--with chains on the +rear tires." + +Jarvis's hand was on the door as he spoke. He wore a motorist's cap, +coat, and leather gauntlets. + +Mrs. Burnside shook her head, smiling. "I'll make my first trip into the +country when the chains are not needed, son. Give Sally my love, and tell +her that now spring is at hand I shall come out with you often." + +"Let me tell her you'll come out and spend the whole season there. +Furnish the west side of the house, take Joanna, share expenses--and +chaperon her." + +"Whom--Joanna?" Josephine Burnside, sheathing herself in veils for the +drive in the chilly early April air, glanced at her brother with a +mischievous air. "She's forty, if she's a day. Surely she doesn't need--" + +"I wish you people would take me seriously. Could you find a pleasanter +place to spend the summer? I expect to spend every daylight hour of every +day there, from the fifteenth of April on." + +"Then it's you who need the chaperon," declared Josephine. "Uncle Timothy +Rudd is dragon enough for Sally." + +"I shall want to be out there for every noon meal. Can't break off work +and rush home three times a day, even with the new car--and she'll make +it in twenty minutes, when the roads are good. I shall have to take my +lunch in a pail, like my farm hands, if you don't come, for I'm not going +to cast myself on the Lanes for food, except now and then." + +"Come on, I'm ready. Talk to me about it on the way out, and when I come +back I'll put it to mother so artfully she can't refuse." And Josephine +took the control of the door-knob out of her brother's hand. + +Jarvis applied himself silently to his steering-wheel until they were out +of the city, for although after a month's practice he drove with +considerable skill, he had not yet reached the point where steering +through city traffic becomes purely mechanical. But once on the open +road, with few vehicles in the way, Jarvis continued the subject. + +"Do you think mother really dislikes the idea? It seems to me the most +practical in the world. Those west rooms would be fine, furnished with +summer stuff--I wouldn't for the world have you put anything in them that +would make the other part of the house look shabby by contrast." + +"Jarvis! As if we would! Why, it would be just mattings and wicker +chairs, muslin curtains, and that sort of thing. And I think mother +rather likes the idea. But she is afraid we should be forcing ourselves +on them, as we did last summer with the tent. She doesn't doubt they +would all like it, except Max. But he's so queer--he never likes what +he's expected to." + +"Max is the very one who would favour it this time. He said the other day +he wished I could live out here, since I'm to run everything this season. +I said I'd like mighty well to be on the ground, but couldn't, of course, +in the circumstances, unless the family were along. He said, 'Set up for +yourselves in the west wing, and be here to get up with the lark, in the +approved farmer's style. I propose to sleep till the last minute, and let +the early birds get all the worms they like.'" + +"Oh, he was only joking." + +"Of course he was joking, but I feel certain he'd favour the plan. He +has reason to give me my head in every way, hasn't he? I'm equipping the +place with farm tools and machines at my own expense, hiring help out of +my own pocket, and taking all the risk. If I can't have the west wing for +the summer I'll send back that disc-harrow that arrived yesterday--I'm as +proud of it as I am of the car." + +"Would you dare mention it to Sally?" + +"The disc-harrow--or the plan? If she likes the plan as well as she does +the harrow, she'll welcome it with open arms. I tell you, if I could +strike the sparks out of Max with an expensive seed-sower that the mere +sight of a set of hoes and rakes for her flower garden does with Sally, +I'd be content. No, I don't dare mention it to Sally, but I should think +you might. She'd certainly be delighted to have you and mother there--and +she has to have me there anyhow, whether she likes it or not." + +"Whether she likes it or not! Of course she likes it! Aren't you and she +the best friends in the world?" + +"I'm not so sure. Sally's good friends with everybody--but 'the best in +the world'--well--I don't know!" + +His tone was peculiar. Josephine looked quickly at him, through her +enveloping veils. He was staring at the road ahead--as the driver of a +high-powered motor through April mud must do, of course--yet his sister +thought she detected a curious compression of the lips not due wholly to +the strain of driving under difficulties. + +"You're not afraid of her next-door neighbour, are you?" ventured the +girl, casually, as if she meant nothing by the query. + +"I like him immensely, as you know," was the quick reply. "And trust him, +too--like a brother. But--well--it's no use talking about it. It's a fair +field and no favours--and I can't complain of that. But--I'd rather like +the advantage of being on the ground all summer, don't you see? Alone, +there, even though I'm off in the fields half the time, I'll have to be +everlastingly careful that I don't make myself intrusive. With you and +mother there, the whole situation would be different. You do see, don't +you, Sis?" + +He looked round at her for an instant, to search her face beneath the +masking veils, confident that if he could be sure of her sympathy his +sister was the strongest ally he could have. The subject had never +been brought up quite so definitely between them before, although +Jarvis had no doubt that both mother and sister understood the long +persisting intention which within the last year had grown in him so +overwhelmingly strong. + +The machine, after the manner of motor-cars, took the opportunity of his +momentary relaxation of vigilance to skid rather alarmingly in a +particularly slippery section of clay road. Though Jarvis promptly +brought it about and had things in hand again, Josephine forgot to answer +while she resumed control over the function of breathing. But when her +brother gently repeated his question she answered warmly: + +"Indeed I do, boy--and more clearly than I have before. For myself, I +should love to spend the summer with Sally, and I'll do my best to bring +it about." + +That was all he wanted, and he plunged into talk about the farm, what had +been done, what was being done, and what remained to do. It seemed that, +while much had been accomplished, a mountain of tasks remained. The place +had been running down so long that every inch of it required immediate +taking in hand. + +"There's not much to expect the first year in the way of crops," he +explained. "We shall plough all we can in April, and sow it in May to +buckwheat." + +"Buckwheat! What do you want of that?" + +"Nothing--but to turn it under and give the ground a chance to enrich +itself. All the north meadow we shall let come to the haying--by the way, +that'll be a jolly time for you to be there. I believe Sally has great +plans for the haying. The old apple orchard we had carefully pruned in +February, and we're going to plough it--Sally's not pleased at that, she +says it will be prettier not ploughed; but the poor old roots need to be +saved from starving. We nearly came to blows over that, and of course I +was sorry to oppose her about anything that has to do with the beauty of +the place. But the quickest road to lasting improvement is the one we +must take, and I hope there'll be enough more blossoms on the trees in +the future to make up for the loss of the grass." + +"You won't lose ground with Sally by opposing her, now and then. She'll +come round in the end to seeing you're right." + +"I'll have plenty of chances to win favour by opposition with everybody. +Even Mr. Rudd has his ideas about what ought to be, because of what was +when he was a boy on the farm up in New Hampshire. Max wanted the new +fence posts of ash, though locust is much more lasting, and there's +plenty to spare in the timber lot. As for the neighbouring farmers, +they're already keenly alive to our first efforts, and some of them are +watching eagerly to see us make mistakes--but not all. There are several +who are progressive enough themselves to want to see us win out with +modern methods." + +"With all your studying, I suppose you'll make some mistakes." + +"Mistakes!--Dozens of them. But we won't make the same one twice. Jo, if +you could have heard those fellows talk whom I heard on my trip, the ones +who run the really successful farms on scientific methods, you wouldn't +wonder at my interest." + +He was still talking away when he turned the car in through the now +restored gateway. It may be worth while to mention that the first thing +in which Max had shown a real interest was the restoration of that +gateway. He had declared--nobody knew why--that it must be in absolutely +correct shape before the Neil Chases came through it again. So the mason +who came to mend the broken chimney found himself, much to his surprise, +put first at the tumble-down stone pillars of the gateway. The carpenter, +also, who arrived prepared to repair the porch columns and floor, and to +mend the broken shutters, was led at once by the young master of the +place to the gateway and instructed that he must make the old gate +itself substantial, and hang it so that it should swing true. But +although it was nearly six months since the Chases had tried to buy the +place, they had not yet driven through that restored gateway. Possibly +they did not care to be in haste to look at the place they could not own. + +"There's Sally, in the old garden. She told me she could hardly wait to +begin on it," and Josephine waved her hand at a distant figure with a +spade in its hand. The spade was promptly cast aside and the worker came +running around the house to meet the arriving car. "Isn't she looking +splendidly?" Sally's friend murmured in her brother's ear, as the figure +came near enough for a pair of very blooming cheeks to show clearly in +the April sunshine. + +"Never better. Out-door life is going to make her a Hebe," replied the +driver of the car, under his breath, though he kept his eyes dutifully +on the roadway until the car came to a standstill and he had stopped +his engine. + +"Come and see the garden, and listen to my plans," commanded Sally, the +moment her friends were on the ground. "No, I don't mean Jarvis. I know +he has more important business--in the orchard, or the barns, or the +woods, or the south lot--" + +"Meadow, please," corrected Jarvis, with a smile which suggested past +efforts to teach Sally the nomenclature of the farm. + +"--or anywhere that he can walk to in the mud, and come back covered with +stick-tights, with a tear in his coat. He looks happiest when his clothes +are most demoralized and his boots thickest with clay." + +"The sign of your true farmer," urged Jarvis. + +But Sally had no further attention to bestow on him, and immediately led +Josephine away over the damp and spongy sod to that portion of the ground +at the rear of the house which showed, by a few lingering signs, that it +once had been a proud and stately old-time garden. + +"You see the old box border is still in pretty good condition, only +winter-killed--is that the word?--in a few places. I shall try to fill +those in, for I care more for the box than for anything I could have. See +how it outlines all those funny little curving paths, where I suppose +roses and larkspur and bleeding hearts and sweet-williams used to grow. +They're going to grow again, if I can make them." + +"Lovely! I can see it now. And phlox--Sally, you must have masses of +phlox--and candy-tuft, and mignonette, and sweet alyssum--" + +"And love-in-a-mist, and forget-me-nots, and sweet peas, and hollyhocks. +Only the hollyhocks are not going to be in the garden, but in a long row +back there, to screen away the kitchen garden from the lawn. Only--oh, +dear, you have to wait so long for the things you want most! Hollyhocks +don't bloom the first year from seed--and I want to see them there this +first summer, pink and white and red and yellow in the sun, like a row of +children dressed for a party." + +"Can't you get plants somewhere?" + +"Perhaps, from the neighbours--only country people don't go in much for +the old-fashioned flowers now. They have rubber-plants and hydrangeas--in +tubs--just think--in tubs! And geraniums in tomato cans!" + +"Sally! Not all of them. They have nasturtiums--." + +"Yes, and pink sweet peas beside them, to set one's teeth on edge. By the +way, my sweet peas are in!" Her voice proclaimed triumph, and she led the +way down one of the damp, moss-grown paths to a sunny spot where a long +strip of freshly raked earth showed that somebody had lately been at +work. "Bob dug it up for me, Uncle Timmy fertilized it, I raked it and +planted the seeds, while the whole family stood around and gave advice. +Max wanted them sowed thinner and Alec thicker. I consulted the seed +catalogue and the directions on the paper packet, and then sowed them +just as my judgment directed." + +"As you haven't a particle of judgment--" + +"Experience, you mean. No, I haven't experience, but I consider that I +have judgment, and I sowed the seeds according to that. In June I will +pick you a gorgeous bunch of them." + +"In June--if I'm not away somewhere. In which case you can send them to +me in a paste-board box." + +"Joey Burnside!" Sally picked up a rake lying in the path and brandished +it fiercely. "Don't you dare to go away--anywhere. You're to come and +visit me--from June till September." + +"How would May till November do?" + +"Still better. The idea of your expecting me to get along without you, +the very first summer I live in a place big enough for anybody to visit +me in! You can go off to your fashionable resorts in the winter, if you +want to--I can spare you better, then. But this summer! Jo, think of the +moonlight nights, with the odour of mignonette coming up to the porch +from the garden--" + +"I don't think the odour of the mignonette would carry so far." + +"We can walk within range, then. And the evenings on the porch, with Mr. +Ferry and his sister over--and his sister's friend--" + +"I didn't know he had a sister--or that the sister had a friend." + +"She's been in Germany the last two years, living with an aunt, and +studying music--the piano. The friend has a voice. Oh, we'll have the +jolliest times--you can't think. And in July will be the haying. Jo, +we'll have larks during haying--real country larks--and a barn dance. +You _can't_ go away anywhere--not even for a week-end house party! Say +you won't!" + +"You artful schemer--I don't see how I can," and Josephine looked as if +she couldn't. "But see here, Sally. I couldn't come and visit you here +and leave mother alone. You know she would go with me, if it were to the +mountains or to the sea-side." + +"I'd love to have her come too," said Sally, quickly, "if she would care +to. How I wish she would. Then I shouldn't have to bother Mrs. Ferry to +come over every time we had the young people all here. If I could just +furnish the west wing for you--" + +"Why not let us furnish it?" Josephine jumped at her opportunity. +Somehow, during the last few minutes she had become firmly convinced +that she could not think of spending the summer months anywhere but at +the farm. All sorts of pictures had leaped into her mind at Sally's +outlines of what the summer was to be. The stage seemed set for +happenings of extraordinary interest, from which she did not want to be +left out. There would be other things going on at the old place besides +ploughings and plantings, harvestings and threshings--or perhaps it might +be that these very terms in the vegetable kingdom might come to be used +significantly of doings in the human sphere of action. + +Sally looked up with a flash of protest in her eyes. "Let you furnish +it!" she exclaimed. "Oh, but I couldn't--I know what your furnishing it +would mean. Persian rugs and silk hangings, Satsuma jars and cut-glass +bowls filled with roses. And on the other side of the hall our poor +things would look"--she stopped short, and was silent for an instant. +Then, "I'm an envious pig," she owned. "If you'll only come you may +furnish it in teak wood and Chinese embroidery, and I'll be contented on +my--bare floors." + +But Josephine's affectionate arm was around her friend's shoulders. +"Sally Lunn," said she, soothingly, "give us credit for better taste than +that, entirely from the standpoint of harmony. In a summer home on a +farm people of sense don't use Persian rugs or teak wood. We'd put plain +white straw matting on the floors, hang muslin curtains at the windows, +and use the simplest willow furniture to be had. The windows should be +open every minute, and there would be bowls of roses about--only I'd +rather it would be sweet-williams or clove-pinks. Sally, don't you adore +the old-fashioned clove-pinks, with their dear, spicy smell? And the +bowls themselves wouldn't be cut glass--I despise cut glass for +old-fashioned flowers, and so do you. Now, will you let us come?" + +Sally looked at her friend for a minute, thinking as she did so that +for a rich girl Josephine Burnside possessed the sweetest common sense +ever owned by anybody. Then she dropped her rake and pulled at +Josephine's hand. + +"Come!" she cried. "Let's go back and look at the west wing. And the +bedrooms over it are the nicest in the house. I haven't used them only +because they were so big. But you won't care how many acres of straw +matting have to be used to cover them." + +"Do you think Max will be willing for us to come?" Josephine asked with +some anxiety, as they went in. "You remember, about the tent--" + +"Oh, he's anxious now to get Jarvis on the ground. And he's spoken more +than once about the desirability of our renting some of our unused space, +only of course I wouldn't hear of it, before, to strangers." + +Josephine plunged into details. They would bring Joanna for the season, +that paragon of cooks. She should assist Mary Ann-- + +At which Sally laughed, and said that if incompetent little Mary Ann +could assist dignified, competent Joanna, it would be a matter for +congratulation. + +"We'll all dine together every night in the big dining-room, with all the +windows also open, and more flowers on the table." + +Josephine would have gone on to further details, but as they crossed the +hall to the west wing, the knocker on the front door banged with a +decisive sound, and Sally opened to find Donald Ferry on the threshold. + +"I came on a matter of business," said he, when he had shaken hands, "if +you can call asking a favour business. Shall I plunge into it?--A certain +storage house in a city near our old home has gone out of commission, and +we are notified that everything my mother has had stored there since we +left the home must be moved at once. Now that my sister and her friend +are to be here with us through the summer we should like to have my +sister's piano where she could use it. But"--he spread out his arms with +a gesture conveying the idea of great proportions--"the piano is a +grand--and not a miniature grand at that--concert size. We couldn't +possibly put it in our little house. Would it be asking too much of you +to allow it to stand in one of your rooms through the summer, where Janet +could do some practising on it? I assure you her practising is of the +nature of a morning musicale," he added--as if Sally might need assurance +in the matter. + +Sally turned to Josephine. "It's a special providence," said she +solemnly, "to keep me from envying you your matting and willow furniture. +Will you have a concert grand in the west wing? I trow not." + +Then she answered to her questioner. "Of course we shall be delighted," +she told him. "And as I say, it will have a chastening effect on the +Burnside family, who are thinking of furnishing our west wing and +spending the summer with us. I'm sure they won't think of bringing a +grand piano out here." + +Donald Ferry looked greatly pleased at this news. "That's fine," said +he. "Mother has been promising Miss Constance Carew and Janet all +sorts of pleasures in the country, and I should say this makes a sure +thing of it. If four girls on a farm can't have a good time +together--even when not aided and abetted by as many boys--there will +be something wrong with them--and the boys. Can't we be called +boys?--That's great news. And I may tell mother you will prove your +good friendship by taking the white elephant of a piano? May we send it +right away? You see, since it must be moved at once, it had best come +where it is to stay. And we'll send around a tuner. Please use it all +you can, just to keep it in good shape." + +"I'm not the tiniest sort of a musician," said Sally regretfully. "But +Josephine is--she'll keep it in tune for you. I'll merely see that +it's dusted." + +When he had gone Sally and Josephine looked at each other. "Miss +Burnside," said Sally, solemnly, "I feel it in my bones that you and Miss +Ferry and Miss Carew and Miss Lane are to take part, this summer, in a +melodrama of thrilling interest. Country setting, background of +hay-field, with cows coming down the lane. Curtain rises to the time of +'Sweet Lavender.' Miss Burnside is discovered, sun-bonnet on head, rake +in hand, pretending to accomplish the bunching up of one hay-cock before +the sun goes down. Enter at right young city clergyman, also in rustic +attire. At the same time, enter, left, Miss Carew, in rival sun-bonnet. +Miss Burnside gives one glance at her rival--" + +But a warm hand over Sally's saucy mouth, and a protesting--"Sally Lane, +if you begin that sort of thing I won't live a minute in your west +wing,"--put an end to the stage directions. + +"All right, dear," agreed Sally. "We won't talk any such silly stuff. +We'll be four little country girls together, playing in the hay, and if +we want to go barefoot we will--when there's nobody to see. But I hope, +don't you, Jo? that 'Miss Carew' isn't as grand as she sounds!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AFTERNOON TEA + + +"I feel," said Sally Lane, impressively, "that the way to receive them +properly is to have afternoon tea on the lawn. What is the use of having +a lawn--even though it's still rather hummocky--and four magnificent +ancestral oaks--ancestral oaks sounds like an English novel--if we don't +have afternoon tea on It--under Them?" + +She stood in the doorway of the front room in the west wing, where Mrs. +Burnside and Josephine were sitting, the one busy with some small piece +of sewing, the other writing letters at a desk. + +"Are they coming over before we call on them?" Josephine inquired, with +poised pen. "Coming to-day? Why, they only arrived last night." + +"I saw Mr. Ferry this morning, and he said he did not want to wait for us +to come over with our hats and gloves on and call, he wanted to bring the +girls and his mother over this afternoon, so as to lose no time in having +them find out what was on the farther side of the hedge. I asked him why +he hadn't brought them with him then--it was at eight o'clock this +morning. But he said he wanted to bring them himself, and he was then on +his way to his car--otherwise he thought he should not have hesitated at +all on account of the hour. He said they were crazy to come." + +"Sally! He didn't say they were _crazy_ to come." + +"He didn't use that particular word, perhaps--men never do, of course. +But he said 'eager,' or 'anxious,' or something like that--it means the +same thing. Evidently they've been told all about us. What would you +give, Jo Burnside, to know how we've been described?" + +"We probably haven't been described. Men never describe people. They just +say, 'She's all right, you'll like her,' or something equally vague." + +"It would give me a chance to wear my lilac muslin," mused Sally quite +irrelevantly, but Josephine caught her meaning. + +"Afternoon tea on the lawn? Then do let's have it. Anything to see you in +that lilac muslin." + +"Then we'll trail over the lawn to meet them--only the lilac muslin +doesn't trail--and we'll hold out our hands at a medium sort of angle, so +that we'll be prepared to reciprocate whatever sort of high-low shake +fresh from abroad they give us. Since Dorothy Chase came back last fall +she gives a side-to-side jerk that stops your breath short just where it +happens to be at the moment. What do you suppose they'll be like? Young +ladies from two years' residence in Germany, or just plain, jolly girls?" + +Josephine shook her head, but her mother replied in a quiet tone of +conviction: "I doubt if the daughter of that family will be anything +but a simple-mannered girl, no matter how experienced she may be in +foreign usages." + +Sally nodded. "So I'm hoping. But 'Miss Carew'--with a voice--sounds more +formidable. It's for Miss Carew I'm going to have afternoon tea. I'll go +out now and make my little cakes. And I'll have very, very thin bread and +butter. I've just one cherished jar of the choicest Orange Pekoe, so the +tea will be above reproach. And my one pride is my linen--you know how +much mother always kept--not only her own but Grandmother Rudd's." Then +she vanished, quite suddenly, from the doorway, as if, having once +mentioned the mother of whom she seldom spoke, she could not come back +again to other subjects until a period of silence had intervened. + +"I'm so anxious to see her put away the black clothes," said Josephine +to her mother. "It will be good for her to wear the lilac muslin, for now +she's made it she can't bring herself to put it on, though she knows how +we all want to see her in colours again. Speaking of colours--Jarvis said +this morning that by the fence in the south meadow the grass was blue +with wild violets. I believe I'll go and pick a big bunch for Sally's +tea-table." + +"It seems rather early for tea on the lawn," suggested Mrs. Burnside, +"though I couldn't bear to damp Sally's ardour by saying so." + +"Oh, it's really very warm, and the lawn seems quite dry. I don't +blame Sally for wanting to show off the 'ancestral oaks.' It's almost +like June." + +But--alas for plans which count upon the most June-like May weather--no +guests were served with afternoon tea that day except under a roof more +substantial than the low-hanging boughs of the great oaks. At +mid-afternoon, treacherously enough, the sky showed not a cloud, except +over beyond the timber lot, where they had risen to some height before +they could be discerned from the lawn. There Sally, lilac-clad, was +laying her fine linen cloth, setting out her thin teacups of the old +gold-banded china, and arranging Josephine's blue meadow-violets in a +curious, engraved glass bowl of Grandmother Rudd's. A small gust of wind, +lifting the edges of the heavy damask cloth and nearly capsizing the +violets, first called her attention to a change in the weather. Uncle +Timothy, bringing out chairs at her behest, paused and scanned the +horizon with an experienced eye. + +"Looks a little dubious to me, Sally," he observed, although he came on +with his chairs. "Company due pretty soon?" + +"It's four o'clock--they'll come very soon, for I sent word that we'd +have tea early on account of its growing cool after five. Yes--there is a +little bit of a dark cloud in the south beyond the woods, but you don't +think it will bring rain right away, do you?" + +"If it begins to blow, it will--look out, there--" for another +brisk little zephyr lifted the corner of the tea-table cloth again, +and threatened the teacups. "Weather changes pretty suddenly +sometimes, in May." + +"But the sun is so bright--and a minute ago I was thinking that it was +lucky the branches are so thick on this old oak, for the sunshine was +really uncomfortably hot. It can't rain right away. I'll bring out +everything, and be ready to offer them tea the minute they've said 'Good +afternoon.'" + +Sally hurried away to the house, leaving Uncle Timothy standing +guard over the tea-table and keeping a weather eye on the gathering +patch of clouds. + +But it could rain right away, as it presently proved. By the time Sally +crossed the lawn with her plates of bread and butter and tiny sugary +cakes, Mary Ann following with the tray holding the tea equipage, there +were strong indications of what was soon to happen. Sally had not more +than decided that it was best to retreat to the porch and await +developments, than the first drops on her upturned forehead warned her +that the retreat could not be too hasty. + +The Ferry party, coming through the gap in the hedge a few minutes +earlier than they would have done if it had not seemed expedient to +forestall the gathering shower, saw the scurrying hosts. Jarvis and Max +were with them, for it was Saturday afternoon. The Ferrys themselves were +forced to make haste also, and as a result, guests and hostess, tea-tray +and chairs, bread-and-butter and violets, reached the shelter of the big +porch at nearly the same time, and sixty seconds later the first pursuing +dash of rain rattled against the pillars. + +"It's too bad," cried Sally, breathless and laughing, as she turned +around to greet her guests, little curls escaping about her forehead and +over her ears, in spite of all her previous care to insure their smooth +order. But her hand gave warm welcome all around the circle, and she led +the party into the wide hall, now transformed by the waxing of its dark +floor and the presence of several old-time rag rugs, into a +hospitable-looking entrance. "Put the tea-table here by the open door, +please, Max," she directed. "We'll be as near out of doors as we can." + +At the first sound of voices Mrs. Burnside and Josephine had appeared, +and between them things were in order in the new setting in less time +than it takes to tell it. A great bunch of daffodils on an old table near +the door made the spot seem quite festive enough for the occasion, and +Sally, when she had caught her breath and pushed back the distracting +curls, proved herself to possess a fair amount of the poise of the +accustomed hostess whom nothing can really upset. She rearranged her +tea-table just inside the hall door, and before she had finished, a dash +of sunshine fell across it, making her declare, as she settled the bowl +of violets, that if the shower could just have confined its efforts to +her garden, which needed watering, and not to sprinkling the lawn, which +didn't need it, she would not have felt so ungrateful to it. + +"And we came especially to see the garden," said Janet Ferry. "We've +heard of that garden in every letter since the first of April." She +looked at her brother with a mischievous twinkle in her hazel eyes, much +like his own. + +"Do tell me what you have heard," said Sally serenely, preparing to make +her tea, and sending Max for the hot water. "The really important things, +like the coming up of the sweet peas, or unimportant ones, like the +strange way the weeds have of appearing faster than the seeds?" + +From the nonchalance of this question it will be seen that Sally herself +thought nothing of the fact that items concerning her garden should have +seemed of sufficient importance to go into the letters of a brother whose +time was ordinarily occupied with affairs much more momentous. The garden +was of overwhelming importance to Sally, why shouldn't it be interesting +to everybody? But there were two people in the company besides his sister +who glanced rather quickly at Donald Ferry. He, however, seemed to think +there could be no reason for anybody's minding what he might choose to +write about. + +"Here were two girls," he said, from his position in the doorway, +where he stood leaning against the lintel, watching the process of tea +making, "writing long descriptions of all sorts of rural beauties +they had discovered in their travels about Germany and France--given +them as a reward for long study by a discerning aunt. They professed +special interest in gardens. Should I refrain from telling them about +the only one in sight, even though it couldn't be said to have reached +the show stage?" + +"You certainly didn't refrain," said Miss Constance Carew, smiling at him +from her seat near Sally. "We were told that if we would spend the summer +here, one of our chief joys would be the old, box-bordered garden." + +"So long as it helped to bring you, I don't regret it," said he, +returning the smile in a way which made those who observed decide at once +that these other two were old and familiar friends. Miss Carew, though +she was not precisely a pretty girl, was really beautiful when she +smiled, and had, at all times, an undeniable charm about her which came +from one knew not just what. She was rather tall but very graceful, and +her manner had about it an indefinable something which made one like to +watch her, admiring each move she made as something done just a little +differently from the way other people did it. + +Sally poured her tea, and the three young men handed about the cups. +Everybody fell to talking at once. Max, who had had an approving eye +on Miss Janet Ferry from the first, and had decided that he should much +prefer her conversation to that of her more impressive friend, drew up +a chair beside her when his duties were over, and presently proved her +to be as blithely entertaining as her appearance had promised. She was +a small person in stature, but her personality was one not to be +ignored. She looked like a miniature edition of her brother, heavy +braids of the same red-brown hair wound about her small head, the same +brilliant, good-humoured hazel eyes looking out of a prepossessing +young face, and the same seemingly quick appreciation of everything +other people said and did making her a delightful person to talk with. +Max, as he supplied her with bread-and-butter, plied her with questions +about her life in Germany, and listened to her vivacious stories of her +experiences, thinking that it was a long time since he had met a girl +he liked so well. + +"You don't know how much it means to Constance and Janet to find two +girls of their own sort so near," declared Donald Ferry, bringing his cup +to take it with Josephine close beside the doorway. "I think they've been +feeling a little dubious over finding us out here in a place which had +neither lake, seashore, nor mountains to recommend it." + +"Perhaps they're still feeling so," suggested Josephine. "There's not +much about tea in a shower to cheer their spirits." + +"Do they look as if they needed cheering?" + +Josephine glanced from Janet, laughing whole-heartedly at something Max +was apparently describing with great eloquence, to Constance Carew, +leaning back in her chair and looking up at Jarvis, who stood beside her, +with the smile which made her face a picture to study. + +"It's delightful for us, I'm sure, that they've come," Josephine +said warmly. + +"You'll find Janet up to the wildest schemes for sport you can devise. +And Constance, though she looks so stately, can unbend like a +school-girl. As for her voice--you must hear her pretty soon. Janet is +anxious to touch her old piano again, and both are always obliging with +their music. They are equal to quite a concert between them." + +"So we've been hoping. Sally has dusted the piano no less than five +times to-day in anticipation. You can't think what a pleasure it is to +Sally just to see that piano standing there. It happens to be almost +the precise duplicate of the one that was sold when her old home was +broken up." + +"I'm glad. I hope she uses it?" + +"Not in a way that she would let me call using it. She sits down +and plays little bits--mostly out of her head, I think. She--Why, +what's that?" + +It was Bob, tearing by the front door and yelling as he ran: + +"Team running away in the south meadow--man knocked down!" + +In an instant three teacups clinked and clattered as they were set +hastily down, and three male figures bolted out of the door, without +apology further than three ejaculations of surprise and chagrin. Mr. Rudd +followed at a brisk walk. As for the portion of the company remaining, +they also put aside teacups and plates, and followed Sally to the +living-room. + +They ran in to the four windows of the long room, between two of which +stood the piano. Janet Ferry gave it a private nod and pat as she went +by, whispering, "You dear old thing! I'll speak to you as soon as I can." + +They could see the runaway team, a plough jerking at their heels, dashing +madly across the furrows, one of the horses apparently much wilder than +the other. They saw Jarvis, Ferry, and Max reach the rail fence at nearly +the same moment, and go over it at a rate of speed which suggested danger +to trousers-legs. Bob could be discerned, racing frantically in the wake +of the careering horses, and in the nearer distance Mr. Rudd could be +heard shouting something wholly unintelligible. + +One of the running figures halted near the fence, stooping, and the +watching eyes understood that the presumably injured ploughman was +lying there. + +"It's Don that has stopped," said Janet Ferry to her mother. "Now +he'll probably have a new case on his hands. I do hope the man isn't +much hurt." + +"I can't stay here to look!" cried Sally, and, gathering up her lilac +skirts, ran away out of the room. In a moment they saw her flying across +the wet grass, her tea-party forgotten. + +"I am going too," and Janet Ferry, delicate folds of pale gray silk +caught up as Sally had caught up her muslin, was off in Sally's train. + +Josephine and Constance Carew looked at each other. The guest nodded. "I +don't mind the wet grass," said she--though one glance at the ephemeral +fabric of her frock made Josephine say, as the two hurried to the hall, +"Had you really better? The grass is soaking." + +"Who cares for clothes when there's a runaway?" replied Miss Carew. +"Besides, this will tub, and yours won't." + +"But the man may be badly hurt," and away went Josephine, high-heeled +pumps making her flight a trifle dangerous, over the slippery turf. And +her guest ran at her side. + +By the time they reached the meadow fence the team had been brought +panting to a standstill, cornered by Bob and Jarvis at the far end of the +meadow. When Donald Ferry looked up from the prostrate form of the +ploughman, he beheld four figures in dainty dresses also brought to a +stand-still by a splintery rail fence over which it did not seem +discretion to attempt to scramble unless the need were dire. + +It was not dire. Jake Kelly had only been stunned by striking his head +upon a big stone just upturned by his plough. He was already opening his +eyes and the colour was returning to his sunburned face. He put his hand +to his head. + +"All right," called Ferry to the row of anxious faces by the fence, at +which the tense expressions relaxed, and certain dimples began to play. +If nobody were seriously hurt, the situation certainly had its amusing +side. Five minutes ago they had all been demurely drinking afternoon tea, +with the most correct society manners evident on all sides. They had not +known each other very well, but each had wondered what the others were +like upon less formal occasions. And suddenly a decidedly less formal +occasion had been precipitated into their midst. + +"Guess I ain't much the wuss for wear," declared Jake Kelly, sitting up. +"All's hurt's my feelin's at havin' that there team git away from me like +that. The old mare's steady's a clock--thought she could hold the young +one down, if he did git lively. Dunno now what he took off at. Serves me +right for trustin' 'em a minute while I lit up my pipe." + +Bob, on the old mare's back, and Jarvis, at the bits of the young horse, +were bringing back the plough undamaged by its brisk career across the +field. Jarvis certainly presented a somewhat incongruous appearance in +his afternoon attire, as he plunged along the furrows in foot-gear not +intended for locomotion over freshly ploughed land. Jake rose to his +feet, answering the queries of Ferry at his side as to his fitness for +continuing work with a decided: "Sure I am. Sha'n't get even with myself +for that fool trick till I've done a good dozen furrows. You don't ketch +that there pair o'hosses gittin' away from Jake Kelly again this day!" + +"The rescue party may as well go back to the teacups," observed +Jarvis, as the whole group, standing partly on the one and partly on +the other side of the rail fence, watched the now subdued team take a +fresh start under the guidance of a vigilant driver with a large bump +on the back of his head, which he had refused to have treated in any +way but with contempt. + +Saying which, Jarvis mounted the fence--tearing a slight rent near the +hem of his trousers-leg because he was not looking where he went. He had +been observing the effect of the now brilliant sunshine on an uncovered +fair head, and in the fashion of Jake he accepted the proffered sympathy +of Bob on the disaster to his clothing with a murmured: "Serves me right +for not attending strictly to business." + +The company marched back in more orderly ranks than it had come forth. +Max found himself by the side of Constance Carew, and discovered that she +had quite as strong a sense of humour as Janet Ferry, for she described +to him most amusingly the way in which the four girls had abandoned all +concern for their afternoon finery, and had rushed forth prepared to help +bear a stretcher down a wet ploughed field, or share in dashing about in +the attempt to catch the runaway team. + +"This is what comes," said he, in reply, and looking around at Sally with +mirth in his eye, "of trying to be fashionable on a farm." + +"Trying to be fashionable!" cried Sally, behind him, catching the words. +"I was merely trying to be hospitable. But Fate evidently didn't mean I +should be either. Twice in one afternoon!" + +"Let's go back and turn the tea-drinking into a musicale," suggested +Ferry. "I know my sister is longing to get her hands on the piano." + +"You shouldn't propose to have your own family perform," Janet reproached +her brother. + +"Why shouldn't I? I haven't heard you play for two years, nor Constance +sing for three. No false modesty shall keep me from demanding to be +satisfied." + +"I heard somebody telling somebody else I had dusted the piano five times +to-day," said Sally, as she led the way in, "and I surely ought to be +rewarded for such care as that." + +So they trooped in, a somewhat less faultlessly attired party than they +had gone out, for Sally's curls were more rebellious than ever, +Josephine's skirts had a mud stain on their hem, Jarvis's rent showed +plainly, and everybody's foot-gear was decidedly the worse for the run +over wet sod and fresh earth. But they had left behind them all stiffness +born of untried acquaintance, had discovered that there was nobody in the +company who could not be depended upon to play a gallant part in whatever +emergency might arise, and were in a mood thoroughly to enjoy the +remainder of the visit. + +Without being asked again Janet went straight to the piano, sat down at +it as if it were the old friend it claimed to be, and with one or two +affectionate soft layings of her hands upon it in almost noiseless +chords, as if she were asking it something to which it responded under +its breath, swept into a movement from one of the greatest compositions +the world knows. + +When she finished she looked up at her brother, who had come to stand +close beside the instrument. Her eyes were full of tears, and his were by +no means free from a suspicion of moisture. Evidently the sound of the +familiar keys had many associations for both, and they were associations +which their mother shared, for her face was turned away toward the open +window, and she was very still. + +But in a minute more Janet had turned to beckon to her friend, and was +beginning an accompaniment without so much as waiting for Constance to +reach the piano. Smiling, the tall girl found a place beside it just in +time to take up her part. And then--the listeners held their breath. The +golden notes rang through the rooms and out upon the warm May air, while +the singer herself seemed as little to be "performing" as if the song had +been a mere child's play tune. + +"What made you start with that?" protested Constance, in her friend's +ear, the moment it was over. "Such a show song!" + +But Donald, from the other side of the piano, leaned across. "Don't +mind," he whispered. "Any of the simple things would have done us out +just now." + +Constance nodded quickly. The next minute, with a word to Janet, she had +plunged into a gay little German song, with a spirit in it as light as +the spring itself, and every one was smiling. + +When they had gone, Jarvis, passing through the hall with a glance into +the room where the piano stood, caught a glimpse of Sally standing by the +open window, looking after the four who were just disappearing through +the hedge. He crossed the room softly and looked out over her head. + +"They're all right, aren't they?" said he. + +"Splendid!" agreed Sally. "I like them both, even more than I expected." +Then she added, in a lower tone, "I'd give the hair off my head to be +able to make such music as that, either with my hands or with my voice." + +Jarvis, smiling to himself, unperceived touched one fair strand with a +reverent hand. "I wouldn't give," said he, "even for such magnificent +music as that, so much as that one curl over your right ear--if another +wouldn't grow there in its place." + +Sally faced about. "The idea!" said she. "Of course you wouldn't. It's +not yours, sir, to give! But I'd cut it off, when you weren't looking!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +TWO AND TWO + + +"Shall we make the haying a society affair for ladies in French frocks, +or an athletic event for a lot of young fellows who don't know a rake +from a pitchfork?" + +The questioner was a tall young man in corduroy trousers and high boots, +a blue flannel shirt and a nondescript hat--though the hat had come off +as he approached the garden, where Sally Lane, in blue gingham and short +sleeves, was carefully setting out some spice-pink roots. + +Sally looked up. She had become accustomed in a measure to seeing +the heir of the house of Burnside thus attired, and to noting the +daily deepening coat of tan upon his face and arms, but it never +failed to strike her afresh as a miracle which a year ago would not +have seemed possible. + +"I haven't the faintest intention of inviting any ladies in French +frocks," she replied. "Do you know any gentlemen in frock coats who wish +to be asked?" + +"Plenty--but I'm not asking any invitations for them--this time. +No--it's a bunch of the Reverend Donald Ferry's friends I want to +invite." + +"The Reverend--how odd that sounds!--Who are they?" + +"News-boys, boot-blacks, office-boys, messenger boys--every kind of boy. +He proposes to buy or borrow the rakes and pitchforks, have out a +different set of lads for two days running, and present us with the +labour of the crowd in return for the lark he expects it to be for them. +Janet and Constance will supply the lunch. Of course the amount of work +the boys do isn't to be reckoned on like that of trained hands. But our +ten acres of hay isn't a tremendous crop, and with Jake Kelly and myself +to boss the job, we ought to get through in respectable season, if the +weather favours." + +"Do have them come. Max is going to let Bob have his way at last, and +leave the office, so he'll be on hand, too." + +"Good! Bob's been on tenter-hooks all the week, I know, but I didn't know +old Max had given in. Alec will be the next deserter from the ranks of +the business men. Max may hang on through this season and next, but +you'll see him with us the third, or I'll sacrifice my hat." He surveyed +the specimen in his hands as he spoke. "Valuable offering it would make, +wouldn't it? That hat began its career at a university and ends it on a +farm. In my present state of mind I don't call that a come-down." + +"Don't you?" asked a voice behind him, and Jarvis swung round to behold +Janet Ferry, gloves and weeding instrument in hand. "Then I suppose it's +not a come-down for my gloves, bought in Berlin, worn in London, and worn +out in Sally's service in a garden composed mostly of weeds." + +"Weeds! Will you have the goodness to look at my sweet-peas?" Sally +indignantly waved an earth-bestained hand toward the trellis, where three +pink, one white, and one brilliant crimson blossom flaunted themselves in +the July sunshine as the first blooms of the sweet-pea season. + +"I take it back," admitted Janet, "and I'll not call my work 'weeding.' +What are you doing, idling here, Mr. Farmer? I thought you never allowed +a moment to go to waste." + +"I'm not wasting any now," disputed the farmer. "I merely paused a moment +on my way to the barn where I intend to rig up a fork for unloading. I'm +consulting the Lady of Strawberry Acres about letting your brother's boys +come and rake hay for us." + +"Oh, yes. He's full of that plan. I'll give you fair warning, Sally, +if you give Don half an opening he'll have you overrun here with his +protégés. Have you the least idea how many men, boys, and babies he +has on his lists? And every one of them is a personal and particular +friend of his." + +"I know he's a tremendous worker." Sally rose to her feet and surveyed +the result of her labours. "They look dreadfully droopy, don't they?" + +"You need more water. I'll get it." And Jarvis picked up her +sprinkling-can and was off with it. + +"I shall be delighted to have the boys come, Janet," Sally went on +heartily. "I think your brother's work is fine--great--and if the old +farm can help in any way I shall be glad." + +"I thought you were arranging to have a house-party from town, and I was +afraid his plan would interfere." + +"I did plan that, some time ago, but I like this idea much better. What's +the use of exerting ourselves to entertain a lot of indifferent people +when we can give a jolly time to the ones who never have any fun at all?" + +"That's what Don says. And these boys are his special care. He has +club-rooms for them in the city, and he's working now to get all +sorts of additions to it--baths and showers and gymnasium apparatus. +Oh, I think it's fine, too. I didn't at first, when he wrote me about +it, but now that I'm here and see for myself, I'm immensely interested +and want to help." + +They discussed the coming event fully as they worked. It was discussed +by everybody during the next few days, and plans were carefully +perfected with the view of combining a good time for the young guests +with the serious purpose of getting the haying done as promptly and +effectually as possible. + +So, on a certain day in early July, Jake Kelly cut the hay, the entire +ten acres, and reported a fair crop for land that had been running wild +so long, a rather rainy spring having helped matters considerably. On the +morning of the next day Ferry's boys were to arrive. + +"I wish it were a holiday for me," admitted Max, as he left the house to +catch his car. "I'd rather enjoy seeing the mess Ferry and Jarve get into +with a corps of bootblacks to make hay for them. They'll '_make hay_,' +all right, mark my word." + +"Each of us girls is going to drive one load down to the barn," called +Sally gayly, from the porch. + +As he ran down the driveway, Max waved his hand with a gesture of +despair as if to indicate that this announcement certainly finished the +prospect of getting anything done on the farm. + +"Don't mind him," said Jarvis, appearing in the doorway behind her. "I'm +going to drive out the Southville road about five miles after a hay-fork +and tackle I've bought of a man who's selling out. We don't really need +one for our small crop, but it's too cheap to refuse. Back in a jiffy. +Don't you want to go?" + +"Thank you--too busy." + +"You don't look it--" for she was starting away at a moderate pace down +the driveway, her fresh blue-and-white print skirts giving forth a crisp +little sound as she walked. + +"But I am. I'm going on an errand." + +"Which way?" + +"Down the road--Mrs. Hill's." + +"Wait a minute and I'll have you there quicker than you can walk." + +He ran in for his driving-gloves, and out through the back hall to the +old carriage house where the car stood. He was only a minute in getting +under way, for he had learned to leave his machine in a condition in +which it could be used the next time without waiting to fill gasoline +tanks or radiators. It was natural for him to go at things in a +systematic way, and he kept his car, as he kept his books and papers, in +order, quite without thinking much about it. + +But with all his haste Sally had reached the driveway and gone a rod or +two down the road before he overtook her. He slowed down at her side. + +"Why didn't you wait? Jump in," said he, "and I'll have you there in one +burst of speed." + +Sally stepped up on the running board and stood there, her arm on the +back of the roadster's seat. + +"Get clear in, please," requested Jarvis. "There'll be no bursts of speed +with you standing there." + +"I can hold on perfectly well." + +"So can the car stand still. It will stand still till you get in." + +Sally took the seat. "Now hurry up, please," said she. "There isn't any +use in my getting in at all, just for a foot or two of ride." + +The car moved off. "Let's make it longer," Jarvis urged. "Drive out with +me for the fork. We won't be half an hour away, and you can't have +anything very pressing left on hand, with all the work you girls have +done to get ready for those youngsters." + +He opened his throttle, as he spoke, and the car responded. Sally shook +her head, decidedly. + +"No, no--I'm not going. I told Jo I'd be back in five minutes with the +big pail Mrs. Hill said we might take for the lemonade." + +"They won't need lemonade for two hours yet. Come on--I want company." + +"Slow down, please," requested Sally, for the car was already approaching +the farm house which was her destination. But instead of slowing down +Jarvis deliberately increased his speed. + +"I'm in the habit of doing most things you ask me to," said he, "but this +time I'm going to have my way. There are plenty of people there to finish +it all, this morning. I'll have you back before they miss you." And the +car shot by the Hill farm house at a pace which supported his promise. + +Sally sat back silently. Although Jarvis went on talking about various +things she did not reply, and her silence lasted until, having gone a +mile on his way, Jarvis slowed down a little and turned to look at her. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "You're certainly not angry with me for +running away with you?" + +She nodded, looking straight ahead. This was not like Sally, who, though +she possessed plenty of spirit, was seldom known to sulk. + +"Well, I'm sorry if you are--but not sorry I ran away with you. You can +talk to me or not, but you can't get away. I'm in too much of a hurry to +have time to take you back, so I can keep you to myself for one straight +half-hour. And that's--whether you know it or not--more than I've had for +a month--six weeks--two months." + +This declaration unlocked Sally's lips. "How absurd," said she, still +gazing straight ahead. + +"It may be absurd, but it's true. You may not have noticed it, but it's +true just the same. I don't know whether it's intentional on your part or +not--and I don't know which I would rather have it, that you've meant to +keep away, or that you haven't noticed that you have. I think," he added, +judicially, "that not knowing that you have would be much the worse, so I +choose to think you've meant to do it. And I want to know why." + +He turned and looked at her again. The cheek next him was pink, and +momentarily growing pinker. Sally again murmured something which sounded +like "perfectly absurd." But Jarvis considered that no answer at all. The +car began to climb a long grade. + +"Please tell me," he urged. + +"There's nothing to tell," said the girl, reluctantly. "There are ever so +many of us, now, and we're naturally all together--or some of us are +together--" + +"And some of us aren't." + +"We're just a lot of boys and girls--" + +"Are we? I feel rather grown up myself." + +Sally spoke quickly. "I'm not. Or, at least, I don't want to be. I want +to stay a girl--a little girl, I'd be, if I could--just as long as I can. +I want to have good times--all together. Not--two and two." The cheek +next him was a very deep pink indeed, now. + +"Do I try to make it 'two and two'?" + +"You seem to." + +"And you don't want me to?" + +"No." + +"If I happen to see you alone in the garden, must I go and get your Uncle +Tim or my mother?" + +"Not if you'll talk sense." + +"I don't talk sense?" + +Sally did not answer this question, so he repeated it, in the form of an +accepted statement: "So I don't talk sense." + +This certainly called loudly for an explanation, and Sally made it--in a +way. "I think you know what I mean." + +"I know what _I_ mean, but I didn't know it deserved that name." + +"It's only--" Sally hesitated, then she went through with it, speaking +hurriedly: "I don't want you to bother about me--doing things for +me--except as you do them for us all. You--you--are getting--" + +"Well, what am I getting? Out with it!" + +"To seem--not like my old friend Jarvis Burnside. And--I'd rather have +him back." + +It was certainly out now. Jarvis drove on up the hill steadily, without +any further questioning. It was precisely like Sally thus bravely to have +shown him where he stood. It was a position clearly defined; he had stood +on it so long that he ought surely to be able easily to go back to it. +But he had driven to the top of the hill and on for two miles down the +road, had taken the turn to the left and pursued that road for another +mile, so that he was nearly at his destination, before he spoke. When at +last he did speak it was only to say, very quietly and cheerfully--at +least, so it sounded: + +"All right, Sally." + +Then he turned in at an open gate, and in less than five minutes, +with the hay-fork and tackle and ropes at their feet, he was turning +out again. + +The drive back was rather a silent one. Jarvis spoke often, and Sally +replied, but it was about things to be seen along the wayside, or of the +plans for the day. The trip was made rather faster than it had been +done in coming, and the pace was excuse enough for there being no +prolonged conversation on any subject. Jarvis was now an expert driver +and by no means an over-cautious one, though he took no risks that he +would have called by that name, when he was not alone. More than once +his passenger held her breath, but realized afterward that she had been +in no real danger. Then they were at home, and Sally was saying, "Thank +you very much," as she jumped out, quite as if she had eagerly requested +to be taken. + +"You are entirely welcome," was his response, in such an odd tone that +she looked round at him. He was smiling, but not at her--at the driveway +before him, and she could not help noting that he did not appear to be at +all crushed by anything that had occurred that morning. It struck her +that he had never seemed a stronger or more attractive figure than he +looked at this moment, sitting at the wheel with the bright July sunlight +touching his brown cheek and clean-cut profile; his head, with its heavy +crop of dark hair, bare and breeze-tossed; his powerful engine throbbing +before him. Suddenly she wanted to say: "You don't mind, do you?" with a +queer little feeling that he didn't mind quite enough! But the car was +already off, and she went on into the house with a sense of not feeling +quite so relieved as might have been expected at having brought about +something she had been wishing for some time to accomplish, but hadn't +known just how. + +But she had no time left in which to do any thinking about her own +affairs. As was easily to be discerned by the distant shoutings, Ferry's +city guests had arrived, and had taken possession of the hayfield. From +the kitchen window they could be seen, swarming about with rakes and +pitchforks, like so many black spiders. There were many more of them than +could possibly be used to any advantage, it seemed; but as about half of +the distant figures appeared to be standing on their heads it might be +taken for granted that employment of some sort could be had for +everybody. + +At noon the four girls captured Jake and his horses, filled the bottom of +the hay-wagon with baskets and pails, and were borne up to the fields, +where they were hailed with cheers. Under a tall elm, at one side of the +scene of operations, they spread the lunch, and a motley crowd was +presently encamped around it. Their entertainers thought they had never +seen a happier lot of youngsters. They were of all sorts and sizes, but +in one point they were alike: their ignorance of the country and their +delight in this interesting and novel experience. They were very plainly +all devoted friends of the young man who had brought them there, as could +be seen in their every look at him. + +"How long have you known Mr. Ferry?" Josephine asked of one slim, tall +lad, with black hair drooping over a pair of sharp black eyes, his pale +face full of animation. + +"Oh, ever since he come down our street one day an' axed me 'bout a +feller I knowed that jes' come back from the horspital. Chap got run +over--Mr. Ferry was feared he wouldn't have no home to stay in when he +got out o' horspital. No more he didn't--till then. After that day, he +did, all right." + +Josephine glanced toward the subject of these remarks and then back at +the lad, who nodded. "Bet yer life 'twas him fixed it," he declared. +"There don't no kid go without some kind of a home, if he can fix +things for 'em." + +"You boys must think a good deal of him," suggested Josephine. + +The boy's lips answered only "You bet!" But his face instantly +became eloquent. + +After lunch the first load of hay was pitched upon the wagon, Jarvis, +Jake, and Ferry wielding the pitchforks, Sally driving, and a big boy at +the bridle of the colt that had run away during the ploughing season and +so could not be trusted entirely to Sally, although she begged to be +allowed to manage him without help. He was not exactly a colt, after all, +being four years old, but he was new in the traces of the work-horse and +Jake kept an eye on him. + +"You fellers pitch pretty well fer green hands," acknowledged Jake, when +the load was nearly on. He was on the wagon with Sally, placing the +forkfuls as they were pitched on. "Expected to see one or 'tother of you +git winded and go set down under the ellum. 'Bout the third load'll git +you, though, I calc'late." + +The two contestants exchanged laughing glances under the forkfuls at +the moment lifted above their heads. "This fellow's a Hercules for +muscle," said Jarvis to Jake, "but I've discovered several places in my +anatomy not so well developed as they might be. I'm going to get after +them right away and train them up to the standard. Great Caesar, but +it's a hot day!" + +He stood up and wiped his perspiring brow. + +"I think it's deliciously cool," remarked Sally from the top of the load. + +"It's perfectly comfortable here," called Janet, from the fence near by, +where the other three girls were perched. + +Jake grinned. He had been grinning more or less all day. This "haying +it" with a field full of boys and young ladies was a new and interesting +experience for Mr. Kelly. + +At this moment a diversion arose. Two of the guests, disputing for the +possession of a pitchfork, both naturally preferring it to a rake for +bunching up from the winrows--being raked by Bob with a horse-rake--had +decided to settle the matter, street fashion, with their fists. They were +pretty evenly matched and a rough-and-tumble fight ensued. Ferry stopped +to watch the bout and see that fair play was enforced. Everybody else +stopped work also, and stood looking that way. Jake Kelly, perhaps the +most interested spectator in the field, slid down from the load and +strolled toward the affair, still grinning. Jarvis, with the precaution +of a glance around at the wagon, on the top of which perched Sally, took +a few steps in the same direction. It was hot, and he was glad of a +moment's respite from his labours. He did not see that the lad at the +bridle of the "colt" had relaxed his hold. + +Suddenly one of the lads in the affair of the pitchfork got in a bit of +unfair work--unfair according to the standards Ferry had introduced among +these young friends of his. A protesting yell from at least a dozen +throats instantly called the fighters' attention to this fact, and Ferry +himself called out, "No fouls, Bates!" + +At the yells the "colt" plunged, carrying his mate with him. Sally, +though unprepared, hung on gallantly to the lines, trying hard to pull +the pair to a standstill. The ground was uneven, and not free from an +occasional stone. The wagon had not gone its own length before a shriek +from the girls on the fence had brought Jarvis, Jake, and Ferry to the +right-about, and all three rushed for the horses' heads. But they were +too late to prevent the accident which is always liable to happen in a +hayfield, particularly when the driver is a novice. The right front wheel +swerved into a hollow, the wagon tipped, the "colt" plunged again. Sally +slipped, and tried to throw herself down in safety upon the top of the +load, but it slid with her, and in an instant the spectators and the +three dashing to the rescue saw the whole load go like a green mountain +to the ground, covering Sally from sight. + +Now a forkful of hay is light, but a load of the fragrant stuff is very +heavy and very smothery, and it depends entirely upon where the victim +lands under such an avalanche whether the matter is serious or otherwise. +For a minute nobody could be sure just where the slender, blue-clad +figure might be, for it made no outcry. The hearts of them all were in +their throats for a minute, as the men tore at the hay with their hands, +Jarvis thundering at the tall lad, who seized upon a pitchfork, "Don't +touch it with that, you fool!" + +He was blaming himself savagely as he worked for leaving the girl for an +instant, under such conditions. Ferry was calling, "Don't be frightened, +we'll have you out in a minute!" Jake was grunting, "Hope the little gal +ain't far under--hope to mercy she ain't!" and Josephine, Janet, and +Constance were trying to get a chance to help, though the most they could +do was to keep clear of the desperately working arms of the men. + +It was Jarvis who, with a hoarse ejaculation of thankfulness, came first +upon a fold of the blue skirt. Sally had not been under the heaviest part +of the load, and doubtless it was only the smother of the hay which kept +her from calling out--if the fall itself had not hurt her. In a minute +more they had her out, very red and choky, her eyes blinded with dust, +her curls full of hay-seed; and she was lying on a soft mound of the +fragrant stuff, the girls fanning her, Ferry bringing her lemonade from +the pail, and Jarvis watching her with his heart in his eyes--only, +fortunately, considering the conversation of the morning, her own eyes +were too full of sticks to see. + +"You're not hurt anywhere, dear?" one or other of the girls asked her, at +close intervals, and Sally shook her head each time, until at length she +was able to clear her throat enough to murmur: "Only my feelings, as Jake +said. It was so--silly--of me!" + +"It was much worse than silly--of us," vowed Donald Ferry, his fine, +freckled face a deep Indian-red with heat and anxiety, his breath still a +trifle laboured with the furious exertion of the rescue. + +But in a very short time she was all right again, and sitting up on her +hay throne, watching the wrecked load being pitched back upon the wagon. + +The horses had not escaped, for a dozen boys had set after them, headed +by the tall youth, and the boot-blacks and news-boys had proved +themselves decidedly more efficient at stopping runaways than at making +symmetrical hay-cocks. + +"If you have any regard for my pride," said Sally suddenly, when the load +was half replaced, "you'll let me drive down to the barn." + +The three men stopped and looked at her. + +"That's mighty plucky of you, Miss Sally," declared Donald Ferry, +"but--if you have any regard for _our_ feelings--" and he let an +eloquent shake of the head finish his sentence for him. + +Jarvis said nothing. But a certain peculiar set of his jaw, as he went on +with his pitching, spoke volumes. + +As for Jake Kelly--"Wall, I want to know!" said he. Then he laughed +outright. "I calc'late, miss," said he, "ef you ride on that thar' +load o' hay again to-day it'll be because them two's rendered +incompetent o' action! An' they don't look to me much 'sif paralysis +would set in yit awhile!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON AN AUGUST EVENING + + +"Oh, dear--who's this coming?--just as we've settled down to accomplish +something!" + +"It's the Chases. Girls--we simply can't stop work to entertain them!" + +"We don't need to stop--this sort of work." + +They bent over their sewing--all but Sally, who with inward reluctance +got to her feet as the Chases' big car rolled up the driveway and +approached the porch, where the four girls were sitting, busy with some +extremely important matters. But of course the work had to be put down +for a little when Dorothy Chase actually set foot on the porch. + +"Oh, what an energetic crowd!" she cried, "this hot August morning, +too. Sally, where are your men? Neil wants to see some of them while I +talk to you." + +Sally pointed off into the distance. "Jarvis and Bob are hoeing potatoes +over there in the field. There's a tree near by, and Neil can sit in the +shade of that. You don't mind going, Neil? They're 'way behind with the +potatoes." + +Neil Chase bowed impressively to the group on the porch. "I should much +prefer to stay here," said he gallantly, "but business reasons impel me +to seek that inferno out yonder. What Jarve finds interesting in that +sort of thing is beyond me." + +He drove on by the house and over the grass behind, getting as near to +the corn-field as possible, that he might have to walk only the least +necessary distance. Meanwhile his wife sat down and inspected the quality +of the work being done on the porch. + +"Are you people sewing for an orphan asylum?" she inquired, after +discovering that red and blue ginghams and white cotton cloth of a +grade only moderately fine were the materials being used for certain +small garments. + +"Something like it. One of Mr. Ferry's poor families was burned out the +other day--five children and an invalid mother." + +"Of course--the mother's always an invalid, isn't she? I believe they +make themselves invalids on purpose. Well--it makes no difference how +important it is. Those children won't freeze in this weather, if you +don't get these things all done to-night. And I'm in a perfectly awful +difficulty. You all have simply got to help me out." + +"What's the matter?" Josephine asked the question calmly, being used to +Dorothy Chase's fashion of putting things. She threaded her needle as she +spoke, as if she had every intention of continuing to work for as long a +period as she had planned to do. The other girls resumed their sewing +also. The cause of their being at work at all certainly was apology +sufficient for going on with it, in spite of the visitor. + +"Just listen--and nobody is to say a word till I'm through. It's no use +raising objections--you're to do as I ask, if you care anything whatever +about my friendship." She grasped the ends of the lavender-silk parasol +lying on her lavender-linen lap, nodded her head violently, causing +several lavender plumes to nutter agitatedly upon her lavender-straw hat, +and plunged into her subject. + +"I'm entertaining to-night for our new bishop--and he's a distant +connection besides. I made it an evening affair, because it's so hot, and +our new house opens up so beautifully. I planned to have some informal +music--and at this last minute Herr Braun and Madame Hafsky have failed +me. It was a misunderstanding about the date. It turns out they were +engaged for to-day weeks ago by somebody very important--they won't give +it up. I must have music--and everybody is out of town. Now what I want +is to have you four go back with me to luncheon, help me about the +decorations and things this afternoon, and then have Miss Carew sing and +Miss Ferry play for us in the evening. Neil will come back for the men +for the evening. You know I didn't ask you in the beginning only because +I knew you didn't want to be invited. But now--you _must_ come!" + +It was precisely like Dorothy Chase. That was all that could be said. +Nobody said it, but Sally and Josephine thought it, and Janet and +Constance told themselves, as they sewed on, that the young matron who +made this decidedly startling proposition must be accustomed to having +things her own way, or she would not have acquired so confident a manner +of making her demands. + +Sally was the first to give voice to her astonishment. "Well, Dorothy," +said she, "you certainly take us off our feet. Here are we, just settled +down to work that absolutely must be done, and in you walk and ask us to +lay it down and go off to help entertain a bishop who's probably wishing +you wouldn't do anything special at all for him this hot weather!" + +"Nothing of the sort. He's heard all about Miss Carew's voice--people +that met her last year in Leipsic." + +Constance sat up. "Who, please?" + +"The Markhams--and the Carrolls. Now will you be good?" + +Constance leaned back again, applying herself to her sewing. + +"I don't remember anybody of that name," mused Janet, looking at +Constance. + +"Yes, you do--friends of Mrs. Sears--just stopping over a day?" + +The two pairs of eyes met. There must have been something in +Constance's--invisible to other beholders--which recalled some incident +or other to Janet, for after staring a minute she suddenly dropped her +eyes, said, "Oh, yes--" and sewed away faster than ever. + +"Will you come?" demanded Dorothy Chase. + +They tried to get out of it--they pointed out various reasons why it +would be difficult for them to come away. Dorothy overrode all their +objections, and became so persistent that at last the four agreed, but +refused to go until evening. As for the young men of the household, it +would be of no use to ask them. + +"Send out for us just in time for your affair, and we'll come," promised +Sally. "But what you want of Jo and me I don't see. We can't perform for +you in any way." + +"Oh, but you can help make things go. Sally can talk to the bishop--" + +"I can't," cried Sally, dismayed. + +"And Jo can be nice to Mrs. bishop. I don't see why your men won't +come. It's so hard to get men for anything except sports in summer. +How perfectly absurd it is for Jarvis Burnside to prefer hoeing +potatoes in this frightful sun to playing society man for an hour or +two in the evening!" + +"It's truly incomprehensible, but so it is. Besides, he looks like an +Indian, and in his evening clothes would resemble a fiend. Be satisfied, +Dorothy, now you have us for victims, and let the men stay at home." And +Sally slashed a seam open with shears that clipped like her speech. + +But Mrs. Chase was not satisfied, and berated Jarvis roundly, when, +presently he came walking up to the porch with Neil, looking the picture +of well-browned contentment. He took her displeasure lightly enough, and +presently had her laughing in spite of herself. + +"Well, I know all about it now," Neil Chase informed the company, as he +got into his car. "We ploughed seven acres and sowed it to buckwheat, +turned the buckwheat under and have now planted the ground to potatoes. +In the end there are to be strawberries on the seven acres--or a good +share of it--and Burnside, Lane & Co. are to become the most successful +strawberry culturists in this part of the country." + +"Right you are," agreed Jarvis placidly, sitting down on the edge of the +porch and poking about in Janet Ferry's work-bag until he found a +thimble, which he placed on the only finger it would fit, the smallest +one on his right hand. He had washed the hands before he came to the +porch, but they were so brown that the little gold thimble looked most +absurd in its new position. + +"If I sew for you for an hour, Miss Janet," he proposed, as the car +bolted away down the drive, "will you come and hoe potatoes for me until +lunch time?" + +"I would gladly hoe potatoes all day if I could be let off from going to +play for Mrs. Chase's friends this evening." The fierce energy with which +Janet pulled out a row of bastings gave emphasis to her words. + +Jarvis looked at his sister. "How did you manage not to let me in for +this affair, Sis?" + +"I knew you wouldn't go, and Janet knew her brother wouldn't. Sally said +Max would be too used up. Happy boys--we saved you from it at the price +of going ourselves." + +"Self-sacrificing girls! We'll have to make it up to you somehow. When I +see Ferry I'll--Hold on, I've an idea. How are you coming home?" + +"In Neil's car--as we go." + +"We'll see that you come in a better way. Be good little girls, do your +stunts, keep up your courage, and we'll rescue you promptly at eleven +o'clock," and putting down the thimble Jarvis went away, deaf to +entreaties to tell what his interesting plan might be. + +"Oh, dear, isn't it horrid?" demanded Sally that evening, running into +Josephine's room in the course of her dressing to have certain +unreachable hooks and eyes fastened. "After sewing all day we deserve +something better than one of the Chases' fussy affairs." + +"Stop fuming and stand still. Anybody who looks as pretty as you do in +this white swiss--" + +"Poor old white swiss--the same one. I wish Dorothy could forget the +pattern of it. She'll undoubtedly mention that I wore it at her +wedding,--she does, every time." + +"Don't you care a bit. Those touches of blue make it seem perfectly fresh +to me, and I've seen it much oftener than Dorothy Chase has." + +"You're a comfort. You look like a dream yourself, in that +peach-coloured thing." + +"A midsummer day's dream, then--with my gypsy skin. Oh, there's Neil +and his car." + +"A nice lot you are," Neil Chase was exclaiming outside, as he drove up +to the porch and eyed the male figures occupying its comfortable +recesses. Max reposed in a hammock; Mr. Timothy Rudd swayed to and fro in +a rocker, reading the evening paper by the sunset light; Alec and Bob, +sitting on the steps, were playing a game of some sort; and Jarvis lay +stretched at full length on a rug, his arms beneath his head, luxuriously +resting after his bath and change of work clothes for fresh flannels, +enjoying the sense of virtue earned by having hoed many rows of potatoes +with a vigorous arm. + +"A nice lot," Neil went on. "We have it in for you particularly, Jarve. +Max never was much of a society chap, but you once could be depended upon +to do your duty like a man. Bob, run in and see if those girls are ready. +Dorothy won't be easy till she sees them. One thing I know--you'll soon +tire of this playing at farming. To be the real thing you fellows ought +to work till the sun goes down, doing 'chores.' I'll wager a fiver you +come in and get your bath every night before dinner, eh?" + +"We certainly do," Jarvis laughed. + +"And you don't sit down in your shirt-sleeves?" + +"Well--hardly." + +"You're not the real thing--never will be. Look at those girls!" He +pulled off his straw hat as two figures appeared in the doorway. "Nice +farmers' folks they are!" + +"We're glad you think we're nice," responded Sally, gathering her white +skirts about her. "Jo, be careful--don't get that peaches-and-cream frill +against the running board." + +Jarvis's reposeful posture had become an active one, and he took care +that neither peach-coloured skirts nor white ones fluttered against +anything on the outside of the car that might soil them. + +"Here come Constance and Janet. Aren't they imposing society ladies now?" +and Sally stood up to wave at the two coming through the hedge, +accompanied by Janet's brother. Ferry had an eye upon the porch and meant +to spend the evening consoling his friends for the absence of the usual +feminine contingent. + +"You exquisite person--may I venture to sit beside you?" whispered Sally, +as Constance, in trailing pale gray with bands of violet velvet, a +shimmering cloak of the same hues enveloping her like a mist, took the +place beside her. "This is the singer, not my friend Constance. +I'm--just--a little--afraid of you!" + +"Nonsense!" Constance's warm hand caught Sally's beneath the cloak. "You +know I don't like show singing--or anything that goes with it." + +"Don't forget your promise--" Josephine called back, as the big car, with +its rainbow-tinted load rolled away. + +An answering shout from the porch, accompanied by the waving of several +arms, conveyed assurance. + +"What promise?" asked Janet, turning to the others. Being the smallest of +the party she occupied one of the folding seats which enable a roomy +tonneau to hold five people. + +"The boys are coming after us--we don't know how. Doesn't that give you +courage to face the evening?" murmured Josephine, and the expression on +Janet's face became decidedly more hopeful. + +"But how can they come? They've only your brother's car!" she said in +Josephine's ear. + +"Don't know, and don't care. They'll come--and rescue us from our fate." + +They felt, during the following hours, that they needed the cheering +prospect of a merry home-going, to enable them to bear the rigours of +the form of entertainment offered them. It was not that the affair +differed much from affairs of its sort, but the fact that it did not +materially differ might have been what made it seem so tiresome. Possibly +the effect of a summer of out-door, home merrymaking, under the least +conventional of conditions, had been to make formal entertaining under a +roof seem more than ordinarily fatiguing and pointless. The handsome +rooms were hot, in spite of open windows; the guests quite evidently were +making heroic efforts to seem gay. Somehow even Janet's brilliant music +stirred only a perfunctory sort of applause. + +"Never played so badly in my life," whispered the performer, when she +regained Josephine's side, after her second number. + +"You played perfectly, as you always do." + +"I played like an automaton--a 'piano-player.' Don't pretend you don't +know the difference." + +"I understand, of course. But, you know, we shouldn't really like to +have you play for the bishop and these people as you do for us on your +own piano." + +"The poor bishop! Doesn't he look like a martyr? I'm sure he's +delightful--in his own library, or at his friends' dinner-tables--but he +hates this sort of thing. He's beautifully polite, but he's bored. My +only hope is that Con will revive him. It's her turn next." + +If anything could revive a weary bishop, who had that day attended two +funerals and a diocesan convention, it would be both the sight and the +sound of Miss Constance Carew. + +"Isn't she _dear_?" breathed Sally, in Josephine's ear, as Constance took +her place, her slender, gray-clad figure and interest-stirring face a +notable contrast to the personality of the professional singer who had +opened the program of occasional numbers, interspersed through an evening +of--so-called--conversation. Sally's hands were unconsciously clasped +tight all through the song, and her eyes left the singer's face only long +enough to observe that the bishop's tired eyes were also fixed upon the +creator of all those wonderful, liquid notes, and to fancy that, for the +moment, at least, he forgot how hot his neck was inside his close, +clerical neckwear. + +"That pays me for coming," was the reward Constance had from Sally, whose +praise she had somehow come to value more highly than that of most people +she knew. Sally might be no musician herself, but she was a most +sympathetic listener, and could appreciate the points singers love to +have appreciated, as few people can. + +"That pays me!" Constance answered, drawing a long breath. "But, Sally, +will it never end? It's nearly eleven, now." + +"Thank heaven! I'd lost all count of time. The boys said they'd be here +at eleven. But Dorothy is not to know they're within five miles of here. +She'd never forgive them." + +As she spoke a maid came to her elbow and handed her a note. Retiring to +a secluded corner to read it, Sally returned with triumphant eyes. "We're +to go down the lawn to a gate that opens on the other road. They're +there. Now--to get away from Dorothy." + +This proved difficult. + +"Not let Neil take you back? Why not? How will you get back? But you're +not going yet?" + +"Both the girls have performed twice, with two encores. You don't expect +any more of them this hot night? Your bishop is going to sleep; do let +him off and send him to bed. Yes, we must go now. They've sent for us. +Don't bother about how we're going to get back--Neil will be thankful not +to have to take us." + +Thus Sally. And when Dorothy persisted in exclamations and questions her +guests fell into a little gusto of enthusiasm over the stately old house +which Neil had bought after he had to give up the Maxwell Lane place, +and diverted Dorothy's attention. Sally also praised everything she could +honestly praise in relation to the affair of the evening--and not a thing +she couldn't, for Sally was the most honest creature alive. Somehow at +last she got her party away from their hostess, taking advantage of the +bishop's approach to whisper hastily--"Here comes your guest of honour. +Now do attend to him and forget us!"--and so had them all out a side door +and off down the lawn out of range of the lighted windows. As they +hurried along in their airy dresses, they were pulling off long, hot +gloves, and saying, still under their breath, "Oh, isn't it good to get +out?" They were laughing softly, and breathing deep breaths of the warm +summer air, and looking up at the starlit sky. + +"Now where is that gate?" They had reached the high fence at the back of +the grounds. + +"Here you are--this way," came back a low voice, and a doorway in the +fence swung open. There was a rush of skirts, and the four were out in +the road at the back of the suburban place, a country road on which +stood, most appropriately, a long hay-wagon, cushioned with hay and rugs, +drawn by a pair of farm horses, with Jake Kelly in command. Four other +dark figures were grouped about the back end. + +"You splendid things!" + +"What a jolly idea!" + +"Oh, what a delicious change from a hot music-room!" + +"Here's Mother Burnside, tucked away in the corner. How good of you to +come, you patient person!" + +"Now tell us all about it," demanded Donald Ferry of Sally, next whom, at +the end of the load, he sat. It may be noted that Jarvis had not been +found, of late, at Sally's elbow. Without a suggestion of seeming +avoidance on her part, or of umbrage on his, the two no longer fell to +each other as a matter of course. Sally's plea had had the effect she +wished for. Both Constance and Janet appeared to like Jarvis immensely, +and Sally could not detect any failure on his part to enjoy their +society. She told herself it was a very good thing that she had been so +frank with him. + +"All about it?" She was answering Ferry's question. "Why, I don't need to +tell you. You know, without having been there, exactly how things went." + +"More or less, probably. Was it very hot?" + +"Stifling! How could it be anything else on an August night? Janet vows +her fingers burned on the keys. But she played beautifully, of course, +and the bishop had a little interval of being glad he was there. Poor +man--I wonder if anything can be warmer than a clerical waistcoat." + +"Nothing, except a clerical collar, I believe. Did Constance have a bad +time of it, too? She doesn't like singing in hot rooms." + +"She sang like an angel. The bishop opened his eyes and stared at her all +through, and applauded so vigorously it must have made him several +degrees warmer. But she deserved it." + +"I don't doubt it. And what did you and Miss Josephine do?" + +"Stood about and tried to look pleased and happy. My gloves felt like +furs and a soapstone, and I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say +to anybody." + +Ferry laughed. "I wonder if anybody ever does say anything intelligent at +such entertainments. Did Mr. Neil Chase himself rise to the occasion and +play the genial host as he should?" + +"I think he mostly spent the evening sitting on the porch rail at the +farthest corner away from the drawing-room." + +"The memory of the fellows lounging comfortably on your porch undoubtedly +made his role seem the harder by contrast. I saw a longing look in his +eye as he drove away, and had an idea he might be back. But I suppose he +couldn't get out of it." + +"No--their 'country home' isn't much like our 'country home.' Oh, isn't +this air delicious? Do you suppose Constance would be willing to sing in +it? Wouldn't it sound like a part of the summer night out here?" + +They were bowling along the quiet country road, only the chirp of many +locusts, the rumble of the wheels, and the sound of their own voices to +break the stillness. Ferry leaned forward. Constance was at the farther +end of the wagon, between Jarvis and Max. + +"Constance!" he called softly. Sally thought she would not hear, but she +did. Ferry's voice, even in its subdued tones, possessed that carrying +quality which is the peculiar acquirement of the trained public speaker. + +"Yes, Don," she called back, and everybody stopped talking. People had a +way of stopping other talk to listen when either of these two had +anything to say. + +"Here's a person, at this end of the chariot, who wonders if people with +drawing-room voices ever venture to test them in the open air." + +"What do you think about it?" + +"That one of them will, if we ask her. Therefore, we ask." + +Constance considered an instant. "Will you and Janet sing 'My Garden' +with me--especially for Sally?" + +For answer Ferry tried for the proper key, found it--under his +breath--and began, very softly, and on a low note, to sing. Janet joined +him with a subdued contralto, and the two voices, without words, made +themselves into a harmonious undertone of an accompaniment. Upon this +support, presently, rose Constance's pure notes. It was no "show +singing," this time, and the song did not lift above a gentle volume +which seemed to fit, as Sally had anticipated, into the night. But the +listeners gave themselves to the listening as they had never done before, +even in the many times they had heard this girl. Even Jake Kelly, on his +driver's seat, turned about to hearken with held breath. The farm-hand +drew his horses down to a walk, that not a note might be marred. + +"A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! + Rose plot, +Fringed pool, +Ferned grot-- +The veriest school + Of Peace, and yet the fool + Contends that God is not-- +Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? +Nay, but I have a sign: +'Tis very sure God walks in mine." + +The words[A] were familiar to some of them--the music new. Together +words and music were something to remember. + +[Footnote A: The words are those of Thomas Edward Brown.] + +Certain of these phrases came in over and over, throughout the +song--taking hold of one's heart most appealingly. "_Not God--in +gardens!--when the eve is cool_?" came again and again, till one felt +it indeed to be the word of the fool. Then, in exquisite harmony, fell +the assurance--"_Nay, but I have a sign--a sign--a sign--'Tis very sure +God walks in mine_!" + +Everybody but Sally found words in which to tell, in some sort, how the +song had seemed to them, even Alec observing boyishly, "I say, but that's +great. I didn't know you folks could all sing." + +After some minutes had gone by, Donald Ferry bent to speak in Sally's +ear. She was looking off into the night, her hands clasped tight together +in her lap. "I know," he said, very gently. + +"You always know," she answered, under cover of the talk, which was now +going on again. "Tell me,"--wistfully--"do you think--He--walks in mine?" + +"I know it. He walks in every garden--when He is wanted there." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TIME-TABLES + + +"If ever I felt weepy over seeing people off, it's this minute!" + +"We feel just as weepy over going, Sally Lunn. But cheer up. We shall +come out every other minute, Jarvis and I, and mother will be planning +all winter, I know, how early she can get back in the spring." + +Josephine gave Sally a tremendous hug as she spoke, and Mrs. Burnside, in +her turn, took the girl into her motherly embrace. + +"I shouldn't have believed," she said warmly, "how reluctant I should be +to go back to town in the fall, after this charming summer--nor how +willing I should be to promise to return in the spring. Sally, dear--do +make use of our rooms all you care to--though they're not half as cheery +as your own, for the winter." + +"It _has_ been a lovely summer, hasn't it?" cried Sally, as the Burnside +carriage, fine bay horses and liveried coachman, appeared upon the +driveway, looking suggestively like city life again. "A successful one +too, don't you think, for the boys? They're confident they have improved +the ground so much that their first real crops, next year-will begin to +show what crops ought to be." + +"Yes, it has all been a success," agreed Mrs. Burnside, "in spite of the +mistakes they own to and laugh over. Jarvis himself has received a world +of good from his out-door life. I'm hoping that all your brothers will +make the most of next season--especially Max." + +"Oh, Max will come round in time," declared Josephine confidently. "I +caught him feeling enviously of Jarvis's arms the other day. When Jarvis +said he felt like a giant, Max said he thought he'd have to begin giant +culture, whether he succeeded in making any squashes grow or not." + +This thought cheered Sally through the trying moment of watching her +friends drive away. Their going took place at rather an unfortunate time +for her. Uncle Timothy was off on a visit to his old New Hampshire home; +Constance Carew had departed the week before--though under promise to +return for a long visit the following summer; and Janet was away for a +wedding in which she was to play the part of bridesmaid. Sally's one +consolation was that Joanna was to take the place of Mary Ann Flinders in +the kitchen. + +This arrangement had been made by Mrs. Burnside. On just what terms it +had been effected Sally was not permitted to inquire. She had protested +against it, but the argument had ended by the elder woman's saying +gently, "Sally dear, I shall spend a happier winter if I know you have my +good Joanna here. She likes the place, it is a pleasant change for her +from the responsibilities of my entertaining, and her sister is eager to +take her place with me. So let me have my way--at least for this +winter." It was a way of putting the matter which could not be set aside. + +When the carriage had disappeared, Sally wandered out to the kitchen to +console herself with the sight of Joanna. There was no doubt that the +presence of that capable, comfortable person, possessed as she was of +intelligence and common sense, would be a real support to the young +mistress of the house. But at this moment even Joanna failed her, for +she had gone to her room, the hour being that of mid-afternoon. Sally +wandered back again into the living-room, feeling too disconsolate even +to make the effort to cheer herself by going for a brisk walk in the +keen late October air, a measure which usually had a prompt effect upon +her spirits. + +From the living-room window she saw a messenger boy approaching, and +hurried to the porch door to meet him, hoping he brought no ill news. Two +minutes later she was reading the message, alone in the living-room, +while the boy waited in the hall. Its purport banished all thought of +present circumstances, except to bring the wish that it had arrived a +half-hour earlier. "Mr. Rudd seriously ill anxious to have you come at +once" it read, and was signed by the name of one of Mr. Rudd's old New +Hampshire friends. + +After a minute's deliberation, Sally wrote her reply "Will come at once. +Leave to-night if possible," and sent the boy off with it. As he departed +Jarvis came into the hall from the door at the rear. Sally turned with an +exclamation of surprise and relief. + +"Oh, I thought you had gone." + +"Without saying good-by? You ought to know better. But I'd have been off +when the others went if I hadn't had some unexpected magneto trouble. All +right now, and I'm going at once. What's that?" as he caught sight of the +yellow envelope in her hand. "No bad news, I hope?" + +"Uncle Timmy's very sick--up in New Hampshire. I'm going to him as fast +as I can get off." + +"Uncle Timmy? Oh, I'm mighty sorry! You're going, you say?" + +"Of course. He asked me to come. I was just going to telephone to find +out about trains." + +"I'll see to all that--if you must go. But, Sally--have you let +Max know?" + +"Not yet." + +"Have you sent an answer saying you will come, on your own +responsibility?" + +Sally's slight figure drew itself up. "Why not? There's nothing else to +do but go--and if there were, I wouldn't do it." + +"It will take you at least twenty-four hours to get there." + +"Yes. What has that to do with it?" + +Jarvis's face looked as if he thought it had a good deal to do with it. +He knew that, dress as quietly as she would--and Sally's dressing for the +street meant always the plainest and simplest of attire--there was that +about her which invariably attracted attention. He understood with just +what a barrier of youthful reserve she would be likely to surround +herself upon such a journey, but he understood also that barriers of +reserve are not all the defences sometimes necessary for a girl who +travels alone. For one moment he felt as if he must go along to take care +of her, in the next that nothing could be more out of the question. + +"I'm glad it's no farther, anyhow," he replied to Sally's quick +question. "But hadn't you better let the boys know, before you go at your +preparations? Max wouldn't be pleased at not being consulted, you know." + +"Will you tell him, please? But first find out what train I must take, so +you can be definite with him." + +"But, Sally--really--shouldn't you ask old Maxy's consent?" + +"Why?" + +"Well--it's the diplomatic thing to do." + +"I don't care one bit about diplomacy. Uncle Timmy's sick and wants me. +I'm going up to get ready. You can telephone what you like." With +something in her voice which sounded suspiciously like a sob, she ran +away up the stairs. + +Knitting his brows, Jarvis went into the west wing to the telephone, that +instrument having been promptly installed upon the Burnside family's +arrival for the summer. After considering a minute he called up a railway +ticket-office and learned that the best through train Sally could take +would leave at 5.30 that afternoon. His watch told him that it was then +nearly half after three. There must be rapid work if Sally was to catch +that train. Then he had Max on the wire. Statement, question, and answer +now came back and forth in quick succession. + +"What, start to-night?" Max's tone was incredulous. + +"So she wants to do--with your permission. I suppose you'll give it. By +the despatch we judge he's pretty ill." + +"Well, but--look here. I must say that's asking a good deal for her to go +off up there. Why not wire whoever sent the thing to keep us informed, +and if he gets much worse--" + +"Won't do, she's already answered she'll go." + +"Well, of all the--see here--but we can't really afford--" + +"I'll see to that--don't mention it." Jarvis's tone was curt. He was +beginning to sympathize with Sally's reluctance to consult her elder +brother. He wondered if Max would ever outgrow his habit of objecting to +everything first and unwillingly taking it into consideration afterward. + +"I'm awfully busy here--can't do a thing to get her off--can't get away +from the bank before five." + +"Don't try. Meet us at the train. I'll engage a berth for her--mustn't +lose more time about it," and Jarvis hang-up his receiver without +waiting to hear anything further. Then he had a wrestle with the +Pullman ticket-office, in the attempt to secure a full sleeping-car +section for Sally. + +"Can't do it," came back the answer. + +"Too full?" + +"No, but we don't give a section to one passenger." + +"Not if it's paid for?" + +"Not on one ticket." + +"On two tickets, then?" + +"Why, of course, if you want to pay for two full-fare tickets." + +Jarvis considered rapidly. If he secured the section on two tickets, +Sally would be forced to show them both, so she couldn't be kept from +knowing about it--unless he--yes, he could hunt up the Pullman conductor +and give him one ticket. Wait--why not engage a state-room--if he could +get it at this late hour?--though the train was a fast and popular one, +and he knew this was doubtful. But a moment's reflection negatived this +idea. Sally would certainly resent his taking the liberty of paying all +the difference between one ordinary berth and a luxuriously private +state-room. He realized, with a sense of irritation, that it was of no +use. He could not send Sally up into New Hampshire packed in jewellers' +cotton, marked "Fragile and Valuable," a registered package conveyed by +special messenger. But he could make sure that nobody else shared the +section either by night or day, and this he did, and double-tied his +reservation until he could get to town to see about it personally. + +Then he ran over to the Ferry cottage, thinking that Sally might be glad, +in the absence of the girls, to have Mrs. Ferry come over and help her +with her hurried preparations. But he found the place locked and silent, +and understood that the mistress of it had probably gone into town for +the day, as she frequently did. So he dashed back and upstairs to +Joanna's room, where he routed her from her sewing with the request: "Go +see if you can be mother, sister, and friend to Miss Sally, +Joanna--there's an angel!" Which intimate form of address may be +comprehended if it is added that Joanna had been in the Burnside family +since Jarvis himself was a small lad in knickerbockers--and the good +woman's especial pride--and that therefore a warm friendship existed +between them. + +Joanna made all haste to Sally's room, ready to do her best, but she +found her charge already clad in travelling dress, pinning a veil about +her hat, her gloves and purse laid out, and a bag packed with +necessaries. The mind of the young mistress of the house was concerned +less with her own preparations than with the comfort of those she was to +leave behind. + +"You'll take good care of them, won't you, Joanna?" begged Sally. "Give +them the things they like best--_all the time_. And you'll see that the +living-room looks the way I like to have it when they come home, won't +you?--the fire blazing, and the couch pillows plumped up. And you know +they like a nice lot of shiny red apples brought up to eat before they +go to bed!" + +"Yes, Miss Sally, I'll remember all the things. Don't you fret yourself. +I can't take your place, but I'll see that the young gentlemen have their +buttons sewed on, and plenty of good food. But I'm hoping you won't be +gone long. Most likely you'll find your uncle better--I hope that, indeed +I do, Miss Sally." + +"Thank you, Joanna--indeed I do, too. And--Joanna--I'm so glad you're +here. I don't think I could go away and leave my brothers with just +little Mary Ann to look after them!" + +Sally held the big hand tight a minute, looked into the plump, kind face +with eyes which were suddenly like drenched violets--then dashed away +the tears, smiled at Joanna, caught up her belongings, and ran +downstairs, followed by the woman, who felt relieved when she saw Mr. +Jarvis waiting in the hall below. It had suddenly seemed to Joanna as if +she must go with the girl herself. It must not be supposed that Sally +did not possess plenty of the air of capable independence. It was only +that--well--the fair, curly hair, the dark-lashed blue eyes, the +flower-like bloom of the young face, appealed to her, as they did to +Jarvis, as needing protection from the eyes sure to follow her wherever +she went. Looking up at her from below it also occurred to Jarvis that +the plain and unrelieved dark blue of Sally's whole attire somehow +served only to heighten the probable effect of her upon the observant +public, and he longed fiercely himself to double the thickness of that +veil and tie it tight about her head, requesting her not to untie it +till she was safe in Uncle Timothy's presence! + +But all he said was: "Ready? You're a quick one--wouldn't have thought +any girl could make such time. This all your baggage? Come on--the car's +at the door." + +Outside he spoke hurriedly: "Sally, you haven't given me a chance to ask +you about funds for this trip. One can't always lay one's hand on just +the amount--and Max is busy, so--" + +But Sally answered with assurance. "It's all right, thank you, Jarvis. +I've a little fund of my own. There isn't any need to bother Max. I'm so +glad of that. How lucky for me you hadn't gone with the car! I should +have been so flurried, trying to catch the trolley with my bag and +umbrella." + +She took her place and in a minute they were off. And there had been +nobody but Joanna on the big porch to wave good-by at Sally Lane! + +Then came a fast drive to town, during which neither of them talked much. + +"I wish there were time to take you up to the house to see mother and +Jo," Jarvis said, as they came into the down-town streets. "But Jo may be +at the station. I telephoned the house, but they'd evidently driven +somewhere else before going home. I left word, so I'm hoping Jo will get +it. She'll be heart-broken if you get off without her seeing you." + +But Josephine was not at the station. Alec and Bob were there, however, +and they told Sally that Max would come in time to see her off. +Personally they were much upset at the outlook. + +"I don't see why you have to be the one," protested Alec. "Uncle Timothy +must have some ancient sister or cousin or aunt to see to him, without +sending for a girl like you." + +Jarvis had rushed away to the ticket-office, and Sally had her brothers +to herself for the time. She made the most of it. + +"But he hasn't, Alec," she explained. "I simply have to go. But I want +you boys not to mind my being away. Joanna will take beautiful care of +everything, and you must have your friends out, and crack nuts and pop +corn and roast apples in the evenings, and be just as jolly as if--" + +"Oh, _wow_!" cried Bob. "Sally, what do you take us for? What we'll do +will be to moon around the fire and wonder what you're doing. We--" + +"No, no! It will be winter soon, and you must go tobogganing--" + +"Why, you aren't going to stay away all winter, are you?" Alec grew +wrathful. "Look here--I won't stand for anything like that--neither will +the rest. You've got to--" + +"Listen, dear. I may be back in a--well--in a very short time, if Uncle +Timothy gets on. But you know how it was a few years ago when he had +pneumonia--he was a long time getting about. He's older now, and--" + +"Yes, but we've first right to you. Besides, you'll use yourself all up +trying to nurse--" + +"No--I'm strong and well, Alec--I won't use myself up. But Uncle Timmy is +all we have left--and--oh, please don't talk about it!--I'm so anxious +lest I can't do anything for him when I get there." She conquered a +constriction in her throat, while they waited, for that last phrase had +silenced them. They were all fond of Uncle Timothy--they didn't want to +lose him. In a minute Sally went on cheerfully: "If you'll only write to +me I can stand anything. Tell me all about everything. Oh, here's Max!" + +She turned to meet him. He was looking gravely disapproving, as was to +have been expected, but something in the sight of his sister's face made +him refrain from reproaching her for not having consulted him, as he had +intended to do. Besides, the hands of the clock were pointing too nearly +to the time of her departure for him to feel like thrusting upon her the +weight of his displeasure. + +Jarvis came back, tickets in hand, and gave them to Sally with the little +purse she had handed him. Announcing that there was no time to lose he +then convoyed the whole party through the door to the trains, using some +influence which he possessed with the blue-capped official thereat to +obtain the favour. So the passengers already in the crowded sleeper were +treated to the somewhat unusual spectacle of a particularly charming girl +being brought aboard her train by a party of four quietly solicitous +young men, even the youngest of them, by virtue of his height and broad +shoulders, counting as a male "grown-up." + +Jarvis went off for a hasty interview with the Pullman conductor then +hunted up the porter of Sally's car, the "Lucatia," and gave him certain +instructions, accompanied by a transfer of something which brought a +broad grin to that person's dusky face, with the assertion, "Suah, +sah--I'll make the young lady comf'able--thank you, sah." + +He got back to the "Lucatia" only in time to hear the call of "all +aboard," from outside, to see the blue veil surrounded by three +leave-taking brothers bestowing hurried but hearty testimonials of their +affection and bidding her "Take care of yourself," "Write often," and +"Don't kill yourself working," and to push past them as they made for the +door, to say his own good-by. It was easy for the interested +fellow-travellers to see that this young man evidently was not a brother, +for his farewell consisted only of a somewhat prolonged grip of the hand, +his hat off, his eyes searching the blue ones lifted to his with the +expression of one who cannot quite trust her lips to speak. Then, without +a word on either side, Jarvis had dropped Sally's hand and was rushing to +the door, for the train was under way. + +Remembering suddenly that this happened to be the last car on the train +when she came in, Sally hurried through it to the rear. There they were, +lined up in a solid row, and as she appeared, their hats came off and +were waved in the air. Beneath the bright electric lights of the station +she could see their cheerful smiles, and she smiled back, waving her +handkerchief as long as she could see them. From their point of view the +picture was quite as absorbing as from hers, for her slender figure +holding to the brass rail of the platform against the background of the +car looked both girlish and solitary, and as they watched it recede into +the distance they were all of them hoping that it would not be long +before they could welcome her back into that same great dingy station. + +"If you have any pity on us, Jarve, come back to the house, and don't go +home to stay in town till she comes. We shall be bluer than tombstones." + +This was Max's double tribute to the homemaking qualities of his sister +and to the partnership qualities of his friend, and Jarvis responded +readily, for, truth told, it was the very thing he wanted to do most. It +seemed to him that while he should not miss Sally less in the house whose +every corner would be eloquent of her absence, there would be a certain +consolation in being there. He had a queer feeling that she had not gone +for a speedy return, and that more than one moon would change before they +should see her again. Meanwhile, it occurred to him that she would like +to have him there for her brothers' sake, since they wanted him. + +Alec and Bob eagerly echoed Max's plea. + +"Bachelors' hall? Well, I don't know that I mind, since my stuff +hasn't gone back yet. Mother and Jo have company asked for next week, +and will expect me to help entertain, but I can be out at Strawberry +Acres more or less. Come up to the house in the car with me, while I +explain; then we'll drive out. Al and Bob can ride on the running +boards, if they like." + +They jumped on, feeling that to stay together was to mind things less. +It was odd how low of spirit they all were already. Surely, one would +think that four strapping fellows might contemplate getting on for a +space without one slim young person who was accustomed not only to +humour them, but to make three of them toe certain well-defined marks in +the matter of clean linen, fresh cravats, and carefully parted hair. Yet +not one of them was really willing to go home till the others should be +coming along too. + +In front of the fireplace, later, when Joanna had given them so good a +dinner that it would seem as if their content could hardly be preyed upon +by any contemplation of the future, Bob suddenly voiced the general +sentiment. He was lying on his side upon the hearth-rug, his round face +fiery from his proximity to the blaze. + +"Why does it feel so different when you know people are miles away and +getting farther every minute than when you know they've just gone to +town for a party?" he queried, thoughtfully. "They're away just the +same--they aren't here, I mean. Why isn't being away the same thing as +_being away_?" + +At any other time this somewhat involved statement of conditions would +have provoked jeers from the company. But no jeers were forthcoming. Max +grunted, lying flat on his back on the couch--whose pillows Joanna had +carefully plumped up--his heels on the arm at the end. Alec, standing at +the window with his hands in his pockets, staring out into the frosty +night, turned about and remarked that on a train averaging sixty to +seventy miles an hour Sally must already be out of the state. + +"Wonder if she's asleep," speculated Bob. "She used to like sleeping on +sleepers, when father and mother used to take us around so much. Say, she +had a whole section to herself--at least till we left, and nobody was +coming aboard then. Hope she has the luck to keep it. Funny! The car was +crowded, and so was the next one. I looked in." + +"Plenty of people may get on before midnight." reflected Alec. + +Jarvis picked up a magazine. "Suppose I read aloud this article on +railroading," he proposed. The company consented and he began. He had not +read two pages before he ran, so to speak, into a series of frightful +railway wrecks. But, wishing he had chosen something else, he kept on +till suddenly Bob interrupted with a fierce: "Cut it! I've got her +knocked into five thousand pieces now--I'll dream of those confounded +smash-ups and Sally in the midst of 'em, if you don't drop that +magazine." + +The others murmured a somewhat sheepish assent, and Jarvis turned +willingly enough to a tale of adventure at sea. A snore from the couch +interrupted him in the middle of a most thrilling crisis, and only the +appearance of Joanna with a big dish of shiny apples prevented Bob from +following suit. + +"Jove, Joanna, you're a good one. How did you come to think of it?" asked +Alec, selecting a beauty and setting his teeth into it with a sense of +refreshment. + +"Miss Sally said I was not to forget anything she usually did, Mr. Alec," +replied Joanna. + +"If you remember everything she usually does you'll be a brick, Joanna," +cried Bob, rousing to his opportunity and getting up on his knees to +accept his apple. + +"There's one thing she does, that nobody can possibly do for her," +thought Jarvis as, consuming the crisp, cool specimen Joanna had bestowed +upon him with a motherly smile for the boy she had known so long, he +paced up and down the room, passing the piano at the end with a vivid +recollection of how Sally was accustomed to play what she called "little +tunes" upon it in the firelight. + +"And that's to fill one small corner of her place in the home she has +made here." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE SOUTHBOUND LIMITED + + +Sally's first letter home was a short one, stating merely that Uncle +Timothy was very ill, very glad to see her, and that she was extremely +thankful she had come. The second letter, two days later, showed strong +anxiety. The illness was pneumonia, although not in its severest form; +but Mr. Rudd's age was an important factor in the case. For a week +bulletins were brief, then came a long letter, telling of improvement. + +"The minute he is well out of danger she ought to come home," was +Max's opinion. + +"She won't, though," Alec predicted. "She'll stay till she can bring him +with her." + +"Not if she listens to me," and Max set about writing a reply which would +indicate to his sister in no uncertain terms the course he thought she +should pursue. + +Her answer was prompt. "I want to come home just as much as you want to +have me, Max dear, but it is so much to Uncle Timmy to have me with him +I can't think of leaving." + +Max frowned over this. "She seems to consult me precious little about +anything lately," he observed to Jarvis. + +"You must admit she's grown up and can think for herself. Besides, much +as I'd like to see her back, I think she's right," was Jarvis's opinion. + +"Of course you'd side with her against me every time. But I think her +brothers are a trifle nearer to her than her uncle." + +"She'd undoubtedly think so too, if you were in bed with pneumonia. Since +you're all in vigorous health she imagines you can get on without her. +But she's not having a very jolly time of it, I should judge. Cheer her +up with a lively letter, not a peevish one," was Jarvis's advice. + +"You can do that." + +"I'm not writing." + +"Not?" Max was surprised. "You and Sally haven't quarrelled, have you?" + +"Not at all. But I've no reason to think she would care to hear from me. +You fellows are undoubtedly telling her all the news." + +Jarvis flung a fresh log on the fire as he spoke, then took his place on +the hearth-rug with his back to the blaze and his face in the shadow. +Max stared at him interestedly, and was about to begin a discussion of +the subject when his companion abruptly opened up a new line of +conversation, in relation to plans for the farm, and the moment for +asking certain questions did not occur again. + +The days went by, brief letters from Sally arriving at frequent +intervals. They reported very slow improvement in the invalid, with a +return of strength so tardy that she still felt she should not leave him. +The home in which they were was not that of relatives, and she was +unwilling to leave the responsibility of Mr. Rudd's care to those who had +expected to have him with them only for a brief visit. A month passed, +and then, just as her brothers were making up their minds that the limit +had certainly been reached and her duty done, came a letter which gave a +blow to their hopes. It read: + +"DEAREST FAMILY: + +"Doctor Wood has ordered Uncle Timmy South. The doctor says he positively +must get out of this wretched climate, and he must not think of coming +back before spring--and spring well advanced. If you could see what a +shadow of himself the poor dear is you would understand that I simply +must do what I have agreed to do--go with him. He will pay all my +expenses. I think he must have quite a bit more property than we have +known of, the matter of finances seems to trouble him so little. Of +course I know how you will feel about this--and I want you to believe +that I feel a thousand times sorrier than you possibly can. But I know +there is nothing else to do. He can't possibly go alone, and I can't see +mother's only brother have to hire some stranger to be with him when he +has a niece who loves him dearly and owes him for a deal of love he has +always lavished on her. It isn't as if you needed me in ways that Joanna +couldn't supply--for actual food and drink, I mean. Of course I hope--I +know--you all miss your little sister. I'm afraid I should feel very +badly if I thought you didn't! + +"We plan to start Thursday evening, December third. We can't make quite +as good connections as I did in coming, so, according to Doctor Wood's +figuring with the time-tables, we shall go through the home city at one +o'clock on Saturday morning. We shall be in the station twenty minutes, +being switched around, and--well, I don't like to ask anybody to stay up +till that hour, but--I shall be up, and looking out--and--and--I'm almost +afraid that if I didn't see anybody, I should shed just a tear or two! +You see I haven't really cried once yet--and I don't want to break my +record. + +"Your Sally." + +It really is not necessary to report what was said in Sally's home upon +the receipt of this announcement. There was a good deal of excited +talking done, and a number of statements were made to the effect that it +was out of the question for Sally to be spared all winter, that she +should have waited for the consent of her family before deciding on such +an absence, and that it absolutely must not be allowed. Yet, after all, +when it came to forbidding it, nobody seemed to have quite the authority +to do that. Even Max, protesting that the thing was out of all reason, +and going so far as to take his pen in hand to write his refusal to +permit it, found himself brought to a halt by the remembrance that Sally +was showing more and more evidences of possessing a will of her own, and +of being perfectly competent to carry out its dictates when they seemed +to her right. Clearly she did not want to go South with Uncle Timothy--or +with anybody else. There was a homesick touch in more than one line of +the stoutly written letter--unquestionably Sally would not be doing this +thing if she were not persuaded of her duty. + +At one o'clock in the morning of Saturday a party of people stood in the +great electric-lighted station. Again the offices of Mr. Jarvis Burnside +had taken the group past the usual hindrances and established them on a +certain platform, nearly in the centre of the rows of tracks, where the +Southbound Limited would come in. This time their numbers were +considerably augmented by the presence of Mrs. Burnside and Josephine, +Donald and Janet Ferry. Various packages encumbered the arms of each +member of the party, and appearances certainly boded well for the +reception of the young traveller who at the moment was watching eagerly, +as the train rolled through the familiar streets, for the first sign of +approach to the station. + +"Here she comes!" Bob was the first to cry, pointing to a brilliant +headlight just rounding into view on the distant track. "Jolly, I'll bet +Sally's wide awake, if she ever was in her life!" + +"I expect we're going to find out now how dreadfully short twenty minutes +can be," said Janet Ferry to Jarvis, beside whom she stood, an +attractively put-up basket of hot-house grapes in her hand. + +He nodded, watching the great headlight grow all too slowly bigger and +bigger. "Even the twenty minutes will probably be cut short. The train's +considerably overdue now." + +The long line of sleepers came to a stand-still beside them, and they +scanned the cars anxiously for the first sign of Sally. Far down the +track could be seen a coloured porter waving in their direction, and the +next instant a girl in dark blue jumped off the step of the Pullman and +ran toward them. They ran to meet her, Bob and Alec outstripping the +rest, and when the others arrived all that could be seen of Sally Lane +was the top of a bright head on Bob's shoulder, both blue arms about his +neck, his affectionate hand patting her back. + +Then they had her in their midst, and everybody was trying to greet her +at once. Josephine's arm was about her, and Sally was regarding the group +with a radiant smile, crying girlishly; "Oh, how good you people do look! +How dear of you all to come down! If I only could stay just a little +longer! We don't stop but ten minutes, instead of twenty, the train is so +late. Uncle Tim doesn't know you are here--I was afraid he would be too +excited to sleep the rest of the night, and he's only just dropped off. +Oh, how are you all? You look perfectly fine--I don't believe you've +pined away a bit, missing me! Let me look at you." + +She studied each in turn, missing nobody. Her clear gaze, the blue eyes +black beneath the shadowing thick lashes, met each answering pair of eyes +with a steady scrutiny which did not once waver. + +"That was a review one would be sorry not to be able to stand," said +Ferry to Josephine, as Sally ended by thrusting her arm through Max's and +leading him off by himself. "Miss Sally put us all to the test in that +minute, didn't she? She gives the impression of demanding the best one +has--rather an unusual characteristic in a girl of her age." + +"She does demand the best--and gets it," answered Josephine warmly. + +Ten feet away Sally was speaking hurriedly: "The thing I wanted most to +see you for, Maxy, was to make sure you weren't really angry with me for +taking my own way about this." + +Her hand pressed his arm. She was looking up into his face. He returned +the gaze. "I was angry, Sis," he admitted. "But, somehow, now that I see +you, I can't seem to get up steam to tell you so. I suppose you're +right--but the place is mighty lonesome without you. If it wasn't for +the Ferrys--" + +"Are they over much?" + +"We get them over as often as we can. I say, I've been noticing that +Jarve and Janet seem to hit it off pretty well." + +"Do they? That's very nice. You like Janet yourself, don't you?" + +"She's the belle of the ball, now you're away, and a mighty jolly girl to +have around. If you don't look out your old friend J.B. will slip away +from you." + +Sally's head went up, her cheeks bloomed a deeper colour. "If I weren't +going to leave you in a minute I should punish you for that piece of +brotherly impertinence," said she, with spirit. "Have I ever laid hands +on anybody to keep him, for you to talk of 'slipping away'?" + +"No--you're not that sort," conceded Max, with a laugh which certainly +carried a hint of brotherly admiration. + +Sally walked straight over to Janet, at whose other side stood Jarvis. +"Janet," said she, "Max says you are the life of them all. I'm so +glad--and it's so kind of your mother and brother to bring you over to +make the evenings pleasant. You'll keep on being good to them all winter, +won't you?" + +"Sally"--Janet caught hold of both her hands--"let me give you an +illustration of how nobly and completely I fill your place. The last time +we were over I played for them--played my best, too. I ended with my most +brilliant performance of Liszt. Two minutes afterward, when I had gone +back to the fire, I heard somebody very softly doing a one-finger +melody, picking it out note by note. I listened, and presently made out +one of your favourite 'little tunes'--'A Red, Red Rose.' I looked around +the group to see who was missing. It was not Bob. It was not Max. It was +not Alec. It was not Don. It was not--" + +"Anybody. It was--a ghost," supplied Jarvis. He was looking intently at +Sally, but she was smiling back at Janet, and the colour in her face was +not less than it had been a moment before. + +"My ghost, probably," she said lightly. "I'm sure if it were with you +all by that fire as often as I think about you, it would be playing +little tunes for itself, most of the time. Now I must spend my next +minute with Alec," and she was away again. + +The minutes certainly were flying. + +Janet looked after her. "There's something perfectly irresistible about +her, isn't there?" she suggested to her companion. He did not answer and +she glanced at him. He had pulled out a card-case from his pocket and was +writing something on one of the cards. He slipped the card into the big, +green paper-box he held. + +"Suppose I take all our packages to the porter and have him put them in +her berth while she is off with Alec. Then she'll not have to bother with +them, getting on," he proposed. Janet assented, and in a minute Jarvis, +laden with packages, approached the porter. Retaining half his burden he +followed the porter into the car. He did not immediately return +therefrom, and when, three minutes afterward, the signal came for the +departure of the train, he was not in the group of whom she took leave. + +"Has Jarvis gone? Say good-by for me to him, please, Jo," she whispered +as she embraced her friend. Waving the others back Max escorted her into +her car. In the passage they met Jarvis. Over her head the two young men +looked at each other. + +"Good-by, sister," said Max, and kissed her, "I see Jarve wants me to cut +it short." With which tactful brotherly explanation he abruptly retraced +his steps to the vestibule, where he waited. + +In the half-lit narrow passage Jarvis made the most of his minute of +grace, although Sally's hand was already extended, and a friendly +good-by, with a frank smile, was on her lips. + +"Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me?" said he, taking the hand. "You +make me feel somehow as if you didn't care even for the old friendship. +Is that so, Sally?" + +"Not at all. I care very much. It seems so good to see you all." + +"To see 'us all' doesn't flatter me much." He smiled a little. "Sally, +may I write to you?" + +"Do. Tell me all about everybody." + +"Will you answer?" + +"Now and then." + +"You are--" He stopped, with a half impatient movement of his broad +shoulders. + +"I'm Sally Lane." She said this very distinctly, even though both were +speaking under their breath. Then she laughed, with a delicate touch +of defiance. + +"You certainly are," he agreed. "No doubt in the world of that. But I +want you to know I'm Jarvis Burnside, and that stands for something +too--something positive--and permanent. My letters will be signed by +that name." + +"Mine--if I write any--now and then--will be signed by mine--The train is +moving. Good-by--old friend!" + +She was a slim maid to oppose so colossal a resistance as she did to +anything in the least suggestive to sentiment in the leave-taking. Oppose +it, however, did the small hand which drew itself away with decision, the +pretty lips which smiled again that coolly friendly smile, the blue-black +eyes which were steady as ever in their straight look. Max, peering in +upon the two to tell Jarvis to come along, saw his sister break down in +her self-command, but only at sight of himself. As Jarvis turned away she +ran after him to reach beyond him and clutch her brother's arm for one +quick pressure, with the low cry, "Oh, Max--_please--please_--write to +me often!" + +As Max jumped off, Jarvis turned again. Sally was upon the platform. +"That almost makes me wish I were a brother," said he rapidly, from the +bottom step, looking straight up at her. He prepared to drop off. "_But +not quite_" he added--and swung himself off and out of sight. + +Back in her berth, the little electric side-light on, Sally opened her +bundles. Their contents made her feel like laughing and crying both +together, all by herself, there on the fast train flying southward +through the night. Janet's superb grapes, Mrs. Ferry's preserved Canton +ginger, Donald Ferry's little book of verse, with the ribbon mark opening +it at "My Garden," all pleased her greatly, each in its way. Then there +was a fascinating little traveller's work-box from Josephine, a letter +writing-case from Mrs. Burnside, an ink-pencil from Max, a package of +current magazines from Alec, a box of chocolates from Bob. The cards and +merry messages accompanying these remembrances made pleasant reading, and +Sally put them all together in her handbag, that she might look them over +many times. + +Jarvis's box she did not open till the last. Why, might be a subject for +speculation. Does one leave the most interesting letter or package till +the last--or does one eagerly open it first? When everything else had +been disposed of Sally's fingers untied the cord slowly, she lifted the +cover with apparent reluctance, she drew aside the sheltering sheets of +green tissue as if she feared to disclose that which they protected. But +then, when the bright light at her side shone in upon fresh tints of +pink and white and lilac, she drew one deep breath and buried her face +in the mass. + +"Sweet peas!" she murmured, and shut her eyes and thought of her garden, +lying forsaken and desolate in the December frost. + +Then she picked up the card. On its back she read, in vigorous +pencilling: + +"A ghost from the garden, sent by the ghost who tried to pick out the +'little tune.' There seem no other tunes in the world worth listening +to." + +The next morning Mr. Timothy Rudd had many questions to ask his niece. +He sat comfortably among pillows and rugs, his breakfast brought in +from the dining-car and served in his section by a waiter who was ready +to show him every attention, to oblige the young lady whose smile he +liked to win. + +"You say they were all down, Sally? This breakfast looks very nice, my +dear--I wish I could eat more of it." He laid down a half slice of toast +and brushed his thin fingers. + +"Uncle Timmy, are you sure you can't manage just a little more? Two +spoonfuls of boiled egg, half a slice of toast, and a cup of +coffee--that's no breakfast at all. If I tell you all about it, won't you +eat just half the egg?" + +"I'll try, child, but--really--the old fellow who is wearing my +clothes--and not half big enough for them--doesn't seem to be able to +summon much of an appetite." + +"If you don't eat a good breakfast I shall feel more than ever guilty +for not telling you they were coming--though of course I didn't dream +of their _all_ coming. But if you had seen them you wouldn't have +slept a bit." + +"No, like enough I shouldn't. I'll be satisfied if you tell me how they +all looked. The boys--Max?" + +"Very well, indeed--he's a trifle heavier than when I went away. Joanna's +cooking is beginning to tell. I think she pampers them, don't you?--I'm +so grateful to her for that." + +"Alec?" + +"Just as usual. He was wearing a new overcoat, and looked a glass of +fashion! He says as long as Mr. Ferry lives in the country in the winter +he's willing to stand it there. Isn't it lucky they're staying at least +one more year? By another winter the demands on Mr. Ferry in town may be +so heavy he can't take time to go back and forth." + +"Yes, I should say it was a very good thing for Alec to be as much +under the influence of such a man as could be brought about, until he +is where he can do his own thinking along the right lines. How is my +nephew Robert?" + +"Oh, Bob's cheeks are so round and red they look like a very large +infant's. Dear Bobby--think he misses us most. He ran in and peeped +into your berth while the train stood there. I think he rather hoped to +wake you." + +"Bless the lad--I wish he had." Mr. Rudd took another spoonful of egg +under the stimulus of the wish, forgetting that he had not meant to take +up that spoon again. + +"Mrs. Burnside and Jo looked their own dear selves--every line of them. +It struck me afresh, as it always does when I see them after an interval, +how beautifully yet quietly dressed they are, and how their photographs +might be taken at any minute with delightful results. 'Portrait of a Lady +and her Daughter' it would be." And Sally sighed a little sigh of a quite +feminine sort, looking down at her own blue travelling attire and +wondering how the same material would have looked if made up by Mrs. +Burnside's tailor. + +"And Jarvis--how is he? I am very fond of Jarvis. I suppose he has lost +some of the summer's tan?" + +"If he has it's been put back again by the frosty winds, for he's the +image of health. Mr. Ferry and Janet are very much themselves, too. And +they all sent you something." Sally reached under the berth and drew out +a big florists' box, signalled the waiter to remove the remains of the +breakfast, and then spread forth the cards which accompanied the great +bunch of crimson roses, enjoying Mr. Rudd's almost boyish pleasure in the +remembrance of his friends. + +"These must be for you too, Sally," said he, burying his nose in one fine +half-open bud. + +"Not a bit of it." + +"No flowers for you, child?" + +"Fruit and chocolates and writing-tablets and other delightful things. +You must have some of the grapes, Uncle Timmy--I ought to have thought of +them for your breakfast." + +"These roses are as good as a square meal--but they should have been for +you, not for an old fossil like me." + +"Don't you dare call yourself an old fossil, Uncle Timmy. Now look at all +these pretty gifts," and Sally brought them forth, exhibiting them well +concealed from the other passengers. Uncle Timothy looked and exclaimed +and admired, and did not note that one person seemed to be unrepresented +by any remembrance. Neither did he guess that tucked far away under +Sally's berth was a box containing a mass of sweet peas which had that +morning been carefully sprinkled, but which were destined never to be +seen again by mortal eye except her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FROM APRIL NORTH + + +During a winter which seemed, in spite of all the beauties of the far +South, the longest she had ever known, Sally was kept well in touch with +affairs at home by the letters. If it had not been for these she thought +she could hardly have waited for the spring to come. Mr. Rudd had gained +slowly but positively throughout the winter, yet it was not thought best +for him to come home until the spring should be well advanced. The first +of May was the date set, and proved a judicious choice, for April was a +cold and rainy month. There was just one odd fact about this month of +April--during its course Sally received at least one letter from every +member of her own family and from each one of those other two families +most closely connected with her history. In an idle hour one day, just +before she went home, she carefully selected one letter from each of +these correspondents, in the order received, and tied them in a bunch, +labelling them "April North to April South." Whatever may have happened +to other letters, this packet remained in her possession for many years. + +The first of them arrived on April fourth, and was in the round, +school-boy hand of young Robert Lane. + +"DEAR SALLY: + +"This is April Fool's Day, and I've had a great old time fooling +everybody. Sewed down the knives and forks to the breakfast-table, tied +the chairs to the legs, salted the coffee, and did quite a few little +every-day stunts like that. Max got maddest when he ran onto a big lump +of cayenne in his oatmeal, but Joanna gave him another dish right away +and another cup of coffee. She's awfully soft over old Max. The best +lining I did was the way I fooled Jarve on a letter from you. I knew he +had had one from you sometime in March, so I looked in his coat-pocket +while he was up in the timber lot with a sweater on. I found it--pretty +much used up with being carried around--suppose he forgot to take it out. +Got a fresh thin envelope, put the old one inside, traced the address +through, pasted on a postmark from your last one to me, and put three +heavy sheets inside to make it fat--a lot fatter than the one I got out +of his pocket. Stuck on old stamps--two of 'em--overweight, you know. + +"When he came in to luncheon he found the letter with his other mail. I +had my eye on him--I was pretending to read the morning paper. He read +all his other letters, but he put that one in his pocket. He got terribly +jolly after that--cracking jokes and everything. The minute luncheon was +over he went off to his room, and I cut for out-of-doors. Didn't let him +get a sight of me for hours. When I did come in I thought maybe he'd have +got over being fussed, but--pitchforks and hammer handles!--if the +minute I hove in sight he didn't get after me! He must have put on a lot +of muscle chopping wood and hoeing, for I thought a cyclone had struck +me. I'm resting up now, but I feel pretty sore yet--in spots. That's why +I'm writing to you. I think you'd better write him once in a while, so +that getting what he thinks is a letter won't go to his head like that. + +"It'll be the first of May in one month more, and you'll be home! +Jolly!--that seems good to think of. + +"Heaps of love from BOB." + +On the following day came a letter from Janet Ferry. It was a letter of +several sheets, and the last two pages ran thus: + +"The boys think you ought not to know about it, and intend it for a +surprise, but I am so sure that it will do you even more good to hear +while you are waiting to come home, I'm going to tell you. Alec and Bob +have been rolling the lawn with a roller they were at great pains to get +from the Burnside place in the city! You should have seen them at it, +encouraging each other to do the thing thoroughly. Afterward they +scattered wood ashes in all the thin places; Bob said they had been +saving them all winter from the fireplace. I didn't know Alec could be so +interested in out-door labour, but this winter seems to have given him an +impetus toward following Mr. Burnside's example--and Don's--for I think +Don has had a hand in waking him up. + +"Speaking of Don--I found him out in your garden yesterday, pruning your +old rose-bushes--the ones that you inherited with the garden. He says you +are particularly fond of the many-leaved pink ones that smell so much +sweeter than any hot-house rose that ever grew. + +"Mr. Burnside has been busy all through March, and already has garden +peas in. It seems absurdly early, but he prophesies that there'll be no +more frosts that they can't stand, and promises us peas on the table +three weeks earlier than our neighbours. He is nothing if not daring. He +reads and reads in those books and magazines and papers of his, and then +starts out, armed for action. He and Jake spend much time arguing over +details, but I believe he usually carries his point. + +"Don says that while he was finishing his work in your garden your +brother Max came home and strolled out to see what he was doing. Don +mentioned the fact that it would soon be time for the whole garden to be +dug and raked and put in spring order, and Mr. Lane answered that he +would see that it was done--in fact he thought he should do it himself. I +don't exactly understand why this should seem to give Don so much +satisfaction, but it does. He told me to be sure to tell you." + +Clearly it gave Sally satisfaction also, for she read this particular +paragraph a second time, smiling to herself, before she put the +letter aside. + +On the seventh of April came a screed from Alec of quite surprising +length--for Alec, and it interested his sister more than any letter she +had had from him during the winter. + +"DEAR SALLY LUNN: + +"Haven't time to write much. Have hired out J.B. as a farm hand, and he +keeps a fellow some busy. For two weeks, now, we've been clearing up the +old wood in the timber lot and getting out new stuff for fence posts, +etc. Evenings he gets me at books. Am reading up on soil now, surprised +to find it quite interesting. J.B. and I talk plans a lot more than Max +does, though I think the old boy is going to get into it in time all +right. Maybe you'd like to know what our plans are. Well, here goes: + +"Cut off the suckers in the orchard, plough, and later spray--before the +leaves come. That means hustle--but we're nearly through with the +pruning. Bob and Mr. Ferry are at that. + +"Then we'll plough five acres of what we let go to hay last year, and +plant it to corn, with half an acre of potatoes. The other five acres +we'll let grow to hay. Next year we'll have alfalfa where we have corn +this year. J.B. is daft on alfalfa, and I'm beginning to see why. The +five acres of hay, with the corn, will be enough for the two cows, and +we'll keep the pasture over beyond the orchard for them. Miss Janet says +as long as she lives there she wants to see those cows--or other +ones--come down the lane by the orchard at milking time--only she wishes +there were more of them and a collie to drive them. Think I'll have to +get a collie, to satisfy her, though Cowslip and Whitenose are at the +bars regular as a clock, all by themselves. + +"The seven acres where we had the buckwheat and afterward the potatoes +last year are to be set with strawberries this May. I tell you, here's +where the real serious business comes in. J.B. hasn't done a thing this +winter but study the soil in that seven acres and figure out what kind of +berries to plant. He's given a lot of thought to what sort of fertilizers +to use, and I tell you if there's any such thing as improving soil, the +soil in that strawberry land is going to be improved. Tons of stuff are +going into it and it's going to be well mixed in, too. Then if +cultivating and irrigating and all the rest of it can bring us big fruit, +we'll get it. J.B.'s idea is the more we put in the more we'll get out, +and the better quality. Of course it's lucky for us we have him to pay +out the money for getting things going, but I believe Strawberry Acres +will support itself some day and bring us in good returns. + +"Anyhow, I must say I'm beginning to like the whole thing, though it's +hard work and plenty of it. Never was so hungry in my life. Joanna sets +it up to us in good shape, but we'll be glad to see you back. House seems +sort of empty, in spite of four fellows tumbling over each other in it. + +"With love, your brother, ALEC. + +"P. S. The old asparagus bed is trying so hard to show signs of life +we've given it a good salting. The Ferrys' crocuses are up, grass all +full of them--look mighty pretty." + +This was certainly very satisfactory, when one considered that Alec had +been in the beginning only second to Max in scoffing at the idea of +living on a farm, not to mention working on one. More than any of the +boys Alec had preferred life in the city, had been the one who cared most +about his personal appearance, and had prided himself upon doing things +in the urban way. For him to be willing to put on old clothes and rough +boots, and soil his hands with manual labour, indicated a change of +thought and ideals hardly to have been expected so soon. Sally put away +the letter, rejoicing at these indications of growth, for growth it +surely was, in his case. His work in the office where he had been +employed had been work likely to lead no further, nor to promise any +promotion to a position of greater honour. But on Strawberry Acres it +seemed to Sally that, with Jarvis Burnside for a leader, Alec might +develop qualities as yet only to be guessed at. + +The most interesting part of Josephine's long letter, which reached Sally +on the ninth, was, as is usually the case in feminine letters, toward its +close. After every other subject had been touched upon, Sally's +correspondent remarked: + +"You may care to know that I have been much surprised of late to receive +two calls, here at home, from Mr. Ferry. One was in March, but I didn't +mention it, for I thought probably it was the first, last, and only one +he would ever make, and I wouldn't crow about it. It was on one of +mother's Thursdays, and of course a lot of other people were here. I was +busy with the tea things, so couldn't give him much attention. He was +very nice, and everybody seemed much interested to see him here. When he +went away he came over and said to me that he should like to come again +when we were not "At Home," only at home! Of course I said he might, and +mother asked him specially, too. So just yesterday evening--it was +Tuesday--he came again. Mother was out until just before he went. We had +a delightful time in the library over a box of new books Jarvis had just +had sent up--not farm books, this time. Mr. Ferry found something which +specially pleased him, and read several pages to me--sitting on the edge +of the library table--I mean that he was sitting on the edge of it--not +I! I was most properly disposed in a chair--and congratulating myself +that I had on a little new home frock of dull green with bands of blue +and gold embroidery that had just come home--the most becoming thing +Celeste has ever made me. I think he had a good time--anyhow, he stayed +much longer than he need have done if he didn't--I meant that if he +wasn't having a good time!--I don't seem to be able to write lucidly. We +talked much of you, and of how good it would seem to have you back, and +of the garden, and the coming summer. He wanted to know if mother and I +were coming out to spend the season again, and I said yes. He asked if I +didn't think we ought to be there by the latter part of April, so as to +welcome you when you come the first of May. It seemed rather a good idea +to me--what do you think of it? Mother has set the fifteenth, but I +really do want to see the first spring things coming up. Jarvis brought +home a great bunch of daffodils yesterday. I wanted to send them on to +you, but he thought they wouldn't last out the journey." + +The thought of the daffodils made Sally long intensely for her garden. +There was a long row of them at the farther end, and another clump at the +edge of the lawn, with stray ones here and there through the grass which +she had not been willing to have removed. She thought about them many +times until the arrival of the next letter, on the eleventh, which was +from Joanna, and which turned her thoughts into housewifely channels. + +"Dear Miss," it began, in a cramped hand upon a large sheet of ruled +paper. "I suppose you would like to know what has been done about the +house cleaning. You wrote me to wate till you come, but I never like to +wate later than March, and so I did what was nesessary myself, peice by +peice, as I could find time. Mr. Max and Mr. Alec and Mr. Bob seemed to +think the house didn't need cleaning, but Mr. Jarvis being used to my +ways and his mothers said you would want it right. He spared me Jake +Kelly to clean the rugs and peices of carpet, and I did the rest. I think +there is no dirt in the house now. Fireplaces makes lots of dust but I +should say the way they are enjoyed makes up for it. I have tryed to do +as you wanted about the pillows and apples and good food and I don't +think the young gentlemen are any liter in wate than when you went away. + +"Hoping you will come home soon, + +"Respectfully yours, + +"JOANNA MARSHFIELD." + +Nobody but a housekeeper, and a young one at that, could appreciate what +a load of anxiety this letter lifted from Sally's mind. She wanted to +have the house immaculately clean, but--the garden was waiting for her. +Now she could give her undivided thought to plans for the box-bordered +beds, blessing Joanna for a maid-servant of priceless value. + +Mrs. Ferry's letter, arriving on the thirteenth, made Sally smile with +the lilt of its lines: + +"Come, Sally dear, the spring is here, the air is mild and warm; showers +happen by, but cause no sigh, they're needed on the farm. The garden +waits, and stirs, and shakes the sleep from out its eyes, and gently +sets the violets to blooming in surprise. The grass grows green, a lark +is seen, a robin calls "It's Spring!" And everywhere, in earth and air, +rejoices everything. We want you near, we need you here to share each +day's delights; so hasten home, come soon, dear, come, _we miss you so +o' nights_!" + +"Sweet little lady," the girl, thought affectionately, "to take the +trouble to think it out in rhyme for me." + +On the sixteenth of the month a rather interesting coincidence occurred; +letters from Donald Ferry and from Jarvis Burnside arrived on that day. +Sally studied the superscriptions with interest, wondering what the +handwriting might have indicated to her of the character of the writers, +had she known nothing of either. Opening the envelopes, she laid the +sheets side by side. + +Jarvis wrote a rather small but very black and regular hand, the result +being serried rows marching like a regiment down the page, the hand of +the man who is accustomed to do everything in an orderly and masterful +way, and who can no more allow his words to straggle over a sheet of +paper than he can permit his books to stand upside down upon the shelf, +or the affairs of his every-day life to fall into confusion. Ferry wrote +a more dashing hand, the penmanship of the man whose ideas flow faster +than his pen can put the words upon paper, and who cares less about the +appearance of his page than for what can be fixed there before it shall +escape him. This letter, therefore, appeared less easy to read than the +other, and this may have been why Sally attacked it first: + +"Dear Lady Of The Garden (it began whimsically): + +"I am sure that no one has told you--and that no one will tell you unless +I do--that the chickweed is looking exceedingly fresh and spring-like +between the box-borders. Further--a patch of small white violets is to be +discovered in the sunny spots beyond the sweet pea trellis. I have a +bunch of them pinned on my coat at this moment, purloined by my own hand, +and smelling like spring itself. The daffodils are gorgeous, and a small +blue flower which gives forth a modest and unobtrusive odour all its own +is to be found in clumps in several places. + +"Alec tells me he has written you all about the progress of the early +spring work, but you may possibly be still more interested in the human +culture going on upon Strawberry Acres, in which he is bearing an +important part. To-day he and Burnside, protected by blue jeans and +looking highly disreputable, have been spraying the apple orchard. A +disagreeable job it looks to be, from the standpoint of cleanliness, +although a necessary one. But whenever I appeared, as an interested +spectator on the scene, Alec was toiling away with the greatest good +humour, which did not fail him when the apparatus suddenly stopped +working properly, and had to be nursed and tended through at least the +final third of the operation. + +"I believe your brother Max is beginning to long to leave the bank and to +begin his life upon the farm. In spite of his somewhat satirical comments +upon the probable folly of Alec's having taken this step, I am confident +he himself would like to try it. Another spring will see him burning his +bridges, or I am no prophet. + +"No one, Miss Sally, could be thrown, as your brothers are with such a +fellow as Jarvis Burnside, without being stimulated to action. He is the +most thoroughly alive recent college graduate I know of in any line of +work. It's a refreshing sight to me, to see a man with all the instincts +for a literary life, but handicapped by the necessity for taking care of +his eyesight, throw himself with such ardour into labour which would have +seemed the very last he would have been likely to care for. On my word, I +don't know when I admire him most--when, in his careful dress he sits +down to his books and journals in the evening, getting Alec to read aloud +to him when he has reached the limit of safety for his own eyes, talking +to the lad in a way to wake the boy up--as he is most certainly doing--or +when I see him at such a job as he tackled to-day, putting into it the +care and precision of your true scientist and experimenter with intent to +get the full result of the best directed effort possible. Wherever you +put him, he's a man worth knowing--and I'm glad I know him and have him +for a friend." + +"I like to hear one man praise another like that," commented Sally to +herself, as having finished the letter, which recounted briefly what Mrs. +Ferry and Janet were doing and conveyed messages from both, she turned +back to re-read the whole. Then she took up Jarvis's letter, wondering if +he might chance to refer to Donald Ferry in as high terms as those in +which he had himself been mentioned. + +Jarvis had a crisp, clear style of composition all his own. The letter +was not a long one, but it brought the writer vividly before his reader: + +"DEAR SALLY: + +"One of the apple-wood fires you like so well is blazing on the hearth. +Across the table, in the lamplight, sits Alec absorbed in a column of +experiences in strawberry culture contributed by experts from all parts +of the country. You may not readily believe me, but in a quite upright +position on the end of the couch, where the firelight illumines the +page, Max is deep in a concise and practical treatise on the same +subject. Bob stands on the hearth rug, drying out, after a run home from +the Ferry cottage through a brisk shower. So you have us. Is it a +satisfactory picture? + +"According to Alec you have been told all our plans for the season, and +Ferry said to-day that he meant soon to write you precisely what is +happening in your garden. If he does you will have a masterpiece of a +description, for he's a writer of distinction. He's everything else +that's worth while as well, by the way--the finest ever. I never liked +a man so well with so good reason. Other men say the same sort of +thing of him, but I fancy I am getting to know and appreciate him +better then most. + +"Before I forget it--Joanna wishes me to state that she has spoken for a +kitchen garden which shall contain parsley, summer-savoury, lettuces, +radishes, and mint. With Bob's help she has even concocted a small +hot-bed in which she will begin operations at once. These subjects having +been disposed of, you may forgive me for becoming slightly personal. + +"Do you know that you haven't answered my last letter? I had one sheet +from you in January, one in early March, and a post-card a week ago. The +post-card was very attractive, but it hardly took the place of a letter. +Was it intended to do so? + +"But you are coming home soon, and you must expect to answer these +questions for me then. I assure you there are long arrears for you to +make up with us all, in one way and another. Bob is counting the days +till your return. Max has reached the limit of his patience. Alec +declares this thing must never happen again. Joanna--but it would be a +breach of confidence to reveal Joanna's feelings. "There's na luck aboot +the hoose," she is confident, with its mistress away. + +"As for me--do you care to know how I feel about your coming home? But I +would rather tell you that than write it. You have kept me at arm's +length all winter. Won't you just bend your rigid little elbow a trifle +at the joint when you shake hands with me the first of May? + +"As ever I am + +"Yours, JARVIS." + +It remained for Max to put the crowning touch to Sally's rather +complicated thoughts about going home, with the following characteristic +communication: + +"DEAR SISTER: This thing is played out. I want you to understand that the +first of May is the first of May, and you are to get here on it, not +leave there that day--nor the day after. Bachelors' Hall is well enough +in its way, but not for a lifetime. You'd better be on hand mighty soon +and sudden if you want to keep J.B. to yourself. J.F's running you a +close second, and she's liable to pass you in sight of the wire. Take a +brother's advice. I don't suppose either of them has written you a word +about the other--but if they haven't that's just as bad a sign as if +they'd kept you in full knowledge of the way they get on--like a basket +of chips. Come home--come home! + +"Your affec. brother, + +"MAX." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ROUND THE CORNER + + +Joanna Marshfield, left alone in charge of the house at Strawberry Acres, +on the evening of the twenty-ninth of April, stood in the front doorway, +looking out into the rain. The air was mild but like a wet sponge in the +feel of it against her cheek. + +"I hope to goodness 'twill clear off before the folks come," said she to +herself. "Here's Mrs. Burnside coming out most a month sooner than she +wanted to and Miss Sally looking forward to seeing things well under way +in that old garden she sets such store by. If May Day would just be nice +and sunshiny for 'em all 'twould please me. Well, now--who can that be?" + +A figure was approaching on the drive-way, carrying an umbrella and a +tag, and walking rapidly. As it neared Joanna could see, in the light +thrown out from the hallway and the front windows, that the figure wore +skirts of dark blue. The next instant the umbrella was tilted back at a +reckless angle, and a voice called guardedly out of the mist: + +"O Joanna--is that you? Hush--don't answer out loud!" + +"Miss Sally!" Joanna, amazed, crossed the porch to meet her young +mistress. "Who'd ever have thought of seeing you to-night? Why--we +wasn't expecting you till day after to-morrow. And where's Mr. Rudd?" + +"Joanna dear!--don't speak so loud. I want to surprise them," came back +the laughing whisper, and the next minute Sally's bag and umbrella were +on the porch, and she was wringing both her housekeeper's plump hands in +her own. "How do you do, Joanna! I'm so glad to see you again. Uncle +Timothy stopped off for a week in Washington, and I couldn't wait, so +came on alone. Is everybody well?" + +"They're well enough, Miss Sally, but--you'll be pretty disappointed. You +see they wasn't expecting you, so--" + +"Oh, are they _away_? They can't be _all_ away! Where are they?" + +"Well, you see they was getting sort of restless, waiting for the first +of May, and Mr. Max took them into town to some show. It's too bad. +They'd rather have seen you than any show, I reckon." + +"But they'll be back to-night?" + +"I expect they will--near eleven." + +"Oh, well--I can wait." Sally drew a long breath. "I've waited months--I +can stand it a few hours longer." + +"It's a shame." Joanna picked up the bag and umbrella and led the way +into the hall. "The Burnsides are coming the day after to-morrow." She +pointed toward the open door into the west wing, the hall light shining +in a short distance among the shadows and showing a room in order. "It's +awful too bad they didn't get here to-day." + +"Never mind--it's a great deal just to be at home again. How pleasant it +all looks--and how fresh!" + +Joanna led on into the long living-room where a light fire blazed on the +hearth. "It's as fresh as I could make it," she admitted, "but there's +some ways it can be made fresher that you'll see right away. Them red +pillows--" + +Evidently the pillows had been on Joanna's mind ever since she had been +put in charge of them upon Sally's departure. Sally gave them one glance +and burst into appreciative laughter. + +"Pillow-fights, Joanna--and being sat on around the fire, and used for +acrobatic performances--yes, I see. I'll re-cover them right away. I'd +do it to-night while I wait if I had the stuff--if I could sit still long +enough. I want to go all over the house--and if it wasn't raining I'd go +out in the garden and through the pine grove and over into the orchard. +Oh, here's a new picture of Alec, on the chimney-piece--why didn't he +send it to me?" + +"I could go over and let the Ferry people know you're here," suggested +Joanna, watching Sally eye the small snap-shot likeness hungrily, so that +it seemed a matter of charity to present some human creature to her gaze. + +"No, no, thank you--I'd rather see my own family first. I can wait. +I'll go up and get off these travelling things and unpack my bag--that +will take up a little time," and Sally prepared to put her suggestion +into action. + +"Just let me go up first, Miss Sally," urged Joanna. "Not expecting you +so soon the room's no linen in it--it won't look like home to you. I +won't be ten minutes. It's too bad--Miss Josephine was going to have the +house all trimmed up with flowers for you." + +Seeing that to refuse to allow this would disappoint Joanna, Sally +submitted and went out to the open front door again, to stand looking off +into the wet night where a row of distant lights glimmering vaguely +through the mist outlined the course of the trolley connecting Wybury +with the city. + +"Anyhow, I'm at home," she consoled herself. "I might be content with +that, for an hour or two, but it does seem as if I could never wait. If I +could only see my garden--" + +She went to the end of the porch and tried to make out some sign that +would indicate its presence, but the mist was too thick. Yet the light +from the living-room windows shone directly down that way. "I believe +if I were out there I could see something," she reflected. "I'm going +to change my clothes--I might as well soak them a little more." She +ran back into the hall, caught up her blue coat, and pulling it on +flew out again and plunged off the porch into the darkness, the April +rain, more mist than drops, falling on her fair curls. The grass was +long and wet, but she cared for nothing now, and dashed on till she +came to the first box-border, lying distinct in one of the shafts of +light from the windows. + +Hunting expectantly about she explored the whole garden, laughing softly +to herself at the absurdity of the performance, for she was growing +wetter every minute. She felt of the ground where she could not see it, +exulting in the discovery of ranks of tulips, where she had planted their +bulbs last fall, just breaking into bud. + +"You dear things," she said, under her breath, "how enchanting of you to +be out to welcome me home, when you had never met me before!--Over +there's the sweet pea trellis--I wonder if Bob put the seeds in as I +wrote him? Can I tell by the feel of the ground? Oh, the light falls +there--I can see." + +She was so absorbed in this entertaining exploration that she did not +hear the distant closing of a door beyond the pine grove, nor the +footsteps which presently came that way and paused, just beyond the +orchard. Neither did she guess at the quiet approach of a tall figure +through the mist, until it stood upon the edge of the garden. The first +she knew of its presence was the sound of a familiar voice, speaking +quietly so that it might not startle her, yet with a note of joy plainly +perceptible through its control. + +"Can I believe my eyes--or am I dreaming that I see you, Sally Lane?" + +"Oh, Jarvis!" The cry was a startled one, in spite of his precaution. +Then the blue figure flew toward the gray one in the shadow, both hands +out, as Sally forgot everything except that here at last was one who +seemed to belong to her own household. + +"My dear girl! When did you come? Have we missed getting a message?" +Jarvis, meeting her more than half way, held the small hands tight, +stooping to try to see into her face. + +"No, no--I didn't send any--I wanted to surprise you all. Uncle Tim +decided to stop off in Washington for a week, and I couldn't bear to +wait. He is perfectly well now, and said I might come on. So I came. I +never dreamed that every one would be away." + +"It's a confounded mischance," his lips said heartily, but his thoughts +added--"_for everybody but me_." He went on quickly, "You mustn't stay +out here. How long have you been out?" He touched her hair. "Why, it's +soaking wet. Come in, child." + +He kept firm hold of one hand and drew her with him in a rapid progress +to the porch. The moment the light fell on her face he was expectantly +studying it, and when he had her in the hall under the stronger rays he +stood still and looked at her as if he wanted to make up for months of +deprivation. She turned a rosy red under his scrutiny, her cheeks looking +like moist but vivid flowers, drops of rain sparkling in her hair and +clinging even to her lashes. + +"Come in by the fire and dry your hair," he commanded. + +She shook her head and drew away her hand. "No, I'll run up and dry +everything at once." + +"You won't be all the evening about it?" he questioned, with suspicion, +for her attitude suggested flight. + +"How can I tell?" The old mischief looked out of her eyes. + +He took a step toward her. "Come and get the first wet off by the +fire," he urged. + +But, laughing, she fled up the stairs. + +"I didn't know he was such a distinguished-looking person," she was +owning to herself as she ran along the upper hall. "Why, he's grown so +much heavier and handsomer I'm actually afraid of him--it doesn't seem +like the same Jarvis Burnside I've known so long. He's--he's--what +Dorothy Chase would call stunning! I never supposed that farming would +have that effect on anybody." + +Then she rushed into her own room to find it in spotless order, with +evidences of Joanna's recent presence in a brisk little fire burning in +the small bedroom fireplace, the freshest of appointments everywhere, and +a trimly bright lamp upon the old cherry dressing-table which had come +from New Hampshire among Uncle Timothy's furniture. + +"My trunk isn't here--what in the world shall I put on?" was her first +anxiety. She opened the door of her closet, to find all her last +summer's frocks newly "done up" and hanging there in inviting +daintiness. She caught at the lilac muslin, now faded by many washings +into a mere tint, but looking so like home and good times that it seemed +the fitting thing to don, in the absence of her heavier dresses, even +upon an April night. + +A half-hour later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling +blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and +clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, +Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She +beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take +his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She +stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the +sort of home-coming she had planned, this reception by one person. But it +was nearly ten o'clock already, she had managed to consume so much time +upstairs. Also, upon Joanna's return to her room to inquire if there were +anything else she wanted, the young mistress of the house had +imperatively commanded the presence in the living-room of the middle-aged +housekeeper until such time as Max and the boys should arrive. Joanna, +with her neat black dress and smooth hair, was certainly fitted in +appearance for the duties of duenna, and Sally had felt no hesitation +whatever in requiring her to assume that rôle. + +So Joanna now waited in the living-room--rather reluctantly, it must be +admitted, for it seemed to her that this was carrying chaperonage +unnecessarily far. But Jarvis was in the hall, and the door had been +closed between. Sally did not realize this latter fact until she had +almost reached the bottom of the stairs, where Jarvis, the moment that he +had caught sight of her, had advanced to meet her. She looked at the door +with a startled expression. It was ordinarily kept open, except in very +cold weather. + +"Yes, I know it's shut," said the young man at the foot of the stairs, +with a smile. "Awful situation, isn't it? But you can escape back up the +stairs--if you are quick. I warn you that you'll have to be very quick!" + +"Will you give me sixty seconds' start?" + +"Not I. You've had five months' start--that's enough. Now you are +back--how well you are looking!" + +She stood still, two steps above him. Even so, she had not much the +advantage of him in height. + +"So are you," she retorted. "But we don't need to stay out here to tell +each other that. Let's--" + +"Are you so eager to see Joanna again? She's looking very well also--for +Joanna--but she can wait a minute or two to hear it." + +"Joanna has been so good--she's cleaned the whole house for me. She--" + +"I know. She's a treasure--but I haven't time to think about her now. All +I can think of is that--I'm looking at you again! I told you in my last +letter that I wanted to tell you how I felt about your coming home. Do +you care to know?" + +"Are you really glad?" Sally tried to ask it as she would have done a +year ago, in the old friendly time when it was a matter of course that +she and Jarvis should be glad to see each other. + +"Am I? What do you think?" + +"I should be very disappointed if you were not, of course. I want +everybody to welcome me home--I've missed it so." + +"But you still don't want the welcoming done--'_two and two_'? Sally, +it's a long lane that has no turning. Am I never to come to one?" + +"I'm not a very 'long Lane,'" expostulated the girl, laughter on her lips +but her eyes shy. + +"That may be. But though you have so many turnings it seems to me as if I +had been kept a good while on the straight stretch. What if you should +let me see just a little way round the corner? You know what I want to +find there! You know how dearly I--love you!" + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Will you be contented to see a very little way?" + +"I can't promise to be contented, but I'll agree to be patient, if I can +get even a glimpse of where my lane may lead in the end." + +Sally tried to look frankly at him, in the old way. It proved less easy +than she would have supposed. His whole personality seemed to have grown +so dominant, so compelling. She put out one hand. He grasped it eagerly, +and would have drawn her down to where he stood, but she prevented this +with a warning gesture. + +"No, no--" she said quickly--"it's only round the corner you're to look! +That only means--I'm willing to be very good friends--better than we have +been, perhaps. I don't want to be--tied--by any promises. I want to be a +girl yet--only not--perhaps--quite so little a girl as before. +Meanwhile--you're not tied, either." + +A short laugh interrupted her. "There's nothing on earth I should +like so much!" + +"There's such a lovely girl next door--I've heard--" + +"What have you heard?" + +Sally did not seem to be willing to tell. + +"It makes no difference what you've heard. Ask her herself what +we've talked of most. But, Sally--how long before I may see round +another corner?" + +She hesitated. "I don't know. Not--this year, please." + +"Not this year! Well--I certainly shall have to cultivate patience. But I +will--if I must. When--?" + +Her lips twitched a little. It was the girl he had known a long time +who answered: "When the first strawberries go to market--from +Strawberry Acres!" + +"Shades of Job! A year from this June? And till then I must walk on +neutral ground?" + +It was harder to resist him--harder to put him off--than she had thought +it would be. But she had made up her mind--and when Sally Lane did that +she could not be easily swayed from her purpose. + +"You've seen around the corner," she murmured. "You promised to be +content with that." + +"Not content--patient--if I can. I will be. Thank you for that much." + +He reluctantly let her draw away her hand, and she came down the two +steps, passed him, and led the way toward the living-room door. With her +hand on the knob he stopped her. + +"Sally--" + +"Yes--" + +"I can't help liking the look of the lane--beyond the corner!" + +Laughing and blushing more brilliantly than before--which was rather +superfluous--Sally threw open the door, regardless of the fact that +Joanna, who possessed a pair of very good eyes, was awaiting her in the +room beyond. But there is such a thing as dazzling people's eyesight so +that they cannot judge perfectly of what they see, and this effect +Joanna's mistress immediately proceeded to produce. For the following +hour, between raptures over being at home, tales of her Southern +experiences--told so vividly that her listeners seemed to see them for +themselves--eager questionings of the home stayers, there was small +chance for anybody to put a finger upon exactly what Miss Sally Lane's +inmost thoughts might be. + +Then, quite unexpectedly, a quarter hour earlier than it had been +supposed possible, the tramp of feet was heard upon the porch. Sally +flew toward the hall--then flew back again, leaving the door closed, +and standing still and breathless upon the hearth-rug, in the full +light of the fire. Voices were heard in the hall, and the rattle of +umbrellas in the rack. + +"Plaguey poor play," Max was complaining. "Rather stay by the fire any +night than poke to town to bore myself like that. I don't think--" + +He flung open the door. Behind him Alec's voice was saying: "I'm as wet +as a rat. You fellows had the big umbrella. The little one isn't big +enough to--" + +"Well, I'll be--" Max's exclamation cut his brother short. He stood +still, staring. There was a flutter of lilac skirts, a low cry of joy, +and Jarvis was looking on enviously at an illustration of the privileges +that exist for brothers, who--stupid fellows--do not half appreciate +them. A moment later Alec and Bob had come in for their share of sisterly +greeting, and the three were standing round the returned traveller in a +highly satisfied semi-circle, putting questions, making comments, and +generally behaving as they might have been counted on to do. + +"I hope you don't expect us to believe those piteous tales about your +losing flesh and colour with homesickness," declared Max, his hand on his +sister's shoulder, as he turned her full toward the firelight. "Jove, I +never saw you look more like one of those pink peonies you think so much +of, in your garden." + +"I didn't write piteous tales!" His sister involuntarily accentuated +the likeness he had suggested by growing pinker than before. + +"It was Uncle Tim, then. He got worried about you, and wrote me so. He +must have been off his base. You never looked healthier. But, see here, +miss--you don't do this thing again--understand? We'll never keep house +here another winter without you!" + + * * * * * + +Sally had come home on Saturday night. On Sunday morning the rain had +ceased, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Before breakfast she was out +in the garden. Spying her there as he looked out of his window, Max +hastened his dressing and went out to join her. + +"Looks fairly well in order, eh?" he questioned. + +Sally remembered certain information sent her in one of Janet's letters. +"Indeed it does. And you made it so. That pleases me more than I can tell +you, Max." + +"How do you know I did?" + +"Guessed it from your expression--and a hint I had had. Didn't you rather +enjoy doing it?" + +"Much more than I should have expected," he was forced to admit under the +scrutiny of her eyes. + +"How I wish you could leave the bank and join the boys in the work +out here. Don't you almost wish so yourself?" she demanded, thrusting +her hand through his arm, as he paced along, his hands in his pockets. +The old garden paths were quite wide enough for two, when they walked +close together. + +Max looked down at her. "To tell the truth, I'm beginning to wish so +too." + +This, from Max, was a great admission. Sally's eyes sparkled with +pleasure. "Oh, can't you?" she cried. + +"I don't see how I can, this year. To be sure, Jarve's paying all the +expenses and taking all the responsibility these first two years, +according to agreement, but I can't lie down on him. Of course it's all +outgo and no income until we get the strawberries to bearing next year. +Meanwhile the family has to be supported, and what timber we've thought +best to sell won't do that, if all of us stop work. It's all right for Al +and Bob to spend this season on the farm, for Jarve would have to hire +somebody anyway, but it's different with me, and my salary is more than +they could earn, both together, at their old jobs. No--I must grind away +another year. But then--" + +"Then you'll come?" + +"Yes, and be glad to." + +"I'm so delighted to hear you say that!" + +"I need the change. I realize, at last, what a bear I've been these three +years. I'm tired of being a bear. It's half nerves, I believe--but a +fellow of my age ought not to know he has nerves. Besides--" + +He paused, looking off through the pine grove to the gap in the hedge, +through which a glimpse of the white cottage could be had. Sally waited. +It was rarely that her elder brother became confidential, and this mood +seemed more than ordinarily propitious for getting at his best thoughts. +After a little he went on, in a firm tone, speaking after a fashion which +made his sister feel for him a new respect. + +"I may as well tell you that in a way I think I'm rather a different +fellow from the one you left last November. I see things differently. +It's his doing--" He nodded toward the cottage, and Sally understood. +Also, she felt infinitely thankful to the influence which had brought +about this change. "I've come to see," he went on more slowly, "what it +means to have a definite purpose in life beyond merely making a living +and having as much of a good time as you can manage to extract. I want to +make a man of myself--the sort of man my Maker intended me to be. + +"Ferry's doing it--Jarvis is doing it--even Alec and Bob put me to +shame with the manliness they're developing. If Maxwell Lane can't +swing into line--" + +"He can, dear--he will. He's swung already, when he can talk like this." +His sister's hand squeezed his arm tight for a minute, in her happiness. + +"It's not going to be a matter of talk, mind you," he said earnestly. +"Don Ferry doesn't talk about his own life--he lives it. I want to do the +same. But I felt as if I'd like you to know--that's all. What's that +coming up in the corner there?" + +"Lilies-of-the-valley--they're almost ready to bud." And Sally let him +lead the conversation away from himself to talk about the garden, +understanding that the little revelation was a great one for him to make, +and that it had cost him a decided effort. But while she talked of the +pruning of the roses and the prospects of the sweet peas, just sown, her +heart was rejoicing over the growth in this "human garden," as Ferry had +called it, so much dearer to her. + +"Alec's to go away next winter for a course at an agricultural school," +Max announced suddenly. "I've made up my mind to that. He shows more bent +than any of us toward making a science of this thing. Odd, isn't +it?--where you consider how set he was against even living here. I tell +you Don Ferry's a great chap. He's done more for us than we can pay back. +I'd like to keep him in the family. Janet too. See here--" he rose +upright from having stooped over certain newly upspringing shoots, and +favoured his sister with a sharp glance. "What's the matter with you and +Don hitting it off? That would leave Jarve to Janet, and make a mighty +nice combination of us--eh? Judging by appearances Don wouldn't object a +bit.--I say--where are you going?" + +"Didn't you hear the breakfast-bell?" Sally was walking away from him +toward the house. + +"No, I didn't. Neither did you." + +But Sally continued to walk, regardless of the fact that both Alec and +Bob had appeared round the corner of the house, coming toward her, hands +in the pockets of their Sunday trousers, feet treading gingerly over the +damp grass in their freshly-polished best shoes. On whatever part of +Strawberry Acres Sally should be descried to-day, it might be safely +prophesied that there her family would be likely to foregather. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +GREEN LEAVES + + +"So the great day has come at last! My word, but you've had the courage +of your convictions! What a stretch of 'em!" + +"Of convictions? Well, they're certainly embodied in those seven acres, +whether there are any strawberries there or not. Don't you want to get +over the fence and stroll up one of the rows? You may find a specimen or +two of fruit worth setting your teeth into." + +Neil Chase, correctly clad in light flannels, eyed the fence critically +before he clambered over it. "I can be trusted to tear myself if there's +a twopenny splinter anywhere," said he. "Must admit it looks rather worth +while over here, though. Hello--Dorothy's over already. Who's that +assisting her? The Reverend Donald--in blue overalls! It's lucky Old +Dutch can't see him now! I say, you've got a lot of pickers. Are they all +members of the firm?" + +Jarvis laughed as he followed Chase's glance up the rows. "You've +struck us on our first day," he admitted. "We agreed to make it a +special celebration among ourselves, since only a small part of the +berries are ripe." + +"The pink sun-bonnet covers an acquaintance, then," inferred Neil, +watching it approach from a distance. "Hello--it's Sally!" and he pulled +off his hat to wave it in response to a salutation from the pink +sun-bonnet, whose removal had disclosed a fair head whose locks the June +sunshine was turning into gold. "I suppose the blue one conceals Jo +Burnside, the white one Miss Ferry, and so forth. I always said you +people were no farmers--to dress for the part like stage +strawberry-pickers," he added, as Sally came within hearing. + +"Why not? Could any stage be set to equal this one?" inquired Sally Lane. +"No, no--you can't shake hands with me--" She held up ten carmine-tipped +fingers. "What could be more appropriate for picking strawberries than a +pink gingham?" + +"It's mighty becoming, anyhow," Neil offered tribute. "Jove, Sally, but +farming certainly does agree with you. Talk of roses--Dorothy!" he +called, "come here and look at these cheeks! Full in the sunlight, too. +I'll wager yours couldn't stand such a test." + +Sally promptly put on her sun-bonnet. "A strawberry patch is no +place for flattery, Mr. Neil Chase," said she. "Come with me, +Dorothy. I'll show you the biggest berry you ever saw in your +life--and you may eat it, too." + +Mrs. Chase gathered her white skirts about her, planted her white-shod +feet recklessly in the wake of Sally's, and arrived in due time at the +point where Sally had been picking. From nearby rows Josephine Burnside, +Janet Ferry, and Constance Carew lifted heads to greet her. + +"How awfully busy you all are!" cried Dorothy, consuming a fat berry with +which Sally presented her. "Too busy to greet your friends!" + +"This isn't a reception, it's a working affair," Janet replied gayly. +"Guests may help themselves to refreshments, but mustn't expect the +hostesses to stop picking." + +"You have no trouble about getting the men at your entertainments, +Sally," observed Dorothy, scanning the field. "They're all here, I +see--even Max. Has he left the bank?" + +"Yes, the first of May. This is our third season, you know--but the first +one of bearing. Max is as enthusiastic as anybody, now. When you see him +nearer you'll discover a great change in him. No more banks for him, if +we can make anything like a success with the strawberries." + +"How do you know that you will? You're such amateurs at it." + +"We're not, if study of the subject amounts to anything," Sally +asserted, with a little air of pride. "Between books and experiment +stations, and Alec's course at an agricultural school last winter, and +Jarvis's visits to practical strawberry-growers, it would be strange if +our methods went all astray. But they're not going astray. Look at these +berries you're eating!" + +Down the rows Jarvis was pursuing much the same line of argument with +Neil Chase. "It's not in reason, you know," the visitor objected, +critically selecting choice specimens of fruit along the rows and eating +them with evident relish, "it's not in reason for a lot of fellows like +you, fresh from books and banks, to jump into this sort of thing and make +it go without a hitch." + +"Well, you have the evidence of your eyes before you," Jarvis returned +with great good humour, from his knees among the vines where he was now +picking busily again. "To be sure it hasn't gone without a hitch. Last +season we had a long spring drought to fight--and fought it, too, with +irrigation. This spring the shot-hole fungus attacked us, but we overcame +it with spraying. Of course next year a killing frost may come along and +finish the crop for the year--we can't fight that. Such a frost is to +be reckoned with on an average of about once in five years. But on the +other years we expect to make up. Don't you think we can get our prices +for such berries as these? And will you tell me why brains, even amateur +ones, can't solve such problems as we have to face? You lawyers tackle +hard cases and win them, even while you're green--if you possess certain +qualities to begin with. We may be conceited, but we have an idea we +possess the qualities necessary to successful strawberry culture. As a +game, it's certainly a mighty interesting one." + +"The average farmer," Neil argued, "isn't a rich experimenter like you. +He can't afford to put good gold into fertilizers and irrigating pumps. I +should think these fellows all around you would hate you for having the +advantage of them." + +"On the contrary, as a matter of fact all but one or two are our very +good friends, and much interested in our schemes. They've given us a lot +of valuable advice--not on strawberry culture, because that's not in +their line, but in other ways. They enjoy our mistakes hugely--that's +only human--but they don't do it in an ill-natured way. Last spring when +we sowed clover-seed for millet and didn't recognize it till the crop +appeared, it was worth it to see them laugh at the joke, particularly as +we didn't mind laughing with them. But I can tell you where we're scoring +the biggest success after all, _and the one that would pay if half our +crops turned out failures_. You haven't been out here for a year, at +least. Take a look at Max, Alec, and Bob, when you get close to them, and +tell me if they look like the same chaps you used to know in town." + +"You don't, yourself," admitted Chase, somewhat grudgingly. He, himself, +was decidedly slender of limb much to his regret. Also, in spite of +incessant motoring, his face was not that of unexceptionable health. "You +look as rugged as a rock. Never thought you were cut out for an athlete, +either, when you were in college." + +"I rather think that siege with my eyes was the best thing that ever +happened to me--though it didn't seem much like it at the time. Look at +that berry." He held out a fine specimen. "That goes in Class +A--specials, all right." + +"How many classes do you have?" Neil inquired, making way with the +specimen from Class A in one huge mouthful, and finding it so juicy he +was forced to make prompt use of his handkerchief. + +"Two, but we're going to draw a strict line. The big ones are to be big +to the bottom of the basket--and no false bottoms. A reputation is what +we're after--then the prices will take care of themselves." + +Neil strolled down the row. He had information enough. He wanted to +inspect the strawberry-pickers, one at a time. It was not every day that +one could meet distinguished young clergymen, accomplished pianists, and +singers of unusual promise, between rows of strawberry vines. + +The Chases had not been invited to be present at this special celebration +of the first day of the strawberry picking, but they unhesitatingly +accepted the invitation to stay to luncheon offered them as the hour for +that meal drew near. When the party left the field for the house it was +discovered that Joanna, assisted by Mrs. Burnside and Mrs. Ferry, had +moved the luncheon-table from the dining-room to the big porch. + +"Well, of all the romantic, impractical farmers!" ejaculated Neil Chase, +as he beheld this arrangement at close range, the table set with old +blue-and-white china, a great bowl of Sally's old-fashioned pink roses +in the centre. "Don't you know that fried salt-pork and potatoes, in +the kitchen, in your shirt-sleeves, is your only consistent meal, in +the work season?" + +"If you will insist on our living up to your notion of the real thing, we +can set a special table for you in the kitchen. I've no doubt we can +borrow some pork somewhere. You can take off your coat and eat your noon +meal there, if you like, sustained by your sense of what is fitting," +offered Alec. "As for me, I'm going in to wash up, put on my coat, and +eat about twelve square inches of the strawberry-shortcake Joanna's +building for this table. There won't be any of that served in the +kitchen, I warn you, Mr. Chase." + +"Thank you, I'm not pointing out my course of action, but criticizing +yours," retorted Neil, surveying with favour a vine-wreathed platter of +broiled chicken, and eyeing hungrily a large salad-bowl filled with a +compound which he knew by experience to be one of Joanna's choicest. "I +say, to be consistent--" + +But he found himself delivering his views to Mrs. Burnside alone, for the +rest had trooped in to make themselves presentable. + +"You people certainly do manage to get a lot of fun out of your +farming," observed Dorothy Chase, as she watched Sally splashing her +round arms in a vain effort to remove the tan. "We live just as far out +from town as you do, but nothing could be more different than our way of +living from yours." + +"Well, if we depended on tennis, golf, and bridge for our fun we'd be +just like you. As we like hayfields, strawberry-patches, and pine groves +better--with tobogganing in winter--we continue to be different." + +"I should say golf and tennis were just as healthy exercise as haying and +picking strawberries." + +"No doubt they are--but the company isn't so select," declared Sally +audaciously, towelling her wet face so briskly that it emerged looking +more than ever like the roses to which Neil had that morning compared it. + +"You impertinent girl! What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that Tom Westlake isn't to be spoken of in the same breath with +Donald Ferry. Billy North is an idiot compared with Jarvis Burnside. +There aren't two girls among all your society friends who can equal Janet +and Constance, and--" + +"And Sally Lane, as a hostess, is infinitely superior to Dorothy Chase!" + +"Don't put words into my mouth." Sally came close and laid a warm pink +palm on either of Dorothy's cheeks. "Sally Lane is such a bad hostess +she says insulting things to her guests. Don't mind her. She's so excited +and happy to-day over her strawberry acres she's not responsible for what +she says. Come, let's hurry down." + +"You people look more like a set of golfers at a summer hotel than you do +like farmers," began Neil Chase, still harping on the theme which seemed +to cause him so much unrest, as the party sat down. + +Max opened his mouth for a retort. But, with one look at Donald Ferry, +who sat across the table, he closed it again. He met an amused glance of +comprehension. Then Ferry also opened his lips to speak. But before the +words found breath Mr. Timothy Rudd rose to the occasion. + +"Mr. Chase," said he, "since a rose by any other name would smell as +sweet, let me suggest that you call us strawberry gardeners. Not that we +object in the least to being called farmers, for we consider the title +one of honour. But I am confident that you will then be able to reconcile +our having luncheon on the front porch, our coming to the table with our +coats and collars on, and our having strawberries to eat in spite of the +fact that we raise them ourselves, with the indisputable truth that we +make--or are attempting to make--our living off the soil. We profoundly +respect the desire of a member of the legal profession for exactness, not +only in the use of terms, but in the conformity of facts to those terms. +I trust, however, that the compromise I suggest--" + +But he got no further. A burst of appreciative laughter, in which Chase +himself was forced to join, bore witness to the effectiveness with which +the cynical critic had been politely answered. However it might be on +after occasions, for to-day Chase became content to enjoy his broiled +chicken and strawberry-shortcake without further comment on the +inconsistency of their appearance upon the table at Strawberry Acres. + + * * * * * + +It was late in the afternoon. The Chases had reluctantly taken their +departure, bearing with them gifts of strawberries and roses. In the +strawberry-patch sunshine and silence reigned undisturbed, except by the +light June breeze which rustled the leaves enough to show beneath them +the fruit which by day-after-to-morrow would be ripe enough to pick. The +first picking had been a small one, and had gone wholly to neighbours and +friends and to consumption upon the home table. In two days more the +gathering of the harvest would begin in earnest. It may not have been +strictly business-like, this opening of the season by feasting and +bestowal, but it had pleased the "Lady of the Garden" so to elect, and +there had been no dissenting voice--not even that of her brother Max. + +Everybody else, it may be presumed, had retired to rest and dress for the +evening, which was always spent, when the weather was fair, upon the +porch, when Sally, alone, slipped quietly out of the door at the back of +the hall and betook herself over the grass, through the garden, to the +path which led up the slope to the woods. The path wound past the +orchard, past the strawberry field, and by the side of the pasture where +Cowslip and Whiteface were already turning their faces toward the bars. +Its appearance was an example of the fashion in which utility and +sentiment were likely to find themselves mixed upon the farm called +Strawberry Acres. + +Along its borders ran a riot of vines, wild bushes, even of weeds, only +such of the latter having been cut as were pests of the sort which +scatter their seeds to the winds. Trim and workmanlike as was the +clearing up of the ground just beyond the lane, on either side the lane +itself was very nearly in a state of nature. It was, therefore, a +picturesque roadway enough, and Sally walking along it bareheaded, clad +still in the pink gingham of the morning, found it so to an unusual +degree. Yet it must be admitted that it would have been an object ugly +indeed which would have seemed devoid of all beauty to Sally Lane, on +this, the sixteenth of June. + +She kept on, straight up the winding lane, to the border of the woods. +When she had reached the first trees, a fine group of oak and chestnut, +lifting stately limbs, long uncut, far into the summer air, she turned +and paused to look back. From this point she could see far, and the whole +of her family's possessions lay before her, outspread in all the beauty +of June at its bonniest. Impulsively she stretched out her arms. + +"Sally Lane," she said softly to herself, with her eyes scanning it all, +"if there's a happier girl than you in the world to-day, she must be +entirely out of her senses with joy." + +After a little she sat down, her back against a tree-trunk, her face +toward the distant view.... Presently a big green oak leaf fluttered down +past her eyes, and fell into her lap. "That's odd," she thought, and +looked up. Nothing could be seen but the great limbs, rugged with years, +of the oak beneath which she sat. She looked off again at the view. +Another leaf came swirling down past her, lighting on the ground. "It's +probably a squirrel," she explained to herself, concerning this +phenomenon of falling leaves in June, and tried again to descry its +source, without success. When, however, a shower of the green missiles +came down together, she got to her feet, and walked around the tree. + +"They had to come, thick as leaves in Vallombrosa," remarked a familiar +voice from far above her, "before you would pay attention. I fired for at +least ten minutes before you would so much as look up. Will you come up, +or shall I come down?" + +"I'd like to come up," Sally replied, smiling up into Jarvis's brown +face, as she espied him, sitting astride a limb well up in the branching +foliage. "But I don't think it's practical." + +"Why be practical? Nobody is practical on Strawberry Acres, according +to a certain brilliant but skeptical attorney from town. Your +greatest aim has been to remain a girl as long as possible. Girls +climb trees. _Ergo_--" + +He began to descend. "Wait!" cried Sally, as he set foot on the lowest +limb, a matter of ten feet above her head, and paused to look down at +her. "Stay there, please--Do you really want me to come up?" + +"Very much. It's entirely possible. Set your foot on that knob, reach up +your arm, I'll let myself down far enough to get hold of your hand, and +the next thing you know you'll be sitting beside me here." + +"Then what will happen?" + +"Then--we'll have a little talk I've been waiting for all day. I began +to think I couldn't get it till evening fell, when the garden might +help me out." + +"I think the garden is a very nice place for conversation." Sally put +both hands behind her back, looking up at him. + +"Better than the limb of an oak tree? I admit it--for some sorts of +conversation. Up here I should be forced to hold on with one arm. But +there would be compensation in that, for with the other arm I should be +forced to hold you on!" + +His laughing eyes looked down at her. She shook her head. "If I came up +the tree I should prove that I am still a girl. If I am still a girl--" + +"Are you still a girl? Is that still your greatest desire?" He leaned +forward, and the smile suddenly left his lips. His eyes searched hers. + +The face she bravely lifted to him was a girl's for youthful beauty, but +into it had come something very sweet and womanly, which at last gave him +the leave he had waited so long for. "No--I think I've grown up." she +said, quite clearly. + +With an exclamation, the sinewy figure in the tree made short work of +the ten feet to the ground, swinging itself off from the limb by both +hands and dropping lightly down. + +"I don't think I could have waited a day longer," said Jarvis Burnside. +Then, with the sheltering trunk of the great oak shutting off all +possible vision from the far distant house, he drew Sally Lane into his +eager arms. + + * * * * * + +"Why so late?" Maxwell Lane looked up to ask, as his sister Sally came +somewhat hurriedly in to dinner, when the rest of the household were +half through. + +"Please excuse my pink gingham," apologized Sally, as she dropped into +her chair. She glanced from Mrs. Burnside in cool white to Josephine in +crisp blue. + +"Nothing could be more becoming," Josephine asserted, always ready to +defend her friend. + +"There's a strawberry stain on her right sleeve," Bob pointed out. + +"Where's Jarve?" asked Alec. + +"I saw him as I came in. He was on his way," replied Sally, lifting a +glass of water to hide a pair of lips which wanted to laugh. + +Jarvis appeared. He also was in the garb be had worn all day. The pair +seemed oddly similar in the nonchalance they could not quite +successfully carry through. + +"Look here!" Alec scanned both faces. "You two have been up to +something." + +"I've been up a tree," Jarvis replied. + +"Have you been up a tree too?" Alec questioned his sister. + +"Not at all." + +"Did you get him up one?" + +Sally attempted to answer, but the merriment upon her lips would not be +controlled. She gave way to it. Her eyes, in spite of themselves, met +Jarvis's. He was laughing too. His face, red showing beneath the tan, +was too radiant with his happiness for him to be able to help Sally with +any further effort at concealment. + +"Don't you think we may as well own up?" he questioned her. + +"Own up!" cried Alec. "Do you people flatter yourselves there's anything +for you to own up to, that we don't already know?" + +"Good for you!" And Max rose up to shake Jarvis's hand. + +"It's nothing new, but it's great!" roared Bob, and patted his +sister's shoulder. + +"My dear!" said Mrs. Burnside. She rose, and Sally ran to her. Josephine +followed eagerly, pausing to embrace her brother on the way. + +"I don't see," said Uncle Timothy, "but that I am the one to say the +only fitting thing. Therefore I say it--from my heart." He seized +Jarvis's hand. Sally turned from Josephine to put her arm about his neck. + +"God bless you, my children," said Uncle Timothy. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strawberry Acres, by Grace S. Richmond + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12164 *** |