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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29865-8.txt b/29865-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d20f50 --- /dev/null +++ b/29865-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8028 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Highacres, by Jane Abbott, Illustrated by +Harriet Roosevelt Richards + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Highacres + + +Author: Jane Abbott + + + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [eBook #29865] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES*** + + +E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Mary Meehan, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 29865-h.htm or 29865-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29865/29865-h/29865-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29865/29865-h.zip) + + + + + +HIGHACRES + +by + +JANE D. ABBOTT + +Author of "Keineth," "Larkspur" and "Happy House" + +With Illustrations by Harriet Roosevelt Richards + + + + + + + +Philadelphia and London J. B. Lippincott Company + +Copyright, 1920, by J. B. Lippincott Company + +Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company +At the Washington Square Press +Philadelphia, U. S. A. + + + + + TO + THOSE DEAR CHUMS + + "WRITE A STORY ABOUT SCHOOL," YOU ASKED + ME. "WRITE A STORY IN WHICH THE HEROINE + HAS A MOTHER AND A FATHER--WE'RE SO + TIRED OF POOR ORPHANS," YOU BEGGED. I + HAVE TRIED TO DO IT, ASKING YOUR FORGIVENESS + FOR ONE LITTLE STEP-FATHER. TO + YOU I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY + + + + +[Illustration: AMID THE UNFORGETTABLE SHOUTS OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS SHE +SLID EASILY ON DOWN THE TRAIL] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. KETTLE MOUNTAIN + + II. SUNNYSIDE + + III. ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE + + IV. THE WESTLEYS + + V. JERRY'S WISH COMES TRUE + + VI. NEW FACES + + VII. HIGHACRES + + VIII. SCHOOL + + IX. THE SECRET DOOR + + X. THE DEBATE + + XI. AUNT MARIA + + XII. THE PARTY + + XIII. HASKIN'S HILL + + XIV. THE PRIZE + + XV. CUPID AND COMPANY + + XVI. FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL + + XVII. DISGRACE + + XVIII. THE RAVENS CLEAN THE TOWER + + XIX. THE LETTER + + XX. THE FAMILY COUNCILS + + XXI. POOR ISOBEL + + XXII. JERRY WINS HER WAY + + XXIII. THE THIRD VIOLINIST + + XXIV. PLANS + + XXV. THE LINCOLN AWARD + + XXVI. COMMENCEMENT + + XXVII. CRAIG WINTON + + XXVIII. HER MOTHER'S STORY + + XXIX. THE WISHING-ROCK + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Amid the unforgettable shouts of the boys and girls she slid easily on +down the trail + +She pointed down to the winding road + +One by one, quite breathless with excitement, they climbed to the tower +room + +Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal + + + + +HIGHACRES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +KETTLE MOUNTAIN + + +If John Westley had not deliberately run away from his guide that August +morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain, he would never have found +the Wishing-rock, nor the Witches' Glade, nor Miss Jerauld Travis. + +Even a man whose hair has begun to grow a little gray over his ears can +have moments of wildest rebellion against authority. John Westley had +had such; he had wakened very early that morning, had watched the sun +slant warmly across his very pleasant room at the Wayside Hotel and had +fiercely hated the doctor, back in the city, who had printed on a slip +of office paper definite rules for him, John Westley, aged thirty-five, +to follow; hated the milk and eggs that he knew awaited him in the +dining-room and hated, more than anything else, the smiling guide who +had been spending the evening before, just as he had spent every +evening, thinking out nice easy climbs that wouldn't tire a fellow who +was recuperating from a very long siege of typhoid fever! + +It had been so easy that it was a little disappointing to slip out of +the door opening from the big sun room at the back of the hotel while +the guide waited for him at the imposing front entrance. There was a +little path that ran across the hotel golf links on around the lake, +shining like a bright gem in the morning sun, and off toward Kettle +Mountain; feeling very much like a truant schoolboy, John Westley had +followed this path. A sense of adventure stimulated him, a pleasant +little breeze whipping his face urged him on. He stopped at a cottage +nestled in a grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to +wrap him a lunch to take with him up the trail. The good woman had +packed many a lunch for her husband, who was a guide (and a close friend +of the man who was cooling his heels at the hotel entrance), and she +knew just what a person wanted who was going to climb Kettle Mountain. +Three hours after, John Westley, very tired from his climb but not in +the least repentant of his disobedience, enjoyed immensely a long rest +with Mother Tilly's good things spread out on a rock at his elbow. + +At three o'clock John Westley realized that the trail he had chosen was +not taking him back to the village; at four he admitted he was lost. All +his boyish exhilaration had quite left him; he would have hugged his +despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of +the trail; he ached in every bone and could not get the thought out of +his head that a man could die on Kettle Mountain and no one would know +it for months! + +He chose the trails that went _down_ simply because his weary legs could +not _climb_ one foot more! And he had gone down such steep inclines that +he was positive he had descended twice the height of the mountain and +must surely come into some valley or other--then suddenly his foot +slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one +does on the ice--only much more softly--and slid on, down and down, +deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead +log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps, neatly +built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy +terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding +mountains and closed in on the other by leaning, whispering birches. + +It was not the amazing view off over the valley, nor the impact against +the old log that made his breath catch in his throat with a little +surprised sound--it was the sudden apparition of a slim creature +standing very straight on a huge rock! His first joyful thought was that +it was a boy--a boy who could lead him back to the Wayside Hotel, for +the youth wore soft leather breeches and a blouse, loosely belted at the +waist, woolen golf stockings and soft elkskin shoes, but when the head +turned, like a startled deer's, toward the unexpected sound, he saw, +with more interest than disappointment, that the boy was a girl! + +"How do you do?" he said, because her eyes told him very plainly that he +was intruding upon some pleasant occupation. "I'm very glad to see you +because, I must admit, I'm lost." + +The girl jumped down from her rock. She had an exceptionally pretty face +that seemed to smile all over. + +"Won't you come down?" she said graciously, as though she was the +mistress of Kettle Mountain and all its glades. + +Then John Westley did what in all his thirty-five years he had never +done before--he fainted. He made one little effort to rise and walk down +the rocky steps but instead he rolled in an unconscious heap right to +the girl's feet. + +He wakened, some moments later, to a consciousness of cool water in his +face and a pair of anxious brown eyes close to his own. He felt very +much ashamed--and really better for having given way! + +"Are you all right now?" + +"Yes--or I will be in a moment. Just give me a hand." + +He marveled at the dexterity with which she lifted him against her slim +shoulder. + +"Little-Dad's gone over to Rocky Point, but I knew what to do," she said +proudly. "I s'pose you're from Wayside?" + +He looked around. "Where _is_ Wayside?" + +She laughed, showing two rows of strong, white teeth. "Well, the way +Little-Dad travels it's hours away so that Silverheels has to rest +between going and coming, and Mr. Toby Chubb gets there in an hour with +his new automobile when it'll _go_, but if you follow the Sunrise trail +and then turn by the Indian Head and turn again at the Kettle's Handle +you'll come into the Sleepy Hollow and the Devil's Pass and----" + +John Westley clapped his hands to his head. + +"Good gracious, no wonder I got lost! And just where am I now?" + +"You're right on the other side of the mountain. Little-Dad says that if +a person could just bore right through Kettle you'd come out on the +sixth hole of the Wayside Golf course--only it'd be an awfully _long_ +bore." + +John Westley laughed hilariously. He had suddenly thought how carefully +his guide always planned _easy_ hikes for him. + +The girl went on. "But it's just a little way down this trail to +Sunnyside--that's where I live. Little-Dad's my father," she explained. + +"I'd rather believe that you're a woodland nymph and live in yonder +birch grove, but I suppose--your garments look so very man-made--that +you have a regular given-to-you-in-baptism name?" + +"I should say I had!" the girl cried in undisguised disgust. "_Jerauld +Clay Travis._ I _hate_ it. Nearly every girl I know is named something +nice--Rose and Lily and Clementina. It was cruel to name any child +J-e-r-a-u-l-d." + +"I think it's--nice! It's so--different." John Westley wanted to add +that it suited her because _she_ was different, but he hesitated; little +Miss Jerauld might misunderstand him. He thought, as he watched from the +corner of his eye, every movement of the slim, strong, boyish form, that +she was unlike any girl he had ever known, and, because he had three +nieces and they had ever so many friends, he really knew quite a bit +about girls. + +"Yes, it's--different," she sighed, unconscious of the thoughts that +were running through the man's head. Then she brightened, for even the +discomfiture of having to bear the name Jerauld could not long shadow +her spirit, "only no one ever calls me Jerauld--I'm always just Jerry." + +"Well, Miss Jerry, you can't ever know how glad I am that I met you! If +I hadn't, well, I guess I'd have perished on the face of Kettle +Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over at Wayside, and I can +swear I never before did anything so silly as to faint, only I've just +had a rather tough siege of typhoid." + +"Oh, you shouldn't have _tried_ to climb so far," she cried. "As soon as +you're rested you must go home with me. And you'll have to stay all +night 'cause Mr. Chubb's not back yet from Deertown and he won't drive +after dark." + +If John Westley had not been so utterly fascinated by his surroundings +and his companion, he might have tried immediately to pull himself +together enough to go on to Sunnyside; he was quite content, however, to +lean against a huge rock and "rest." + +"I'm trying to guess how old you are. And I thought you were a boy, too. +I'm glad you're not." + +"I'm 'most fourteen." Miss Jerry squared her shoulders proudly. "I guess +I do look like a boy. I wear this sort of clothes most of the time, +'cept when I dress up or go to school. You see I've always gone with +Little-Dad on Silverheels when he went to see sick people until I grew +too heavy and--and Silverheels got too old." She said it with deep +regret. "But I live--like this!" + +"And do you wander alone all over the mountain?" + +"Oh, no--just on this side of Kettle. Once a guide and a man from the +Wayside disappeared there beyond Sleepy Hollow and that's why they call +it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made me promise never to go beyond the turn +from Sunrise trail. I'd like to, too. But there are lots of jolly tramps +this side. This"--waving her hand--"is the Witches' Glade and +that"--nodding at the rock against which the man leaned--"is the +Wishing-rock." + +John Westley, who back home manufactured cement-mixers, suddenly felt +that he had wakened into a world of make-believe. + +He turned and looked at the rock--it was very much like a great many +other rocks all over the mountainside and yet--there _was_ something +different! + +Jerry giggled and clasped her very brown hands around her leather-clad +knees. + +"I name everything on this side--no one from Wayside ever comes +this way, you see. I've played here since I was ever so little. I've +always pretended that fairies lived in the mountains." She leveled +serious eyes upon him. "They _must_! You know it's _magic_ the way +things--_are_--here!" + +John Westley nodded. "I understand--you climb and you think you're on +top and then there's lots higher up and you slide down and you think +you're in the valley and you come out on a spot--like this--with all the +world below you still." + +"Mustn't it have been _fun_ to make it all?" Jerry's eyes gleamed. "And +such beautiful things grow everywhere and the colors are _so_ different! +And the woodsy glens and ravines--they're so mysterious. I've heard the +trees talk! And the brooks--why, they _can't_ be just nothing but +brooks, they're so--so--_alive_!" + +"Oh, yes," John Westley was plainly convinced. "Fairies _must_ live in +the mountains!" + +"Of course I know now--I'm fourteen--that there are no such things as +fairies but it's fun to pretend. But I still call this my Wishing-rock +and I come here and stand on it and wish--only there aren't so awfully +many things to wish for that you don't just ask Little-Dad for--big +things, you know." + +"Miss Jerry, you were wishing when I--arrived!" + +She colored. "I was. Little-Dad says I ought to be a very happy girl and +I am, but I guess everybody always has something real _big_ that they +think they want more than anything else." + +John Westley inclined his head gravely. "I guess everybody does, Jerry. +I think that's what keeps us going on in the race. Does it spoil your +wish--to tell about it?" + +"Oh, my, yes!" Then she laughed. "Only I suppose it couldn't because +there aren't really fairies." + +"What _were_ you wishing?" He asked it coaxingly, in his eyes a deep +interest. + +She hesitated, her dark eyes dreaming. "That I could just go on +along that shining white road--down there--around and around to--the +other side of the mountain!" She rose up on her knees and stretched +a bare arm down toward the valley. "I've always wished it since +the days when Little-Dad used to ride that way and leave me home +because it was too far. I know that everything that's the other +side of the mountain is--oh, lots _different_ from Miller's Notch +and--school--and--Sunnyside--and Kettle." Her voice was plaintively +wistful, her eyes shining. "I _know_ it's different. From up here I can +watch the automobiles come along and they always turn off and go around +the mountain and never come to Miller's Notch unless they get lost. And +the trains all go that way and--and it _must_ be different! It's like +the books I read. It's the _world_----" She sank back on her knees. +"Once I tried to walk and once I rode Silverheels, but I never seemed to +get to the real turn, it was so far and I was afraid. At sunset I look +at the colors and the little clouds in the sky and they look like +castles and I think it's the reflection of what's on the other side. +_That's_ what I was wishing." She turned serious eyes toward Westley. +"Is it dreadfully wicked? Little-Dad said I was discontented and +Sweetheart--that's mother--cried and hugged me as though she was +frightened. But some day I've just _got_ to go along that road." + +[Illustration: SHE POINTED DOWN TO THE WINDING ROAD] + +For some reason that was beyond even the analytical power of his trained +mind, John Westley was deeply stirred. Little Jerry, child of the +woods--he felt as her mother must have felt! There was a mystery about +the girl that held his curiosity; she could be no child of simple +mountain people. He rose from his position against the rock with +surprising agility. + +"If you'll give me a hand I'll stand on your rock and wish that your +wish may come true, if you want it so very much! But, maybe, child, +you'll find that what you have right here is far better than anything on +the other side of the mountain. Now, suppose you lead the way to +Sunnyside." + +Jerry sprang ahead eagerly. "And then you'll meet Sweetheart and +Little-Dad and Bigboy and Pepperpot!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SUNNYSIDE + + +Jerry had led her new friend only a little way down the +sharply-descending trail when suddenly the trees, which had crowded +thickly on either side, opened on a clearing where roses and hollyhocks, +phlox, sweet-william, petunias and great purple-hearted asters bloomed +in riotous confusion along with gold-tasseled corn, squash, beets and +beans. A vine-covered gateway led from this into the grassy stretch that +surrounded the low-gabled house. + +"_Hey-o!_ Sweetheart!" called Jerry in a clear voice. + +In answer came a chorus of joyful yelping. Around the corner dashed a +Llewellyn setter and a wiry-haired terrier, tumbling over one another in +their eagerness to reach their mistress; at the same moment a door +leading from the house to the garden opened and a slender woman came +out. + +John Westley knew at a glance that she was Jerry's mother, for she had +the same expression of sunniness on her lips; her hair, like Jerry's, +looked as though it had been burnished by the sun though, unlike Jerry's +clipped locks, it was softly coiled on the top of her finely-shaped +head. + +"This is my mother," announced Jerry in a tone that really said: "This +is the wisest, kindest, most beautiful lady in the whole wide world!" + +Though the dress that Mrs. Travis wore was faded and worn and of no +particular style, John Westley felt instinctively that she was an +unusual woman; in the graciousness of her greeting there was no +embarrassment. Only once, when John Westley introduced himself, was +there an almost imperceptible hesitation in her manner, then, just for +an instant, a startled look darkened her eyes. + +While Jerry, with affectionate admonishing, silenced her dogs, Mrs. +Travis led their guest toward the little house. She was deeply concerned +at his plight; he must not dream of attempting to return to Wayside +until he had rested--he must spend the night at Sunnyside and then in +the morning Toby Chubb could drive him over. Dr. Travis would soon be +back and he would be delighted to find that she and Jerry had kept him. + +"We do not meet many new people on this side of the mountain," she said, +smilingly. "You will be giving us a treat!" + +So deeply interested was John Westley in the Travis family and their +unusual home, tucked away on the side of the mountain, to all +appearances miles away from anyone or anything (though Jerry had pointed +out to him the trail down the hillside that led to Miller's Notch and +the school and the little church and was a mile shorter than going by +the road), that he forgot completely the alarm that must be upsetting +the entire management of the Wayside Hotel over the disappearance of a +distinguished guest. Indeed, at the very moment that he stepped across +the threshold into the sunlit living room of the Travis cottage, a +worried hotel manager was summoning by telegraph some of the most expert +guides of the state for a thorough search of the neighborhood, and, at +the same time, a New York newspaperman, at the Wayside for a vacation, +was clicking off to his city editor, from the town telegraph station, +the most lurid details of the tragedy. + +Sunnyside, John Westley knew at once, was a "hand-made" house; each foot +of it had been planned lovingly. Windows had been cut by no rule of +architecture but where the loveliest view could be had; doors seemed to +open just where one would want to go. The beams of the low ceiling and +the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a +piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside +had crept into and clung to the little house. A great fireplace crowned +the room. Before it now stretched a huge Maltese cat. And most +surprising of all--there were books everywhere, on shelves built in +every conceivable nook and corner, on the big table, on the arm of the +great chair drawn close to the west window. + +All of this John Westley took in, with increasing wonder, while Mrs. +Travis brought to him a glass of home-made wine. He drank it gratefully, +then settled back in his chair with a little contented laugh. + +"I'm beginning to feel--like Jerry--that Kettle Mountain is inhabited by +fairies and that I am in their stronghold!" + +But there was little suggestive of the fairy in Jerry as she tumbled +through the door at that moment, Pepperpot held high in her arms and +Bigboy leaping at her side. They rudely disturbed the Maltese--Dormouse, +Jerry called her--and then occupied in sprawling fashion the strip of +rug before the hearth. + +"Be _still_, Pepper! Shake hands with the gentleman, Bigboy. They're as +offended as can _be_ because I ran away without them," she explained to +John Westley. "Do you feel better now?" she asked, a little proprietary +note in her voice. + +"I do, indeed, and I'm glad, too, very glad, that I got lost." + +"And here comes Little-Dad up the trail! I'll tell him you're here. +Anyway, he'll want me to put up Silverheels." She was off in a flash, +the dogs leaping behind her. + +After having met Jerry and Jerry's mother, John Westley was not at all +surprised to find Dr. Travis a most unordinary man, also. He was small, +his clothes, country-cut, hung loosely on his spare frame, his hair +fringed over his collar in an untidy way, yet there was a kindliness, a +gentleness in his face that was winning on the instant; one did not need +to see his dusty, worn medicine case to know that his life was spent in +caring for others. + +Widely traveled as John Westley was, never in his whole life had he met +with such an interesting experience as his night at Sunnyside. Most +amazing was the hospitality of these people who seemed not to care at +all who he might be--it was enough for them that chance had brought him, +in a moment's need, to their door. Everything seemed to prove that Mrs. +Travis, at least, was a woman educated beyond the ordinary, yet nothing +in their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they +had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything +about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned +chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And +most mystifying of all was Miss Jerry herself, who had appeared at the +supper table in a much faded but spotless gingham dress, black shoes and +cotton stockings replacing the elkskins and woolen socks, very much a +spirited little girl, with a fearlessness of expression that amused John +Westley while at the same time he wondered if it could possibly be the +training of the school at Miller's Notch. + +He felt that Mrs. Travis must read in his face the curiosity that +consumed him. He did not know that deep in her heart was a poignant +regret that Jerry should have, in such friendly fashion, adopted this +stranger--Jerry, who was usually a little shy! Of course she could not +know that it was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found +something in Kettle that approached the magic--that he had stood on the +Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had +known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! +After Jerry, with Pepper, had gone off to bed and Dr. Travis with Bigboy +had slipped out to the little barn, John Westley said involuntarily, as +though the words tumbled out in spite of anything he could do: "Of +course, you know that I'm completely amazed to find a spot like +this--off here on the mountain." + +Mrs. Travis smiled, as though there were lots of things in her head that +she was not going to say. + +"Does Sunnyside seem attractive? We haven't any wealth--as the world +reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and we've made our little +corner in the world rich with them." + +"And you have Jerry." + +"Yes!" The mother's smile flashed, though there was a wistful look in +her eyes. "But Jerry's growing into a big girl." + +"You must have an unusually excellent school here." John Westley blushed +under the embarrassment of--as he plainly put it--"pumping" Jerry's +mother. + +Her explanation was simple. "It's as good as mountain schools are. When +the snow is so deep that she cannot go over the trail I have taught her +at home. You see I have not always lived at Miller's Notch--I came +here--just before Jerry was born." + +"Has she many playmates?" He remembered Jerry chattering about some Rose +and Clementina and a Jimmy Chubbs. + +"A few--but there are only a few of her own age. And she is outgrowing +her school." A little frown wrinkled Mrs. Travis' pretty brow. "That is +the first real problem that has come to Sunnyside for--a very long time. +Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and +the doctor's practice, though it isn't large, keeps us clothed, +but--Jerry's beginning to want something more than the school down +there--and these few chums and--even I--can give her!" + +John Westley recalled Jerry's face when she told her wish: "I want to go +along that shining road--down there--around and around--to the other +side of the mountain." He nodded now as though he understood exactly +what Mrs. Travis meant by "her problem." He understood, too, though he +had no child of his own, just why her voice trembled ever so slightly. + +"We can't keep little Jerry from growing into big Jerry nor from wanting +to stretch her wings a bit and yet--oh, the world's such a big, hard +place--there's so much cruelty and selfishness in it, so much +unhappiness! If I could only keep her here always, contented----" she +stopped abruptly, a little ashamed of her outburst. + +John Westley knew, just as though she had told him in detail all about +herself, that life, sometime and somewhere away from the quiet of +Sunnyside, had hurt this little woman. + +"Dr. Travis and I find company in our books," Mrs. Travis went on, "and +our neighbors, though we're quite far apart, are pleasant, +simple-hearted people. Jerry does all the things that young people like +to do; she swims down in Miller's Lake, and skates and skis and she +roams the year round all over the side of Kettle; she can call the birds +and wild squirrels to her as though she was a little wild creature +herself. She takes care of her own little garden. And I do everything +with her. Yet she is always talking as though some day she'd run away! +Of course I know she wouldn't do exactly _that_, but I sometimes wonder +if I have the right to try to hold her back. I haven't forgotten my own +dreams." She laughed. "I certainly never dreamed of _this_"--sweeping +her hand toward the shadowy room--"and yet this is better, I've found, +than the rosy picture my young fancy used to paint!" + +John Westley wished that he had read more and worked less hard at making +cement-mixers; so much had been printed in books about this reaching out +of youth that he might repeat now, if he knew it all, to the little +mother. Instead he found himself telling her of his own three nieces. +Then quite casually Mrs. Travis remarked: + +"Some very pleasant people have opened Cobble House over on Cobble +Mountain--Mr. and Mrs. Will Allan. I met her at church. She's--well, I +knew in an instant that I was going to like her and that she'd help me +about Jerry. I----" + +"Allan--Will Allan? Why, bless my soul, that's Penelope Everett, the +finest woman I ever knew! They come from my town." He sprang to his feet +in delight. "I never dreamed I was anywhere near them! I'll get Mr. +Chubb to take me there to-morrow. Of _course_ you'll like her. +She's--well, she's just like _you_!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE + + +The next day Mr. Toby Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one +automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain +roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at +Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught +manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; +for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at +Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly +painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house which the Allans +had been remodeling, he coaxed Mrs. Allan to drive back to Sunnyside +that she might, before the day passed, get better acquainted with Jerry +and Jerry's mother. + +"I couldn't feel more excited if I'd found a gold mine there on the side +of Kettle!" John Westley had told his friends. Mrs. Allan, an attractive +young woman, who was accustomed to many congenial friends about her, had +been wondering, deep in her heart, if she was not going to find Cobble +just the least little bit lonely at times, so she listened with deep +interest to John Westley's account of Jerry and Sunnyside. + +"I can't just describe why the girl seems so different--it's that she's +so confoundedly natural! There's a freshness about her that's like one +of these clean, cool mountain winds whipping through you." + +Mrs. Allan laughed at his awkward attempt to explain Jerry. She was used +to girls--she loved them, she understood just what he was trying to say. +He went on: "And here she is growing up, tucked away on the side of that +mountain with a mother who's more like a sister, I guess--says she +skates and skis and does everything with the child. And the most curious +father--don't believe he's been further away from Kettle than Waytown +more'n three or four times in his life; sits there with his books when +he isn't jogging off on his horse to see some sick mountaineer, and the +kindest, gentlest soul that ever breathed. There's an atmosphere in that +house that _is_ different, upon my word--makes one think of the old +stories of kings and queens who disguised themselves as peasants--simple +meal, everything sort of shabby but you couldn't give all that a +thought, there was such a feeling of peace and happiness everywhere." +John Westley actually had to stop for breath. But he was too eager and +too much in earnest to mind the glint of amusement in Mrs. Allan's eyes. +"When I went to bed didn't that big, amber-eyed cat of Jerry's follow me +upstairs and into the room and stretch herself across my bed just as +though that was what I'd expect! I never in my life before slept with a +cat in the room, but I felt as though it would be the height of rudeness +to chuck her off the bed! And I haven't slept as soundly, since I've +been sick, as I did in that little room. I think it was the piney smell +about everything. Miss Jerry wakened me at an unearthly hour by throwing +a rose through my window. It hit me square in the nose. The little +rascal was standing down there in the sunshine, in her absurd trousers, +with a basket of berries in her hand--she'd been off up the trail after +them." + +Although John Westley's glowing account had prepared her for what she +would find at Sunnyside, ten minutes after Penelope Allan had crossed +the threshold she could not resist nodding to him, as much as to say: +"You were quite right." In such places as Sunnyside little conventional +restraints were unknown and in a very few moments the two women were +chatting like old friends while Dr. Travis was explaining in his +drawling voice the advantages of certain theories of planting, to which +Will Allan listened intently, because he was planning a garden at +Cobble, while John Westley, only understanding a word now and then, +wished he hadn't devoted so much of his time to cement and knew more +about spinach. + +Afterwards, as they drove down the rough trail back to Cobble, John +Westley demanded: "Honestly, Pen Allan, doesn't it strike you that there +_is_ a mystery about these Travis people?" + +She hesitated a moment before answering, then laughed lightly as she +spoke. "You funny man--the magic of these mountains is getting in your +blood! Of course not--they are just a very happy family who know a +little more than most of us about what's really worth while in this +world. Now tell me about your own nieces--Isobel, and that madcap Gyp, +and little Tib." She knew well how fond John Westley was of these three +girls and to talk of them brought to her a breath of what she had known +at home before she had married Will Allan, the spring before. + +"Oh, they're as bad as ever," he said in a tone that implied exactly the +opposite. "Isobel's growing more vain each day and Gyp more heedless, +and Tibby's going to spoil her digestion if her mother doesn't make her +eat less candy and more oatmeal. I haven't seen much of the youngsters +since I was sick." + +"And Graham--poor boy, stuck in among those girls! He must be in long +trousers now." + +"Graham can take care of himself," laughed the uncle. "Wish I had the +four of them here with me! I wanted to bring them along but Dr. Hewitt +said it'd be the surest way to the undertaker. They are a good sort +but--sometimes, I wonder----" + +"You are an extraordinary uncle, to take the responsibility of your +nieces and nephew the way you do." + +"I can't help it; I've lived with them since they were babies and it's +just as though they were my own. And their father's away so much that I +think their mother sort of depends on me. Sometimes I get a little +bothered--they're having the very best schooling and all the things +money can give young people and yet--there's a sort of shallowness +possessing them that makes them--well, not value the opportunities +they're having----" + +"You talk like a veritable schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. Allan, teasingly. + +"Have you forgotten that when Uncle Peter Westley left Highacres to the +Lincoln School it made me trustee of the school? That's almost as bad as +being the principal. And this year I'm going to take an active interest +in the school, too. The doctor says I must have a 'diversity' of +interests to offset the strain of making cement-mixers and I think to +rub up against two hundred boys and girls will fill the bill, don't you? +They've remodeled the building at Highacres this summer and completed +one addition. There are twenty acres of ground, too, for outdoor +athletics." + +"What a wonderful gift," mused Mrs. Allan, recalling the pile of stone +and marble old Peter Westley had built in the outskirts of his city that +could never have been of any possible use to himself because he had been +a crusty old bachelor who hated to have anyone near him. Gossip had said +that he had built it just because he wanted his house to cost more than +any other house in the city; unworthy as his motive in building it might +have been, he had forever ennobled the place when he had bequeathed it +to the boys and girls of his city. + +"There'll be a chance, with the school out there, of offsetting just +what's threatening Isobel and Gyp--a sort of grownupness they're putting +on--like a masquerade costume!" + +"I love your very manlike way of describing things," laughed Mrs. Allan, +recalling certain experiences of her own when, for six months, she had +undertaken the care of her own niece, Patricia Everett. "It's +so--_vivid_! A masquerade make-up, too big and too long, and then when +you peep under the 'grown-up' costume, there's the little girl +still--really loving to frolic around in the delightful sports that +belong to youth and youth only." + +John Westley rode on for a few moments in deep silence, his mind on the +young people he loved--then suddenly it veered to the little girl he had +found on the Wishing-rock, her eyes staring longingly out into a +dream-world that lay beyond valley and mountain top. + +"I've an idea--a--_corker_!" he exclaimed, just as the Fly-by-day +bounced into the grass-grown drive of Cobble House. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WESTLEYS + + +"Gyp Westley, get right down off from that chair! You _know_ mother +doesn't want you to stand on it!" + +Miss Gyp, startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell +promptly from her perch on the dainty chintz-cushioned chair. + +"I was only tacking up my new banner," she answered crossly. "Here, Tib, +put the hammer away. What are you going to do, Isobel?" Gyp's tone +asked, rather: "What in the world have you _found_ to do?" + +Because Mrs. Hicks' mother had been so inconsiderate as to have a stroke +of apoplexy, much misery of spirit had fallen upon the young Westleys. +Mrs. Hicks was the Westley housekeeper and Mrs. Robert Westley, who, +with her four youngsters, was spending the month of August at Cape Cod, +had declared that she must return home at once, for Mrs. Hicks' going +would leave the house entirely alone with the two housemaids who were +very new and very inexperienced. There had been of course a great deal +of rebellion but Mrs. Westley, for once hardhearted, had turned deaf +ears upon her aggrieved children. + +"Not a bit of silver packed away or anything, with that yellow-haired +Lizzie! And anyway, it'll only be two or three weeks before school +opens." Which was, of course, scant comfort! + +"Oh, I thought I'd walk over and see if Ginny's home yet." + +"Of course she isn't. Camp Fairview doesn't close until September +second. I wish _I'd_ gone there! Where's Graham?" + +Isobel stretched her daintily-clad self in the chintz-cushioned chair +that Gyp had vacated. + +"He went out to Highacres to see the changes. Won't it seem funny to go +to school in old Uncle Peter's house?" + +For the moment Gyp and Tibby forgot to feel bored. + +"It'll be like going to a new school. I know I shall be possessed to +slide down the banisters. I wish I'd known Graham was going out, I'd +have gone, too." + +"Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel +further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the +basketball team and the hockey team at college." + +"Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very +straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year +about doing things to build up the school spirit?" + +Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss +Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do +everything for that. This is my last year--I'm going to just see that +Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!" + +Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that +poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be--her face had the pink +and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples +and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes; +she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have +made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the +whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the +chaperoned escort of older boys. + +"Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail +him. + +Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen +years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an +unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite +a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell +before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face. + +His sisters deluged him now with questions. + +"Why don't you go out there and look at it yourselves?" But he was too +enthusiastic about the new school to withhold his information. The +living room and the old library had been built into one big room for a +reference library; the classrooms were no end jolly; the billiard room +had been enlarged and was to be an assembly room. A wing had been added +for an indoor gymnasium. He and Stuart King had climbed way to the +tower, but the tower room was locked. + +"I remember--mother and Uncle Johnny said that Uncle Peter's papers and +books had been put up there. Mother wouldn't have them here." + +"Isn't it funny," mused Gyp as she balanced on the footboard of her bed. +"Everybody hated old Uncle Peter, he was such a cross old thing, and +nobody ever wanted to go to Highacres, and then he turns it into a +school and we'll all just love it and make songs about it----" + +"And celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday with an entertainment or +something," broke in Graham. "Maybe they'll even give us a holiday--to +show respect to his memory. Hurrah for old Bones!" + +"Graham--you're _dreadful_," giggled Gyp. + +"I don't care. It's Uncle Peter's own fault. It's anyone's fault if +nobody in the world likes 'em--it's because they don't like anybody +else!" + +Isobel ignored his philosophy. "You want to remember, Graham Westley, +that being Uncle Peter's grandnieces and nephew and having his money +gives us a certain----" she floundered, her mind frantically searching +for the word. + +"Prestige," cried Gyp grandly. "I heard mother say that. And I looked it +up--it means authority and influence and power. But I don't see how just +happening to be Uncle Peter's nieces----" + +At times Gyp's tendency to get at the very root of things annoyed her +older sister. + +"I don't care about dictionaries. Now that the school's going to be at +Highacres we four want to always be very careful how we speak of Uncle +Peter and act sort of dignified out there----" + +"_Rats!_" cut in Graham, with scorn. "I say, Gyp--that's _my_ banner!" +Thereupon ensued a lively squabble, in which Tibby, who adored Graham, +sided with him, and Isobel, in spite of Gyp's tearful pleading, refused +to take part, so that the banner came down from the wall and went into +Graham's pocket just as Mrs. Westley walked into the room. + +"Why, my dears, all of you in the house this glorious afternoon?" + +Mrs. Westley was a plump, bright-eyed woman who adored her four +children, and enjoyed them, with happy serenity, except at infrequent +intervals, when she worried herself "distracted" over them. At such +times she always turned to "Uncle Johnny." + +Isobel and Gyp had almost managed to answer: "There's no place to go," +when the mother's next words cut short their complaint. + +"I have the most astonishing news from Uncle Johnny," and she held up a +fat envelope. + +"Oh, when's he coming back?" cried Tibby. + +"Very soon. But what do you think he wants to do--bring back with him a +little girl he found up there in the mountains--or rather, _she_ found +_him_--when he got lost on a wrong trail. Listen: + +"'...She is a most unusual child. And she has outgrown the school +here. I'd like, as a sort of scholarship, to send her for a year or two +to Lincoln School. But there is the difficulty of finding a suitable +place for her to live--she's too young to put in a boarding house. Could +not you and the girls stretch your hearts and your rooms enough to let +in the youngster? I haven't said anything to her mother yet--I won't +until I hear from you. But I want to make this experiment and it will +help me immensely if you'll write and say my little girl can go straight +to you. I had a long talk with John Randolph, just before I came up +here--we feel that Lincoln School has grown a little away from the real +democratic spirit of fellowship that every American school should +maintain; he suggested certain scholarships and that's what came to my +mind when I found this girl. Isobel and Gyp and all their friends can +give my wild mountain lassie a good deal--and she can give Miss Gyp and +Isobel something, too----'" + +"Humph," came a suspicion of a snort from Isobel and Gyp. + +"Wish he'd found a boy," added Graham. + +From the moment she had read the letter, Mrs. Westley's mind had been +working on ways and means of helping John Westley. She always liked to +do anything anyone wanted her to do--and especially Uncle Johnny. + +"If Gyp would go back with Tibby or----" + +"_Mother!_" Gyp's distress was sincere--the spring before she had +acquired this room of her own and she loved it dearly. + +"And Gyp's things muss my room so," cried Tibby, plaintively. + +"Then perhaps you'll all help me fix the nursery for her." Everyone in +the household, although the baby Tibby was twelve years old, still +called the pleasant room on the second floor at the back of the house, +the "nursery." Mrs. Westley liked to take her sewing or her reading +there--for her it had precious memories; the old bookcase was still +filled with toys and baby books; Tibby's dolls had a corner of their +own; Isobel's drawing tools were arranged on a table in the bay window +and, on some open shelves, were displayed Graham's precious "specimens," +all neatly labeled and mixed with a collection of war trophies. To "fix +the nursery" would mean changes such as the Westley home had never +known! Each face was very serious. + +"It wouldn't be much to do for Uncle Johnny!" + +Isobel, Gyp, Graham and Tibby, each in her and his own way, adored Uncle +Johnny. Because their own father was away six months of every year, +Uncle Johnny often stood in the double rôle of paternal counsellor and +indulgent uncle. + +"And he's been so sick," added Tibby. + +"I can keep my stuff in my own room." Graham rather liked the idea. + +"I suppose I can do my drawing in father's study--even if the light +isn't nearly as good." Isobel, who underneath all her little +affectations had an honest soul, knew in her heart that hers was not +much of a sacrifice, because she had not touched her drawing pencils for +weeks and weeks, but she purposely made her tone complaining. + +"I s'pose we can play in there just the same?" asked Gyp. + +"Of course we can," declared her mother. "We'll put up that little old +bed that's in the storeroom." + +"What's her name?" Gyp's forehead was wrinkled in a scowl. + +Mrs. Westley referred to the letter. + +"Jerauld Travis. What a pretty name! And she's just your age, Gyp!" + +But Gyp refused to be delighted at this fact. + +Then Mrs. Westley, relieved that the children had consented, even though +ungraciously, to the change in their household, slipped the letter back +into its envelope. "I'll write to Uncle Johnny right away," and she +hurried from the room, a little fearful, perhaps, of the cloud that was +noticeably darkening Isobel's face. + +"I think it's _horrid_," Isobel cried when she knew her mother was out +of hearing. + +"What _you_ got to kick about? How'd you like it if you was _me_ with +another girl around?" + +"If you was _I_," corrected Gyp, loftily. "I think maybe it'll be nice." + +"You won't when she's here! And probably Uncle Johnny'll like her better +than any of us." Which added much to the flame of poor Isobel's +jealousy. + +"Well, I shall just pay no more attention to her than's if she was a--a +_boarder_!" Isobel had a very vague idea as to how boarders were usually +treated. "And it's silly to think that Uncle Johnny will like her better +than us--she's just a poor child he feels sorry for." + +"Do you suppose mountain people dress differently from us?" asked Tibby. + +Graham promptly answered: "Yes, silly--she'll wear goatskin--and she'll +yodel." + +"Anyway," Isobel rose languidly, "we don't want to forget about Uncle +Peter----" + +"And our prestige," interrupted Gyp, tormentingly. "And we can't act +horrid to her 'cause _that'd_ hurt Uncle Johnny's feelings----" + +Tibby suddenly saw a bright side of the cloud. + +"Say, it'll be fun seeing how she can't do things!" + +And, strangely enough, such is human nature in its early teens, little +Tibby's suggestion brought satisfying comfort to the three others. Gyp's +face cleared and she tossed her head as much as to say that _she_ was +not going to worry any more about it! + +"Come on, Isobel, I'll treat down at Wood's." + +"Let me go, too," implored Tibby. + +Gyp hesitated. "I only have thirty cents----" + +"You owe me ten, anyway," urged Tibby. + +Graham, in a sudden burst of generosity, relieved the tension of their +high finance. "Oh, let's all go--I'll stand for the three of you!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +JERRY'S WISH COMES TRUE + + +Jerry would, of course, never know how very hard Mr. John had had to +work to make her "wish" come true. Ever afterwards she preferred to +think that it was just standing on the Wishing-rock and wishing and +wishing! + +She had noticed, however, and had been a little curious, that every time +Mr. John had come to Sunnyside he and her mother had talked and talked +together in low tones so that, even when she was near them, she could +not hear one word of what they were saying, and that, after these talks, +her mother had been very pale and had, again and again, for no +particular reason, hugged her very close and kissed her with what Jerry +called a "sad" kiss. + +Then one afternoon Mrs. Allan had come with John Westley, and her +mother, to her disgust, had sent her down to the Notch with a message +for old Mrs. Teed that had not seemed a _bit_ important. After her +return John Westley had invited her to take him and Bigboy and Pepperpot +to the Witches' Glade because, he said, he "had something to tell her!" + +It was a glorious afternoon. August was painting with her vivid coloring +the mountain slopes and valleys; over everything was a soft glow. It was +reflected on Jerry's eager face. + +John Westley pointed down into the valley where Jerry's "shining" road +ran off out of sight. They could see an automobile, like a speck, moving +swiftly along it. + +"Your road, down there, goes off the other side of the mountain and on +and on and after a very long way--takes me back home. I'm going on +Thursday." + +Jerry turned a disappointed face. Each day of John Westley's two weeks +near Miller's Notch had brought immeasurable pleasure and excitement +into her life. + +"Mrs. Allan is going to drive back with me--she lived in my town, you +know. She hasn't been home for months and I shall enjoy her company." + +Jerry was staring at the distant road. After awhile the specks that were +automobiles and that she liked to watch would become fewer and fewer; +the days would grow colder, school would begin, the snow would come and +choke the trails and she and Sweetheart and Little-Dad would be shut in +at Sunnyside for weeks and weeks. Her face clouded. + +"And now listen very carefully, Jerry, and hold on to my arm so that you +won't fall off from the mountain! _You_ are going with us!" + +Jerry _did_ hold on to his arm with a grip that hurt. She stared, with +round, wondering eyes. + +He laughed at her unbelief. "Your wish is coming true! You're going to +ride along that road yonder, in my automobile, which ought to get here +to-morrow, straight around to the other side of the mountain, and on and +on--then you're going to stay all winter with my own nieces and go to +school with them----" + +Jerry's breath came in an excited gasp. + +"Oh, it _can't_--be--true! Mother'd _never_ let me." + +"It _is_ true! Mothers are always willing to do the things that are +going to be best for their girls. Mrs. Allan and I have persuaded +her----" + +But Jerry, with a "whoop," was racing down the trail, Bigboy and +Pepperpot at her heels. She vaulted the little gate leading into the +garden and swept like a small whirlwind upon her mother, sitting in the +willow rocker on the porch. With a violent hug she tried to express the +madness of her joy and so completely was her face hidden on her mother's +shoulder that she did not see the quick tears that blinded her mother's +eyes. + +That was on Monday--there were only three days to get her small wardrobe +ready and packed and to ask the thousand questions concerning the +Westley girls (Graham was utterly forgotten) and the school. Then there +were wonderful, long talks with mother, sitting close by her side, one +hand tight in hers--solemn talks that were to linger in Jerry's heart +all her life. + +"I don't ever want to do anything, Mumsey Sweetheart, that'd make you +the least little, _little_ bit unhappy!" Jerry had said after one of +these talks, suddenly pressing her mother's hand close to her cheek. + +On Wednesday afternoon she declared to Mr. John, when he drove over from +Cobble, that she was "ready." She said it a little breathlessly--no +Crusader of old, starting forth upon his holy way, felt any more +exaltation of spirit than did Jerry! + +"I've packed and I've mended my coat and I've finished mother's comfy +jacket that I began winter before last and I've said good-by to Rose and +poor old Jimmy Chubb, who's awfully envious, 'cause he wanted to go to +Troy to work in his uncle's store and he says it makes him mad to have a +girl see the world 'fore he does, but I told him he ought to keep on at +school, even if it was only Miller's Notch. And I've cleaned +Little-Dad's pipes. And I've promised Bigboy and Pepperpot and Dormouse +that they may all sleep on my bed to-night. I'm afraid Pepperpot--he's +so sensitive--is going to miss me dreadfully!" Jerry tried to frown away +the thought; she did not want it to intrude upon her joy. + +That last evening she sat quietly on the porch with one hand in her +mother's and the other in Little-Dad's. Not one of them seemed to want +to talk; Jerry was too excited and her mother knew that she could not +keep a tremble from her voice. At nine o'clock Jerry declared that she'd +just _have_ to go to bed so that the morning would come quicker. She +kissed them both, kissed her mother again and again, then marched off +with her pets at her heels. + +Far into the night her mother sat alone on the edge of the porch, +staring at the stars through a mist of tears and praying--first that the +Heavenly Father would protect her little Jerry always and always, and +then that He would give her strength to let the child go on the morrow. + +When the parting came everyone tried to be very busy and very merry, to +cover the heartache that was under it all; John Westley fussed with the +covers and the cushions in the big car and had his chauffeur pack and +repack the bags. Mrs. Allan and Mrs. Travis discussed the lunch that had +been stowed away in the tonneau, as though the whole thing was only a +day's picnic. Jerry, a funny little figure in her coat that was too +small and a fall hat that Mrs. Chubb had made over from one of her +mother's, was, with careful impartiality, bestowing final caresses upon +Bigboy, Pepperpot, Silverheels, and her father and mother alike. Then, +at the last moment, she almost strangled her mother with a sweep of her +strong young arms. + +"Mumsey Sweetheart, if you want me _dreadfully_--you'll send for me," +she whispered, stricken for a moment by the realization that the parting +was for a very long time. + +Then, though her heart was almost breaking within her, Mrs. Travis +managed to laugh lightly. + +"Need you--of course we won't need you! Climb in, darling," and she +almost lifted the girl into the tonneau, where Mrs. Allan was already +comfortably fixed. + +But at this moment Bigboy tried to leap into the car. When Dr. Travis +gripped his collar he let out a long, protesting howl. + +"Oh, Bigboy--he _knows_! Let me say good-by again," cried Jerry, jumping +out and, to everyone's amusement, embracing the dog. + +"You must be a good dog and take very good care of my Sweetheart and +Little-Dad," she whispered. Then, standing, she looked around. + +"Where's Pepperpot?" she asked anxiously. The little dog had +disappeared. + +"He'll think that I love Bigboy more than I do him," she explained, as +she climbed back in. + +The car started down the rough road. Jerry turned to wave; as long as +she could see her mother and father she kept her little white +handkerchief fluttering. Then she faced resolutely forward. + +"You know," she explained to John Westley, with shining eyes, "when +you've been wishing and wishing for something, you must enjoy it as hard +as you can." + +Even the familiar buildings of the Notch seemed different now to Jerry, +as she flew past them, and she kept finding new things all along the +way. Then, as they turned from the rough country road into her "shining" +road, which was, of course, the macadam highway, she looked back and up +toward Kettle to see if she could catch a glimpse of Sunnyside or the +Witches' Glade and the Wishing-rock. They were lost in a blaze of green +and purple and brown. + +"Isn't it _funny_? If I was up there watching I'd see you moving like a +speck! And in a moment you'd disappear around the corner. And now _I'm_ +the speck and--I don't know when we reach the corner. But I'm--_going_, +anyway!" + +Then upon her happy meditations came a sudden, startling interruption in +the shape of a small dog that leaped out from the dense undergrowth at +the side of the road and hailed the automobile with a sharp bark. + +"_Pepperpot!_" cried Jerry, springing to her feet. + +The chauffeur had brought the car to a sudden stop to avoid hitting the +dog. At the sound of Jerry's voice the little animal made a joyous leap +into the car. + +"He came on _ahead_--through the Divide! _Oh_--the darling," and Jerry +hugged her pet proudly. + +John Westley looked at Penelope Allan and she looked at him and the +chauffeur looked at them both--all with the same question. In Jerry's +mind, however, there was no doubt. + +"He'll _have_ to go with us, Mr. John, because I know he'd just die of a +broken heart if I--took him back!" + +Then, startled by John Westley's hesitation, she added convincingly, +"He's awfully good and never bothers anyone and keeps as still as can be +when I tell him to and I'll--I'll----" + +No one could have resisted the appeal in her voice. + +"Very well, Jerry--Pepperpot shall go, too." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +NEW FACES + + +"Ten miles more... three miles more ... five blocks more," Mr. John had +been saying at intervals as the big car rolled along, carrying Jerry +nearer and nearer to her new home. + +For the two days of the trip Jerry had scarcely spoken; indeed, more +than once her breath had caught in her throat. Each moment brought +something new, more wonderful than anything her fancy had ever pictured. +She liked best the cities through which they passed, their life, the +bustle and confusion, the hurrying throngs, the rushing automobiles, the +gleaming railroad tracks like taut bands of silver, the smoke-screened +factories with their belching stacks, the rows upon rows of houses, +snuggling in friendly fashion close to one another. + +John Westley had found himself fascinated in watching the eager +alertness of her observation. He longed to know just what was passing +back of those bright eyes; he tried to draw out some expression, but +Jerry had turned to him an appealing look that said more plainly than +words that she simply couldn't tell how wonderful everything seemed to +her, so he had to content himself with watching the rapture reflected in +her face and manner. + +But when, after leaving Mrs. Allan at her brother's, Mr. John had said +"five blocks more," Jerry had clutched the side of the car in an ecstasy +of anticipation. From the deep store of her vivid imagination she had +drawn a mental picture of what the Westley home and Isobel, Gyp, Graham +and Tibby would be like. The house, in her fancy, resembled pictures of +turreted castles; however, when she saw that it was really square and +brick, with a little iron grille enclosing the tiniest scrap of a lawn, +she was too excited to be disappointed. + +Two small carved stone lions guarded each side of the flight of steps +that led to the big front door; their stony, stoic stare drew a sharp +bark of challenge from Pepperpot, snuggled in Jerry's arms. + +"Hush, Pepper," admonished Jerry. "You mustn't forget your manners." + +As John Westley opened the door of the tonneau his eyes swept the front +of the house in a disappointed way. He had expected that great door to +open and his precious nieces and nephew to come tumbling out to welcome +him. + +He could not know--because his glance could not penetrate the crisp +curtains at a certain window of the second floor--that from behind it +Gyp, Graham and Tibby had been watching the street for a half hour. +Isobel had resolutely affected utter indifference and had sat reading a +book, though more than once she had peeped covertly over Gyp's shoulder +down the broad avenue. + +"_There_ they are!" Tibby had been the first to spy the big car. + +"Isobel"--Gyp screamed--"_look_ at her hat!" + +"I wish she was a boy," groaned Graham again. "Doesn't Uncle Johnny look +great? I say--come on, let's go down!" + +It had been a prearranged pact among the young Westleys not to greet the +little stranger with any show of eagerness. + +Tibby welcomed the suggestion. "Oh--_let's_!" she cried. + +It was at that moment that Pepperpot had barked his disapproval of the +weather-worn lions. Graham and Gyp gave a shout of delight. + +"Look! _Look_--a dog! Hurray!" + +"Maybe now mother will have to let us keep him," Graham added. "Come on, +girls," he raced toward the stairs. + +Their voices roused Mrs. Westley. She had not expected Uncle Johnny for +another hour. She flew with the children; there was nothing wanting in +_her_ welcome. + +"John Westley--you look like a new man! And this is our little girl? +Welcome to our home, my dear. Did you have a nice trip? Did you leave +Pen Allan at the Everetts? How is she?" As she chattered away, with one +hand through John Westley's arm and the other holding Jerry's, she drew +them into the big hall and to the living-room beyond. Jerry's round, +shining eyes took in, with a lightning glance, the rich mahogany +woodwork, the soft rugs like dark pools on the shiny floor, the long +living-room with its amber-toned hangings, and the three curious faces +staring at her over Mr. John's shoulder. + +"Gyp, my dear," John Westley untangled long arms from around his neck, +"here's a twin for you. Jerry, this boy is my nephew Graham--he's not +nearly as grown-up as he looks. And this is Tibby!" + +Jerry flashed a smile. They seemed to her--this awkward, thin, +dark-skinned girl whom Uncle Johnny had called Gyp, the tall, +roguish-faced boy, and little Tibby, whose straight braids were black +like Gyp's and whose eyes were violet-blue--more wonderful than anything +she had seen along the way; they were, indeed, the "best of all." + +"Oh," she stammered, in a laughing, excited way, "it's just wonderful +to--really--be--be here." Before her glowing enthusiasm the children's +prejudice melted in a twinkling. Gyp held out her hand with a friendly +gesture and Pepperpot, as though he understood everything that was +happening, stuck his head out from the shelter of Jerry's arm and thrust +his paw into Gyp's welcoming clasp. + +Everyone laughed--Graham and Tibby uproariously. + +"Goodness _me_--a _dog_!" Mrs. Westley cried, with a startled glance +toward John Westley. + +"Let him down," commanded Graham, as though he and Jerry were old +friends. Jerry put Pepperpot down and the four children leaned over him. +Promptly Pepperpot stood on his hind legs and executed a merry dance. + +"He cut through the woods and headed us off, miles away from the +Notch--we couldn't do anything else but bring him along," Uncle Johnny +whispered to Mrs. Westley under cover of the children's laughter. "For +Heaven's sake, Mary, let him stay." + +There had been for years a very fixed rule in the Westley household that +dogs were "not allowed." "They bring their dirty feet and their greasy +bones and things on the rugs and the chairs," was the standing +complaint, though Mrs. Westley had never minded telltale marks from +muddy little shoes nor the imprint of sticky fingers on satin +upholstery; nor had she ever allowed painters to gloss over the initials +that Graham had carved with his first jackknife on one of the broad +window-sills of the library. "When he's a grown man and away from the +nest--I'll have _that_," she had explained. + +"I don't know what Mrs. Hicks will say," she answered rather helplessly, +knowing, as she watched the young people, that she would not have the +heart to bar Pepper from their midst. + +"I say, Jerry,"--Graham had Pepper's nose in his hand--"can I have him +for my dog? Nearly all the fellows have dogs, but mother----" he glanced +quickly in her direction. + +Graham might just as well have asked Jerry to cut out a part of her +heart and hand it over; however, his face was so wistful that she +answered, impulsively: "He can belong to all of us!" + +"Where's Isobel?" cried Uncle Johnny, looking around. + +Isobel had been listening from the turn of the stairway. She had really +wanted, more than anything else, to race down the stairs and throw +herself in Uncle Johnny's arms. (He was certain to have some pretty gift +for her concealed in one of his pockets.) But she must show the others +that _she_ would stick to her word. So, in answer to his call, she +walked slowly down the stairway, with a smile that carefully included +only Uncle Johnny. + +Jerry thought that she had never in her whole life seen anyone quite as +pretty as Isobel! She stared, fascinated. To Uncle Johnny's introduction +she answered awkwardly, uncomfortably conscious that Isobel's eyes were +unfriendly. She wished, with all her heart, that Isobel would say +something nice, but Isobel, after a little nod, turned back to her +uncle. + +"Gyp, take Jerry to her room. Graham, carry her bags up," directed Mrs. +Westley. + +"Pepper, too?" cried Tibby. + +But Pepper had dashed up the stairs, and had turned at the landing and, +standing again on his hind legs, had barked. Even Mrs. Westley laughed. +"Pepper's answering that question himself," she replied. She turned to +Uncle Johnny. "If it comes to a choice between Mrs. Hicks and that dog I +plainly see Mrs. Hicks will have to go." + +John Westley declared he had not known how "good" it would feel to get +"home" again. Though he really lived in an apartment a few blocks away, +he had always looked upon his brother's house as home and spent the +greater part of his leisure time there. Mrs. Westley ordered tea. Uncle +Johnny slipped Isobel's hand through his arm and followed Mrs. Westley +into the cheery library. + +Above, Jerry was declaring that her room was just "wonderful." She ran +from one window to another to gaze rapturously out over the neighboring +housetops. The brick, wall-enclosed court below, with its iron gate +letting into an alleyway, was to her an enchanted battlement! + +Graham's trophies, Tibby's dolls, Isobel's drawing tools had +disappeared; a little old-fashioned white wooden bed had been put up in +one corner; its snowy linen cover, with woven pink roses in orderly +clusters, gave it an inviting look; there was a pink pillow in the deep +chair in the bay-window; a round table stood near the chair; on it were +some of Gyp's books and a little work-basket. And the toys had been left +in the old bookcase, so that, Mrs. Westley had decided, the room would +look as if a little girl could really live in it! Little wonder that +Jerry thought it all "wonderful." + +When Gyp heard the rattle of tea-cups below, they all tore downstairs +again, Pepper at their heels. They gathered around Uncle Johnny and +drank iced tea and ate little frosted cakes and demanded to be told how +he had felt when he knew he was lost on that "big mountain." They were +all so nice and jolly, Jerry thought, and, though Isobel ignored her, +she must be as nice as the others, because Uncle Johnny kept her next to +him and held her hand. The late afternoon sun slanted through the long +windows with a pleasant glow; the rows and rows of books on the open +shelves made Jerry feel at home; the great, deep-seated chairs gave her +a delicious sense of refuge. + +It was Uncle Johnny who, after dinner, sent Jerry off to bed early; +though she declared she was not one little bit tired, he had noticed +that the brightness had gone from her face. Gyp and Tibby went upstairs +with her; Graham disappeared with Pepperpot. + +"What do you think of my girl?" John Westley asked his sister-in-law. +They had gone back to the library. Isobel sat on a stool close to Uncle +Johnny's chair. + +"She seems like an unusually nice, jolly child. But----" Mrs. Westley +looked a little distressed. "May she not be homesick here, John--so far +from her folks?" She hated to think of such a possibility. + +"I thought of that," John Westley chuckled. "I said something about it +to her. What do you think she said? She waited a moment before she +answered me--as though she was carefully considering it. 'Well,' she +said, 'anyway, one wouldn't be homesick for very long, would one?' As +though it'd be like measles--or mumps. This is an Adventure to her; +she's been dreaming about it all her life!" He told, then, about the +Wishing-rock. + +"I tell you, Mary, there's some sort of spirit about the girl that's +unusual! It must come from some fire of genius further back than her +hermit-parents. I'm as certain as anything that there's a mystery about +the child. I've knocked about among all sorts of people, but I never +found such a curious family before--in such a place. Dr. Travis is one +of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the +clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her +eyes as though she was always afraid of something--just behind. And then +Jerry--like them both and not a bit like 'em--her head in the clouds, +all right--a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in +everything--a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story +about her." + +As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's +enthusiasm. + +"She's probably just a healthy girl who has been brought up in a simple +way by very sensible parents." Her matter-of-fact tone made John Westley +feel a little foolish. "She's a dear, sunny child and I hope she will be +happy here." + +"What got me was her utter lack of self-consciousness and her faith in +herself. Not an affectation about her--that's why I wanted her at +Lincoln school." + +"No one'll _look_ at her there--she's so dowdy!" burst out Isobel. + +Her uncle turned quickly, surprised and a little hurt at the pettishness +of her tone. + +"Isobel, dear--" protested her mother. + +Then Uncle Johnny laughed. "I rather guess, from my observation of the +vagaries of you young people, that sometimes one little thing can make +even a 'dowdy' girl popular--then, if she has the right stuff in her, +she can be a leader. What is it starts you all wearing these little +black belts round your waists, or this mousetrap," poking the puffs of +pretty silk hair that hid her ears; "it's a psychology that's beyond +most of us! Maybe my Jerry will set a new style in Lincoln." + +Isobel blazed in her scorn. + +"Well, I'd _die_ before _I'd_ look like her!" she cried. "I'm going to +bed." She felt very cross. She had wanted Uncle Johnny to tell her that +she looked well; she had on a new dress and her hair was combed in a +very new way; she had grown, too, in the summer. Instead he had talked +of nothing but Jerry, Jerry--and such silly talk about her eyes shining +as though they reflected golden visions within! She stalked away with a +bare good-night. + +Uncle Johnny might have said something if Isobel's mother had not given +a long sigh. + +"I can't--always--understand Isobel now," she said. "She has grown so +self-centered. I'll be glad when school begins." Mrs. Westley, like many +another perplexed parent, looked upon school as a cure for all evils. + +Jerry and Gyp had been busily unpacking Jerry's belongings and putting +them away in the little white bureau. + +"Where's Pepper?" asked Jerry, in sudden alarm. The children had been +warned to keep the little dog from "under Mrs. Hicks' feet." In a flash +Jerry had a horrible vision of some cruel fate befalling her pet. + +"I'll just bet Graham has him," declared Gyp, indignantly. + +They tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to Graham's door. Graham +lay in bed, sound asleep; beside him lay Pepper, carefully tucked under +the bedclothes. One of Graham's arms was flung out over the dog. + +Some instinct told Jerry that a long-felt yearning in this boy's heart +had at last been satisfied. And Pepper must have felt it, too, for, +though at the sight of his little mistress a distressed quiver shot +through him, he bravely pretended to be soundly sleeping. + +"Let him have him," whispered Jerry. + +But, for a long time, Jerry, under the pink and white cover, blinked at +the little circle of brightness reflected from the electric light +outside, trying hard not to wish she had Pepperpot with her "to keep +away the lonesomes." The night sounds of the city hummed in eerie +cadences in her ears. She resolutely counted one-two-three to one +hundred and back again to one to keep the thoughts of mother and +Sunnyside out of her head; then, just as she felt a great choking sob +rise in her throat, she heard a little scratch-scratch at her door. + +"Oh, _Pepper_--I'm so _glad_ you came!" She caught the shaggy little +form to her. She could not let him lie on the pink-and-whiteness, so she +carefully spread it over the footboard and folded her own coat for him +to sleep on. + +How magically everything changed--when a shaggy terrier snuggled against +her feet. The haunting shadows fled, the sob gave way to a contented +little sigh and Jerry fell asleep with the memory of Gyp's dark, roguish +face in her thoughts and a consuming eagerness to have the morning come +quickly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HIGHACRES + + +Old Peter Westley had made up his mind, so gossip said, to build +Highacres when he heard that Thomas Knowles, a business rival, had +bought a palatial home on the most beautiful avenue of the city. +"Pouf"--that was Uncle Peter's favorite expression and he had a way of +blowing it through his scraggly mustache that made it most impressive. +"Pouf! _I'll_ show him!" The next morning he drove around to a real +estate office, bundled the startled real estate broker into his car and +carried him off to the outskirts of the city, where lay a beautiful +tract of land advertised as "Highacre Terrace," and held (with an eye to +the growth of the city) at a startling figure. In the real estate office +it had been divided into building lots with "restrictions," which meant +that only separate houses could be built on the lots. Peter Westley +struck the ground with his heavy cane and said he'd take the whole +piece. The real estate man gasped. Uncle Peter said "pouf" again and the +deal was settled. + +Then he summoned architects from all over the country who, to his +delight, spent hours in the office of the Westley Cement-Mixer +Manufacturing Company trying to outdo one another in finesse and +suavity. Fortunately he decided upon a man who had genius as well as +tact, who, without his knowing it, could quietly bend old Peter Westley +to his way of thinking. Under this man's planning the new home grew +until it stood in its finished perfection, a mass of stone and marble +surrounded by great trees and sloping lawns. Gossip said further that +Highacres so far surpassed the remodeled home of Thomas Knowles that +that poor gentleman had resigned from the Meadow Brook Country Club so +that he would not have to drive past it! + +What sentiment had led Peter Westley to leave Highacres to the Lincoln +School no one would ever know; perhaps deep in his queer old heart was +an affection for his nephew Robert's children, who came dutifully to see +him once or twice a year, but made no effort to conceal the fact that +they thought it a dreadful bore. + +"I think," Isobel said seriously to her family, as they were gathered +around the breakfast table, a few days after Jerry's arrival, "that it'd +be nice if Gyp and I put on black----" + +"_Black_----" cried Gyp, spilling her cocoa in her astonishment. + +"Yes, black. We should have worn it when Uncle Peter died and now, going +to school out there, it would show the others that we respected----" + +Mrs. Westley laughed, then when she saw the color deepen on Isobel's +cheeks she added soothingly: "Your thought's all right, Isobel dear, but +it will be hardly necessary for you and Gyp to put on black now to show +your respect. I think every pupil of Lincoln can best do it by building +up a reputation for scholarship that will make Lincoln known all over +the country." + +"Isobel just wants everybody to remember she's Uncle Peter's----" + +"Hush, Graham." Mrs. Westley had a way of saying "hush" that cleared a +threatening atmosphere at once. + +"Oh, isn't it going to be _fun_?" cried Gyp. "Mother, can't we take +Jerry out there this morning?" + +"But I have to use the car----" + +"If you girls were fellows, we could walk," broke in Graham. + +"We can--we can! It's only two miles and a half. Simpson watched on the +speedometer the last time we drove out." + +Graham looked questioningly at Jerry and Jerry, suddenly recalling the +miles of mountain trail over which she had climbed, laughed back her +answer. + +Because a new world, that surpassed any fairy tale, had opened to Jerry +in these last few days, it seemed only fitting to go to school in a +building that was like a palace. She thrilled at the thought of the new +school life, the girls and boys who would be her classmates, the new +teachers, the new studies. For years and years, back at the Notch she +had always sat in front of Rose Smith and back of Jimmy Chubb; she had +progressed from fractions to measurements and then on to algebra and +from spelling to Latin with the outline of Jimmy's winglike ears so +fixed a part of her vision that she wondered if now she might not find +that she could not study without them. And there had always been, as far +back as she could remember, only little Miss Masten to teach +multiplication and geography and algebra alike; she and the other +children who made up the "advanced grade" of the school at Miller's +Notch always called her "Miss Sarah." Would there be anyone like Miss +Sarah at Lincoln? + +As they walked along, Gyp bravely measuring her step to Jerry's freer +stride, Gyp explained to Jerry "all about" Uncle Peter. + +"He's father's uncle. Father's father--that's my grandfather--was his +youngest brother. He died when he was just a young man and Uncle Peter +never got over it. Mother says my grandfather was the only person Uncle +Peter ever really liked. He always lived in the same funny little old +house even after he made lots of money, until he built Highacres. He was +terribly queer. I used to be dreadfully afraid of him because he always +carried a big cane and had the awfullest way of looking at you! His eyes +sort of bored holes right through you, so that you turned cold all over +and couldn't even cry. I'm glad he's dead. He was awfully old, +anyway--or at least he looked old. We used to just hate to have to go to +see him. The old stingy wouldn't ever even give us a stick of candy." + +"The poor old man," Jerry said so feelingly that Gyp stared at her. "My +mother always said that such people are so unhappy that they punish +themselves. Maybe he really wanted to be nice and just didn't know how! +Anyway, he's given his home to the school." + +If Peter Westley, looking down from another world, was reading that +thought in a hundred young hearts he must surely be finding his reward. + +"There it is!" cried Graham, who was walking ahead. + +School could not really seem a bit like school, Jerry thought, as she +followed the others through the spacious grounds into the building, when +one studied in such beautiful rooms where the sun, streaming through +long windows framed in richly-toned walnut, danced in slanting golden +bars across parqueted floors. Gyp's enthusiasm, though, made it all very +real. + +"Here, Jerry, here's where the third form study room will be. Look, +here's the geom. classroom! Oh, I _hope_ we'll be put in the same class. +Let's go down to the Gym. Oh--look at the French room--isn't it +darling?" The trees outside were casting a shimmer of green through the +sunshine in the room. "Mademoiselle will say: 'Young ladies, it ees +beau-ti-ful!' Aren't these halls jolly, Jerry? Oh, I can't _wait_ for +school to begin." + +On their way to the gymnasium, which was in the new wing of the +building, the girls met another group. One of these disentangled herself +from the arms that encircled her waist and threw herself into Gyp's +embrace. The extravagance of her demonstration startled Jerry, but when +Gyp introduced her, in an off-hand way: "This is Ginny Cox, Jerry," +Jerry found herself fascinated by the dash and "_camaraderie_" in the +girl's manner. + +There were other introductions and excited greetings; each tried to tell +how "scrumptious" and "gorgeous" and "spliffy" she thought the new +school. Like Gyp, none of them could wait until school opened. Then the +group passed on and Jerry, breathless at her first encounter with her +schoolmates-to-be, remembered only Ginny Cox. + +"She's the funniest girl--she's a perfect circus," Gyp explained in +answer to Jerry's query. "Everybody likes her and she's the best forward +we ever had in Lincoln." All of which was strange tribute to Jerry's +ears, for, back at the Notch, poor Si Robie had always been dubbed the +"funniest" child in the school and _he_ had been "simple." Jerry did not +know exactly how valuable a good "forward" was to any school but, she +told herself, she knew she was going to like Ginny Cox. + +In the gymnasium the girls found Graham with a group of boys. Gyp +greeted them boisterously. Jerry, watching shyly, thought them all very +jolly-looking boys. + +"Do you see that tall boy down there?" Gyp nodded toward another group. +"That's Dana King. Isobel's got an awful crush on him. She won't admit +it but I _know_ it, and the other girls say so, too. He's a senior." + +The boy turned at that moment. His pleasant face was aglow with +enthusiasm. + +"Come on, fellows," he cried to the other boys, "let's give a yell for +old Peter Westley." And the yell was given with a will! + + "L-I-N-C-O-L-N! L-I-N-C-O-L-N! + Lincoln! Lincoln! + Rah! Rah! Rah! + Peter Westley! Pe-ter! West-ley!" + +Jerry tingled to her finger-tips. Gyp had yelled with the others, so had +Ginny Cox, who had come back into the room. What fun it was all going to +be. Dana King was leading the boys in a serpentine march through the +building; out in the hall the line broke to force in a laughing, +remonstrating carpenter. Jerry heard their boyish voices gradually die +away. + +"Before we go back let's climb up to the tower room." That was the name +the children had always given to the largest of the turrets that crowned +Highacres' many-gabled roof. A stairway led directly to it from the +third floor. But the door of the room was locked. + +"How tiresome," exclaimed Gyp, shaking the knob. Not that she did not +know just what the tower room was like, but she hated locked doors--they +always made her so curious. + +"It's the nicest room--you can see way off over the city from its +windows." She gave the offending door a little kick. "They put all of +Uncle Peter's old books and papers and things up here--mother wouldn't +have them brought to our house, you see. I remember she told Graham the +key was down in the safety-deposit box at the bank. Well----" +disappointed, Gyp turned down the stairs. "I've always loved tower +rooms, don't you, Jerry? They're so romantic. Can't you just see the +poor princess who won't marry the lover her father has commanded her to +marry, languishing up there? Even chained to the wall!" + +Jerry shuddered but loved the picture. She added to it: "She's got long +golden, hair hanging down over her shoulders and she's tearing it in her +wretchedness." + +"And beating her breast and vowing over and over that she will _not_ +marry the horrible wicked prince----" + +"And refusing to eat the dry bread that the ugly old keeper of the +drawbridge slips through the door----" + +At this point in the heartrending story the two laughing girls reached +the outer door. Gyp slipped an affectionate hand through Jerry's arm. +She forgot the languishing princess she had consigned to the prison +above in her joy of the bright sunshine, the inviting slopes of +Highacres, velvety green, and the new friend at her side. + +"I'm so _glad_ Uncle Johnny found you!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SCHOOL + + +In the Westley home each school day had always begun with a rite that +would some day be a sacred memory to Mrs. Westley, because it belonged +to the precious childhood of her girls and boy. Graham called it +"inspection." It had begun when the youngsters had first started school, +Isobel and Graham proudly in the "grades," Gyp in kindergarten. The +mother had, each morning, laughingly stood them in a row and looked them +over. More than once poor Graham had declared that it was because his +ears were so big that mother could always find dirt somewhere; sometimes +it was Isobel who was sent back to smooth her hair or Gyp to wash her +teeth or Tibby for her rubbers. But after the inspection there was +always a "good-luck" kiss for each and a carol of "good-by, mother" from +happy young throats. + +So on this day that was to mark the opening of the Lincoln School at +Highacres, Jerry stood in line with the others and, though each young +person was faultlessly ready for this first day of school, Mrs. Westley +laughingly pulled Graham's ears, smiled reminiscently at Isobel's +primness, smoothed with a loving hand Gyp's rebellious black locks and +thought, as she looked at Jerry, of what Uncle Johnny had said about her +eyes reflecting golden dreams from within. And when she called Tibby +"littlest one" none of them could know that, as she looked at them and +realized that another year was beginning, it stirred a little heartache +deep within her. + +"Aren't mothers funny?" reflected Gyp as she and Jerry swung down the +street. They had preferred to walk. + +"Oh----" Jerry had to control her voice. "_I_ think they're grand!" + +"I mean--they're so _fussy_. When I have children I'm just going to +leave them plumb alone. I don't care what they'll look like." + +"You will, though," laughed Jerry. "Because you'll love them. If our +mothers didn't love us so much I suppose they'd leave us alone. That +would be dreadful!" + +Jerry had slept very little the night before for anticipation. And now +that the great moment was approaching close she was obsessed by the fear +that she "wouldn't know what to do." The fear grew very acute when she +was swept by Gyp into a crowd of noisy girls, all rushing for space in +the dressing-rooms. Then, at the ringing of a bell, she was hurried with +the others up the wide stairway. She caught a glimpse of Gyp ahead, +surrounded by chums, all trying to exchange in a brief moment the entire +summer's experiences. She looked wildly around for a familiar face. She +caught one little glimpse of Ginny Cox, who smiled at her across a dozen +heads, then rushed away with the others. + +In the Assembly room a spirit of gaiety prevailed. The eager faces of +the boys and girls smiled at the faculty, sitting in prim rows on the +stage; the faculty smiled back. There was stirring music until the last +pupil had found her place. Then, just as Dr. Caton, the dignified +principal, rose to his feet, a boy whom Jerry from her corner recognized +as Dana King, leaped to the front, threw both arms wildly in the air +with a gesture that plainly commanded: "Come on, fellows," and the +beamed ceiling rang with a lusty cheer. + +Dr. Caton greeted the students with a few pleasant words. There were +more cheers, then everyone sang. Jerry thought it all very jolly. She +wondered if "assembly" was always like this. She recalled suddenly how +agitated poor Miss Sarah always became if there was the slightest noise +in that stuffy schoolroom, back at the Notch. + +"Look--there's the new gym. teacher--on the end--Barbara Lee," whispered +Jerry's neighbor, excitedly. + +Jerry looked with interest. In the entire faculty she had not found +anyone who resembled, even ever so slightly, poor Miss Sarah. Miller's +Notch, of course, had no gymnasium, therefore it had not needed any +gymnasium assistant. Jerry had imagined that a gym. teacher must, +necessarily, be a sort of young Amazon, with a strong, hard face. Miss +Lee was slender and looked like one of the schoolgirls. + +It had always been the custom at Lincoln School, on the opening day, to +assign the new pupils to the care of the Seniors. These assignments were +posted on the bulletin boards. Jerry did not know this: she did not know +that Isobel Westley had been appointed her "guardian." Before assembly, +Isobel had read her name on the lists and had promptly declared: "I just +_won't_! Let her get along the best way she can." So, when assembly was +over, Jerry found herself drifting helplessly, forlornly elbowed here +and there, too shy to ask questions, valiantly trying to beat down the +desire to run away. She envied the assurance with which the others, even +the new girls, seemed to know just where they ought to go. She had not +laid eyes on Gyp after that one fleeting glimpse on the stairs. + +Suddenly a hand touched her arm and, turning, she found Barbara Lee +beside her. The kind smile on Miss Lee's face brought a little +involuntary quiver to her lips. + +"Lost, my dear?" + +"I--I don't know--where----" + +"You are a new girl? What is your name?" + +"Jerauld Travis." + +"Oh--yes. Where is your guardian?" As she spoke Miss Lee stepped to the +bulletin board that hung in the corridor. She read Isobel's name. + +"You were assigned to Isobel Westley. It is strange that she has left +you alone. Come to the library with me, Jerauld." + +Jerry realized now why it had been so easy for all the other "new girls" +to find their places--_they_ had had guardians. She tried to smother a +little feeling of hurt because Isobel had deserted her. + +The library, gloriously sunlit on this golden morning, was empty. Miss +Lee pulled two chairs toward a long table. + +"Sit here, Jerauld. Now tell me all about your other school--so we can +place you." And she patted Jerry's hand in a jolly encouraging way. + +It was very easy for Jerry to talk to Miss Lee. She told of the work she +had covered back at the Notch. Miss Lee listened with interest and, +knowing nothing of Jerry's home life and Jerry's mother, some amazement. + +"I believe you could go straight into the Junior class though +you're----" + +"Oh, _can't_ I be in Gyp's room?" cried Jerry in dismay. "Gyp Westley, I +mean. You see she's the only girl I know real well." + +Barbara Lee, for all that she was trying to look very grown-up and +dignified, as a teacher should, could remember well how much it meant in +school life to be near one's "chum." So she laughed, a laugh that warmed +Jerry's heart. + +"I think--perhaps--that can be arranged," she said in a tone that +indicated that she would help. "We will go to see Dr. Caton." + +Even after the long consultation with Dr. Caton, Miss Lee did not desert +Jerry. As they walked away from the office, she whispered assuringly to +Jerry: "Dr. Caton thinks you had better go into the Third Form room--for +a term, at least." Accordingly she led her into one of the smaller study +rooms. And there was Gyp smiling and beckoning her to an empty desk +beside her. But Miss Lee took Jerry to her classrooms; she introduced +her to Miss Briggs, the geometry teacher, then to Miss Gray of the +English department, and on to the French room and to the Ancient History +classroom. Bewildered, Jerry answered countless questions and registered +her name over and over. + +"There, my dear, you're settled for this term, at least," declared Miss +Lee as they left the last classroom, "Now go back to your study-room and +take that desk that Gyp Westley's saving for you." + +Assigned to classes and with a desk of her own--and with Gyp close at +hand--Jerry felt like a real Lincolnite and her unhappy shyness vanished +as though by magic. During the long recess that followed, the bad +half-hour forgotten, with a budding confidence born of her sense of +"belonging," she sought the other "new" girls. Among them was Patricia +Everett, who came directly to Jerry. + +"I know you're Jerry Travis. I'm Aunt Pen Everett Allan's niece. I'm +crazy to go and visit Cobble Mountain. That's very near your home, isn't +it?" So sincere was her interest that Jerry felt as though she was +suddenly surrounded by a wealth of friendship. Patricia seemed to know +everyone else--they were nearly all Girl Scouts in her troop; she +introduced Jerry to so many girls that poor Jerry could not remember a +single name. + +Ginny Cox, spying Jerry from across the room, bolted to her. + +"You're going to sign up for basketball, aren't you? Of course you are. +Wait right here--I'll call Mary Starr." She rushed away and before Jerry +could catch her breath she returned with a tall, pleasant-faced girl who +carried a small leather-bound notebook in her hand. + +She wrote Jerry's name in it and went away. + +"Miss Travis, will you sign up for hockey?" Jerry, on familiar ground, +eagerly assented to this. Her name went into another book. Another girl +waylaid her. She signed for swimming. She noticed that the others around +her were doing the same thing. Patricia brought a girl to her whom she +introduced as Peggy Lee. Peggy carried a notebook, too. + +"Will you sign up for the debating club, Miss Travis?" she asked with a +dignity that was belied by her roguish eyes. + +Jerry was quite breathless; she had never debated in her life--but then +she had never played basketball either. + +"Oh, do sign. We're all joining and it's awfully exciting," pleaded +Patricia. So Jerry signed for the debates. + +"When_ever_ will I find time to study Latin and geometry? I know I'm +going to be dumb in that," cried Jerry, that evening, to the Westley +family. She spoke with such real conviction that everyone laughed. + +Uncle Johnny had "dropped in." He was as eager as though he was a +schoolboy, himself, to hear the children's experiences of the day. +Though they all talked at once, he managed to understand nearly all that +they were telling. + +"And you, Jerry-girl, what did you think of it all?" + +Because she had felt like one little drop in a very big puddle, Jerry +simply couldn't tell. But her eyes were shining. Gyp broke in. "Jerry +could be a Junior if she wanted to, but she's going to stay in my +study-room for awhile. And they've signed her up for _every single +thing_!" + +Jerry, ignorant of Lincoln traditions, did not know that this was a +tribute. + +Then she had wondered when, with everything else, she would find time +for her Cicero and geometry. + +"Who you got? Speck-eyes?" + +"Graham----" cried Mrs. Westley. "I will _not_ have you speaking in that +way of your teachers!" + +Graham colored; he knew that this was a point upon which his mother had +always been very firm. + +"Oh, Miss Briggs is all _right_--I like her, but all the fellows call +her that." + +"Do you suppose they'll nickname Miss Lee?" + +To Jerry it seemed that _that_ would be sacrilege--she was too dear! +Uncle John had, then, to hear all about her. He was much interested, he +had not realized that she was grown-up enough to teach. + +"But she really doesn't seem a bit so," Gyp explained. + +Then quite suddenly Graham asked Jerry: "Say, Jerry, who was your +guardian?" + +Jerry's face turned very red. She caught a defiant look from Isobel. She +did not want to answer; even the ethics of the little school at Miller's +Notch had had no tolerance for a telltale. + +"A--a Senior. She couldn't find me." + +Poor Jerry--Graham's careless inquiry had dimmed her enthusiasm. Why +hadn't Isobel found her? With the friendliness of spirit that was such a +part of the very atmosphere of Lincoln, why had Isobel, alone, stood +aloof? She looked at Isobel--she was so pretty now as she talked, with +animation, to Uncle Johnny. Jerry thought, as she watched her, that +she'd rather have Isobel love her than any of those other nice girls she +had met at Highacres--Patricia Everett, Ginny Cox, Peggy Lee, Keineth +Randolph---- + +"I'll just _make_ her," she vowed, gathering up her shiny new +school-books. And that solemn vow was to help Jerry over many a rough +spot in the schooldays to come. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SECRET DOOR + + +The routine of Jerry's new life shaped into pleasant ways. She felt more +like Jerry Travis and less like a dream-creature living in a golden +world she had brought around her by wishing on a wishing-rock. She could +not have found a moment in which to be homesick; twice a week she wrote +back to Sweetheart and Little-Dad long scrawly letters that would have +disgraced her in the eyes of Miss Gray of the English department, but +expressed such utter happiness and contentment that Mrs. Travis, with a +little regret, dismissed the fear that Jerry would be lonely away from +her and Sunnyside. + +After the first week of school the girls and boys settled down to what +Graham called "digging." Geometry looked less formidable to Jerry, +Cicero was like a beautiful old friend, Gyp was with her in English and +history, Ginny Cox was in one of her classes, too, and Jerry liked her +better each day. Patricia Everett was teaching her to play tennis until +basketball practice began. + +There were the pleasant walks to and from school through the city +streets, whose teeming life never failed to fascinate Jerry; the jolly +recess, breaking the school session, when the girls gathered around the +long tables and ate their lunch; and then the afternoon's play on the +athletic field at Highacres. + +Had old Peter Westley ever pictured, as he sat alone in his great empty +house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled +over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps, +to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices; +perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the +threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women +would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy or girl. + +One afternoon Gyp and Jerry lingered in the school building to prepare a +history lesson from references they had to find in the library. Gyp +hated to study; the drowsy stillness of the room was broken by the +pleasant shouting from the playground outside. She threw down her pencil +and stretched her long arms. + +"Oh, goodness, Jerry--let's stop. We can ask mother all these things." + +Jerry was quite willing to be tempted. She, too, had found it hard to +hold her attention to the Thirty-one Dynasties. + +Gyp leaned toward her. "I'll tell you--let's go exploring. There are all +the rooms in the back we've never seen." + +During the past six months workmen had been rebuilding the rear wing of +Highacres into laboratories. The changes had not been completed. Gyp and +Jerry climbed over materials and tools and little piles of rubbish, +poking inquisitive noses into every corner. Now and then Gyp stopped to +ask a workman a few questions. They stumbled around in the basement +where in a few weeks there would be a very complete machine-shop and +carpentry room. Then they found a stairway that led to the upper floors +and scampered up it. + +"Oh, Jerry Travis, I _wish_ you could see yourself," laughed Gyp as they +paused on the third floor. + +"Your face is dirty, too," Jerry retorted. + +"Isn't this fun? It doesn't seem a bit like school, does it? I wonder if +they're ever going to use these rooms. Let's play hide-and-seek. I'll +blind and count twenty and you hide and we mustn't make a _sound_!" +which, you know, is a very hard thing to do when one is playing +hide-and-seek. + +Gyp's charm--and there was much charm in this lanky girl--lay in her +irrepressible spirits. Gyp was certain--and every boy and girl of her +acquaintance knew it--to find an opportunity for "fun" in the most +unpromising circumstances. No one but Gyp could have known what fun it +would be to play hide-and-seek in the halls and rooms of the third floor +of Highacres--especially when one had to step very softly and bite one's +lips to keep back any sound! + +It was Jerry's turn to blind. She leaned her arm against the narrow +frame of a panel painting of George Washington that was set in the wall +at a turn in the corridor. As she rested her face against her arm she +felt the picture move ever so slightly under her pressure. Startled, she +stepped back. Slowly, as though pushed by an invisible hand, the panel +swung out into the corridor. + +"_Gyp_----" cried Jerry so sharply that Gyp appeared from her +hiding-place in a twinkling. "Look--what I did!" Jerry felt as though +the entire building might slowly and sedately collapse around her. + +"For goodness' sake," cried Gyp, staring. She swung the panel out. "It's +a _door_! Jerry Travis, _it's a secret door_!" She put her head through +the narrow opening. "Jerry----" she reached back an eager hand. +"Look--it's a stairway--a secret stairway!" + +Jerry put her head in. Enough light filtered through a crack above so +that the girls could make out the narrow winding steps. They were very +steep and only broad enough for one person to squeeze through. + +"Come on, Jerry, let's----" + +"Gyp, you don't know where it'll take you----" Jerry suddenly remembered +their poor princess in her dungeon. + +"Silly--nothing could hurt us! Come on. Close the panel--there, like +that. I'll go first." She led the way, Jerry tiptoeing gingerly behind +her. + +The door at the top gave under Gyp's push and to their amazement the +girls found themselves in the tower room. + +It was a square room with a sloping ceiling and narrow windows; there +was nothing in the least unusual about it. Gyp and Jerry looked about +them, vaguely disappointed. It might have been, with its litter of old +furniture, chests of books, piles of magazines and papers, an attic room +in any house. The October sunshine filtered in thin bars through the +dust-stained windows, cobwebs festooned themselves fantastically +overhead. The opening that led to the secret stairway appeared, on the +inside of the room, to be a built-in bookcase on the shelves of which +were now piled an assortment of hideous bric-a-brac which Mrs. Robert +Westley had refused to take into her own home. + +"Well, it's fun, anyway, just having the secret stairway," decided Gyp, +scowling at what she mentally called the "junk" about her. "_Why_ do you +suppose Uncle Peter had it built in?" + +Jerry could offer no explanation. + +"Hadn't we ought to tell someone?" + +Gyp scorned the thought--part with their precious secret--let everybody +know that that imposing portrait of George Washington hid a _secret +door_? Why, even mother and Uncle Johnny couldn't know it--it was their +very own secret! + +"I should say _not_. At least----" she added, "not for awhile. I guess +I'm a Westley and I have a right to come up here." Which argument +sounded very convincing to Jerry. + +"Oh, I have the grandest idea," Gyp dragged Jerry to the faded +window-seat and plumped down upon it so hard that it sent a little cloud +of dust about them. "Let's get up a secret society--like the horrid old +Sphinxes." + +Fraternities and sororities were not allowed in Lincoln School, but from +time to time there had sprung up secret bands of boys and girls, that +held together by irrevealable ties for a little while, then passed into +school history. One of these was the Sphinxes. They were annoyingly +mysterious and dark rumors were current that their antics, if known, +would not meet, in the least, the approval of the Lincoln faculty. +Isobel was a Sphinx, most faithful to her vows, so that all the teasing +and bribing that Graham's and Gyp's fertile brains could contrive, +failed to drag one tiny truth from her. + +Of course Jerry had been at Lincoln long enough to know all about the +Sphinxes. And she knew, too, that Gyp meant to suggest a society that +would be like the Sphinxes only in that it was secret. She could not be +one of that Third Form study-room without sharing the general scorn of +the Sophomores for the Senior Sphinxes. + +"We can meet up here, you see--once a week. And let's have it a secret +society that'll stand ready to serve Lincoln with their very lives--like +those secret bands of men in the South--after the Civil War." + +Jerry declared, of course, that Gyp's suggestion was "wonderful." + +"We'll have a real initiation when we'll all swear our allegiance to +Lincoln School forever and ever and we'll have spreads and it'll be such +fun making every one wonder where we meet. And we'll have terribly funny +signs." + +"What'll we call it?" asked Jerry, ashamed that she could offer nothing +to the plan. + +"Let's call it the Ravens and Serpents--that sounds so awful and we +won't be at all. And a crawly snake is such a dreadful symbol and it's +easy to draw." Gyp's brain worked at lightning pace in its initiative. + +"What girls shall we ask?" + +Gyp rattled off a number of names. They were all girls who were in the +Third Form study-room. + +"Can't we ask Ginny Cox?" + +Gyp considered. "No," she answered decidedly. "She'd be fun but she's +too chummy with Mary Starr and Mary Starr's a Sphinx. We can't ask her." + +Gyp was right, of course, Jerry thought, but she wished Ginny Cox might +be invited to join. + +"Let's go down now. Oh, won't it be fun? Swear, Jerauld Travis, that +burning irons won't drag our secret from you!" + +"Nothing will make me tell," promised Jerry. They stole down the +stairway, moved George Washington carefully back into place, tiptoed to +the main floor and out into the sunshine. + +Thus did the secret order of the "Ravens and Serpents" have its birth. +Gyp assembled various symbols, impressive in their terribleness, that, +during the study hours of the next day, conveyed, with the help of +whispered explanations and a violent exchange of notes, invitations to +six other girls to join the new order. And after the close of school +eight pupils elected to remain indoors, ostensibly to study; eight heads +bent diligently over the long oak table in the library until a safe +passage into the deserted halls above was assured. Then Gyp and Jerry +led the new Ravens to the secret door where, in a sepulchral whisper, +Gyp extracted a solemn promise from each that she would not divulge the +secret of the hidden stairway. One by one, quite breathless with +excitement, they climbed to the tower room where Gyp with ridiculous +solemnity called "to order" the first assembly of the Ravens and +Serpents of Lincoln School. + +[Illustration: ONE BY ONE, QUITE BREATHLESS WITH EXCITEMENT, THEY +CLIMBED TO THE TOWER ROOM] + +All the Ravens agreed with Gyp that their secret society must pledge +itself to protect and serve the spirit of Lincoln; then, having disposed +of that they fell, eagerly, to discussing plans for "spreads." + +"Let's take turns bringing eats." + +"How often shall we meet?" + +"Let's meet every Wednesday. Melodia always makes tarts on Tuesday and +maybe I can coax her to make some extra ones," offered Patricia Everett. + +"And the dancing class is in the gym. then and no one will notice us." + +"We ought to have knives and forks and things like a regular club!" + +"And a president and a secretary." + +"I ought to be president." Gyp's tone was final. + +The other Ravens assented amicably. "Of course you ought to be. And +Jerry can be secretary because she helped find this spliffy room." + +"Girls, at the next meeting let's each bring a knife, fork, spoon, plate +and cup." + +"Oh, _won't_ it be fun?" A Raven pirouetted on her toes in a most +unparliamentary and unbird-like fashion. + +"Pat and I'll bring the eats next Wednesday," declared Peggy. "Some one +has to start." + +"If we've decided everything we have to decide this meeting's +adjourned," and without further formal procedure Gyp summarily brought +to an end the first meeting of the Ravens. After a merry half-hour they +tiptoed down the secret stairway, George Washington went back into his +place on the wall and the eight girls scattered, each to her own home, +with hearts that were fairly bursting with excitement. + +That evening at the dinner table Gyp, very obviously, made a secret sign +to Jerry. She brought one hand, with a little downward, spiral movement, +to rest upon the other hand, the first two fingers of each interlocked. + +"Oh! Oh! That's a secret sign you made," cried Tibby. + +"Well, maybe it is," answered Gyp, putting her spoon in her soup with +assumed indifference. + +"Some silly girls' society, I'll bet," put in Graham with a tormenting +grin. + +Gyp had passed beyond the age when Graham's teasing could disturb her. +She smiled to show how little she minded his words. + +"You'll know, my dear brother, _sometime_, whether we're silly or not," +she answered with beautiful dignity. "_We're_ not a society that's +organized just for _fun_!" Which was, of course, a slap at the Sphinxes. +Isobel roused suddenly to an active interest in the discussion. + +"You're just copy-cats," she declared, with a withering scorn that +brought Graham to Gyp's defence. + +No wonder Jerry never found a moment in the Westley home dull! + +"_You_ needn't think," he shot across the table at Isobel, "that 'cause +you have waves in your hair you're the whole ocean!" + +"Funny little boy," Isobel retorted, trying hard to hold back her anger. +"Mother, I should think you'd make Graham stop using his horrid slang!" + +"That's not slang--that's _idiotmatic_ English," added Graham, smiling +mischievously at his mother. He chuckled. "You should have heard Don +Blacke in geom. class to-day. He got up and said: 'Two triangles are +equal if two sides and the included angle of one are equal +_respectfully_ to two sides,' and when we all laughed he got sore as a +cat!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DEBATE + + +"Gyp--_what_ do you think has happened?" Jerry frantically clutched +Gyp's arm as they met outside of the study-room door. Jerry did not wait +for Gyp to "think." "My name's been drawn for the debate--this Friday +night! Miss Gray just told me. I'm taking Susan Martin's place." + +"What _fun_----" + +Jerry had wanted sympathy. "Not fun at all! I am scared to death." + +A bell rang and Gyp scampered off to her classroom, leaving Jerry to go +to her desk, sit down and contemplate with a heavy heart the task that +lay before her. She had never so much as spoken a "piece" in her life; +since coming to Highacres she had listened, with fascination, to the +weekly discussion of current topics, envying the ease with which the +boys and girls of the room contributed to it. She had wondered whether +she could ever grow so accustomed to large groups of people as to be +able to talk before them. Now Miss Gray, waving in her face the little +pink slip that had done all the damage, was driving her to the test. + +However, there had been a great deal in Jerry's simple childhood, spent +on the trails of Kettle Mountain, that had given to her an indomitable +courage for any challenge. Real fear--that horrible funk that turns the +staunchest heart cowardly, Jerry had never known--what she had sometimes +called fear had been only the little heartquake of expectation. + +Once, when she was twelve years old, she had ventured to climb Rocky +Point, alone, in search of the first arbutus of the year. Spring had +come to the lower slopes of the mountain but its soft hand was just +breaking the upper crusts of ice and snow. As she climbed up the trail a +deep rumble warned her that a snowslide was approaching. She had only +the briefest moment to decide what to do--if she retraced her steps she +must surely be overtaken! Near her was a tall crag of rock that jutted +out from the wooded slope of the trail; on this she might be safe. With +desperate haste she climbed it and, as she clung to its rough surface, +tons of ice and snow thundered past her, shaking her stronghold, +uprooting the smaller trees, piling in fantastic shapes against the +sturdier. As Jerry watched it had been fascination, not terror, that had +caught the breath in her throat; she had not recognized the threat of +Death; she had glimpsed only the picture of her beloved Kettle angrily +shaking old Winter from his mighty shoulders. + +So, as Jerry sat there in the study-room, her frowning eyes focussed on +a spot straight ahead of her, her spirit slowly rose to meet the +challenge of the debate. These others had all had to live through their +"first," ease had come to them only with practice, she reminded herself. + +It was pleasantly exciting, too, to be surrounded, after school, by a +group of interested schoolmates, each with a suggestion. + +"Just keep your hands tight behind your back," offered one. + +"I 'most choked to death in one debate," recalled Peggy Lee, laughing. +"I had a cough-drop in my mouth to make my voice smooth and when it came +my turn I was so scared I couldn't swallow it and there I had to talk +with that thing in my cheek, and every minute or two it'd get out and +'most strangle me! Oh, it was dreadful. I don't believe that story about +Demosthenes and the pebble." + +"I'd get some famous orator's speeches and practice 'em. It makes what +you say sound grand!" + +"Don't _look_ at anybody--just keep your eyes way up," declared Pat +Everett, whose experience went no farther than reciting four French +verses before a room full of fond parents, at Miss Prindle's +boarding-school. + +All of this advice Jerry took solemnly to heart. Gyp volunteered to help +her. Gyp was far more concerned that she should practice the arts of +oratory than that she should build up convincing arguments for her side +of the question. From the Westley library Gyp dug out a volume of +"Famous Speeches by Famous Men." Curled in the deep rocker in Jerry's +room she searched its pages. + +"Listen, Jerry--isn't this grand? 'Let us pause, friends, let us feel +the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the +order to advance, let us behold the wild charge, the glistening +bayonets, the rushing horses, the blinding----'" + +"But, Gyp, that's nothing about the Philippine Islands!" + +"Of course not--at least all that about the horses and the bayonets--but +you could say, 'Let us pause----' and wave your hand--like this! Here, +he's used it again," her finger traced another line, "it sounds +splendid; so--so sort of--calm." + +Jerry pounced upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had +compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine +Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind +carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic. + +"Wave your hand _out_ when you say: 'Let us pause and consider----' Oh, +that's splendid! Try it again Jerry--slower. You're going to be +_great_!" Gyp's loyal enthusiasm strengthened Jerry's confidence. + +There was for her, too, an added inspiration in the fact that Uncle +Johnny was to be one of the judges. She wanted to do her "very best" for +him. As the school weeks had flown by, each full of joys that Jerry +could realize more than any of the other girls and boys, her gratitude +toward John Westley had grown to such proportions that she ached for +some splendid opportunity to serve him. She had told Gyp, one day, that +she wished she might save his life in some way (preferably, of course, +with the sacrifice of her own), but as Uncle Johnny seemed +extraordinarily careful in front of automobiles and street cars, as the +Westley home was too fireproof to admit of any great fire and there +could not be, in November, any likelihood of a flood, poor Jerry pined +vainly for her great opportunity. Once, when she had tried to tell Uncle +Johnny, shyly, something of how she felt, he had drawn her +affectionately to him. + +"Jerry-girl, you're doing enough right here for my girls to pay me back +for anything I have done." Which Jerry could not understand at all. She +could not know that only the evening before Mrs. Westley had told Uncle +Johnny how Gyp and Tibby had both moved their desks into Jerry's room, +and had added: + +"Gyp and Tibby never quarrel since Jerry came. She has a way of +smoothing everything over--it's her sunniness, I think. Gyp is less +hasty and headstrong and Tibby isn't the cry-baby she was." + +The day before the debate Isobel asked Jerry to show her the arguments +she had prepared. + +"Perhaps I can add some notes that will help you," she explained +condescendingly. + +Poor Jerry went into a flutter of joy over Isobel's apparent interest. +She ran to her room and took from her desk the sheets of paper upon +which were neatly written each step of her argument. She hoped Isobel +would think them good. + +"May I look over them in school?" Isobel asked as she took them. + +Jerry would have consented to anything! All through that day her heart +warmed at the thought of Isobel's friendliness. Like a small cloud +across the happiness of her life at the Westleys had been the +consciousness that Isobel disliked her; Gyp was her shadow, Tibby her +adoring slave, between her and Graham was the knowledge that they two +shared Pepper's loyalty, Mrs. Westley gave her exactly the same +mothering she gave her own girls, but Isobel, through all the weeks, had +maintained a covert indifference and coldness that hurt more than sharp +words. Now--Jerry told herself--Isobel must like her a little bit! + +Jerry discovered, when Friday night came, that the Lincoln debates were +popular events in the school life. Every girl and boy of Lincoln +attended; on the platform the faculty made an imposing background for +the three judges. Six empty chairs were placed, three on each side, for +the debaters who were to come up upon the stage at the finish of the +violin solo that opened the program. + +In the back of the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the +boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily +dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her +belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. +Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a +patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since +she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. +Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization of what +a ridiculous figure she would present, walking up before everybody in +her brown poplin that she knew now was different from any other dress +she had seen at school. And Jerry could not get that shiny pump out of +her mind! Her own feet, in their sturdy black, square-toed shoes, +commenced to assume such elephantine proportions that, when the signal +came for the debaters to go forward, she could scarcely drag them along! + +How much more weighty could her arguments be if she only had on a pretty +dress--like Cora Stanton's; if she could only sit there in her chair +smiling--like Cora Stanton--down at the girls she knew instead of +crossing and uncrossing her dreadful feet! + +After an interval that seemed endless to Jerry, Cora Stanton rose and +made a graceful little bow, first to the judges, then to the audience. +The speakers had agreed among themselves how much ground in the argument +each should cover; Cora Stanton was to outline the conditions in the +Philippine Islands before the United States had taken them over, Jerry +was to show what the United States had done and how qualified the +Islands were, now, to govern themselves, and Stephen Curtiss was to +conclude the argument for the affirmative by proving that, in order to +maintain a safe balance of power among the eastern nations of the world +it was necessary that the Philippine Islands should be self-governing. + +A hush followed the burst of applause that greeted Cora. Jerry settled +back in her chair with something like relief--the thing had begun. She +caught a little smile from Uncle Johnny that gave her courage. She must +listen carefully to what Cora said. + +But as Cora, prettily at ease, began speaking, in a clear voice, Jerry +grew rigid, paralyzed by the storm of amazement, unbelief and anger that +surged over her. For Cora Stanton was presenting, word for word, the +arguments _she had prepared and written on those sheets of paper_! + +And in the very front row sat Isobel, with Amy Mathers, their +handkerchiefs wadded to their lips to keep back their laughter. + +It was very easy for poor Jerry to recognize the treachery. She was too +angry to feel hurt. And, more than anything, she was too confused--for, +when it came her turn, what was _she_ going to say? + +Wildly she searched her mind for something clear and coherent on the +hideous subject and all that would come was Gyp's "let us pause--let us +feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear +the order to advance--the wild charge----" + +She did not hear one word that the first speaker on the negative side +uttered, but the clapping that followed brought her to a pitiful +consciousness. + +She rose to her feet, somehow--those feet of hers still twice their +size--and stepped out toward the edge of the platform. A thousand spots +of black and white that were eyes and noses and hats danced before her; +she heard a suppressed titter from the front row. Then, out of it all +came Gyp's strained face. Gyp was leaning a little forward, anxiously. + +Jerry gulped convulsively. From somewhere a voice, not in the least like +her own, began: "You have been shown what the United States has done--" +(no, no--Cora Stanton had said _that_!) "I mean we must go back (that +was quite new) to--I mean--the ideals of America have been transplanted +to----" (oh, Cora Stanton had said _that_)! Jerry choked. Out of the +horror strained Gyp's agonized face. She lifted her chin, she must say +_something_---- + +"Let us pause (ah, familiar ground at last)--let us pause----" There was +a dreadful silence. "Let us pause and--and--let us pause----" + +With the last word all power of speech died in Jerry's throat! With a +convulsive movement she rushed back to her seat. If they'd only +laugh--that crowd out there in the room. But that silence---- + +Then, before anyone could stir, Dana King, the second speaker on the +negative side, leaped to his feet with a burst of oratory that was +obviously for the sole purpose of distracting attention from poor Jerry. +And something in the good nature of his act, in his reckless wandering +from the subject of the debate to gain his end, won everyone's +admiration. As one wakes from a consuming nightmare so poor Jerry roused +from her stupor of ignominy; she forgot Isobel, in the front row, and +clapped with the others when Dana King finished. + +Then came a determination to redeem herself in the rebuttal! She had +caught something of the fire of Dana King's tone. She was conscious, +now, of only two persons in the room, Gyp and Uncle Johnny. She turned, +as she rose again to speak, so that she might look squarely at Uncle +Johnny. Now she had no clamor of words jingling in her brain; very +simply she set against the arguments of her opponent the full weight of +those she had herself prepared--Cora Stanton, who had learned them at +the last moment, parrot-fashion, had found herself, in rebuttal, left +floundering quite helplessly. + +Dana King, speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis +had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only +one premise to fall back upon"--and Jerry had decided then, with +something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy she had ever, +ever known. + +There was tumultuous applause when the judges announced that the +affirmative had won. And there was a little grumbling that Dana King had +"sold" his side. + +Jerry, wanting to hide her ignominy, contrived to get away without +seeing Uncle Johnny. She could not, of course, escape Gyp, who declared +valiantly and defiantly that she had been "splendid." + +Gyp had not closely followed Cora Stanton's address, so she had not +guessed the truth, and Jerry could not tell her--Jerry could not tell +anyone. For, if she did, it must be traced to Isobel, and Isobel was +Uncle Johnny's niece. At that very moment Uncle Johnny was talking, down +in the front of the Assembly room, to Isobel and Amy Mathers, and he +stood with one arm thrown over Isobel's shoulder. + +But, alone in her own room, the pent-up passion that had been searing +poor Jerry's soul burst; with furious fingers she tore off the brown +poplin dress and threw it into a corner. + +"Ugly--horrid--hideous--old--thing! I _hate_ it!" It was not, of course, +the brown poplin alone she hated! The offending shoes followed the brown +dress. "I hate _everything_ about me! I wish--I wish--to-morrow would +never come! I wish----" Jerry threw herself face downward upon her bed. +"I wish I--was--home!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AUNT MARIA + + +"A letter from Aunt Maria," announced Graham, appearing at the door of +his mother's little sitting room, a large, square lavender envelope in +his hand. He carried it gingerly between a thumb and finger, and as far +as he could from his upturned nose, "I'd suggest, mother, that you put +on my gas-mask before you open it!" + +Gyp and Tibby laughed uproariously at his wit. Mrs. Westley reached for +the envelope. + +"Poor Aunt Maria, she must be so glad that the war is over and she can +get her favorite French sachet." + +Isobel perched herself upon the arm of her mother's chair. + +"Hurry, read it, mother." + +"I'll bet she's coming to visit us," groaned Gyp. + +"Don't expect us to throw away money, sis! She never writes 'cept when +she _is_ coming. Break the news, mum; is it to be a little stay of a +year or more?" + +Mrs. Westley lifted laughing eyes from the open letter. + +"She says she will come next Wednesday to spend a few days with us. She +is very sorry that that must be all--she is on her way to New York to +consult a famous nerve specialist. She sends love to 'the beautiful +children.'" + +Jerry was very curious--no one had ever mentioned an Aunt Maria! So Gyp +and Graham hastened to explain that Aunt Maria wasn't a _real_ aunt but +was "only" Isobel's godmother and something of a nuisance--to the +younger Westleys. + +"She doesn't give us presents," Graham concluded. + +"She's forgotten all the things she 'did promise and vow' when Isobel +was baptized. She had a fad, then, for godchildren; she used to go +around picking out the girl babies who had blue eyes. She was a friend +of Grandmother Duncan's and mother couldn't refuse her. She has nine +altogether and always gives them the same things." + +"And every time you see her she has a new fad," added Graham. "Once she +was a suffragist but she switched because the suffs didn't serve tea at +their meetings and the antis did. One time she was building a home for +Friendless Females and another time she was organizing the poor +underpaid shop girls, and the next----" + +"Mother, listen," broke in Isobel. She had taken the letter from her +mother and had been re-reading it. "She says she's going to France next +spring and she's thinking about taking one of her godchildren with her. +She's studying French and she wants us to talk French to her while she +is here----" + +"Well, I guess _not_! _I'll_ eat in the kitchen," vowed Graham. + +Gyp commenced to chuckle. "Let's say a whole lot of funny things in +French--like when Sue Perkins translated 'the false teeth of the young +man' and Mademoiselle sent her out of class." + +"Mother!" Isobel's brain was working rapidly. "_I_ ought to be the +goddaughter she picks out." She did not consider it necessary to explain +to her family the process of reasoning by which the other eight were +eliminated. "Wouldn't it be wonderful?" But her beautiful vision was +threatened by the mischief written in every line of Gyp's and Graham's +faces. "Mother, _won't_ you make the children promise to behave?" + +"_Children_----" snorted Graham. + +"----if they act dreadful the way they always do when Aunt Maria's here, +they'll spoil all my chances!" Isobel was sincerely distressed. + +"My dear," her mother laughed. "Don't build your castles in Spain--or +France--quite so fast. I am not sure I would _let_ you go over with Aunt +Maria. But Gyp and Graham must promise to be very nice to Aunt Maria +because she is an old lady----" + +"But, mother, she's not exactly old; she's just--funny!" + +"Anyway, Gyp, she will be our guest." + +"_Make_ them promise, mother----" + +"Oh, you're just thinking of yourself----" declared Graham. + +"Children, let's not spoil this Saturday by worrying over Aunt Maria. +Even though, sometimes, she is very trying, I know each one of you will +help make her visit pleasant and we'll overlook her little oddities. Who +wants to drive down to the market with me?" + +Gyp and Jerry begged eagerly to go; Tibby had to take a swimming lesson; +Graham was going out to Highacres to practice football; Isobel said she +preferred to stay home; "one of the girls" had promised to call up, she +explained, a little evasively. + +Mrs. Westley smothered the tiniest of sighs behind a smile; Isobel was +living so apart from the rest of the family, she never seemed, now, to +want to share the activities of the others. Her mother had always +enjoyed, so much, taking her biggest girl everywhere with her; she had +not believed that the time could come when Isobel would refuse to go. + +Driving through the city with Jerry and Gyp beside her, Mrs. Westley, +still thinking of Isobel, turned suddenly to Jerry. + +"_How_ your mother must miss _you_, dear," she said. Jerry was startled. + +"Oh, do you think so?" she answered, anxiously. + +"I mean--I was just thinking--mother love is such a _hungry_ love, +dear." + +"Well----" Jerry, very thoughtful, tried to recall the exact words her +mother had once used. "When I was little, mother used to tell me a +story. She said that her heart was a little garden with a very high wall +built of love and that I lived there, as happy as could be, for the sun +was always shining and everything was bright and the wall kept away all +the horrid things. But there was a gate in the wall with a latch-way +high up; I had to grow big before I could lift the latch and go through +the wall--and she made lovely flowers grow over the little gate, too, so +that perhaps I might not find it! I always liked the story, but once I +asked mother what she'd do if I found the gate and went out of the +garden for just a little while and she answered me that the garden would +be very quiet, but the sun would go on shining because our love was +there. Now I'm older I think I understand the story, and maybe coming +here was like going through the gate. But if it _is_ like the story, +then mother knows how much I love her, so she won't be _dreadfully_ +lonely--only a little bit, maybe." + +"What a beautiful story," Mrs. Westley's eyes glistened. "I would like +to hear her tell it! Some day I want to know your mother, Jerry." + +That was such a pleasant thought--her dear mother meeting Mrs. Westley, +who was almost as nice as her mother--that Jerry's face grew bright +again. She answered the pressure of Mrs. Westley's fingers with an +affectionate squeeze. + +Except for the first dreadful ordeal of facing her schoolmates and the +hurt of Isobel's unkindness, Jerry had suffered little from the ignominy +of the debate. And she had found that the girls, instead of laughing at +her, envied her because Dana King had so gallantly come to her rescue! + +"You should have seen Isobel Westley's face--she was _furious_," Ginny +Cox had confided to her. And Jerry would not have been human if she had +not felt a momentary thrill of satisfied revenge. + +The attention of the younger Westleys was centered, during the +intervening days, on Aunt Maria's approaching visit. Isobel was much +disturbed over the dire hints which Gyp and Graham dropped at different +times. One of Graham's friends had a pet snake and Graham had asked to +borrow it "just over Wednesday." + +"It'll strengthen her nerves better'n any old doctor," Graham declared, +loftily. + +"Mother, _do_ you hear them----" appealed Isobel, almost in tears. + +Isobel had been building for herself a rosy dream; she had even, +casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going +abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater--you know her mother +was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a +beautiful château near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the +time----" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no +one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her +room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel +corridors, to the Opera, to the little French shops, driving beside Aunt +Maria through the Bois de Boulogne and walking on the Champs Élysées, +admired everywhere, envied, too. And perhaps, through Aunt Maria's +relatives (it was very easy in the dark to pretend that there _was_ a +Marquis of Balencourt) she might meet a handsome, dashing young +Frenchman who would go quite crazy about her, and it would be such fun +writing home to the girls---- + +"Graham," and Mrs. Westley made her voice very stern. "You must not play +a single trick on Aunt Maria!" + +"But, mother, she may stay on and on----" + +"If you'll be very good," Mrs. Westley blushed a little, for she knew +she was "buying" her children, "while Aunt Maria's here I'll take you +all to see 'The Land o'Dreams.'" + +"We promise! We promise!" came in an eager assent. + +"I'll tell Joe I don't want his snake," said Graham. + +"I won't laugh all the while she's here," declared Gyp. + +"We'll be angelic, mother," they chorused, and they really meant it. + +Aunt Maria's arrival, an hour before dinner, was nothing short of +majestic. The taxi-driver (by a slight effort of the imagination easily +transformed into a uniformed lackey) unloaded a half-dozen bags and +boxes; next there alighted from the taxi a trim little maid in black +with a rug over her arm, a hamper in one hand, a square leather box, +books and magazines in the other. Then, by degrees, Aunt Maria emerged, +first a purple hat, covered with nodding purple plumes, then a very red +face, turned haughtily away from the driver, whom she was calling +"robber"; yards and yards of purple velvet hung and swished about her, +while a wide ermine mantle, set about her shoulders, added the royal +touch without which the picture would have been spoiled! + +"Isn't she _gor-ge-ous_?" whispered Gyp to Jerry as they peeped over +Mrs. Westley's shoulder. + +Jerry thought Aunt Maria very grand--she was like the picture of the +Duchess in her old Alice in Wonderland, only much more regal. It seemed +to her that the entire Westley family should bow their heads to the +floor--instead Mrs. Westley was embracing the purple and ermine in the +most informal sort of a way! + +"----_such_ a train--a _disgrace_ to the government, but then the +government is going _all_ to pieces, I believe! And that miserable +_robber_ of a taxi man! _Mon Dieu!_" She suddenly remembered her French, +"Ma chere amie Beaux Infants!" She sputtered her newly-acquired phrases +with little guttural accents. She beamed upon them all, graciousness (as +became a duchess) in every nod of the purple plumes. With the tips of +her fat, jeweled fingers she touched Isobel's cheek. "Plus jolie que +jamais, ma chere!" + +"Nous sommes si heureux de vous avoir ici, chere Aunt Maria," answered +Isobel, falteringly. + +"Aunt _Marie_, my dear. I have forsaken the good name that was given to +me in baptism. One _must_ keep apace with the times, and though Maria +might be good enough for my greatgrandmother, my parents did not foresee +that it was scarcely suitable for _me_!" The purple folds swelled +visibly. "Peregrine, carry my bags upstairs." + +That was plainly more than one Peregrine could do. It was the welcome +signal for a general movement--none too soon; one glance at Gyp and +Graham told that a moment more must have broken their pretty manner! + +Peregrine took one bag, Graham seized two, Gyp and Jerry tugged one +between them. The procession marched up the stairway to the guest-room. +Gyp and Jerry heard Aunt Maria, behind them, explaining that Peregrine's +name was really Sarah! + +"I changed it--Peregrine is so much more 'chic.' I'm teaching her French +myself; in a little while she'll pass as a French maid and she will have +all the plain common-sense of her Hoosier bringing-up which those +fly-by-night French maids don't. A _very_ good arrangement--_I_ think." + +Thereafter, Peregrine, to the girls, was always Peregrine-Sarah. + +Mrs. Westley, at dinner, looking down the table at the prim, sober faces +of her youngsters, had an irresistible desire to laugh. Graham's solemn +eyes were glued to his plate, Gyp, spotlessly groomed, spoke only in +hoarse whispers, Jerry looked a little frightened--what would she do if +the Duchess should speak to _her_. (Not that there was much danger; Aunt +Maria, except for a "from the wilds of our mountains, how interesting," +had scarcely noticed her.) Isobel sat next to Aunt Maria and was +nervously attentive. + +Aunt Maria was more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels +shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her +head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to +see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in +the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as +even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so +was very easy, for everyone agreed with everything she said, remarked +Isobel with pathetic enthusiasm. Behind her smile Mrs. Westley was +thinking that Maria Drinkwater was a very silly woman! + +Aunt Maria spent most of her time berating the "government." That was +why, she explained, she was going to France. The officials in Washington +were just sitting there letting everything go to the dogs! "_Look_ at +the prices! We're being _robbed_ by Labor--actually robbed, every moment +of our lives!" She clasped her hands and rolled her eyes tragically +upward. "A crêpe de chine chemise--hardly good enough for +Peregrine--_fifteen dollars_! And Congress just talking about the League +of Nations! Ah, mon Dieu!" + +Graham, catching a fleeting glint of laughter in his mother's eyes, +slowly and solemnly winked, then dropped his glance back to his plate. + +"Let's say we have to study," whispered Gyp to Jerry, when the family +moved toward the library. Even Graham welcomed the suggestion. As they +approached Aunt Maria to say good-night, she poked each in the cheek. + +"Not going to wait to have coffee with us? _So_ sensible--it hurts the +complexion! _Nice_ children! Bon soir, Editha. Bon soir, Elizabeth. +What's _your_ name, child? Jerauld? A _nice_ name. Bon soir, Graham!" + +"She's the only creature in the whole world that calls me Editha and +Tibby Elizabeth," cried Gyp disgustedly. "_That's_ why I just can't +endure her!" + +Safe in Jerry's room, Gyp cast off her "company" manner by a series of +somersaults on the pink-and-white bed. + +"Hurray, Jerry, we needn't see her again until to-morrow night! That +Peregrine-Sarah will take her breakfast up on a tray. Wasn't Isobel +funny, trying to be a nice little goddaughter? For goodness' sake, +what's _that_?" + +For there was a wild rush through the hall, then sharp shrieks from the +library! + +Out of consideration for Aunt Maria, Pepperpot had been shut on the +third floor. He would have found the separation from his beloved master +and mistress most irksome if he had not discovered, on Graham's table, +the box of white mice which Graham had brought from the garage during +the afternoon. To pass the time Pepper amused himself by tormenting the +imprisoned mice. When Graham startled him at his pleasant occupation he +jumped so hurriedly from the table that he sent the box tumbling to the +floor. The fall broke the box; the poor mice, mad to escape from their +persecutor, went scampering down the stairs and through the hall, Pepper +in pursuit and Graham frantically trying to catch them all. Of course +the chase led straight to the library! + +Aunt Maria, at the startling interruption, dropped a precious vase she +had been examining to the floor, where it lay in a hundred pieces. With +a shriek and an amazing agility she climbed to the safety of the +davenport. The mice circled the room and fled through another door, +Pepper and Graham after them. In the pantry Graham caught Pepper; Mrs. +Hicks, aided by her broom, succeeded in capturing two of the mice, but +the third escaped. Gyp and Jerry listening from the banisters, their +hands clapped over their mouths to suppress their laughter, heard Isobel +and Mrs. Westley in the library, trying to quiet poor Aunt Maria! + +"We didn't promise we'd make _Pep_ behave," grumbled Graham as they shut +Pepperpot, for punishment--and protection--in Jerry's clothes closet. + +An hour later Jerry heard Isobel, outside of the guest-room door, +bidding Aunt Maria good-night. Jerry thought that she did not blame +Isobel for wanting to go abroad with Aunt Maria; it would be very +wonderful to travel with such a fine lady and with Peregrine! She hoped +Pepper had not spoiled everything! + +Quiet settled over the Westley home. A door opened and shut and +uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it +must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to +the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the +quiet pierced the wildest shrieking--a shrieking that brought back a +frightened Peregrine-Sarah, Graham, leaping in two bounds down the +stairway, Isobel, Mrs. Westley, Gyp and Jerry to the guest-room door! + +In the middle of the room, her hands clasped tragically over her heart, +her mouth open for another shriek, stood Aunt Maria, trembling. Stripped +of her regal trappings she made an abject picture; the snowy puff lay on +her bureau and from under a nightcap, now sadly awry, straggled wisps of +yellow-gray hair. Her round body was warmly clad in a humble flannelette +nightdress, high-necked and long-sleeved. And, strangest of all, her +face was covered with squares and strips of courtplaster! + +"Sarah!" (It was not Peregrine now.) "_Stupid_--standing there like an +_idiot_--my smelling salts! Won't _anyone_ call a doctor? My heart----" +She shrieked again. "This _miserable_ place! These--_brats_!" + +"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has +happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted +shoulders. + +"_Happened_----" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not _enough_ to have my +digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but--oh, my poor heart, to +find a _mouse_ under my pillow----" + +If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque +face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third +little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed! + +Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering +vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed, +bag and baggage. + +Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care, +they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes. + +"_Who_ spoiled it--who did anything?" laughed Graham. + +"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment. + +Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any +interruption; her story was Gyp-like. + +"_You_ say, Uncle Johnny, _did_ we break our promise just 'cause a poor +little mouse hid under her pillow?" + +"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog----" Isobel saw an opportunity +for sweet revenge. "Mother, why don't you send it away? You made Graham +give back that Airedale puppy Mr. Saunders sent him; I don't think it's +fair to keep this horrid old mongrel!" + +Jerry's face darkened. Graham came hotly to Pepper's rescue. + +"He's _not_ a mongrel--he's better'n _any_ old Airedale! He's got more +sense in his _tail_ than Aunt Maria's got in her whole body! If he goes +I'll--I'll--go, too!" + +"Children," protested Mrs. Westley, giving way to the laughter that had +been consuming her from the first moment of Aunt Maria's arrival. "Let's +all feel grateful to Pepper. She's a poor, silly, selfish, vain old +woman, and if she ever comes here again I'm afraid that _I_ won't +promise to be good myself! Isobel Westley, dry your eyes--do you think +I'd let any girl of mine go to France with her? She can take her eight +other goddaughters, if they want to stand her quarreling with every +single person in authority--I won't let her have _my_ girl. Why," she +turned to John Westley and her face was very earnest, "she's such a +_waste_--of human energy, of brains--of just breath! How terrible to +grow old and be like--that." + +Gyp was furtively feeling of her firm cheeks. "I'd rather be ugly, +mother, than wear those funny things. _Look_, mummy," she ran to her +mother's chair and touched her cheek. "_You've_ got a wrinkle! But--I +love it." With passionate tenderness she kissed the spot. + +"I'll take you to France myself some day," laughed Uncle Johnny, patting +Isobel's hand. + +"And can we go to see the 'Land o' Dreams'?" asked Graham, anxiously. + +"Indeed we will--as a celebration," assented his mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PARTY + + +The Christmas holidays brought a welcome respite from the steady grind +of school work. And there was every indication, in the Westley home, +that they were going to be very merry! Mrs. Westley had one fixed rule +for her youngsters: "Work while you work and play while you play." So +she and Uncle Johnny, behind carefully closed doors, planned all sorts +of jolly surprises for the holiday week. + +But Jerry had a little secret, too, all of her own. She had written to +her mother begging to be allowed to go home "just for Christmas." She +had had to write two letters; the first, with its burst of longing, had +sounded so ungrateful that she had torn it up and had written another. +Then she waited eagerly, hopefully, for the answer. + +It came a few days before Christmas, and with it a huge pasteboard box. +Something told Jerry, before she opened the envelope, what her mother +had written. Her lips quivered. + +"...It will be hard for us both, dear child, not to be together on +Christmas, but it seems unwise for you to go to the trouble and expense +of coming home for such a short stay. We are snowed in and you would not +have the relaxation that you need after your long weeks of study. Then, +darling, it would be all the harder to let you go again. I want you to +have the jolliest sort of a holiday and I shall be happy thinking each +day what my little girl is doing. I have had such nice letters from Mrs. +Westley and Mr. John telling all about you--they have been a great +comfort to me. We are sending the box with a breath of Kettle in it. The +bitter-sweet we have been saving for you since last fall...." + +When Jerry opened the box the room filled with the fragrant odor of +pine. In an ecstasy she leaned her face close to the branches and +sniffed delightedly; she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh--it was +as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her +disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet +to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. +Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house +was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a +bit of her pine and a gay cluster of the bitter-sweet. + +The postman's ring brought Gyp's practice, with one awful discord, to an +abrupt finish. In a moment she came bounding up the stairs, two little +white envelopes in her hand. + +"Jerry--we're invited to a real party--Pat Everett's." She tossed one of +the small squares into Jerry's lap. "Hope to die invitations, just like +Isobel gets!" + +Jerry stared at the bit of pasteboard. Gyp's delight was principally +because it was the first "real" evening party to which she had been +invited; it was a milestone in her life--it meant that she was very +grown-up. + +"Jerauld Travis--you don't act a _bit_ excited! It will be heaps of fun +for Pat's father and mother are the jolliest people--and there'll be +dancing and boys--and spliffy eats." + +"I never went to a party--like _that_." Jerry, with something like awe, +lifted the card. + +"Oh, a party's a party, anywhere," declared Gyp loftily, speaking from +the wisdom of her newly-acquired dignity. + +"And--I haven't anything to wear," added Jerry, putting the card down on +her desk with the tiniest sigh. + +Gyp's face clouded; that was too true to be disputed. Her own clothes +would not fit Jerry but Isobel's---- + +"We'll ask Isobel to let you----" + +"No--_no_!" cried Jerry vehemently. Her face flushed. "Don't you +_dare_!" + +Gyp looked aggrieved. "I don't see why not, but if you feel like +that--only, it'll spoil the whole party. Oh----" she suddenly sniffed. +"_What's_ that woodsy smell? Where did you get it?" + +And the pine and the berries made Gyp and Jerry forget, for the moment, +the Everett party. + +The holiday frolics began with the appropriate ceremony of consigning +all the school books to the depths of a great, carved chest in the +library, turning the curious old key in the lock and handing it over to +Mrs. Westley. Jerry had demurred, but she recognized, behind all the +fun, a real firmness. "Every book, my dear! Not one of you children must +peep inside of the cover of even a--story, until I give back the key." +Mrs. Westley pinched Jerry's cheek. "I want to see red rosies again, my +dear girl." + +Christmas eve brought a glad surprise to the family in the unexpected +arrival of Robert Westley. Jerry had wondered a little about Gyp's +father; it was very nice to find him so much like Uncle Johnny that one +liked him at the very first moment. He had, it seemed, resorted to all +sorts of expedients to get from Valparaiso to his own fireside in time +for Christmas, but everyone's delight had made it very worth while. + +"That's one thing that makes up for father being away so much," +explained Gyp. "He 'most always just walks in and surprises us and +brings the jolliest things from queer places." + +On Christmas morning Jerry opened sleepy eyes to find soft flurries of +snow beating against her windows, a piney odor in her nostrils and Gyp +in a red dressing-gown by the side of her bed. + +"Merry Christmas!" In her arms Gyp carried some of the contents of her +own Christmas stocking. "Wake up and see what Santa has brought you!" + +On the bedpost hung a bulging stocking; queer-shaped packages, tied with +red ribbon, were piled close to it, and across the foot of Jerry's bed +lay a huge box. + +"Open this first. What _is_ it? I don't know." Gyp was as excited as +though the box was for her. Jerry untied the cord and lifted the cover. +Within, beneath the folds of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a +blue serge school dress and a fluffy, shimmery party frock; beneath them +a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been +written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus." + +Jerry did not know that ever since the eventful debate there had been +much secret planning between Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley over her +wardrobe. He had realized that night, for the first time, that Jerry, in +her queer, country-made clothes, was at a disadvantage among the city +girls and boys. It was all very well to argue that fine feathers did not +make fine birds--Uncle Johnny knew the heart of a girl well enough to +realize how much a pretty ribbon or a neat new dress could help one hold +one's own! He had wanted to buy out almost an entire store, but Mrs. +Westley had held him in restraint. "You may offend her and spoil your +gift if you make it seem too much," she had warned him. + +Jerry knew too little of the price of the materials that made up her +precious dresses to be distressed with the gift. In rapture she kissed +the shimmering blue folds. And Gyp executed a mad dance in the middle of +the room. + +"_Now_ you've just got to go to the Everett party." + +On Christmas afternoon Mrs. Allan walked into the Westley home. She and +her husband had come to the Everetts for the holidays. She brought a +little gift to Jerry from her mother. It was a daintily embroidered set +of collar and cuffs. Jerry pictured her mother in the lamplight of the +dear living-room at Sunnyside, working the shining needle in and out and +loving every stitch! Oh, it was _much_ nicer than the grandest gift the +stores could offer. + +Christmas past, Gyp and Jerry thought of nothing but the Everett party. +Isobel, flitting here and there like a pretty butterfly, divided her +enthusiasm. She indulged in a patronizing attitude--she would go, of +course, to the Everetts', though it was a kids' party and _she'd_ +probably be bored to death. + +But within a few hours of the Great Event a horrible realization +overtook Gyp's and Jerry's golden anticipation. Santa Claus had +forgotten to put any dancing shoes in the Christmas box! + +The two girls shook their heads dolefully over Jerry's three pairs of +square-toed shoes. + +"I just can't wear _one_ of them," cried Jerry. + +Gyp would not be disappointed. "Then you'll _have_ to squeeze your feet +into my last summer's pumps. They won't hurt very much, and anyway, when +the party begins you'll forget them!" + +Jerry wanted so much to wear the new blue dress that she was persuaded. +Gyp helped her get them on and Jerry stumped about in them--"to get used +to them!" + +"Now, _do_ they hurt awfully?" Gyp asked, in a tone that said, "Of +course they don't," and Jerry, fascinated by the strange girl she saw in +the mirror, answered absently: "Oh, they just feel queer!" + +Anyway, going to a "real" party _was_ too exciting to permit of thinking +of one's feet. Jerry moved as though in a dream. Like Gyp, she felt +delightfully grown-up. The spacious, old-fashioned Everett home was gay +with holiday greens, in one corner an orchestra played, Patricia with +her mother and her older sister greeted each guest in such a jolly way +that one felt in a moment that one was going to have the best sort of a +time. + +For awhile, very happily, Jerry trailed Gyp among the young people, +exchanging merry greetings. Then suddenly dreadful pains began to cut +sharply through her feet; they climbed higher and higher until they +quivered up and down her spine. Poor Jerry found it hard to keep the +tears from her eyes. She limped to a half-hidden corner near the +orchestra, and slipped off the offending pumps. + +Isobel spied her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the +pumps--she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful +smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, +when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not +told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such +moments, she had hardened her heart all the more toward Jerry. She was +savagely jealous, too, over Uncle Johnny's Christmas box to Jerry; she +had figured that the dresses had cost a great deal more than the +bracelet he had given her! So into her head flashed a plan that should +have found no place there, for Isobel was indisputably the prettiest +girl in the room and the most-sought-for dancing partner. + +She beckoned gaily to Dana King. She would kill two birds with one +stone, she thought--though not in just those words; she would have the +pleasant satisfaction of seeing Jerry make a ridiculous figure of +herself trying to dance (for Jerry had told her she only knew the +"old-fashioned" dances) and she would see Dana King embarrassed before +all the others! Isobel had never forgiven him for championing Jerry the +night of the debate. + +"Will you do me a favor, Dana?" she asked sweetly. "Dance with that poor +Jerry Travis over there. She's _perfectly_ miserable." + +Dana hastened, politely, to do what Isobel asked. He had never exchanged +a word with Jerry; however, after the debate, no introduction seemed +necessary. When Jerry saw him approach a flood of color dyed her +cheeks--not from shyness, but because she did not know what to do with +her unshod feet! + +"Will you dance this, Miss Travis?" + +Jerry lifted eyes dark with laughter. She did not look in the least +"perfectly miserable." "I--I--can't!" She put out the tips of her +unstockinged toes. Then she told him how she had had to wear Gyp's +pumps. "And they hurt so dreadfully that I slipped them off and now +_nothing'll_ get them back on. I guess I've got to stay here the rest of +my life." + +There was something so refreshing in Jerry's frankness and +unaffectedness that Dana King sat down eagerly beside her. + +"Let me sit here and talk, then. Say, what on earth was the matter with +you the night of the debate? Was it your shoes--_then_? You _could_ have +talked--I know!" + +He spoke with such conviction that Jerry's eyes shone. + +"No, it wasn't--entirely--my shoes. Something _did_ happen--but I can't +tell. Isn't this the jolliest party? I never went to one before--like +this. There aren't this many people in all Miller's Notch." + +Isobel, watching Jerry's corner, grew very angry when she saw that Dana +King lingered with Jerry. She wondered what on earth Jerry could be +saying that made him laugh so heartily; they were acting as though they +had known one another all their lives. + +Just as Dana King was asking Jerry what she would do if the midnight +hour struck and found her slipperless, Mrs. Allan discovered them. _She_ +had to hear about the pumps, too. + +"You blessed child, I'll get a pair of Pat's--they'd fit anything!" She +returned in a few moments, two shiny, patent-leather toes protruding +from the folds of her spangled scarf. Pat's pumps slipped easily over +Jerry's poor swollen feet. + +"There, now, Cinderella, let's go and get some ice cream." And Dana King +led Jerry through the dancers, past Isobel and a fat boy whose curly red +head only reached to her shoulder, to the dining-room where, around +small tables, boys and girls were devouring all sorts of goodies. + +The party was spoiled for Isobel; not so for Gyp who, besides having had +the jolliest sort of a time herself, was bursting with satisfaction +because Jerry had "captured" the most popular boy in the room. + +"He sat out _six_ dances with you--I counted! He took you to _supper_ I +heard him ask you, Jerry Travis, if you were going out to the school +Frolic. And why did he call you Cinderella?" asked Gyp as the young +people rode homeward. + +Jerry had no intention of telling Isobel of the ignominy of the pumps, +so she answered evasively: "Because it was my first party, I guess," +then, with a long, happy sigh, she cuddled back against Gyp's shoulder +and watched the street lamps flash past. Oh, surely the Wishing-rock had +opened a wonderful new world to little Jerry! + +"Did you tell him it _was_ your first party?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +"Oh--nothing. _I_ wouldn't have been honest 'nough to--I'd have +pretended I'd gone to lots." + +"_I'm_ not going to the Frolic," Isobel broke in. "I'm too old for such +things." + +Gyp straightened indignantly. + +"Too old to coast? Well, I hope _I_ never grow as old as _that_!" she +cried. + +"_You_ never _will_!" was Isobel's withering answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HASKIN'S HILL + + +"Jerry--it's _perfect_! Come and look." Gyp, shivering in her pajamas, +was standing with her small nose flattened against Jerry's cold window. +Downstairs a clock had just chimed seven. + +Jerry sprang from her bed with one bound. She peeped over Gyp's +shoulder. A thaw the day before had made the girls very anxious, but now +a sparkling crust covered the snow and the early sun struck coldly +across the housetops. + +This was the day of the Lincoln Midwinter Frolic. + +"Bring your clothes into my room and we'll dress in front of the fire. +Uh-h-h, isn't it cold? But won't it be _fun_? Don't you wish it was ten +o'clock now? It's going to be the very best part of the whole holiday!" + +Jerry thought so, too, when, a few hours later, she and Gyp joined a +large group of the Lincoln girls and boys at the trolley station. A +special car, attached to the regular interurban trolley, was to take +them and their sleds and skis--and lunch--out to Haskin's Hill where the +Midwinter School Frolic was always held. + +Jerry had not caught a glimpse of the country since arriving with Uncle +Johnny at the Westley home. As the car sped along she sat quiet amid the +merry uproar of her companions, but her eyes were very bright; these +wide, open stretches of fields, with the little clusters of buildings +and the hills just beyond, made her think of home. + +The founders of Lincoln School had wanted to thoroughly establish the +principle of co-education. "These young people," one of them had said, +"will have to live and work and play in a world made up of both men and +women; let them learn, now, to work and play together." The records of +the school showed that they worked well together and one had only to +give the briefest glance at the merry horde that swarmed over Haskin's +Hill on that holiday morning to know that they played well together, +too. + +"It's most like Kettle," cried Jerry, excitedly, for at Haskin's +station, where the picnickers left the trolley, the hills pressed about +so close that they, indeed, seemed to Jerry like her beloved mountains. +"But how horrid to call a lovely place like this Haskin's!" + +"It's named after a funny little hermit who lived for years and +years--they say he was 'most one hundred and fifty when he died--in the +little cabin at the foot of the hill where we coast. He used to write +poetry about the wind and the trees and he'd wander around and sit in +his door playing a violin and singing the verses he'd written." + +"Then his name could be any old thing," declared Jerry, delighted at the +picture Gyp had drawn, "if he did such lovely things! Let's _us_ call it +the Singing Hill." + +The scent of pine on the frosty air and the knowledge that her new +sweater and tam-o'shanter were quite as pretty as the prettiest there, +transformed Jerry into a new Jerry. She felt, too, that out here in the +open she was in her element; a familiarity with these sports that had +been her winter pastime since she was a tiny youngster gave her an +assurance that added to her gay spirits. + +Thanks to long hours of play with Jimmy Chubb she could steer the +bob-sled with a steadier hand than any of the others; Barbara Lee, +looking more like a schoolgirl than ever in a jaunty red scarf and cap, +declared she'd trust her precious bones to no one but Jerry! + +The morning passed on swift wings; only the pangs of hunger persuaded +the girls and boys to leave their fun. They gathered in front of the +picturesque old cabin about a great bonfire over which two of the older +boys were grilling beefsteak for sandwiches. And from a huge steaming +kettle came a delicious odor of soup. + +"Imagine Isobel saying she's too _old_ for all this fun," exclaimed Gyp +as she stood in the "chow line" with her mess tin ready in her hand. +"Why, a lot of these girls and boys are older than she is! The trouble +with Isobel is"--and her voice was edged with scornful pity--"she's +afraid of mussing her hair!" + +Skiing was a comparatively new sport among the Lincoln boys and girls. +Only a few of the boys had become even fairly skillful at it, yet there +had been much talk of forming a team to defeat Lincoln's arch-enemy--the +South High. While the young people ate their lunch their conversation +turned to this. + +"We haven't anyone that can touch Eric Hansen, though--he learned how to +ski, I guess, in the cradle," declared Dana King, frowning thoughtfully +at the long hill that stretched upward from where they were grouped. + +During the morning Ginny Cox had borrowed Graham Westley's skis and had, +after many tumbles, succeeded in one thrilling descent. She declared now +to the others, between huge mouthfuls of sandwich, that it was the most +exciting thing she'd ever done--and Ginny, they all knew, had done many! +Jerry, next to her, had agreed, quietly, that skiing _was_--very +exciting. Ginny's head was a bit turned by that one moment of victory +when she had stood flushed--and upright--at the foot of the hill, trying +to appear indifferent as the boys showered laughing congratulations upon +her for her feat, so, now, she turned amused eyes upon Jerry. + +"Can _you_ ski?" There was a ring of derision in her voice. Jerry +nodded. "Then I _dare_ you to try it from the _very top_!" + +The face of Haskin's Hill was divided by a road that wound across it. +Because of the steep descent of the upper part and because the level +stretch of the road made a jump too high for anyone's liking, only one +or two of the boys had attempted to ski from the very top, and they had +met with humiliating disaster. + +Jerry looked up to the top of the hill. Ginny's tone fired her. She was +conscious, too, that Ginny's dare had been followed by a hush--the +others were waiting for her answer. + +"If someone will lend me their skis----" She tried to make her tone +careless. + +"Jerry Travis, you never would!" + +"Take Dana King's skis. They're the best." + +"The _very_ top----" commanded Ginny. + +"May I use your skis, Dana?" + +"Let her use your skis, King." + +"Jerry, _don't_----" implored Gyp. + +Jerry put down her plate and cup. Miss Lee was in the little cabin, so +she did not know what was happening. The girls and boys pressed about +Jerry, watching her with laughing eyes. Not one of them believed that +she had the nerve to accept Ginny Cox's "dare." + +But when, very calmly, she shouldered Dana King's skis and started off +up the hill alone, their amusement changed to wonder and again to alarm. +Jerry looked very small as she climbed on past the level made by the +road. + +"Oh, she'll fall before she even _gets_ to the jump--that part's awfully +steep," consoled one boy, speaking the fear that was in each heart. + +"If she kills herself you'll be her murderer," cried Gyp passionately to +Ginny Cox. + +Ginny was wishing very much that she hadn't made that silly, boastful +dare--trying to make someone else do what she was afraid to try herself! +She was very fond of Jerry. The red faded from her face; she clenched +her hands tightly together. + +Tibby commenced to cry hysterically. One of the older girls declared +they ought to call Jerry back. The boys shouted, but Jerry, catching the +sound faintly, only waved her hand in answer. + +At the top of the hill Jerry turned and looked down the long stretch. +She had skied over many of the trails of Kettle, but none of them had +had "jumps" as difficult as this. Quite undaunted, however, she told +herself that she needed only to "keep her head." She adjusted her skis, +then tried the weight of her pole, carefully, to learn its balance. She +began to move forward slowly, her eyes fixed on the narrow tracks before +her, her knees bent ever so little, her slim body tilted forward. Only +for one fleeting moment did she see the group below, standing immovable, +transfixed by their concern--then their faces blurred. The sharp wind +against her face, the lightning speed sent a thrill through every fibre +of Jerry's being; her mind was intensely alert to only one thing--that +moment when she must make the jump! It came--instinctively she balanced +herself for the leap, her back straightened, her arms lifted, her head +went up--as though she was a bird in flight she curved twenty feet +through the air ... her skis struck the snow-crusted tracks, her body +doubled, tilted forward ... then, amid the unforgettable shouts of the +boys and girls she slid easily, gracefully, on down the trail. + +Ginny Cox was the first to reach her. She threw her arms about her and +almost strangled her in a passionate hug. + +"You _wonder_! Oh, if anything had happened to you----" + +The boys were loud and generous in their praise. + +"Now we've found someone that can put it all over Hansen," shouted one +of them. "Let's challenge South High right off!" + +"Who'd ever believe a little _kid_ like you could do it," exclaimed Dana +King with laughable frankness, but he stared at Jerry with such open +admiration that any sting was quite taken from his words. + +Jerry could not know, of course, that, all in a moment, she had become a +"person" in Lincoln School. Uncle Johnny, that afternoon in the Westley +library, had said very truly that it was usually some unexpected little +thing that set a style or made a leader. He had not, of course, foreseen +this episode of Haskin's Hill, but he had known that Jerry had +determination with her sunniness and a faith in herself that could never +be daunted. + +"Come on, fellows, let's _us_ try it. We can't let little Miss Travis +beat us," challenged one of the boys. + +There was general assent to this. Half a dozen picked up their skis. But +Jerry lifted an authoritative hand--Jerry, who, until this moment, had +been like a little mouse among them all! + +"Oh, boys, _don't_ try it. Unless you can ski _very_ well, a jump like +that's awfully dangerous. I've skied all my life and I've jumped, too, +but never any jump as high as that and--and _I_ was a little +scared--too!" And, because Jerry was a "person" now, they listened. She +had spoken with appealing modesty, too, not at all with the arrogance +that comes often with success and can never be tolerated by +fellow-students. + +"Miss Travis is right, fellows," broke in Dana King. "Let's learn to ski +a little better before we try that jump. This very minute we'll begin +practice for the everlasting defeat of South High! You can use my skis, +Jerry. Come on, Ginny--the All-Lincoln Ski Team!" He led the way up the +hill followed by a number of the boys and Ginny Cox and Jerry--Jerry +with a glow on her cheeks that did not come entirely from the wintry +air; she "belonged" now, she was not just a humble student, struggling +along the obscure paths--she was one of those elected ones, like Ginny +and Dana King, to whom is given the precious privilege of guarding the +laurels of the school at Highacres! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE PRIZE + + +"Good-morning, Mr. Westley!" + +Barbara Lee's demure voice halted John Westley in a headlong rush +through the school corridor. + +"Oh--good-morning, Miss Lee." If a stray sunbeam had not slanted at just +that moment across Miss Lee's upturned face, turning the curly ends of +her fair hair to threads of sheen, John Westley might have passed right +on. Instead, he stopped abruptly and stared at Miss Lee. + +"I declare--it's hard to believe you're grown-up! And a teacher! Why, I +could almost chuck you under the chin--the way I used to do. I suppose +I'd get into no end of trouble if I ever tried it----" + +"Well," her face dimpled roguishly, "I don't think it's ever been done +to anyone in the faculty. I don't know what the punishment is. Anyway, +I'm trying so hard to always remember that I _am_ very much grown-up +that it is unkind of you to even hint that I am failing at +it--dismally." + +"I think--from what my girls say--that you're succeeding rather +tremendously, here at Highacres." + +"That is nice in you--and them! I wonder if I can live up to what they +think I am." Miss Lee's face was very serious; she was really grown-up +now. + +"Miss Lee, can you give me half an hour? I was on my way to Dr. Caton's +office when----" + +"You nearly knocked me over!" + +"Yes--thinking you were one of the school children----" + +"We can go into my library or--down in my office." + +"Your office, by all means." John Westley was immensely curious to see +Miss Lee's "office." + +It was as business-like in its appearance as his own. A flat-topped +desk, rows of files, a bookcase filled with books bearing formidable +titles, and three straight-backed chairs against the wall gave an +impression of severity. Two redeeming things caught John Westley's +eye--a bowl of blooming narcissi and a painting of Sir Galahad. + +"I brought that from Paris," explained Barbara Lee. "I stood for hours +in the Louvre watching a shabby young artist paint it and--I _had_ to +have it. It seemed as if he'd put something more into it than was even +in the original--a sort of light in the eyes." + +"Strange----" John Westley was staring reflectively at the picture. +"Those eyes are like--Jerry Travis!" + +"Yes--yes! I had never noticed why, but something familiar in that +child's expression _has_ haunted me." + +Though John Westley had come to Highacres that morning with an important +matter on his mind and had, on a sudden impulse, begged Miss Lee to give +him a half-hour that he might talk it over with her, he had to tell her, +now, of Jerry and how he had found her standing on the Wishing-rock, +visioning a wonderful world of promise that lay beyond her mountain. + +"Her mother had made an iron-clad vow that she'd always keep the girl +there on Kettle. Why, nothing on earth could chain that spirit anywhere. +She's one of the world's crusaders." + +Barbara Lee had not gone, herself, very far along life's pathway, yet +her tone was wistful. + +"No, you can't hold that sort of a person back. They must always go on, +seeking all that life can give. But the stars are so very far off! +Sometimes even the bravest spirits get discouraged and are satisfied +with a nearer goal." + +John Westley, sitting on the edge of the flat-topped desk, leaned +suddenly forward and gently tilted Miss Lee's face upward. There was +nothing in the impulsive movement to offend; his face was very serious. + +"Child, have _you_ been discouraged? Have you started climbing to the +stars--and had to halt--on the way?" + +The girl laughed a little shamefacedly. "Oh, I had very big dreams--I +have them still. And I had a wonderful opportunity and had to give it +up; mother wanted me at home. She isn't well--so I took this position." +She made her little story brief, but her eyes told more than her words +of the disappointment and self-sacrifice. + +"Well, mothers always come first. And maybe there's a _different_ way to +the stars, Barbara." + +There was a moment's silence between them. John Westley was the first to +break it. + +"I want your advice, Miss Lee. I believe you're closer to the hearts of +these youngsters out here than anyone else. I've something in my mind +but I can't just shape it up. I want to build some sort of a scholarship +for Lincoln that isn't founded on books. + +"The trouble is," he went on, "that every school turns out some real +scholars--boys and girls with their minds splendidly exercised and +stored--and what else? Generally always--broken bodies, physiques that +have been neglected and sacrificed in the struggle for learning. Of what +use to the world are their minds--then? I've found--and a good many men +and women come under my observation--that the well-trained mind is of no +earthly value to its owner or to the rest of the world unless it has a +well-trained body along with it." + +"That's my present business," laughed Miss Lee. "I must agree with you." + +"So I want to found some sort of a yearly award out here at Highacres +for the pupil who shows the best record in work--_and_ play." + +"That will be splendid!" cried Miss Lee, enthusiastically. + +"Will you help me?" John Westley asked with the diffidence of a +schoolboy. "Will you tell me if some of my notions are ridiculous--or +impossible?" He picked up one of the sharpened pencils from the desk and +drew up a chair. "Now, listen----" and he proceeded to outline the plan +he had had in mind for a long time. + +One week later the Lincoln Award was announced to the pupils of the +school. So amazing and unusual was the competition that the school +literally buzzed with comments upon it; work for the day was abandoned. +Because the award was a substantial sum of money to be spent in an +educational way, most of the pupils considered it very seriously. + +"Ginny Cox has the best chance 'cause she always has the highest marks +and she's on all the teams." + +"It isn't just being on _teams_," contradicted another girl, studying +one of the slips of paper which had been distributed and upon which had +been printed the rules covering the competition. "It's the number of +hours spent in the gym, or in out-of-door exercise. And you get a point +for setting-up exercises and for walking a mile each day. And for +sleeping with your window open! _Easy!_" + +"And for drinking five glasses of water a day," laughed another. + +"And for eating a vegetable every day. And for drinking a glass of +milk." + +"That lets _me_ out. I just loathe milk." + +"Of course--so do I. But wouldn't you drink it for an award like +_that_?" + +"Look, girls, you can't drink tea or coffee," chimed in another. + +"And you get a point for nine hours' sleep each school night! That'll +catch Selma Rogers--she says she studies until half-past eleven every +night." + +"I suppose that's why it's put in." + +"And a point for personal appearance--and personal conduct in and out of +school! Say, I think the person who thought up _this_ award had +something against us all----" + +Patricia Everett indignantly opposed this. "Not at all! Miss Lee, and +she's the chairman of the Award Committee, said that the purpose of the +award is to build up a Lincoln type of a pupil whose physical +development has kept pace with the mental development. _I_ think it will +be fun to try for it, though eating vegetables will be lots worse than +the bridge chapter in Cæsar!" + +Jerry Travis, too, had made up her mind to work for the award. She had +read the rules of the competition with deep interest; here would be an +opportunity to make her mother and Little-Dad proud of their girl. And +it ought not to be very hard, either--if she could only bring up her +monthly mark in geometry! She had, much to her own surprise, lived +through the dreaded midwinter examinations, though in geometry only by +the "skin of her teeth," as Graham cheerfully described his own +scholastic achievements. + +Jerry found that Gyp had been carefully studying the rules--Gyp who had +never dreamed of trying for any sort of an honor! But poor Gyp found +them a little terrifying; like Pat Everett she hated vegetables and she +despised milk; there was always something awry in her dress, a shoelace +dangling, a torn hem, a missing button. But if one could win a point for +correcting these little failings just the same as in chemistry or higher +math., was it not worth trying? + +"Who_ever_ do you s'pose thought of it all?" Gyp asked Jerry and Graham. +The name of the Lincoln "friend" who was giving the award had been +carefully guarded. + +Not one of the younger Westleys suspected Uncle Johnny who sat with them +and listened unblushingly and with considerable amusement to their +varied comments. + +"Well, I'll _try_ for it," conceded Graham. "Who wouldn't? Even Fat +Sloane says he's goin' to and he just hates to move when he doesn't have +to! But _five hundred dollars_ for washing your teeth and walking a +mile----" + +"And standing well in Cicero," added Uncle Johnny, mischievously. + +"Do you s'pose Cora Stanton will be marked off in personal appearance +'cause she rouges and uses a lipstick?" asked Gyp, with a sly glance +toward Isobel, who turned fiery red. "I _know_ she does, 'cause Molly +Hastings went up and deliberately kissed her cheek and she said she +could taste it--awfully!" + +"Cora's a very silly girl. Anyway, if she lives up to the rules of the +competition she won't need any artificial color--she'll have a bloom +that money couldn't buy!" + +"Well, _I'm_ not going to bother about the silly award," declared +Isobel. "Grind myself to death--no, indeed! I don't even want to go to +college. If you're rich it's silly to bother with four whole years at a +deadly institution--some of the girls say you have to study awfully +hard. Amy Mathers is going to come out next year and I want to, too." +Isobel talked fast and defiantly, as she caught the sudden sternness +that flashed across Uncle Johnny's face. + +Mrs. Westley started to speak, but Uncle Johnny made the slightest +gesture with his hand. + +Into his mind had come the memory of that half-hour with Barbara Lee and +something she had said--"the stars are very far off!" _Her_ face had +been illumined by a yearning; he was startled now at the realization +that, in contrast, Isobel's showed only a self-centered, petty +vanity--his Isobel, who had been so pretty and promising, for whom he +had thought only the very noblest things possible. + +But although he saw the dreams he had built for Isobel dangerously +threatened, he clung staunchly to his faith in the good he believed was +in the girl; that was why he lifted his hand to stay the impulsive words +that trembled on the mother's lips and made his own tone tolerant. + +"Making plans without a word to mother--or Uncle Johnny? But you'll come +to us, my dear, and be grateful for our advice. I don't believe just a +lot of dances will satisfy my girl--even if they do Amy Mathers. And +after they're over--what then? Will you really be a bit different from +the other girl because you've 'come out'? What do you say to taking up +your drawing again and after a few years going over to Paris to study?" + +The defiant gleam in Isobel's eyes changed slowly to incredulous +delight. Uncle Johnny went on: + +"And even an interior decorator needs a college training." + +"John Westley, you're a wonder," declared Mrs. Westley after the young +people had gone upstairs. "You ought to have a half-dozen youngsters of +your own!" + +He stared into the fire, seeing visions, perhaps, in the dancing flames. +"I wish I did. I think they're the greatest thing in the world! To make +a good, useful man or woman out of a boy or girl is the best work given +us to do on this earth!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CUPID AND COMPANY + + + "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, + The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea----" + +scanned Gyp in a singsong voice. Then she stopped abruptly; she realized +that Miss Gray was not hearing a word that she was saying! + +Miss Gray had asked Gyp to come to her after school. It was a glorious +winter day and Gyp's friends were playing hockey on the little lake. Gyp +had faced Miss Gray resentfully. + +"Please scan three pages, Miss Westley," Miss Gray had said, putting a +book into Gyp's hands. And now, in the middle of them, Miss Gray was +staring out across the snowy slopes of the school grounds, not hearing +one word, and blinking real tears from her pale-blue eyes! + +Little Miss Gray, for years, had come and gone from Lincoln in such a +mouse-like fashion that no one ever paid much attention to her; upon her +changing classes, as an individual, she left scarcely any impression; as +a teacher she was never cross, never exacting, gave little praise and +less censure; she worked more like a noiseless, perfect machine than a +human being. + +Gyp had never noticed, until that moment, that she had blue eyes--very +pretty blue eyes, fringed with long, dark lashes. No one could see them +because she was nearsighted and wore big, round, shell-rimmed glasses, +but now she had removed these in order to wipe her tears away. Gyp, +fascinated by her discoveries, stared openly. + +Gyp's heart never failed to go out to the downtrodden or oppressed, +beast or human. Now she suddenly saw Millicent Gray, erstwhile teacher +in Second-year English, as an appealing figure, very shabby, a pinched +look on her oval-shaped face that gave the impression of hunger. Her +hair would really be very pretty if she did not twist it back quite so +tight. She was not nearly as old as Gyp had thought she was. And her +tears were very pathetic; she was sniffing and searching in a pocket for +the handkerchief that was probably in her knitting bag. + +"T-that will d-do, Miss Westley," she managed to say, still searching +and sniffing. + +But Gyp stood rooted. + +"I'm sorry you feel bad, Miss Gray. Will you take my handkerchief? It's +clean," and Gyp, from the pocket of her middy blouse, proudly produced a +folded square of linen. + +"You wouldn't believe that just _that_ could open the flood-gates of a +broken heart," she exclaimed later to Jerry and Pat Everett, feeling +very important over her astonishing revelation. + +"Who'd ever dream that Miss Gray could squeeze out the littlest tear," +laughed Pat, at which Gyp shook her head rebukingly. + +"Teachers are human and have hearts, Pat Everett, even if they _are_ +teachers. And romance comes to them, too. Miss Gray is very pretty if +you look at her real close and she's quiet because her bosom carries a +broken heart." + +Sympathetic Jerry thought Gyp's description very wonderful. Pat was less +moved. + +"What did she tell you, Gyp?" + +Gyp hesitated, in a maddening way. "Well, I suppose it was giving her +the handkerchief made her break down and I don't believe she thought I'd +come straight out here and tell you girls. And I'm _only_ telling you +because I think maybe we can help her. After she'd taken the +handkerchief and wiped her nose she took hold of my hand and pressed it +hard and told me she hoped I'd never know what loneliness was. And then +I asked her if she didn't have anyone and she said no--not a soul in the +whole wide world cared whether she lived or died. Isn't that dreadful? +And she said she didn't have a home anywhere, just lived in a horrid old +boarding house. Well, she was beginning to act more cheerful and I was +afraid she was recovering enough to tell me to go on with the scanning, +so I got up my nerve and I asked her point-blank if she'd ever had a +lover----" + +"_Gyp Westley_----" screamed Pat. + +"Well, there wasn't any use beating 'round the bush and I knew we'd want +to know and I read once that men were the cause of most heartaches, so I +asked her----" + +"What _did_ she say? Wasn't she furious?" + +"No--I think she was glad I did. Maybe, if you didn't have any family +and lived in a great big boarding house where you couldn't talk to +anyone except 'bout the weather and the stew and things, you'd even like +to confide in me. She just blushed and looked downright pretty, but +dreadfully sad. She said she'd had a very, very dear friend--you could +tell she meant a lover--but that it was all past and he had forgotten +her. I suppose I should have said to her that it's 'better to have loved +and lost than never to have loved at all,' but I just asked her if he +was handsome, which was foolish, because she'd think he was if he was as +homely as anything." + +"And was he?" + +"She said he was distinguished--a straight nose and a firm chin and +black hair with a white streak running straight down through the middle, +like Lee's black-and-white setter dog, I guess. Girls, mustn't it be +_dreadful_ to have to go on day after day with your heart like a cold +stone inside of you and no one to love you and to teach school?" + +Each girl, with her own life full to brimming with love, looked as +though they felt very sorry, indeed, for poor little Miss Gray. + +"Let's do something to make her happy," suggested Pat. + +"Do you suppose we could find the man? They must have quarreled and +maybe, if he knew----" + +"There can't be many men with white streaks in their hair and if we get +the other girls to help us, perhaps by watching real closely, we can +find him." + +"And I thought, too, we might send her some flowers after a few days +without any name or any sign on them where they came from. She'll be +dreadfully excited and curious and then in a week or so we can send some +more----" + +"Aren't flowers very expensive?" put in Jerry. Gyp understood her +concern; Jerry had very little spending money. + +"I know--Pat and I'll buy the flowers and maybe some of the others will +help, and you write some verses to go with them, Jerry." + +Though to write verses would, ordinarily, to Jerry be a most alarming +task, she was glad of anything that she could do to help Miss Gray and +assented eagerly. + +Peggy Lee was enlisted in the cause, and the next day the conspirators +made a trip to the florist's shop. They were dismayed but not +discouraged by the exorbitant price of flowers; they scornfully +dismissed the florist's suggestion of a "neat" little primrose +plant--they were equally disdainful of carnations. Patricia favored +roses, and when the florist offered them a bargain in some rather wilted +Lady Ursulas, she wanted to buy them and put them in salt and water +overnight, to revive them. Finally they decided upon a bunch of violets, +which sadly depleted their several allowances. And Jerry attached her +verses, painstakingly printed on a sheet of azure-blue notepaper in red +ink. "Blue's for the spirit, you know, and the red ink is heart's blood. +Listen, girls, isn't this too beautiful for words?" Gyp read in a tragic +voice: + + "Only to love thee, I seek nothing more, + No greater boon do I ask, + Only to serve thee o'er and o'er, + And in thy smile to bask. + + "Only to hear thy sweet voice in my ear, + Though thy words be not spoken for me, + Only to see the lovelight in thy eyes, + The love of eternity. + +"They're _wonderful_, Jerry! And so sad, too." + +"Do they sound like a lover?" asked Jerry anxiously. + +"_Exactly_," declared Pat, solemnly. "Oh, _won't_ it be fun to see her +open it? And she'll think, of course, that it comes from the +black-and-white man." + +"And we must each one of us pledge to keep our eyes open for the +creature." + +"Think of it, girls--if we could make Miss Gray happy again it would be +something we could remember when we're old ladies. Mother told me once +that things we do for other people to make them happy come back to us +with interest." + +In the English class, on the following day, four girls sat very demurely +in the back row, their eyes riveted on their books. When presently there +was a knock at the door (Gyp had timed carefully the arrival of the +messenger), Pat Everett exclaimed, "my goodness" aloud, and Jerry +dropped her book to the floor. But their agitation passed unnoticed; +Miss Gray's attention was fixed upon the little square box that was +brought to her. + +Jerry had a moment of panic. She scribbled on the top of a page in her +text-book: "What if she's angry?" To which Gyp replied: "If _your_ life +was empty, wouldn't you jump at a crumb?" + +Only for a moment was the machinelike precision of the English class +broken. Miss Gray untied the cord, and peeped under the cover. The +girls, watching from the back row, saw a pink flush sweep from her small +nose to the roots of her hair, then fade, leaving her very white. Then: + +"Please continue, Miss Chase." + +When the class was dismissed even Gyp had not the courage to linger and +watch Miss Gray open the box. "She might suspect you," Patricia had +warned. But at recess she rushed to the girls, her eyes shining. + +"_Jerry! Pat!_ She's _crazy_ about 'em! I went in after the third hour +and pretended I was hunting for my book. The violets were sitting up on +her desk and she had a few of them fastened in her old cameo pin--and +she looked _different_--already! Let's keep up our good work! Let's +swear that we'll leave no stone unturned to find the black-and-white +man!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL + + +"Oh, I'm _sick_ of winter! I wish I was a cannibal living on a tropical +island eating cocoanuts." + +"----Missionaries, you mean," laughed Isobel. + +Virginia Cox threw her skates over her shoulder; Isobel, Dorrie Carr and +herself were the last to leave the lake. The school grounds were +deserted. + +"Oh, look at the snowman someone's started," cried Ginny, as they walked +through the grounds. "Say, this is spliffy snow to pack! Let's finish up +the work of art." In her enthusiasm over her suggestion her ennui was +forgotten. "I know, let's make him into a snowlady." + +Ginny's fingers were clever. Her caricatures, almost always drawn in +ridicule of the faculty or her fellow-classmates, were famous. If, in +her make-up, she had had a kindlier spirit and a truer sense of the +beautiful, she might have become a great artist or sculptor. + +Now she worked feverishly, shaping a lifelike figure from the huge cakes +of snow that the others brought to her. As she stood back to view her +handiwork a naughty thought flashed into her mind. + +"Girls--it's going to be Miss Gray! And mother's got a funny old +lavender crocheted shawl like that thing Miss Gray wears when it's cold, +that the moths won't even eat. And I can fix a hat like the dreadful +châpeau of hers that came out of the ark. And glasses, too----" + +Isobel and Dorrie laughed delightedly. + +"How can you get them out here?" + +"Oh, _I'll_ find a way!" Ginny always could! "Do you think that nose is +pug enough?" She deftly packed it down on each side with a finger, then +gave it a quick, upward touch. "Isn't that better?" + +Her companions declared the likeness perfect--as far as snow could make +it. + +"And I can hunt up two blue glass allies for eyes." There was, plainly, +no end to Ginny's resourcefulness. "You just wait and see what you'll +see in the morning." + +During the night King Winter maliciously abetted Ginny in her work, for +a turn in his temper laid a sparkling crust over everything--and +especially the little snowlady who waited, immovable, on a little rise +of ground near the main entrance of the school. + +The pupils, arriving at Highacres the next morning, rubbed their eyes in +their amazement. Not one failed to recognize the English teacher in the +funny, shawl-draped figure, with enormous glasses framing round blue +eyes, shadowed by a hat that was almost an exact counterpart of the +shabby one Miss Gray had hung each morning for the past three winters on +her peg in the dressing-room. But there was something about the rakish +tilt of the hat that was in such strange contrast to the severe +spectacles and the thin, frosty nose, that it gave the snowlady the +appearance of staggering and made her very funny. + +All through the school session groups of pupils gathered at the windows, +laughing. There was much speculating as to who had built the snowlady; +the three little sub-freshmen who had begun the work Ginny had finished +were vehement in their assertions that they had not. Gradually it was +whispered about that Ginny Cox had done it. + +"We might have known that," several laughed, thinking Ginny very clever. + +Then, over those invisible currents of communication which convey news +through a school faster than a flame can spread, came the rumor that +trouble was brewing. One of the monitors had told Dorrie Carr that Miss +Gray had had hysterics in the office; that, in the midst of them, she +had written out her resignation and that, after the first period, not an +English class had been held! + +Another added the information that Barbara Lee had quieted Miss Gray +with spirits of ammonia and that Dr. Caton had refused to accept her +resignation and had been overheard to say that the culprit would be +punished severely. + +Ginny's prank began to assume serious proportions. Ginny was more +thoughtless than unkind; it had not crossed her mind that she might +offend little Miss Gray. But she was not brave, either--she had not the +courage to go straight to Miss Gray and apologize for her careless, +thoughtless act. + +There had been, for a number of years, one well-established punishment +at Lincoln; "privileges" were taken away from offenders, the term of the +sentences depending upon the enormity of the offence. And "privileges" +included many things--sitting in the study-room, mingling with the other +pupils in the lunch rooms at recess, sharing the school athletics. This +system had all the good points of suspension with the added sting of +having constantly to parade one's disgrace before the eyes of the whole +school. + +"If Ginny Cox is found out, she can't play in the game against the South +High," was on more than one tongue. + +Gyp, deeply impressed by the criticalness of the situation, summoned a +meeting of the Ravens. Her face was very tragic. + +"Girls--it's the chance for the Ravens to do something for the Lincoln +School! We've had nothing but spreads and good times and now the +opportunity has come to test our loyalty." + +Not one of the unsuspecting Ravens guessed what Gyp had in mind! + +"Ginny Cox did build that snowlady--Isobel saw her. But if she gives +herself up she'll be sent to Siberia!" + +"Well, it'll serve her right. She needn't have picked out poor little +Miss Gray to make fun of." + +Gyp frowned at the interruption. "Of course not. _We_ know all about +Miss Gray and feel sorry for her, but Ginny doesn't. And, anyway, that +isn't the point. I was talking about loyalty to Lincoln." Gyp made her +tone very solemn. "Disgrace--everlasting, eternal, black disgrace +threatens the very foundations of our dear school!" She paused, +eloquently. + +"Next week, Tuesday, our All-Lincoln girls' basketball team plays our +deadly enemy, South High. And what will happen without Ginny Cox? Who +_else_ can make the baskets she can? Defeat--ignominious defeat will be +our sad lot----" Her voice trailed off in a wail that found its echo in +every Raven's heart. + +"I'd forgotten the game! _What_ a shame!" + +"Why _couldn't_ Ginny have thought of that?" + +"Maybe Doc. Caton will just let her play that once." + +"Not he--he's like iron. Didn't he send Bob Morely down for three whole +days just before the Thanksgiving game 'cause he got up in Cæsar class +and translated 'bout the 'Garlic Wars'?" + +Gyp sensed the psychological moment to strike. + +"Never before in the history of our secret order has such an opportunity +to serve our school been given to us----" + +"What can we do?" + +"One of us can offer ourself on the altar of loyalty----" + +Her meaning, stripped of its eloquent verbage, slowly dawned upon six +minds! A murmur of protest threatened to become a roar. Gyp hastily +dropped her fine oratory and pleaded humbly: + +"It's so _little_ for one of us to do compared to what it means, and if +we _didn't_ do it and South High beat us, why, we'd suffer lots more +with remorse than we would just taking Ginny's punishment for her. +Anyway, what did the promise we solemnly made _mean_? Nothing? We're a +nice bunch! _I'm_ perfectly willing to take Ginny Cox's place, but I +think each Raven ought to have the chance and we should draw lots----" + +"Yes, that would be the fairest way," agreed Pat Everett in a tone that +suggested someone had died just the moment before. + +"I always draw the unlucky number in everything," shivered Peggy Lee. + +"There'll have to be two this time, then, for I always do, too," groaned +a sister Raven. + +"Shall we do it, girls? Shall we prove to the world that we Ravens can +make any sacrifice for our school?" + +"Yes--yes," came thickly from paralyzed throats. + +In a dead silence Gyp and Pat prepared seven slips of paper. Six were +blank; upon the seventh Pat drew a long snake with head uplifted, ready +to strike. The slips were carefully folded and shaken in Jerry's hat. +Gyp put the hat in the middle of the room. + +"Let's each one go up with her eyes shut tight and draw a slip. Then +don't open it until the last one has been drawn." They all agreed--if +they had to do it they might as well make the ceremony as much of a +torture as possible! + +So horrible was the suspense that a creaking board made the Ravens jump; +a shutter slamming somewhere in another part of the building almost +precipitated a panic. After an interval that seemed hours each Raven sat +with a white slip in her nervous fingers. + +"Now, one--two--three--_open_!" cried Gyp. + +Another moment of silence, a sharp intake of breath, a rattle of paper, +then: "Oh--_I have it_!" cried Jerry in a small, frightened voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DISGRACE + + +"Will the young gentleman or lady who built the snow-woman that stood on +the school grounds yesterday morning go at once to my office?" + +Dr. Caton's tone was very even; he might have been asking the owner of +some lost article to step up and claim it, but each word cut like a +sharp-edged knife deep into poor Jerry Travis' heart. + +She sat in the sixth row; that meant that, to reach that distant door, +she must face almost the entire school! Her eyes were downcast and her +lips were pressed together in a thin, bluish line. She heard a low +murmur from every side. Above it her steps seemed to fall in a heavy, +echoing thud. + +Not one of the Ravens dared look at poor Jerry; each wondered at her +courage, each felt in her own heart that had the unlucky slip fallen to +_her_ lot she could never have done as well as Jerry had---- + +Then, instinctively, curious eyes sought for Ginny Cox--Ginny, who had +been unjustly accused by her schoolmates. But Ginny at that moment was +huddled in her bed under warm blankets with a hot-water-bag at her feet +and an ice-bag on her head, her worried mother fluttering over her with +a clinical thermometer in one hand and a castor-oil bottle in the other, +wishing she could diagnose Ginny's queer symptoms and wondering if she +had not ought to call in the doctor! + +Jerry had had a bad night, too. At home, in her room, Gyp's eloquent +arguments had seemed to lose some of their force. Jerry persisted in +seeing complications in the course that had fallen to her lot. + +"It's acting a lie," she protested. + +"The cause justifies _that_," cried Gyp, sweepingly. "Anyway, I don't +believe Dr. Caton will be half as hard on you as he would have been on +Ginny Cox. It's your first offence and you can act real sorry." + +"How can I act real sorry when I haven't _done_ anything?" wailed Jerry. + +"You'll _have_ to--you must pretend. The harder it is the nobler your +sacrifice will be. And some day everyone will know what you did for the +honor of the school and future generations will----" + +"And I was trying so hard for the Lincoln Award!" Real tears sprang to +Jerry's eyes. + +"Oh, you can work harder than ever and win it in spite of this," +comforted Gyp, who truly believed Jerry could do anything. + +"And I can't play on the hockey team in the inter-class match this +week!" + +"Of _course_ it's hard, Jerry." Gyp did not want to listen to much +more--her own conviction might weaken. "But nothing matters except the +match with South High. _That's_ why you're doing it! Now if you want to +just back out and bring shame upon the Ravens as well as dishonor to the +school--all right! Only--I've told Ginny." + +"I'll do it," answered Jerry, falteringly. But long after Gyp had gone +off into dreamless slumber she lay, wide-eyed, trying to picture this +sudden and unpleasant experience that confronted her. Her whole life up +to that moment when, in Mr. John's automobile, she had whirled around +her mountain, bound for a world of dreams, had been so simple, so +entirely free from any tangles that could not be straightened out, in a +moment, by "Sweetheart" that her bewilderment, now, made her lonely and +homesick for Sunnyside and her mother's counsel. The glamour of her new +life, happy though it was, lifted as a curtain might lift, and revealed, +in the eerie darkness of the night, startling contrasts--the rush and +thronging of the city life against the peaceful quiet of Jerry's +mountain. It was so easy, back there, Jerry thought, to just know at +_once_, what was right and what was wrong; there were no uncertain +demands upon one's loyalty to the little old school in the Notch--one +had only to learn one's lesson and that was all; even in her play back +there there had not been any of the fierce joy of competition she had +learned at Highacres! + +And mother, with wonderful wisdom, had brought her so close to God and +had taught her to understand His Love and His Anger. Jerry dug her face +deep into her pillow. Wouldn't God forgive a lie that was for the honor +of the school? Wouldn't He know how Ginny was needed as forward on the +Lincoln team? It was a perplexing thought. Jerry told herself, with a +sense of shame, that she had really not thought much about God since she +had come to the Westleys. She had gone each Sunday with the others to +the great, dim, vaulted church, but she had thought about the artists +who had designed the beautiful colored saints in the windows and about +the pealing music of the organ and not about God or what the minister +was saying. Back home she had always, in church, sat between her mother +and the little window where through the giant pines she could see a +stretch of blue sky broken by a misty mountain-top; when one could see +that and smell the pine and hear, above the drone of the preacher's +voice, the clear note of a bird, one could feel very close to the God +who had made this wonderful, beautiful world and had put that sweet note +in the throat of a little winging creature. + +Then Gyp's words taunted her. "You can back out--if you want to!" Oh, +no--she would not do that--now; she would not be a coward, she would see +it through; she would measure up to the challenge, let it cost what it +might she would hold the honor of the school--_her_ school (she said it +softly) above all else! + +Jerry had never been severely punished in her life; as she sat very +quietly in Dr. Caton's office waiting for assembly to end she wondered, +with a quickening curiosity, what it would seem like. Anyway, _nothing_ +could be worse than having to walk out of the room before all those +staring boys and girls. + +But Jerry found that something _was_! Barbara Lee came into the room, +looking surprised, disappointed and unhappy. + +"Jerry," she exclaimed, "I can't believe it." + +Jerry wanted to cry out the truth--it wasn't fair. Miss Lee sat down +next to her. + +"If you had to make fun of someone, why _didn't_ you pick out me--anyone +but poor little Miss Gray! I think that if you knew how unhappy and--and +_drab_ poor Miss Gray's life has been, how for years she had to pinch +and save and deny herself all the little pleasures of life in order to +care for her mother who was a helpless invalid, you'd be sorry you had +in the smallest measure added any to her unhappiness." + +"I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world," burst out Jerry. Did she +not know more about poor little Miss Gray than did even Barbara Lee? + +"Then _why_----" But at this dangerous moment Dr. Caton walked into the +room. + +Jerry's sentence was very simple. She listened with downcast eyes. She +was to lose all school privileges for a week; during that time she must +occupy a desk in the office, she must eat her lunch alone at this desk, +she must not share in any of the school activities until the end of +suspension. She must apologize to Miss Gray. + +In Jerry's punishment there was an element of novelty that softened its +sting. It was very easy to apologize to Miss Gray, partly because she +was really innocent and partly because a fresh bunch of violets adorned +Miss Gray's desk toward which Jerry had contributed thirty-four cents. +Then a message from the Ravens was spirited to her. + + You're _wonderful_! We're proud of you. Keep up your nerve. Blessed + is the lot of the martyr when for honor he has suffered. + + The Ravens. + + P. S. Coming out of history I heard Dana King say to another boy + that he didn't believe you did it at _all_--that you are shielding + SOME ONE else! + + Your Adoring Gyp. + +Too, Jerry found the office a most interesting place. No one glanced +toward her corner and she could quietly watch everything that happened. +And on the second day Uncle Johnny "happened"--in a breezy fashion, +coming over and pinching her cheek. Uncle Johnny did not know of her +disgrace; by tacit agreement not a word of it had been breathed at home. +Dr. Caton, annoyed and disapproving, crisply intimated why Jerry was +there. Uncle Johnny tried to make his lips look serious but his eyes +danced. Over Dr. Caton's bald head he winked at Jerry. + +Uncle Johnny had come to Highacres to talk over some plans for an +enclosed hockey rink. For various reasons, of which he was utterly +unconscious, he was enjoying "mixing" school interests with the demands +of his business. He lingered for half an hour in the office, talking, +while Jerry watched the back of his brown head and broad shoulders. +Before leaving he walked over to her corner. + +"My dear child," he began in a severe tone. He leaned over Jerry so that +Dr. Caton could not hear what he said. A trustee had privileges! + +"I wouldn't give a cent for a colt that never kicked over the traces!" +Which, if Jerry had really been guilty of any offence, would have been +very demoralizing. But she was not and she watched Uncle Johnny go out +of the room with a look of adoration in her eyes. + +A sense of reward came to Jerry, too, when Ginny Cox returned to school. +Having fully recovered from the funk that had laid her, shivering and +feverish, in bed, that first day she came back in gayer spirits than +ever, declaring to many that she thought Miss Gray a "pill" to make such +a fuss over just a little joke and, to a few, that it was fine in Jerry +to shoulder the blame so that she might play in the game against South +High. But her gaiety covered the first real embarrassment she had ever +suffered, for Ginny, who had always, because of her peculiar charm, +coming from a sense of humor, a hail-fellow spirit, an invariable +geniality and an amazing facility in all athletics, exacted a slavish +devotion from her schoolmates, and was accustomed to dispense favors +among them, hated now to accept, even from Jerry, a very, very great +one! And Jerry sensed the humility that this embarrassment called into +being. + +Ginny waylaid Jerry going home from school. Jerry was carefully living +up to the terms of her "sentence"; each day, directly after the close of +school, she walked home alone. + +"Jerry, I--I haven't had a chance to tell you--oh, what a _peach_ you +are," Ginny's words came awkwardly; she knew that they did not in any +way express what she ought to be saying. + +Jerry did not want Ginny's gratitude. She answered honestly: "I didn't +want to do it. I _had_ to--I drew the unlucky slip, you see. And you +were needed on the team." + +"It's all so mixed up and not a bit right. Can I walk along with you? +Who'd ever have thought that just building that silly snow-woman would +have made all this fuss!" + +"Dr. Caton says thoughtlessness always breeds inconsiderateness and +inconsiderateness develops selfishness, selfishness undermines good +fellowship and good fellowship is the foundation of the spirit of +Lincoln," quoted Jerry in a voice so exactly like Dr. Caton's that both +girls laughed. + +"He's dead right," answered Ginny, with her characteristic bluntness. "I +just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever +and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the +way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there isn't +anything I wouldn't do for you, Jerry Travis. If I don't play better +basketball Friday night than I ever have in my life, well, you can walk +all over me like dirt." There was a humble ring in Ginny's voice that +had surely never sounded there before! + +But the hard part of Jerry's punishment came when the others, without +her, trooped off to the game against South High, the blue and gold +colors of Lincoln tied on their arms. It promised to be the most +exciting game of the season; if Lincoln could defeat South High it would +win the Interschool cup. + +There had, alas, to be practiced a little more deception to explain why +Jerry remained at home. Gyp had announced that Jerry had a headache and +Mrs. Westley had been much concerned--Jerry, who never had an ache or a +pain! She had gone to Jerry's room, had tucked her in bed and had sat by +the side of the bed gently smoothing Jerry's guilty forehead. + +"When I get through this I'll never, never tell a lie for anybody or +anything," vowed Jerry in her heart, as she writhed under the loving +touch. + +Two hours later Gyp tiptoed to her door, opened it softly and peeped in. +Jerry, expecting her, sat bolt upright. Gyp bounded to the exact centre +of the bed. + +"We _won_! We _won_! But, oh, _Jerry_, it was a squeak! Honest to +goodness, my heart isn't beating right _yet_. _Tied_, Jerry--at the +half. Then Muff Bowling on the South High made two spliffy baskets--they +were _great_, even if she made 'em! Our girls acted as though they were +just dummies, but didn't they wake up? You should have seen their +passing _then_. Why, honest, Midge Fielding was _everywhere_! Caught a +high ball and passed it _under_--before you could _wink_! And, oh, +Ginny--_she_ was _possessed_. She could make that basket _anywhere_. +And, _listen_, Jerry, with _only two minutes more to play_ if they +didn't make _another_ and then Ginny _fell_--_flat_, Jerry, with the +South High guard _right on her chest_ and her wrist doubled under +her--and she got up like a _flash_ and her face was as white as that +sheet--and _she made a basket_! _And we won!_" And Gyp, drawing a long, +exultant breath, dropped her chin on her knees. + +"Did--did they all cheer, then, for Ginny?" + +"I should _say_ so." With a long yawn Gyp uncurled her legs. "I'm dead. +I'm going to bed." She turned toward the door. "Oh, say, I most forgot. +Ginny told me to tell you that the reason she played the way she did +to-night was 'cause she kept thinking of you and what you'd done for her +and she wanted to prove that she was worth it. Ginny _is_ a good sort, +isn't she?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE RAVENS CLEAN THE TOWER + + +The Ravens, now enjoying a pleasant distinction among the Lincoln +students because of Jerry's suffering, the truth of which had become +known after a few weeks to nearly everyone in the school, except, of +course, the faculty, decided to admit more members to their circle. This +necessitated an elaborate ceremony of initiation, and an especially +elaborate spread. + +"Let's us clean the tower room," suggested Gyp one afternoon, with this +in mind. "I don't mean sweep or scrub or anything like that--'cause the +dust and the cobwebs make it lots more romantic. I mean just shove +things further back. We'll need more room." + +Jerry agreed. So the two pushed George Washington aside and climbed the +little stairway. A sharp wind howled around the tower room, making +weird, wailing sounds. + +"Isn't it spooky up here this afternoon?" whispered Gyp. "Let's hurry. +Here, I'll hand you these books and you pile them over there in that +corner." + +Gyp tossed the books about as though they were bricks. Jerry handled +them more carefully. From her infancy she had been brought up to respect +any kind of a book; those at home had seemed almost a part of her dear +mother and Little-Dad; these had belonged to Peter Westley. He must have +spent a great deal of his time reading, she thought, the volumes were +worn about their edges, the pages thumbed. She peeped into one or two. +Peter Westley, who had shunned the companionship of his fellow-mortals, +had made these his friends. + +Gyp divined what was passing in Jerry's thoughts. + +"These books look all dried up and dreary--just like Uncle Peter was," +she exclaimed, throwing one over. + +Jerry opened it at random. + +"Oh, _this_ isn't! Listen, isn't it beautiful? + + "Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime, + Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl---- + +"It makes me think of a sunrise from Rocky Point. Often Little-Dad takes +me up there and we sleep all night rolled in blankets." + +"I wish I could do things like that," sighed Gyp longingly. "I hate just +doing the regular sort of things that everyone else is doing." + +Jerry regarded her in astonishment; that Gyp might, perhaps, envy her +the childhood she had had on Kettle had never occurred to her! + +"Perhaps sometime you can visit me in Sunnyside." Her eyes shone at the +thought. "Don't you love poetry?" She read again: + + "If 'chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet + Extend his ev'ning beam, the fields revive, + The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds + Attest their joy, that hill and valley ring---- + +"It's like that--at sunset--in the Witches' Glade," Jerry said slowly. +She closed the book. "I think Peter Westley must have had something nice +in him to like this. There used to be an old, old lady who lived in a +funny little house in the Notch; I always pretended she was old Mother +Hubbard who lived in the cupboard. Jimmy Chubb used to throw apples at +her roof to make her run out and chase him. But her garden was the +loveliest anywhere around--mother used to beg seeds from her. And she'd +talk to her flowers--sometimes when we'd hide behind the hedge next door +to her house we'd hear her. And mother said that there must be something +lovely in her soul if she cared so much for flowers. Perhaps that's the +way it was with your Uncle Peter and his books." + +Gyp frowned as though she was trying very hard to think this possible. +She lifted a huge Bible and dusted it thoughtfully with her +handkerchief. + +"I don't know--I heard Uncle Johnny say once to my father that Uncle +Peter was as hard as rocks when it came to driving a bargain and he'd +never give a cent to anyone. Mother said that riches that came like that +only brought unhappiness and she was sorry we had any of it, though----" +Gyp laughed. "Money's funny. It wouldn't matter how much of an allowance +father gave Graham or me we'd never have any and I don't know where it +goes. And Isobel always has a lot. Maybe she's going to be like Uncle +Peter----" There was horror in Gyp's voice. + +Jerry sat on the table, the huge Bible on her knees. Her eyes stared out +through the dusty window-glass. + +"She wouldn't be _like_ him because _she_ won't have to work hard to get +the money the way he did! Mother says----" Jerry had a way of saying +"mother says" as though it was precious, indisputable wisdom. "Mother +says that sometimes when a person sets his heart on just one thing in +this world and thinks about it all the time, he kills everything else in +him. Doesn't that seem dreadful? Not to enjoy all the beautiful, jolly +things in the world?" + +Jerry's philosophy was beyond Gyp's practical mind. "What would you do +if you had lots and lots of money, Jerry?" + +This was a stupendous question and one Jerry had often liked to ask of +herself. Her answer was prompt. + +"I'd keep going to school just as long as ever I could. And then I'd go +all over the world--to Japan and Singapore and India and to the Nile and +Venice and Switzerland and Gibraltar----" her tongue stumbled in its +effort to circle the globe. "Oh--_everywhere_. I'd want to see +everything." + +How many young hearts have dreamed of such adventure! + +"And yet," Jerry went on, "if I had all the gold in the world right in +my hand I don't believe I could make myself go so far away from +Sweetheart and Little-Dad and the dogs and--and Sunnyside!" + +"Oh," Gyp quickly settled such an obstacle. "If you had all the gold in +the world you could take 'em with you." + +At that moment they were startled by a loud thud in the hall beneath +them. The Bible crashed to the floor. Each girl instinctively clapped +her hand to her mouth to smother a cry. Then they laughed. + +"What _ever_ do you suppose it was? Hark--I hear footsteps." Gyp spoke +in sepulchral tones. + +"They're going away," whispered Jerry, relieved. "Goodness, how it +frightened me!" Jerry leaned over to lift the poor Bible. From its pages +had dropped a long envelope. It lay, white and smooth, the address side +upward, on the dusty floor. + +"Look, Gyp--a _letter_! It must have been in this Bible." + +Gyp took the envelope gingerly. + +"It's addressed to father! It's never been opened. It looks as though it +had _just_ been written! Jerry--_that's Uncle Peter's handwriting_!" + +Jerry stared at the envelope--except that the letter had been pressed +very flat, it did indeed look as though it had just been written. + +"Isn't it _creepy_?" Gyp shivered. "Do you believe in ghosts? _Could_ +Uncle Peter Westley have come here and written that--just--maybe, _last +night_?" + +It was a horrible thought--Jerry tried not to entertain it. But the +wailing wind made it seem possible! + +"What'll we do with it?" Gyp had laid it on the table. + +"Let's put it back in the Bible"--that seemed a safe place--"and take it +home. Maybe there is an important message in it that someone ought to +see! But I wish we'd never come here this afternoon." + +"And see how dark it is--it's getting late. Let's let these other things +go." Jerry's voice, betraying her eagerness to quit the tower room, made +Gyp feel creepier than ever. + +Each took a corner of the ghostly envelope and slipped it between the +pages of the Bible. + +"There--it's safe enough now. We can take turns carrying it." The girls +hurriedly donned their outer wraps. Then, without one backward glance, +they tiptoed down the narrow stair. But, to their amazement, the panel +at the foot of the stair would not budge. Vainly they shoved, and +pressed their shoulders against the solid oak. Breathless, Gyp sat down +on the Bible. + +"_What'll_ we do?" + +"We'll have to shout and bring someone--'cause we can't open the other +door." + +"Then Old Crow will know our secret," wailed Gyp. + +"But we don't want to stay here all _night_!" + +Gyp gave one swift, backward glance up the secret stairway to the +haunted tower room. + +"No--no! Well, let's shout together." + +They shouted and shouted, with all the strength of their young lungs. +But Old Crow, who really was Mr. Albert Crowe, for many years janitor of +Lincoln School, had gone, ten minutes earlier, in his Sunday best, to +attend the annual banquet of the Janitors' Association and his assistant +had made his last rounds of the School, so that the shouts of the girls +echoed and re-echoed vainly through the deserted halls of Highacres. + +Jerry leaned, exhausted, against the wall. + +"I don't believe it's a bit of use--not a soul can hear us." + +"What'll we do?" asked Gyp again--Gyp, who was usually so resourceful. +"If we only hadn't found that old letter we never'd have _thought_ of +ghosts and we wouldn't have minded a bit being shut in the tower room." + +Jerry commenced to laugh nervously. "Gyp, maybe you don't _know_ you're +sitting on the Bible!" Gyp sprang up. + +"I don't think it's anything to laugh about! Not me, I mean, but--but +having to stay all night--up _there_!" + +Jerry started back up the stairway. + +"Come on," she encouraged. "_I'm_ not afraid. If there _are_ ghosts I +want to see one." Gyp followed with the Bible. The tower room was +shadowy in the fast-falling twilight. The girls tried to open each of +the small windows; though they rattled busily enough they would not +budge. + +Gyp sat down resignedly on the window-seat. "We'll just sit here until +we're rescued. Only--no one will _guess_ where we are." + +"I think it's a grand adventure," declared Jerry valiantly. + +"If we only hadn't begun to _think_ about ghosts! You never can see +them, anyway--you just feel them. Is that the wind? Sit close to me, +Jerry." + +Jerry sat very close to her chum and they gripped hands; it was easier, +that way, to endure the dreadful silence. + +"I'm hungry," whispered Gyp, after awhile. Then, a moment later, "Did +you hear something, Jerry--like a long, long sigh?" + +Jerry nodded and Gyp drew closer to her, shivering. + +"Of course," she murmured in a voice lowered to the etiquette of a +haunted room. "_You're_ not frightened because you didn't _know_ Uncle +Peter. If I was afraid of him when he was _alive_ what----" + +"Sh-h-h!" commanded Jerry. Uncle Peter's ghost might be hovering very +close to them and might hear! Gyp's words did not sound exactly +respectful. + +Jerry tried to talk of everyday things but it was of no use--what +mattered the color of Sue Knox's new sweater when the very air tingled +with spirits? + +"_Oh-h!_" Gyp clutched Jerry in a spasm of fright. "_Something_ grabbed +my elbow----" her voice was scarcely audible. "Jerry--_true_ as I +live--cross my heart! Long--bony--fingers--just like Uncle Peter's used +to feel--_Oh-h_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE LETTER + + +"I don't understand----" Mrs. Westley lifted anxious eyes from her +soup-plate. "Gyp _always_ telephones! And _both_ of them----" + +"I saw Peggy Lee and Pat Everett coming home from the dressmaker's and +she wasn't with them," offered Isobel. "But she's all right, mother." + +"Such dreadful things happen----" + +"I'd like to see anyone try to kidnap _Gyp_," laughed Graham. Then he +added, in an off-hand way: "The ice broke on the lake out at Highacres +to-day. Guess the skating's over." + +"Graham!" cried Mrs. Westley, springing to her feet so precipitously +that her chair fell backward with a crash. Her face was deathly white. + +Graham, frightened by his careless remark, went to her quickly. + +"Mother--I didn't mean to frighten you! Why there's only one chance in a +hundred the girls were on the ice. If they'd been skating _some_ of us +would have seen them!" + +"Where _are_ they?" groaned the mother. "They might have gone on the +lake--afterwards--and not known--and broken through--and--no one +would--know----" She shuddered; only by a great effort could she keep +back the tears. + +"Mother, please don't worry," begged Isobel. "Let's call up every one of +the girls and then we'll surely find them." + +Not one of them wanted any more dinner. They went to the library and +Graham began telephoning to Gyp's schoolmates--a tedious and +discouraging process, for each reported that she had not seen either Gyp +or Jerry since the close of school. + +"I can't _bear_ it! We must do something----" Mrs. Westley sprang to her +feet. "Graham, call Uncle Johnny and tell him to come _at once_." + +Something of the mother's alarm affected Isobel and Graham. Graham's +voice was very serious as he begged Uncle Johnny, whom he found at his +club, to come over "at once." Then he slipped his arm around his mother +as though he wanted her to know that he would do anything on earth for +her. + +Uncle Johnny listened to the story of Gyp's and Jerry's disappearance +with a very grave face. He made Graham tell twice how the ice had broken +that afternoon on the lake, frightening the skaters away. + +"What time was that?" + +"Oh--early. About three o'clock. There were only four or five of us on +the lake. You see, hockey practice is over." + +"But I remember Gyp saying this morning that she was going to have one +more skate!" cried Isobel suddenly. + +"Before we report this to the police, Mary, we'll go out to Highacres," +Uncle Johnny said. And the thought of what he might find there made Mrs. +Westley grip the back of a chair for support. "Come with me, Graham. +Isobel--stay with your mother." + +Graham went off to the garage to give such directions as Uncle Johnny +had whispered to him. Just then Barbara Lee, whom Isobel had reached on +the telephone, came in, hurriedly. + +"I talked to the girls for a moment after the close of school. They were +standing near the library door. They had on their coats and hats." Her +report was disquieting. + +"May I go with you?" she asked John Westley. He turned to her--something +in her face, in her steady eyes, made him feel that if out at Highacres +he found what he prayed he might _not_ find--he would need her. + +"Yes--I want you," he answered simply, wondering a little why, at this +distressed moment, he should feel such an absurd sense of comfort in +having her with him. + +They drove away, two long poles and a coil of rope in the tonneau. In +the library Isobel sat holding her mother's hand, wishing she could say +something that would drive that white look from her mother's face. But +her distress left room for the little jealous thought that Uncle Johnny +had told _her_ to stay at home and then had taken Barbara Lee! And she +wondered, too, if it were _she_ who was lost, and not Gyp, would mother +care as much? + +At that moment Mrs. Westley threw her arms about her and held her very +close. + +"I just must feel _you_, dear, safe here with me--or I couldn't--stand +it--waiting." + + * * * * * + +"Jerry! Look! That flash--it comes--and goes!" Gyp's voice, scarcely a +whisper, breathed in Jerry's ear. + +The two girls were huddled in the little window of the tower room. Gyp +was almost hysterical; Jerry had had all she wanted of ghosts. Gyp had +felt thin fingers grip her elbow, her shoulder--even her ankle. Someone +had breathed in her ear. Jerry, too, had admitted that she had heard +sounds of irregular breathing from a corner of the room near the secret +door. And there had been a constant tap-tapping! And something had +laughed--a horrible, thin, ghost laugh, though Jerry said afterwards +that it _might_ have been the wind. + +Gyp had seen white figures floating about outside, too. Uncle Peter had +brought spirit-cronies with him! And now the ghostly flash of light---- + +"Gyp----" Jerry suddenly spoke aloud. "It's a--_flashlight_! See, +someone is swinging it as they walk. _Oh_----" Inspired to action, Jerry +seized a huge book and sent it crashing through the window. "_Help! +Help!_" she screamed, through the broken glass. + +Startled, Uncle Johnny, Graham, Barbara Lee and the assistant janitor, +whom they had aroused, halted. Graham, dropping the coil of rope, +pointed excitedly to the tower. + +"Look--they're in the tower room! _Well, I never_----" That the tower +room and its mysteries should remain under lock and key had been a +grievance to Graham. + +Uncle Johnny shouted to the girls; a great relief, surging through him, +made his voice vibrate with joy. And in the light of the electric flash +he saw that Barbara Lee's eyes were glistening with something +suspiciously like tears. + +"Now, to rescue the imprisoned maidens," he laughed, turning to the +engineer. + +It took but a few moments for the little party to reach the third floor. +Then from above came a plaintive voice. + +"If you'll just touch George Washington on the left-hand side of +the--the frame--he'll move--and----" + +For a moment, John Westley, staring at the panel, wondered if _he_ were +crazy or if Gyp and Jerry---- + +"We got in--that way," the voice explained. "You can't open the other +door! And _please_ hurry--it's _dreadfully_ dark and----" + +The truth flashed over Graham. "Of all _things_! A secret door!" he +shouted. He put his shoulder to the huge box of books that had been +shoved close to the picture, until it could be unpacked. "Give a hand +here!" he commanded excitedly. + +They all obeyed him--even Barbara Lee, next to Uncle Johnny, shoved with +all the strength of her muscular arms. And Uncle Johnny commenced to +chuckle softly. + +"The imps," he muttered. "Trapped in their lair." + +The box well out of the way, Graham pressed the left-hand side of the +panel picture and it swung out under his amazed eyes, revealing a +white-faced Gyp standing in the narrow aperture, and Jerry close behind. +Their big, frightened eyes blinked in the flashlight. + +Uncle Johnny managed to embrace both at once. He wisely asked no +explanations, for he could see that tears were not far away. Barbara Lee +hugged them, too, and the assistant janitor, who had a girl of his own +and at the suggestion of dragging the lake, had been startled "out of a +year's growth" as he said afterwards (though he was six feet tall, +then), beamed on them as though _he_ would like to caress them, too. +Graham was excitedly swinging the panel back and forth and peering +longingly up the dark, narrow stairway. + +"How'd you find it? Does it open right into the tower room? Were you +scared?" he asked. + +"I'm hungry," declared Gyp. + +"Let's hear all about it on the way home," suggested Uncle Johnny. "And +we'll put George Washington back in place--there's no use letting the +entire school know about this." His words were directed to Graham and to +the janitor. "Now, my girlies--what in the world have you got?" For +Jerry had picked up the huge Bible. + +"It's a--a letter we found--in the Bible----" + +"So you brought the whole thing?" Uncle Johnny laughed. "Lead the way, +Miss Lee." + +In the automobile Gyp had to have an explanation of the poles and the +rope. When she heard of their fears her face grew troubled. + +"Oh--_how_ mumsey must have worried!" As the automobile drew up at the +curb she sprang from it and rushed into the house, straight into her +mother's arms--Mrs. Westley had heard the car stop and had walked with +faltering steps to the door. + +"Mother, I didn't _want_ you to be worried--not for the _world_! But we +couldn't help it." + +With the girls safe at home the horrible fears that had tortured them +all seemed very foolish. The entire family listened with deep interest +while Gyp told of that first afternoon when she and Jerry had discovered +the secret stairway and of the subsequent meetings of the Ravens in the +tower room. + +"Please, Uncle Johnny, make Isobel and Graham promise they won't tell +_anybody_! It ought to be ours 'cause we found it and we're Westleys," +begged Gyp. + +"Whatever in the world possessed Peter Westley to build a secret +stairway in his house?" Mrs. Westley asked John Westley. "Who ever heard +of such a thing in this day and age?" + +"It's not at all surprising when one recalls how persistently he always +avoided people. He planned that as a way of escaping from anyone--even +the servants. Can't you picture him grinning down from those windows +upon departing callers? Doubtless many a time I've walked away myself, +after that man of his told me he couldn't be found." + +"I think it's deliciously romantic," exclaimed Isobel, "and I have just +as much right to use it as Gyp has." + +"My girls--I am afraid the whole matter will have to go to the board of +trustees. Remember--Uncle Peter gave Highacres to Lincoln School--we +have nothing to say about it." + +"Wasn't it _dark_ up there?" asked Graham. + +Gyp looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Gyp. By some process of mental +communication they agreed to say nothing about Uncle Peter's ghost. Back +here in the softly-lighted, warm living-room, those weird voices and +clammy fingers seemed unreal. However, there was the letter--Gyp reached +for the Bible. + +"We were looking through some books--and we found this." Holding the +envelope gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, she handed it to +Uncle Johnny. + +He read the address, turned the envelope over and over in his hand. + +"How strange--it has never been opened. It's addressed to Robert. I'll +give it to you." He handed it to Mrs. Westley. + +She took it with some of Gyp's reluctance. "It's Uncle Peter's +handwriting--but how fresh it looks. It's dated two days before he died, +John! I suppose he put it in that Bible and it was never found." She +tore the envelope open and spread out the sheets. "It's to both you and +Robert--read it." + + My Dear Nephews: + + It won't be long before I go over the river, and I'm glad--for I am + an old man and I've lived my life and I can't do much more, and I'd + better be through with it. But I wish I could live long enough to + right a few things that are wrong. I mean things that I've done, + especially one thing. Lately there isn't much peace of mind for me. + I've tried to find it in the Bible, but though there's a lot about + forgiveness I can't figure out what a man ought to do when he's + waited almost a lifetime to get it. I've always been hard as rock; + I thought a man had to be to make money, but now it all don't seem + worth while, for what good is your money when you're old if your + conscience is going to torment you? + + Right now I'd give half I possessed if I could make up to a young + fellow for a contemptible wrong I did him. So I'm writing this to + ask you to do it for me, and then I guess I'll rest + easier--wherever I am. + + Neither of you knew, I suppose, just what made the Westley Cement + Mixer a success; it came near not being one. Back there when we + were just starting it up, Craig Winton, a young, smart-looking + chap, came to me with a mechanical device he'd invented that he + believed we needed in our cement-mixing machine. We did--I knew + right off that that invention was what we had to have to make our + business a success; without it every cent the other stockholders + and myself had put into the thing would be lost. I offered the + young fellow a paltry amount, and when he wouldn't accept it, I let + him go away. Our engineers worked hard to get his idea, but they + couldn't. After a few months he came back. He looked ill and he was + shabby and low-spirited. I told him we wouldn't give him a cent + more, that I didn't think his invention would help us much, and I + let him go away again. The directors were all for paying him any + amount, but I told them that if we'd wait he'd come back and as + good as give the thing to us or I couldn't read signs, for I'd seen + something mighty like desperation in the chap's eyes. Even though + the directors talked a lot about failure, I thought the gamble was + worth a try, and I made them wait. I was right--young Winton came + back, looking more like a wreck than ever, and he took just what I + offered him, which was a little less than my first price. And I + made him sign a paper waiving all future claims on the patents or + the stockholders of the firm. That little invention made all our + money. But lately I can't get the fellow's eyes out of my + mind--they were queer eyes, glowing like they were lighted, and + that last time they had a look in them as though something was + dead. + + I'm too old to face this thing before the world, but I want you to + find Craig Winton and give him or his heirs a hundred thousand + dollars, which I've figured would be something like his percentage + of the profits if I had drawn an honorable contract with him. The + time he came to me he lived in Boston. I've always laughed at men + that talked about honor in business, but now that I'm looking back + from the end of the trail I guess maybe they're right and I've been + wrong.... + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FAMILY COUNCILS + + +Uncle Johnny laid Peter Westley's letter down. A silence held them all; +it was as though a voice from some other world had been speaking to +them. Mrs. Westley shivered. + +"How I hate money," she cried impulsively. Then, the very comfort and +luxury of the room reproaching her, she added: "I mean, I hate to think +that wherever big fortunes are made so many are ground down in the +process." + +Graham was frowning at the letter. + +"Of course you're going to hunt up this fellow?" he asked, anxiously, a +dull red flushing his cheeks. "Wasn't that as bad as stealing?" + +"Maybe he's dead now and it's too late," cried Gyp, who thought the +whole thing full of intensely interesting possibilities. + +"Uncle Peter cannot defend himself, now, Graham, so let us not pass +judgment upon what he has done. And I don't suppose I can act on this +matter until your father comes home." + +"Oh, John, I know he will want to carry out his Uncle Peter's wish! You +need not wait; too much time has been lost already," urged Mrs. Westley. + +Graham was standing in front of the fire, his back to the blaze. It +struck Uncle Johnny and his mother both that there was a new manliness +in the slim, straight figure. + +"_I_ want to help find him. It's when you know about such tricks and +cheating and--and injustice that you hate this trying to make money. I +think things ought to be divided up in this world and every fellow given +an equal chance." + +John Westley laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Real justice is the +hardest thing to find in this world, sonny. But keep the thought of it +always in your mind--and look out for the rights of the other fellow, +then you'll never make the mistakes Uncle Peter did." + +"Poor old man, all he cared about in the world was making money, and +then in his old age it gave him no joy--only torment. And he'd killed +everything else in him that might have brought him a little happiness! +I'm glad you and Robert aren't like him," Mrs. Westley added. + +"I am, too," cried Gyp, so fervently that everyone laughed. + +"How do you find people?" put in Tibby, who was trying very hard to +understand what it was all about. + +"It _will_ be somewhat like the needle in the hay-stack. Boston is a big +place--and a lot can happen in--let me see, that must have been fifteen +years ago." + +"Will you hire detectives?" Gyp was quivering with the desire to help +hunt down the mysterious Craig Winton. + +"I don't want to; I've always had a sort of distrust of detectives and +yet we may have to. We have so little to start on. I'll get Stevens and +Murray together to-morrow--perhaps they can tell me more about the +buying of the patent. And I'll have Watkins recommend some reliable +Boston attorney." Uncle John's voice sounded as though he meant +business. + +Isobel had said nothing during the little family council. She suddenly +lifted her head, her eyes dark with disapproval. + +"Won't giving this person all that money make _us_ poor?" + +Something in her tone sent a little shock through the others. + +"My dear----" protested her mother. + +"Oh, _you'd_ go on cheating him--just like Uncle Peter! That's like +you--just think about yourself," accused Graham, disgustedly. + +"Do you _want_ tainted money?" cried Gyp grandly. + +Isobel's face flamed. "You're hateful, Graham Westley. I don't like +money a bit better than you do--_you'd_ be squealing if you couldn't get +that new motorcycle and go to camp and spend all the money you do. And I +think it's _silly_ to hunt him up after all this time. He's probably +invented a lot of things since and doesn't need any money, and if he +hasn't--well, inventors are always poor, anyway." Isobel tried to make +her logic sound as reasonable to the others as it did to her. + +"Bonnie, dear----" That was the name Uncle Johnny had given to her in +nursery days; he had not used it for a long time. "There are two reasons +why we must carry out the wish Uncle Peter has expressed in this letter. +One is, because he _has_ asked it. He thought he would have time to give +the letter to us himself--perhaps tell us more about it; he did not +dream that it would lie for two years in that Bible. The other reason is +that it is the honorable thing to do--and it not only involves the honor +of Uncle Peter's name but your father's honor and mine--your mother's, +yours, Graham's--even little Tibby's. We would do it if it took our last +cent. But it won't----" + +"Oh, Uncle Johnny, you're great----" Graham suddenly turned his face to +the fire to hide his feeling. "When I'm a man I want to be just like +you--and father." + +Isobel would not let herself be persuaded to accept her family's point +of view. In her heart there still rankled the thought that Uncle Johnny +had taken Barbara Lee with him to Highacres and had made _her_ stay at +home. And it had been silly for them all to get so excited and make such +a fuss over Gyp and Jerry--they might have known that they'd turn up all +right. When she had seen Uncle Johnny pull Jerry down to a seat beside +him on the davenport she had hated her! + +Mrs. Westley followed John Westley to the little room that was always +called "father's study." + +"Won't it be exciting hunting up this Craig Winton?" Gyp asked the +others. "Isn't it an interesting name? Maybe he'll have a lot of +children. I hope there'll be some girls." Gyp hugged her knees in an +ecstasy of anticipation. "If they're dreadfully poor it'll be like their +finding a fairy godmother. Think of all they can have with that money!" + +"All _I_ hope"--Isobel's voice rang cruelly clear--"is that Uncle Johnny +won't want to bring any more _charity_ girls here!" She rose, then, and +without looking at any of them, walked from the room. + +Gyp opened her lips to speak, then closed them quickly. Whatever she +might say, she knew, instinctively, would only add to the hurt Isobel +had inflicted. She could not even throw her arms around Jerry's neck and +hug her the way she wanted to do, because the expression of Jerry's face +forbade it. It was a very terrible expression, Gyp thought, a little +frightened--Jerry's eyes glowed with such a fierce pride and yet were so +hurt! + +After a moment Jerry said slowly, "I--I am going to bed." Gyp wished +that Graham would say something and Graham wished Gyp would say +something, and both sat tongue-tied while Jerry walked out of the room. + +"Do you think we ought to tell mother?" Gyp asked, in a hushed voice. + +"N-no," Graham hated the thought of tale-bearing. "But Isobel's an awful +snob. It's her going around with Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers." To think +this gave some comfort to Graham and Gyp. + +"Well--I don't know what Jerry will _do_," sighed Gyp forlornly. + +The door of Jerry's room was shut and Gyp had not the courage to open +it. She listened for a moment outside it--there was not a sound from +within. She went into her own room and undressed slowly, with a vague +uneasiness that something was going to happen. + +There had been no sound in Jerry's room because she had been standing +rigid in the window, staring with burning, angry eyes out into the +darkness. Her beautiful, happy world, that she had thought so full of +kindness and good-fellowship, had turned suddenly upside down! "Charity +girl----" She did not know just what it meant, but it made her think of +homeless, nameless, unloved waifs--motherless, fatherless, dependent +upon the world's generosity. Her hand went to her throat--_charity +girl_--was not her beloved Sunnyside, with Sweetheart and Little-Dad, +richer and more beautiful than anything on earth? And hadn't she always +had----Like a flash, though, she saw herself in the queerly-fashioned +brown dress that had seemed very nice back at Miller's Notch, but very +funny when contrasted with the pretty, simple serge dresses that the +other girls at Highacres wore. Perhaps they had all thought she _was_ a +"charity girl," a waif brought here by Uncle Johnny. To be sure, her +schoolmates had welcomed her into all their activities, but perhaps they +had felt sorry for her and, anyway, it _had_ been after Uncle Johnny had +given her the Christmas box---- + +She looked down at the dress she wore--it was the school dress that had +been in the box. Perhaps she should not have taken it--taking it may +have made her a charity girl. She should never have come here. It was +costing someone money to send her to Highacres and to feed her; and +often Mrs. Westley gave little things to her--and none of this could she +repay! + +With furious fingers Jerry unfastened and tore off the Christmas dress. +From its hook in her clothes closet she took down the despised brown +garment. Her only thought, then, was to sort out her very own +possessions, but, as she collected the few things, the plan to go +away--anywhere--took shape in her mind. She would go to Barbara Lee +until her mother could send for her! + +Then her door opened slowly. On the threshold stood Gyp in her red +dressing-gown. It was not so dark but that Gyp could see that Jerry wore +her old brown dress and that she held her hat in her hand. With one +bound she was at her friend's side, holding her arm tightly. + +"Jerry, you're _not_ going away! You're _not_----" + +"I've--got--to. I _won't_ be----" + +"You're _not_ a--whatever Isobel said! She's horrid--she's jealous of +you because Dana King and--and _everybody_ thinks you're the most +popular girl at Lincoln. Peggy Lee said she heard a crowd of girls +saying so--that it was 'cause you're always nice to everybody and 'cause +you like to do everything--I won't _let_ you go!" There was something +very stubborn in Gyp's dark face; Jerry wished she had not come in. Just +before it had seemed so easy to slip away to Barbara Lee's and now---- + +"I never should have come here. I never should have let you all----" + +Gyp gave her chum a little shake. + +"Jerry Travis, Uncle Johnny brought you 'cause he said he knew you could +give Lincoln School and Isobel and me a lot--oh, of something--mother +read it in his letter--I remember. He said it was like a sort of +scholarship. And I heard mother tell him the day I was teasing her to +let me cut my hair short like yours, that she'd be willing to let me do +anything if I could learn to be as sunny as you are--I heard her, 'cause +I was listening to see if she was going to let me. So you've _more_ than +paid for everything. There's something more than just _money_! _You're_ +too proud; you're prouder than Isobel herself----" + +Jerry dropped her hat on the bed. Gyp took it as a promising sign and +she closed her arms tight around Jerry's shoulders. + +"If you go away it will break my heart," she declared. "I love you +more'n any chum I ever had--more than _anybody_--except my family, of +course, and I love them differently, so it doesn't count. And mother +loves you, too, and so does Tibby, and so does Uncle Johnny. And if you +don't tell me right off that you won't go away I'll go straight to +mother and then we'll have to tell her how nasty Isobel was, and that'll +make _her_ unhappy. And I mean it." There was no doubt of that. + +Gyp's concluding argument broke down Jerry's determination to go. No, +she could not; as Gyp had said, if she went away Mrs. Westley and Uncle +Johnny must know why. She could not do a single thing that would make +either of them the least unhappy. That would be poor gratitude. Perhaps +Gyp was right, too--that _she_ was too proud! Surely her mother would +never have let her come if it was going to bring the least humiliation +to her. + +Gyp with quick fingers began to unbutton the brown dress. "Let's just +show Isobel that we don't care what she says. I think it's that horrid +Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers that makes her act so, anyway. They're +horrid! Amy Mathers puts peroxide on her hair and Cora Stanton cheated +in the geometry exam--everyone says so--I know what let's do, Jerry, +there were some cup cakes left; I saw them in the pantry--let's go down +ever so quietly and get them--and we'll have a spliffy spread." As she +spoke she caught up Jerry's warm eiderdown wrapper and threw it around +her. + +Gyp's devotion was very soothing to poor distraught Jerry--so, too, was +the suggestion of the cup cakes. But half-way down the stairs Jerry +stopped short and whispered tragically in Gyp's ear: + +"Gyp--_we can't eat them_! Our school record--no sweets between meals!" +And at the thought of school Jerry's world suddenly righted again. + +"Oh, well----" Gyp would have liked to suggest missing a point. "We can +eat crackers and peanut butter--instead." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +POOR ISOBEL + + +The rawness of March gave way to a half-hearted April, days of pelting +rain with a few hours now and then of warm sunshine. Patches of grass +showed green against the dirty snowbanks lingering stubbornly in +sheltered corners; here and there a tiny purple or yellow crocus put up +its bright head; a few brave robins started their nest-keeping and, +perched shivering on bare boughs, valiantly sung the promise of spring. + +There were other signs to mark the changing of the seasons--an +organ-grinder trundled his wagon down the street, rag-pickers chanted, +small, scurrying figures darted in and out on roller-skates, marbles +rattled in ragged pockets, and the Lincoln boys and girls at Highacres +turned their attention from basketball and hockey to swimming and the +school dramatics. + +Isobel Westley had been chosen to play the part of Hermia in "A +Midsummer Night's Dream." Her family shared her pleasure--they felt that +a great distinction had come to them. Gyp and Jerry, particularly, were +immensely excited. Jerry, who had only been to the theatre twice in her +life, thought Isobel far more wonderful than the greatest actress who +ever lived. Both girls sat by the hour and listened admiringly while +Isobel rehearsed her lines before them. + +Mrs. Westley, who had never quite outgrown a love of amateur dramatics, +gave her approval to Isobel's plans for her costume. The other girls, +Isobel explained, were making theirs, but Hermia's should be especially +nice--so couldn't Madame Seelye design it? Madame Seelye did design +it--Isobel standing patiently before the long mirror in the fashionable +modiste's fitting-room while Madame, herself, on her knees, pinned and +unpinned and pinned again soft folds of pink satin which made Isobel's +face, above it, reflect the color of a rose. + +"You'd think the whole world revolved 'round your old play," exclaimed +Graham, not ill-humoredly. He had asked to be allowed to use the car to +take a "crowd of the fellows" out to see if any sap was running in the +woods and Mrs. Westley had explained that Isobel had to have her last +fitting, stop at the hair-dresser's to try on a wig, and then go on to +Alding's to match a pair of slippers. + +"It does," laughed Isobel back, her eyes shining. She was very happy, +and when she was happy she was a gay, good-natured Isobel and a very +beautiful Isobel. All through the school year her spirit had smarted +under the prominence attained by her schoolmates in the various school +activities--Ginny Cox was conspicuous in everything and on the honor +roll, besides; Peggy Lee played hockey and basketball, Dorrie was in the +Glee Club, Pat Everett was a lieutenant in her scout troop, Cora Stanton +was editor of the school paper, Sheila Quinn was the class +president--even Gyp was a sub on the all-school basketball team, and +Jerry--since that day she had skied down Haskin's Hill _she_ had pushed +her way into everything (that was the way Isobel thought of it); she +played on the hockey team and had "subbed" on the sophomore basketball +team and it was certain she would be picked on the swimming team. Though +Isobel scorned all these activities because they were not "any fun," +according to her creed, deep in her heart she had envied the girls who +could enjoy them. But now her vanity was soothed and satisfied; anyone +could play basketball or skate or swim, but no one could be the Hermia +that _she_ was going to be! Miss Gray had complimented her upon the +interpretation she gave the rôle and her eyes told her what she saw in +Madame Seelye's mirror. + +And Dana King was playing Lysander--a fine Athenian lad he made. Isobel +could afford now to forget the grudge she had nursed against him ever +since the Christmas party. He looked so really grown-up that it pleased +her to be a little shy with him, as though she had just met him--to +forget that they had been schoolmates since kindergarten days. She read +admiration in his eyes. What would he think, she said to herself, with a +little flutter, when he saw the rose-pink costume? + +"Isobel Westley, what _fun_ to have a rehearsal every afternoon," had +cried one of a group of girls which surrounded her. + +"Does Lysander walk home with Hermia every day?" asked another, with a +meaning laugh. + +"Tell us all about it," coaxed Amy Mathers. "It's too romantic for +anything." + +Isobel blushed and laughed and pushed them away. She knew that they all +envied her--she _wanted_ them to envy her. She knew that anyone of them +would gladly change places with her. Even Gyp and Jerry had sighed and +begged their mother to help them get up some sort of a play in which +they could take part. Gyp had asked Miss Gray to be allowed to help in +the make-up room, even if she did nothing more than pass the little jars +of cream and sticks of paint. And to Jerry had been assigned the +especial task of shoving Puck, who was sadly rattle-brained, upon the +stage, when the cues came. + +[Illustration: GYP, JERRY, TIBBY, EVEN GRAHAM, SUPERINTENDED ISOBEL'S +PREPARATIONS FOR THE DRESS REHEARSAL] + +The play was to be given on Saturday evening. On Friday evening a +full-dress rehearsal was called. Hermia's costume was finished and was +spread, in all its ravishing beauty, across the guest-room bed. On the +floor from beneath it peeped the slippers which had been made to order. + +"It'll make all the others look cheap," declared Isobel, thrilling at +the pretty sight. + +Mrs. Westley looked troubled. Certain doubts had been disturbing her +ever since that first moment of enthusiasm when she had yielded to +Isobel's coaxing. Isobel had said that the other girls were making their +own costumes--she knew that the faculty disliked any extravagance or +great expenditures of money in any of the school affairs--might it not +have been better to have helped Isobel fashion something simple and +pretty at home? Then when she watched Isobel's flushed, happy face, +radiantly pretty, she smothered her doubt. + +"Pride goeth before a fall, daughter mine. Take care that your costume +doesn't make you forget your part," she laughed. After all, Isobel was +so pretty that she would outshine the others, anyway--let her costume be +ever so dowdy! + +Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal. Gyp sat back on her heels and declared that Hermia +was "good enough to eat." Jerry thought so, too, though she had not the +courage to say so. Graham straddled the footboard of the bed and passed +scathing remarks concerning girls' "duds," but his eyes were proudly +admiring and in his pocket he treasured a ticket for the first row that +he had bought from another fellow at an advanced price. Isobel ready, +they all squeezed merrily into the automobile, taking care not to crush +the rose-pink finery, and whirled off to Highacres. + +Isobel, who loved dramatic situations in real life quite as well as in +make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance +on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, +with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with +her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble +part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the +dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. Oliver, the coach, +giving sharp orders. There was some trouble with the curtain. She took a +quick step forward to see what it was; the high heel of her satin +slipper caught in a coil of rope from the staging and she fell forward +to her knees. With the one thought to save the satin gown, she jerked +her body quickly backward. + +"Oh, Isobel, are you hurt?" Jerry was at her side in a moment. + +"N-no, only----" Isobel managed to get to her feet, but she leaned +dizzily against the scene propping. "Whoever left that old rope here! +They ought to be reported!" She glared angrily at poor Jerry as though +the fault must be hers. "I've--I've ruined my dress," she sobbed. + +Jerry examined the satin skirt. "There isn't the tiniest spot, Isobel. +But are you sure you are not hurt? Please try to walk." + +That was exactly what Isobel did not want to do, for there was a +horrible aching pain around her knee. Then she heard Mr. Oliver's voice +again. The curtain had been fixed; in a moment---- + +"_Leave_ me alone! You'd just _like_ it if I couldn't go on----" + +"Isobel! Oh, here you are." Dana King stuck his head around the corner. +Isobel let her cape drop to the floor. The whiteness of her face only +added to the pleasing effect. "_Whew!_" Lysander whistled. "Some class! +Say, you're _great_! Come on--old Oliver's throwing a fit." + +With Jerry's anxious eyes and Dana King's admiring gaze upon her, it was +possible for Isobel to walk out upon the stage. Somehow or other she got +through her part--miserably, she knew, for again and again Mr. Oliver +made her repeat her lines and once, in despair, stopped everything to +ask her if she was ill, and did not wish to have Miss Lee take her part. +Isobel did not intend giving up her part to anyone; she gritted her +little white teeth and went on. + +Upon arriving home she declined the hot cocoa Mrs. Westley had waiting +for her and hurried to her room on the plea of being very tired. She sat +huddled in her dressing gown waiting, with a white, strained face, until +she heard the girls' steps on the stairs. Then she called Jerry. + +"Close the door," she whispered, without further greeting. "I want you +to promise not to tell mother or--or anyone that--I hurt myself. I +didn't hurt myself--_much_, and, anyway, I'm going to be in that play +_if I die_!" Isobel had hard work to keep back the tears. + +Jerry was all sympathy. "I won't tell anyone, Isobel, if you don't want +me to. And let me look at your knee--it is your knee, isn't it? I know a +lot about those things 'cause Little-Dad's a doctor, you see." Jerry +knelt by the side of Isobel's chair and gently drew aside the dressing +gown. "Oh, Isobel!" she cried softly. The knee was badly swollen and the +flesh had discolored. "That looks--maybe you ought----" + +Isobel jerked away from her. "If you're going to make a fuss you can go +to bed! But if you _know_ anything--oh, it hurts--terribly----" + +Without another word Jerry went after hot water and towels. Half through +the night she sat by Isobel's bed, her eyes heavy with sleep, patiently +administering pack after pack. Gradually the pain subsided and Isobel +dropped off into slumber. + +All the next day Isobel's secret weighed heavily on Jerry's conscience; +with it, too, was an uncertain admiration for Isobel's grit. But Jerry +wondered if she, even though she might be the Hermia that Isobel was and +wear the rose satin--could want it enough to endure the pain silently. + +Isobel had begged to be allowed to stay in bed all day and "rest" and +her mother had willingly acquiesced, carrying her meals to her room and +chatting with her, unsuspecting, while she nibbled at what was on the +tray. + +Jerry helped Isobel dress. The pain caused by the effort to stand on the +injured leg brought a deep flush to Isobel's cheeks and tiny purplish +shadows under her pretty eyes, so that she made even a lovelier Hermia +than on the evening before. That knowledge, the murmur of admiration +that swept through the crowded hall, the envy she read on the other +girls' faces, the shy, boyish wonder in Lysander's lingering glance, +helped her through the agony of it all until the very end when, quite +suddenly, she crumpled into Lysander's quickly-outstretched arms! The +last scene had a touch of reality not expected; no one had the presence +of mind to ring down the curtain; the girls and boys rushed pell-mell +upon the stage. + +Graham and Dana King carried Isobel to an empty classroom where she +quickly regained consciousness. Her first sensation was a deep +thankfulness that the play was over and that she could tell about her +injured knee. Jerry had already done so, a little conscience-smitten, +and Uncle Johnny had rushed away for a doctor. Isobel looked at her +crumpled rose-pink skirts with something akin to loathing and clung +tightly to her mother's hand. Graham, in a voice that sounded far off, +was assuring her that he could carry her out to the car without hurting +her the least bit! And Dana King was asking, at regular intervals, and +in an anxious voice, if she felt better. Oh, it was _nice_ to have them +all care--it made the pain easier---- + +...She liked the funny bright lights swimming all around her and the +quick steps and the hushed voices.... Mrs. Hicks' little round eyes +blinking at her ... the feel of the soft sheets and the doctor's cold +touch on her poor, swollen knee ... the swinging things before her eyes +and the far-off hum of voices that were really very close and the tiny +star of light over the blur in the other end of the room ... the million +stars ... the slippery taste of the medicine someone gave her ... and +always mother's fingers tight, tight about her own.... + +"This is very serious," came in a small voice that couldn't be the +doctor's because _he_ spoke with a deep boom ... then she went to +sleep.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +JERRY WINS HER WAY + + +Poor, pretty Hermia--trying days followed her little hour of triumph. +While the whole school buzzed over the gorgeousness of her costume, over +the satin and silver-heeled slippers, over her prettiness and how she +had really acted just as well as Ethel Barrymore, she lay very still on +her white bed and let one doctor after another "do things" to her poor +knee. There were consultations and X-ray photographs, and all through it +old Doctor Bowerman, who had dosed her through mumps and measles, kept +saying, at every opportunity, with a maddening wag of his bald head: "If +you only hadn't been such a little fool as to walk on it!" Finally, +after what seemed to Isobel a great deal of needless fuss, the verdict +was given--in an impressive now-you'll-do-as-I-tell-you manner; she had +torn the muscles and ligaments of her knee; some had stretched, little +nerves had been injured; she must lie very quietly in bed for a few +weeks and then--perhaps---- + +"I know what he means," Isobel had cried afterwards, in a passion of +fear; "he means he can tell then whether I will ever be able to--to +dance again or not!" The thought was so terrible that her mother had +difficulty soothing her. + +"If you do what he tells you now you'll be dancing again in less than no +time," reassured Uncle Johnny. "Dr. Bowerman wants to frighten you so +that you will be careful." + +The first week or so of the enforced quiet passed very pleasantly; +mother had engaged a cheery-faced nurse who proved to be excellent +company; every afternoon some of the girls ran in on their way home from +school with exciting bits of school gossip and the whispered inquiry--of +which Isobel never wearied--how had it felt to faint straight into Dana +King's arms? Uncle Johnny brought jolly gifts, flowers, books, puzzles; +Gyp tirelessly carried messages to Amy Mathers and Cora Stanton and back +again. + +But as the days passed these pleasant little excitements failed her, one +by one. Mother decided that the nurse was not needed--there was no +medicine to be given--and a tutor was engaged, instead, to come each +morning. Her school friends grew weary of the details of Isobel's +accident and the limitations of her pink-and-white room; other things at +school claimed their attention--a new riding club was starting, and the +Senior parties; they had not a minute, they begged Gyp to tell Isobel, +to play--they were "awfully" sorry and they'd run in when they could. +Gyp and Jerry, too, were swimming every afternoon in preparation for the +spring inter-school swimming meet. The long hours dragged for the little +shut-in; she nursed a not-unpleasant conviction that she was abused and +neglected. She consoled her wounded spirit with morbid pictures of how, +after a long, bedridden life, she would reap, at its end, a desperate +remorse from her selfish, inconsiderate family; she refused to be +cheered by the doctor's assertion that she was making a tremendously +"nice" recovery and would be as lively on her feet as she'd ever +been--though he never failed to add: "You don't deserve it!" + +One afternoon, three weeks after the accident, Isobel looked at her +small desk clock for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. A ceaseless +patter of rain against the window made the day unusually trying. Her +mother had gone, by the doctor's orders, to Atlantic City for a week's +rest, leaving her to the capable ministrations of Mrs. Hicks. That lady +had carried off her luncheon tray with the declaration that "a body +couldn't please Miss Isobel anyways and if Miss Isobel wanted anything +she could ring," and Isobel had mentally determined, making a little +face after the departing figure, that she'd die before she asked old +Hicks for anything! It was only half past two--it would be an hour +before even Tibby would come, or Gyp or Jerry. What day was it? + +When one spent every day in one small pink-and-white room it was not +easy to remember! Thursday--no, Wednesday, because Mrs. Hicks had said +the cook was out---- + +A door below opened and shut. Footsteps sounded from the hall; quick, +bounding, they passed her door. + +"Gyp!" Isobel called. There was no answer. Someone was moving in the +nursery; it was Jerry, then, not Gyp. + +"Jerry!" Still there was no answer. Jerry was too busy turning the +contents of her bureau drawer to hear. She found the bathing-cap for +which she was hunting and started down the hall. A sudden, pitiful, +choky sob halted her flight. + +When she peeped into Isobel's room Isobel was lying with her face buried +in her pillow. + +"Isobel----" Jerry advanced quickly to the side of the bed. "Is anything +wrong? What is the matter?" + +"I--I wish I--were dead!" + +"Oh--_Isobel_!" + +"So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a--a helpless +cripple and left all alone----" + +Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely +about it--and that patter of the rain---- + +"Isn't Mrs. Hicks----" + +"Oh--_Hicks_. She's just a crosspatch! You all leave me to servants +because I can't move. Nobody loves me the least little bit. I--I wish I +were dead." + +To Jerry there was something very dreadful in Isobel's words. What if +her wish came true, then and there? What if the breath suddenly +stopped--and it would be too late to take back the wish---- + +"Oh, _don't_ say that again, Isobel. Can't I stay with you?" + +Isobel turned such a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart +was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp _had_ +selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for +her, she would doubtless be better company than--no one. She slipped the +bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her coat and hat. + +"Do you mind staying?" Isobel asked in a very pleading voice. + +Jerry might reasonably have answered: "I do mind. I cannot stay; this is +the afternoon of the great inter-school swimming meet and I am late, +now, because I came home for my cap," but she was so thrilled by the +simple fact of Isobel's wanting her--_her_, that everything else was +forgotten. + +"Of course I don't. It's horrid and stupid for you to lie here all day +long. Shall I read?" + +"Oh, _no_--after that dreadful tutor goes I don't want to see a book!" + +"Let's think of something jolly--and different. Would you like to play +travel? It's a game my mother and Little-Dad and I made up. It's lots of +fun. We pick out a certain place and we say we're going there. We get +time-tables for trains and boats and we decide just what we'll pack--all +pretend, of course. Then we look up in the travel books all 'bout the +place and we have the grandest time--most as good as though we really +went. Last winter we traveled through Scotland. It made the long +evenings when we were shut in at Sunnyside pass like magic. Little-Dad +has a perfect passion for time-tables and he never really goes anywhere +in his life--except in the game." + +"What fun," cried Isobel, sitting up against her pillows. A few weeks +before Isobel would have scorned such a "babyish" suggestion from +anyone. "Where shall we go?" + +"I've always wanted to go to Venice. We got as far as Naples and then +'Liza Sloane's grandson got scarlet fever and Little-Dad went down and +stayed with him. I'd love to live in a palace and go everywhere in +little boats." + +"Then we'll go to Venice and we'll travel by way of Milan and Florence. +Jerry, down in father's desk there are a whole lot of time-tables and +folders he collected the spring he planned to go abroad. And you can get +one of Stoddart's books in the library--and a Baedeker, too. We ought to +have a whole lot of clothes--it's warm in Italy. Bring that catalogue +from Altman's that's on mother's sewing table and we'll pick out some +new dresses. What fun!" + +Jerry went eagerly after all they needed for their "game." She sat on +the other side of Isobel's bed and spread the books out around her. +First, they had to select from the colored catalogue suitable dresses +and warm wraps for shipboard; then they had to fuss over sailing dates +and cabin reservations. In the atlas Jerry traced from town to town +their route of travel, reading slowly from Baedeker just what they must +see in each town. She had a way of reading the guidebook, too, that made +Isobel see the things. It was delightful to linger in Florence; Jerry +had just suggested that they postpone going on to Venice for a few days, +and Isobel had decided to send back to America for that pale blue dotted +swiss, because it would blend so wonderfully with the Italian sky and +the pastel colors of the old, old Florentine buildings, when they were +interrupted by Gyp and Uncle Johnny. + +Gyp was a veritable whirlwind of fury, her eyes were blazing, her cheeks +glowed red under her dusky skin, every tangled black hair on her head +bristled. She confronted Jerry accusingly. + +"So _here's_ where you are!" Her words rang shrilly. "Here--fooling +'round with Isobel and you let the South High beat us by two points! You +_know_ you were the only girl we had who could beat Nina Sharpe in the +breast stroke. They put in Mary Reed and she was like a _rock_. And you +swam thirty-eight strokes under water the other day. I saw you--I +counted. And--and the South High girl only got up to _twenty_! _That's_ +all you cared." + +Jerry turned, a little frightened. She had hated missing the swimming +meet--contests were such new things in her life that they held a +wonderful fascination for her--but she had not dreamed that, through her +failure to appear, Lincoln might be beaten! She faced Gyp very humbly. + +"Isobel was alone----" + +Gyp turned on her sister. + +"You're the very selfishest girl that ever lived, Isobel Westley, and +you're getting worse and worse. You never think of anyone in this whole +world but yourself! You never would have hurt your knee so badly only +you wanted to save your precious old dress, and you wouldn't give in and +let Peggy Lee take your part! Maybe you _are_ lonely and get tired lying +here and everyone's sorry 'bout that, but that's not any reason for your +keeping Jerry here when we needed her so badly--and she missed all the +fun, too!" + +Isobel drew herself back into her pillows. She was no match for her +indignant sister. And she was aghast at the enormity of her selfish +thoughtlessness. + +"I didn't know--honestly, Gyp. I thought the match was on Thursday----" + +"It was. _This_ is Thursday," scornfully. + +"Oh, it's _Wednesday_. Isn't it Wednesday? Mrs. Hicks said cook was out +and----" + +"As if the calendar ran by the cook! Cook's sister's niece's sister was +married to-day and she changed her day out. If you'd think of someone +else----" + +Jerry took command of the situation. + +"It's my fault, Gyp. I could have told Isobel but--I didn't. I sort of +realized how I'd feel if I had to lie there in bed day after day when +everyone else was having such a good time and--well, the swimming match +didn't seem half as important as making Isobel happy and--I don't +believe it was!" There was triumphant conviction in Jerry's voice, born +of the grateful little smile Isobel flashed to her. + +Gyp turned disgustedly on her heel. From the doorway where Uncle Johnny +had been taking in the little scene came a chuckle. As Gyp walked +haughtily out of the room he came forward and laid his hand on Jerry's +shoulder. + +"Right-o, Jerry-girl. There's more than one kind of a victory, isn't +there? Now run along and make peace with Miss Gypsy and let me get +acquainted with my Bonnie--four whole days since I've seen you." There +was a suspicious crackling of tissue-paper in his pocket. One hand +slowly drew forth a small, blue velvet box which he laid in Isobel's +fingers. + +"Oh, Uncle Johnny!" For, within, lay a dainty bracelet set with small +turquoise. Quite unexpectedly Isobel's eyes filled with tears. + +"What is it, kitten?" + +"It's lovely only--only--everybody's too good to me for--I +guess--I'm--what Gyp said I was!" + +There was everything in Isobel's past experience to warrant her +expecting that Uncle Johnny would vehemently protest the truth of her +outburst and assure her that no one could do enough for her. She +_wanted_ him to do so. But, alas, she read in his face that he, too, +thought what Gyp had said was very true. + +"Isobel, dear--I think I ought to try and make you see something--for +your own good. Have you ever pictured the fight that's going on in the +human blood all the time--the tiny warriors struggling constantly, one +kind to kill and the other to keep alive? The same sort of fight's going +on in our natures, too. Every one of us is born with a whole lot of good +things; they're our heritage and it's our own fault when we don't keep +'em. I don't mean outward things, dear--like your golden hair and those +sky-blue eyes of yours--I mean the inside things, the things that grow +and make our lives. But they've got to fight to live. If vanity and +selfishness get the upper hand--where do they lead you? Well," he +laughed, "I can't make you understand any more clearly what I mean than +just to point to poor old Aunt Maria!" + +Isobel had turned her face away; he could not see how she was taking his +clumsy little lecture. + +"_She's_ just a pathetic waste of God's good clay--moulded once as He +wants His children, but what has she done? She's lived--no one knows how +many years--only to feed her own body and glorify her own nest; she's +grown _in_ instead of _out_; she's never given an honest thought to +making this world or anyone in it one bit better for her having lived in +it. She's stealing from God. And what's done it--vanity, that years ago +mastered all the good things in her. Poor old soul--she was once a +young, pretty girl, like you----" + +Isobel jerked her head petulantly. The blue velvet box lay neglected on +the counterpane. + +"I think you're horrid to lecture me, Uncle Johnny. Mother and +father----" + +Uncle Johnny smiled whimsically at the childish face. + +"Mothers and fathers sometimes don't see things as clearly as mere +uncles--because they're so close. And Bonnie, dear, it's because we all +want so much of you! Let me tell you something else--this isn't a +lecture, either. It's a little thing that happened when you were a baby +and I've never forgotten it. I didn't see you until you were a year +old--I was abroad, studying, when you were born. When I went up to your +nursery that first time, and looked at you, I thought you were the most +wonderful thing God ever made. You lay there in your little white crib +and stared at me with your round, blue eyes, and then you smiled and +thrust out the tiniest scrap of a hand. I didn't dare breathe. And +everything around you was so perfect--white enamel, blue and yellow and +pink birds and squirrels and dogs and things painted on your walls, the +last word in baby furniture and toilet things. That very day a friend of +mine asked me to help drive the orphans of the city on their annual +outing. I was glad to do something for someone--you see, having a new +niece made me feel as though I was walking on air. They loaded up my car +with kids of all sizes and then the last moment someone snuggled a bit +of humanity into the front seat between two older youngsters--a poor +little mite with big, round, blue eyes like yours and the lower part of +her face all twisted with a great scar where she'd been burned. I +couldn't see anything on the whole ride but that little face--and +always, back in my mind were your two blue eyes and your dimpled smile. +I wanted to get through with the whole trip and hurry back to your +nursery to see if you were all right. But I stopped long enough at the +orphanage to ask about the poor baby. She'd been found in a filthy +cellar where she'd been abandoned--that's all they knew. How's _that_ +for a heritage? Stripped of everything--except the soul of her--to fight +through life with, and horribly disfigured in the bargain. I asked what +they did for such children and they told me that they'd keep her until +she was fourteen--then they'd have taught her some sort of +work--probably domestic--and she could make her own way. God help +her--fourteen, a little younger than our Gyp! I went back to your +mother's. She was out and I rushed up to your nursery. Your very +professional nurse thought I was mad. I sent her out. I took you in my +arms. I had to hold you to feel that you were safe and sound and had all +the arms and legs you needed and your face not half scarred away. And +sitting there I sort of talked to God--I begged Him to let you keep the +blessings you had at that moment and to make you worthy of them. You're +a beautiful girl, Isobel, and you have every advantage that love and +thought and money can give you, but--so was Aunt Maria beautiful at your +age, before vanity and selfishness----" + +"Uncle Johnny, I've known for a long time--that you didn't love me! +That's why I've been so nasty to Jerry. You love her----" + +"Bonnie!" Uncle Johnny's arm was around her now. He half shook her. +"Foolish girl! I love you now just the way I loved that mite of a baby. +I've always been fonder of you than any of the others and I'm mighty +fond of them. But you were the first--the most wonderful one." + +"But you'd like to have me--like Jerry?" + +"Yes," he answered, very decidedly. "I'd like to have you--that kind of +a girl, who walks straight with her head up--and sees big visions--and +grows toward them." + +"I hate goody-goody girls," sighed poor Isobel. + +"So do I!" laughed Uncle Johnny. "But you couldn't hate a girl who would +rather make someone else happy than win in a swimming match?" + +"N-no, and I wouldn't blame Jerry if she'd just enjoy seeing me +miserable--I've been so nasty to her. And she _isn't_ goody-goody, +either! She's just----" + +"A very normal, unspoiled, happy girl who's always been so busy thinking +of everything else that she's never had a moment to think of herself. +Now to show that you forgive my two-a-penny lectures, will you let me +eat dinner with you off your tray? And what are you doing with these +books? And did you know Dr. Bowerman's going to let you try crutches on +Sunday?" + +Two hours later, when Jerry, a little shyly, tiptoed into Isobel's room +to say good-night, Isobel impulsively pulled her head down to the level +of her own and kissed her. She wanted to tell Jerry what Uncle Johnny +had made her feel and see but she could not find the right words, and +Jerry wanted to tell her that she wouldn't for the world trade the jolly +afternoon they had had together for any swimming match, but _she_ +couldn't find the right words, so each just kissed the other, wondering +why she was so happy! + +"I'm going to walk on crutches Sunday, Jerry." + +"Oh, great! It will only be a little while before you're back in school, +Isobel." + +"Good-night, Jerry." + +"Good-night, Isobel!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE THIRD VIOLINIST + + +"Hello! Is that you, Gyp? I want Centre 2115, please. Is this Mr. +Westley's house? Is that _you_, Gyp?.... This is Pat Everett. +_Listen_----" came excitedly over the wire, though Gyp was listening as +hard as she could. "Peg and I've found _the black-and-white man_!" + +Gyp declared, afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to +her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating +Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and +together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening--the air +was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery +green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the +steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering +honeysuckle brushed their shoulders. A more perfect setting could not +have been found for the finish of their conspiracy. + +Pat plunged straight into her story. + +"Peg and I were coming back from Dalton's book store and we ran bang +into the man--he'd taken his hat off 'cause it was so warm and was +fanning himself with it. We both saw it at exactly the same moment and +we just turned and clutched each other and _almost_ yelled." + +"And then, what? Why didn't you grab him?" + +"As if we could lay our hands on a perfect stranger! Anyway, we've got +to be tactful. But I'm _sure_ it's the one--there was a white streak +that ran right back from the front of his face. And he was very +handsome, too--at least we decided he would be if we were as old as Miss +Gray. _I_ thought he was a little--oh, biggish." + +"And to think how we've hunted for him and he was right here----" Then +Gyp realized that Pat did _not_ have the gentleman in her pocket. + +"But how will we find him again?" + +"We followed him--and he went into the Morse Building and got into the +elevator and we were going right in after him when who pops out but Dr. +Caton, and he looked so surprised to see us that we hesitated, and the +old elevator boy shut the door in our faces. But we asked a man who was +standing there in a uniform, like a head janitor or something, if that +gentleman in a black coat and hat and lavender tie had an office in the +building, and he said, "Yes, seventh floor, 796." He leered at us, but +we looked real dignified, and Peg wrote it down on a piece of paper and +we walked away. So now all we've got to do is to just go and see him," +and Pat hugged her slim knees in an ecstasy of satisfaction. + +The girls stared meditatively at a fat robin pecking into the grass in +search of a late dinner. To "just go and see him" was not as simple to +the conspirators as it sounded, slipping from Pat's lips. + +"Who'll go?" Gyp put the question that was in each mind. + +"Perhaps it would be too many if all four of us went--so let's draw lots +which two----" + +"Oh, _no_!" cried Jerry, aghast. + +The others laughed. "It'd be fairest to leave Jerry out of the draw." + +"I'll go," cried Gyp grandly, "if Pat or Peggy will go with me and do +the talking." + +"What'll we say?" Now that the Ravens faced the fulfillment of their +plans they felt a little nervous. + +"I know----" Gyp's puzzled frown cleared magically. "Mother has five +tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony to-morrow night--I'll ask her to +let us go and invite Miss Gray to chaperone us. Then we'll write a note +and tell this man that if he'll go to the concert and look at the third +box on the left side he'll see the lady of his heart who has been +faithful to him for years in spite of her many other suitors--we'll put +that in to make him appreciate what he's getting. It'll be much easier +writing it than saying it." + +"Gyp--you're a wonder," cried the others, inspired to action. "Let's go +in and write the note now." + +The Ravens, who met now at Pat Everett's house, had neglected Miss Gray +of late. Carnations had succeeded the violets, then a single rose. Pat +had even experimented with a nosegay of everlastings which she had found +in one of the department stores. It had been weeks since they had sent +anything. For that reason a little feeling of remorse added enthusiasm +now to their plotting. + +Mrs. Westley was delighted at Gyp's desire to hear the concert and to +include Miss Gray in the party. And Miss Gray's face had flushed with +genuine pleasure when Gyp invited her. + +"Everything's all ready," Gyp tapped across to Pat Everett, and Pat, +nodding mysteriously, pulled from her pocket the corner of a pale blue +envelope. + +Directly after the close of school Gyp and Pat, with Jerry and Peggy Lee +close at their heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown +to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action +crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled--for +the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this +stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that +their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little +Miss Gray! + +To avoid the leering elevator man the two girls climbed the six flights +to the seventh floor. Pat carried the letter. Gyp agreed to go in first. + +"746--748----" read Pat. + +"It's the other corridor." They retraced their steps to the other side +of the building. "784-788-792----" Gyp repeated the office numbers +aloud. "7-9-6! _Wilbur Stratman, Undertaker!_" + +"_Pat Everett!_" Gyp clutched her chum's arm. "_A--undertaker!_ I +_won't_ go in--for all the Miss Grays in the world!" + +Pat was seized with such a fit of giggling that she had difficulty in +speaking, even in a whisper. "Isn't that _funny_? We've _got_ to go in. +The girls are waiting--we'd never hear the _last_ of it! He can't bury +us alive. Oh, d-dear----" She wadded her handkerchief to her lips and +leaned against the wall. + +"If Miss Gray wants an undertaker she can _have_ him! For my part _I_ +should think she'd rather have a policeman or--or the iceman! Come +on----" Gyp's face was comical in its disgust. She turned the knob of +the door. + +A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office. +She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them +through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of +the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair +pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and +reached for a coat that lay across another chair. + +"Is--is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not +cling to the roof of her mouth. + +He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual +customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with +them. He watched warily. + +"Our errand is--is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was +beyond the power of speech. "It's--it's personal. We've come, in fact, +of--our own accord--she doesn't know a thing about it----" + +"She? Who?" + +"Miss--Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a +dreadful mess of it! Why _didn't_ Pat produce the letter instead of +standing there like a wooden image? + +Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he +never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray--of course," he nodded. Encouraged, +Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with. + +"She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years +and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and +wouldn't marry anyone else and----" + +With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged +ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were +stark mad! + +"I am very sorry for Miss Gray but--what can I do?" + +"Oh, _can't_ you marry her _now_? She's still very pretty----" Gyp was +trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there--she had to make the +leap! + +The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare--then he +laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's +face. + +"Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! _Ha! ha!_ My +business is _burying_ and not _marrying_! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! _I_ don't +know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife +and six children at home!" + +Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold +stream of water ran down Gyp's spine. + +"I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but +you're in the wrong pew. _I_ never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember +and I guess somebody's been kidding you." + +Pat suddenly found her tongue--in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis +of fright had finished poor Gyp. + +"We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have +bothered you. We are in search of a certain--party that--that has--a +white streak--in his hair." + +"O-ho," the undertaker clapped his hand to his head. "So _that's_ the +ticket, hey? Well, I've always said I couldn't get away from much with +that thing always there to identify me--but I never calculated it'd +expose me to any proposals!" He laughed again--doubling up in what Pat +thought a disgustingly ungraceful way. She held her head high and pushed +Gyp toward the door. "We will say good-by," she concluded haughtily. + +"Say, kids, who are you, anyway?" His tone was quite unprofessional. + +"It is not necessary to divulge our identity," and with Gyp's arm firmly +in her grasp Pat beat a hasty retreat. Safe outside in the corridor they +fell into one another's arms, torn between tears and laughter. + +With mingled disgust and disappointment the Ravens decided then and +there to let love follow its own blind, mistaken course. + +"Miss Gray can die an old maid before I'll ever face another creature +like that!" vowed Gyp, and Pat echoed her words. + +"No one ever gets any thanks for meddling in other people's affairs, +anyway," Peggy Lee offered. + +"Nice time to tell us _that_," was Gyp's irritable retort. + +That evening Miss Gray, charming in a soft lavender georgette dress, +which her clever fingers had made and remade, wondered why her four +young charges were so glum. There was nothing in the world _she_ loved +so much as a symphony orchestra. She sat back in her chair, close to the +edge of the box, with a happy sigh, and studied her program. Everything +that she liked best, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and Wagner--Siegfried's Death. +Gyp, eyeing her chaperon's happy anticipation, indulged in a whispered +regret. + +"Doesn't she look pretty to-night? If that horrible creature only hadn't +been----" The setting would have been so perfect for the dénouement. She +sprawled back, resignedly, in her chair, smothering a yawn. A flutter of +applause marked the coming in of the orchestra. There was the usual +scraping of chairs and whining of strings. Then suddenly Miss Gray +leaned out over the box-rail, exclaiming incoherently, her hands +clasping and unclasping in a wild, helpless way. + +An opening crash of the cymbals covered her confusion. The four girls +were staring at her, round-eyed. They had not believed Miss Gray capable +of such agitation! What _ever_ had happened---- + +"An old friend," she whispered, her face alternately paling and +flushing. "A very dear--old--friend! The--the third--violin----" She +leaned weakly against the box-rail. The girls looked down at the +orchestra. There--under the leader's arm--sat the third violinist--and a +white streak ran from his forehead straight back through his coal black +hair! + +As though an electric shock flashed through them the four girls +straightened and stiffened. A glance, charged with meaning, passed from +one to another. Gyp, remembering the moment of confidence between her +and Miss Gray, slipped her hand into Miss Gray's and squeezed it +encouragingly. + +Not one of them heard a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying +herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very +near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost pushed Miss +Gray toward it. + +"Of _course_ you're going to see him! _Hurry._ You look so nice----" Gyp +was so excited that she did not know quite what she was saying. +"Oh--_hurry!_ You may never see him again." + +Then they, precipitously and on tiptoe, followed little Miss Gray. +Though it did not happen as each in her romantic soul had planned, it +was none the less satisfying! In a chilly, bare anteroom off the stage, +at a queer sound behind him resembling in a small way his name, the +third violinist turned from the job of putting his violin into its box. + +"_Milly_," he cried, his face flaming red with a pleased surprise. + +"George----" Miss Gray held back, twisting her fingers in a helpless +flutter. "I--I thought--when you sent--the--flowers--and the +verses--that maybe, you--you still cared!" + +Just for a moment a puzzled look clouded the man's face--then a vision +in the doorway of four wildly-warning hands made him exclaim quickly: + +"Care--didn't I tell you, Milly, that I'd never care for anyone else?" + +"He took her right in his arms," four tongues explained at once, when, +the next day, the self-appointed committee on romance reported back to +the other Ravens. "Of course, he didn't know we were peeking. He isn't +exactly the type _I'd_ go crazy over, but he's so much better than that +undertaker! And going home Miss Gray told us all about it. It would +make the grandest movie! She had to support her mother and he didn't +earn enough to take care of them both, and she wouldn't let him +wait all that time; she told him to find someone else. But you see +he didn't. Isn't love funny? And then when her mother finally died +she was too proud to send him word, and I guess she didn't know +where he was, anyway, or maybe she thought he _had_ gone and done +what she told him to do and married some one else. And she believed +all the time that he sent her those flowers--I s'pose by that +say-it-with-flowers-by-telegraph-from-any-part-of-the-country method. +Oh, I _hope_ she'll wear a veil and let us be bridesmaids!" + +But little Miss Gray did not; some weeks later, in a spick-and-span blue +serge traveling suit, with a little bunch of pink roses fastened in her +belt, she slipped away from her dreary boarding house and met her third +violinist in the shabby, unromantic front parlor of an out-of-the-way +parsonage; the parson's stout wife was her bridesmaid--so much for +gratitude! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +PLANS + + +"Oh, dear--how dreadfully fast time passes. It seems only a little while +ago we were planning for the winter and now here comes Mrs. Hicks about +new summer covers for the furniture, and Joe Laney wants to know if +there's going to be any painting done and I haven't thought of any +summer clothes--and with those two great growing girls! I suppose if +we're going to the seashore we ought to make some reservations, too----" +and Mrs. Westley concluded her plaint with a sigh that came from her +very toes. + +John Westley, from the depths of the great armed chair where he +stretched, laughed at her serious face. But the expression of his own +reflected the truth of what she had said. + +"It's the rush we live in, Mary. Why don't you cut out the seashore and +find a quiet place--out of this torrent? Something--like Kettle." The +mention of Kettle brought him suddenly to a thought of Jerry. + +"Well, my Jerry-girl's year of school is almost up. What next?" + +Mrs. Westley laid down her knitting. "Yes--what next?" she asked. + +"Somehow, I can't picture Jerry going back to Miller's Notch +and--staying there----" + +"That's it--I've thought of it often. Have we been doing the girl a +kindness? After all, John, contentment is the greatest thing in this +world, and perhaps we've hurt the dear child by bringing her here and +letting her have a taste of--this sort of thing." + +John Westley regarded his sister-in-law's plump, kindly face with +amusement. She had the best heart in the world and the biggest, but she +had not the discernment to know that there were treasures even in +Miller's Notch and Sunnyside, and, anyway---- + +"Isn't contentment, Mary, a thing that depends on something inside of +us, rather than our surroundings?" + +She nodded, speculatively. + +"And I rather think my girl from Kettle will be contented anywhere. +She's gone ahead fast here. I was talking to Dr. Caton about her. He +says she is amazingly intense in her work. I suppose that has come from +her way of living there at Sunnyside. But what can the school there at +Miller's Notch give her now? + +"And what is there for a girl, living in a small place like that, after +school? Contentment _does_ depend upon our state of mind, I grant, but +one's surroundings affect that state of mind--so there you are! How is a +girl going to be happy if she knows that she is far superior mentally to +everything that makes up her life? Jerry will grow to womanhood in her +little mountain village--marry some native and----" + +Uncle Johnny ignored the picture. + +"We can trip ourselves up at almost every turn, Mary. Aren't places +really big or small as we ticket them in our own minds? If you think of +Miller's Notch and Kettle by figures of the census, they _are_ +small--but, maybe, reckoning them from real angles they're big--very +big, and it's our cities that are small. To go back to Jerry--when I +think of her I always think of something I said to Barbara Lee--that +nothing on earth could chain a spirit like that anywhere--she was one of +the world's crusaders. Oh--youth! If nothing spoils my Jerry, she'll +always go forward with her head up! But _that's_ what has made me worry, +more than once, during my "experiment." _Have_ we risked the girl to the +danger of being spoiled? Will our little superficialities, so ingrained +that we don't realize them, taint her splendid unaffectedness? I don't +know--I can't tell until I see her back at Kettle--in that environment +the like of which I've never found anywhere else. If she isn't the same +shining-eyed Jerry plus considerable wisdom gleaned from her books and +her school friends, I'll have it on my conscience--if she's the same, +well, the winter's been worth a great deal to all of us! When I see her +and watch her back there--I'll know. And that leads me to what I really +came here to tell you." John Westley drew a letter from his pocket. "I +had word from Trimmer--the Boston attorney. He's found traces of a Craig +Winton who was a graduate of Boston Tech. He lived in obscure lodgings +in a poorer part of Boston and yet he seemed to have quite a circle of +friends of an intellectual sort. Some of them have given enough facts to +be pieced together so as to prove, I think conclusively, that this chap +is the one we're looking for. He was an inventor and of a very brilliant +turn of mind, but unpractical--the old story--and desperately poor. He +married the only daughter of a chemist who lived in Cambridge. His +health broke down and he took his wife and went off to the country +somewhere--his Boston friends lost track of him after that. Later one +received a letter telling of the birth of a son." + +"How interesting! Robert will be home in two weeks and then we can make +the settlement." + +"But, Mary--the search hasn't ended. He left Boston for the +'country'--that is very vague. And I don't like the tone of Trimmer's +communication. He advises dropping the whole matter. He says that +sufficient effort has been made to meet the spirit of the letter left by +the late Peter Westley----" + +"You will _not_ drop it, will you?" + +"Indeed not. I wired him to put all the men he could find on the case. +And I am going to do some work on my own account." + +"You?" + +"Yes--I have a clue all of my own." He laughed, folding the letter and +putting it away. + +"Really, John?" + +"Yes--a foolish sort of a clue--I can scarcely tell it to a man like +Trimmer. It's only a pair of eyes----" + +"I suppose if you're like all other sleuths you will not tell _me_ +anything more," said Mrs. Westley, wondering if he was really in +earnest. "When and where will your personal search begin?" + +"I'd like to start this moment, but I happened to think I could drive +Jerry home, and then I can make the test of my experiment." + +"Drive Jerry home----" his words reached the ears of the young people, +coming into the hall. It was Friday evening and they had been at the +moving-pictures. + +"_Who's_ going to drive Jerry home? You, Uncle Johnny? Can't I go, too? +Oh, please, _please_----" Gyp fell upon him, pleadingly. + +"Oh, I wish the girls _could_ go," added Jerry. + +"Why not?" Uncle Johnny turned to Mrs. Westley. "Then you wouldn't have +to worry your head over clothes and hotel space at the seashore! And +Mrs. Allan's up there across at Cobble with a house big enough for a +dozen----" + +"But they must stay at Sunnyside," protested Jerry, her face glowing. + +Always, now, at the back of her head, were persistent thoughts of home. +She had counted the days off on her little calendar; she saw, in the +bright loveliness with which the springtime had dressed the city, only a +proud vision of what her beloved Kettle must be like; she hunted violets +on the slopes of Highacres and dreamed of the blossoming hepaticas in +the Witches' Glade and the dear sun-shadowed corners where the bloodroot +grew and the soft budding beauty of the birches that lined the trail up +Kettle. She longed with a longing that hurt for her little garden--for +the smell of the freshly-turned soil, for the first strawberries, for +the fragrance of the lilacs that grew under her small window, for the +clean, cool, grass-scented valley wind. And yet her heart was torn +with the thought that those very days she had counted on her calendar +marked the coming separation from Gyp and the schoolmates at +Highacres--Highacres itself. She must go away from them all and all that +they were doing and they would in time forget her, because they would +know nothing of Sunnyside. And now, quite suddenly, a new and wonderful +possibility unfolded--to have Gyp at home with mother and Little-Dad, +sleeping in the tiny room under the gable, climbing the trails with her, +working in the garden, playing with Bigboy, sharing all the precious +joys of Kettle, meant a link; after that, there could be no real +separation. + +And she wanted Isobel, too. Between the two girls had sprung a wonderful +understanding. Isobel was grateful that Jerry had not humiliated her by +mentioning the debate, or the many other little meannesses of which she +had been guilty; Jerry was glad that Isobel had not raked them up--it +was so much nicer to just know that Isobel liked her now. Isobel was a +very different girl since her accident--perhaps Uncle Johnny, alone, +knew why. She had decided very suddenly that she _did_ want to go to +college. The week before she had "squeezed through" the college entrance +exams--luck she did not deserve, she had declared with surprising +frankness. And after college she planned to study interior decorating. + +Everyone wondered why they had not thought before of such wonderful +summer plans. Mrs. Westley would go with Tibby to Cousin Marcia's at +Ocean Point in Maine--"quiet enough there"; Graham was going to a boys' +camp in Vermont, and Isobel and Gyp could divide their time between +Sunnyside and Cobble. + +"We are not consulting Mrs. Travis," laughed Mrs. Westley. + +"Oh, she'd _love_ them to be there," cried Jerry with conviction. + +"And anyway, if she frowns, we'll move on to Wayside, and _we_ know the +trail in between, don't we, Jerry?" + +"Say, Jerry," Graham thought it the psychological moment to spring a +request he had been entertaining in his heart for some time. "Will you +let me take Pepper to camp? Lots of the boys have dogs but none of them +are as smart as Pep." + +Jerry could not answer for a moment. In her picture of her homegoing, +Pepper had had his part; but--it would be another link---- + +"Of course you may take him. He'll love--being with you." Long ago she +had reconciled herself to sharing Pepper's devotion with Graham. + +"Oh, I think that's the wonderfulest plan ever made," exclaimed Gyp +rapturously--Gyp, who with her mother had visited some of the most +fashionable summer and winter resorts. "I want to sleep up on--where is +it, Jerry--and see the sunrise. How will we _ever_ exist until school's +over!" + +"Examinations will help us do that," laughed Isobel. + +"And Class-day and Commencement. And who's going to win the Lincoln +Award?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LINCOLN AWARD + + +"Who's going to win the Lincoln Award?" + +That question was on every tongue at Highacres. That interest rivaled +even the excitement of Class-day and its honors; of the Senior +reception, Commencement itself. It shadowed the accustomed interval of +alarm that always followed examinations. Everyone knew that the contest +was close; no one could conjecture as to whom the honor would fall, for, +though one student be a wizard in trigonometry, he might have failed +dismally in the simple requirement of setting-up exercises or drinking +milk. + +"I've eaten spinach until I feel just like a cow out at pasture," +declared Pat Everett disgustedly, "and what good has it done! For I was +only _eighty-five_ in English!" + +"But think of all the iron in your system," comforted Peggy Lee. "I hope +Jerry wins the prize, but I'm afraid it is going to Ginny Cox. She was +_ninety-nine_ in Cicero. I wish _I_ had her brains----" + +"And her luck! Ginny says herself that it is luck--half the time." + +"Look how she got out of that scrape last winter----" spoke up another +girl. + +The Ravens, who were in the group, suddenly looked at one another. + +"It won't be _fair_ if Ginny wins the Award," was the thought they +flashed. + +The records for the contest were posted the day before Class-day--the +last day of the examinations. A large group of boys and girls, eagerly +awaiting them, pressed and elbowed about the bulletin board in the +corridor while Barbara Lee nailed them to the wall. Gyp's inquisitive +nose was fairly against the white sheet. + +"_Vir-gin-i-a Cox!_" she read shrilly. "Jerauld Travis _only two points +behind_! And Dana King third----" + +An uncontrollable lump rose in Jerry's throat. She had hoped--she had +dared think that she was going to win! She was glad of the babble under +which she could cover her moment's confusion; she struggled bravely to +keep the disappointment from her face as she turned with the others to +congratulate Ginny. + +The plaudits of the boys and girls were warm and whole-hearted. If any +surprise was felt that it had been Ginny Cox and not Jerry Travis who +had won the Award it was carefully concealed. + +"We might have known no one could beat you, Coxie." + +"It was that ninety-nine in old Cicero." + +"Hurrah for Ginny!" + +Dana King trooped up a yell. "Lincoln--Cox! Lincoln--Cox!" + +Through it all Ginny Cox stood very still, a flush on her face but a +distressed look in her eyes. The Ginny Cox whom her schoolmates had +known for years would have accepted the hearty congratulations with a +laughing, careless, why-are-you-surprised manner; the Ginny Cox whom +Jerry had glimpsed that winter afternoon preceding the basketball game +was honestly embarrassed by the turn of events. She had not dreamed she +could win--it _had_ been that ninety-nine in Cicero. + +"Ginny Cox, you don't look a _bit_ glad," accused one clear-sighted +schoolmate. + +Alas, Ginny was not brave enough to clean her troubled soul with +confession then and there; she tried to silence the small voice of her +conscience; she made a desperate effort to be her own old self, evoking +the homage of her schoolmates as she had done time and time again. She +answered, uneasily, with a smile that took in Jerry and Dana King: + +"I hate to beat anyone like Jerry and Dana. It's so close----" + +Whereupon the excited young people yelled again for "Travis" and again +for "King." The crowd gradually dispersed; little groups, arm-in-arm, +excitedly talking, passed out through the big door into the spring +sunshine. A buoyance in the very air proclaimed that school days were +over. + +In one of these groups were Ginny Cox, Gyp, Jerry, Pat Everett, Peggy +Lee and Isobel. Among them had fallen a constraint. Isobel broke it. + +"Ginny Cox, you haven't any more right to that Award than I have! You +_know_ you built the snowman and Jerry took the blame so's you could +play basketball. _She's_ the winner!" + +Each turned, surprised, at Isobel's defence of Jerry's right, marveling +at the earnestness in her face. + +"Oh--_don't_," implored Jerry. "I'm _glad_ Ginny won it." + +Ginny stamped her foot. "_I'm_ not--I wish I hadn't. I never dreamed I +would--honest. What a mess! I wish I'd just turned and told them all +about it, but I didn't have the nerve! I'm just yellow." That--from +Ginny Cox, the invincible forward! Breathless, the girls paused where +they were on the grassy slope near the entrance of Highacres. A great +elm spread over them and through its shimmering green a sunbeam shot +across Ginny Cox's face, adding to the fire of its sternness. + +"Girls----" she spread out her hands commandingly, "I don't know what +_you_ think--but _I_ think Jerry Travis is the best ever at Lincoln! +She's made me show up like a bad old copper penny 'longside of her. A +year ago I could have taken this old Award without a flicker of my +littlest eyelash, but just _knowing_ her makes it--impossible! Now--what +shall we do?" + +Jerry's remonstrance--a little quivery, because she was deeply moved by +Ginny's unexpected tribute--was drowned out in a general assent and a +clamorous approval of Ginny's words. + +"I know----" declared Isobel, feeling that, because she was a Senior, +she must straighten out this tangle. "Let's tell Uncle Johnny all about +it." Uncle Johnny--to whom had been carried every hurt, every problem +since baby days. + +The others agreed--"He's a trustee, anyway," Gyp explained--though just +how much a trustee had to do with these complicated questions of school +honor none of them knew. + +And, as though Uncle Johnny always sprang up from the earth at the very +instant his girls needed him, he came up the winding drive in his red +roadster. They hailed him. He brought the car to a quick stop. + +"Uncle Johnny, we want you to decide something for us! Please get out +and come over here." + +He stared at the serious faces. What tragedy had shadowed the customary +gladness of the last day of school? He let them lead him to the old elm. + +"If you'll please sit down and--and pretend you're _not_--our uncle but +sort of a--a judge--and listen, we'll tell you." + +"Dear me," Uncle Johnny murmured weakly, sitting down on the slope. +"This is bad for rheumatism and gray trousers but--I'll listen." + +Isobel began the story with the building of the snowman; Gyp took it up. +Dramatically, with an eloquence reminiscent of that meeting of the +Ravens when the ill-fated lot had fallen to Jerry, she explained how +"for the honor of the school" Jerry had shouldered Ginny's punishment. +Peggy Lee interrupted to say that she thought Miss Gray had made an +awful fuss about nothing, but Ginny hushed her quickly. Then the story +came to the winning of the Award. + +"Two points--Jerry only needed two points. And she lost ten as a +punishment about the snowman. Don't you see--she's really the winner?" + +Uncle Johnny had listened to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he +was tortured with the desire to laugh. But he could not affront these +girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they +called honor. "Oh, youth--youth!" he thought, loving them the more for +their precious earnestness. + +"And--it's _such_ a mix-up, we don't know what to do. If I knew who had +given the prize I'd go straight to him," exclaimed Ginny bravely. + +Uncle Johnny straightened his immaculately gray-trousered legs and laid +his straw hat down on the grass. + +"If that'll help things any--I'm he," he explained with a little +embarrassment. + +"You? You? Really--Uncle Johnny?" came in an excited chorus. + +"Yes, me," with a fine scorn for grammar. "I'm the one who's to blame +for all the carrots," pinching Gyp's cheek. "But you _have_ sort of +mixed things up." + +"But we _had_ to win that basketball game," cried Gyp, "and we couldn't +unless Ginny played." + +"Yes--you had to win the basketball game," he nodded with a judicious +appreciation. + +"You see, Lincoln got the cup for the series." + +"And Jerry paid the price--yes." + +"For the honor of the school!" + +"Then--I'm afraid this is the last payment. You see, girlies, everything +we do--no matter what it is--is fraught with consequences. If I were to +go over to yonder lake and throw in a pebble--what would we see? Little +ripples circling wider and wider--further and further. That's like +life--our everyday actions are so many pebbles--we have to accept the +ripples. It's sometimes hard--but I guess Jerry sees the truth." + +There was no doubt from the expression of Jerry's face but that she saw +the truth--Uncle Johnny's homely simile had made it very clear. + +"But _I_ won't take it--that wouldn't be fair." It was the new Ginny who +spoke. "So it'll go to Dana King." + +"Yes, it will go to Dana King." Uncle Johnny was serious now. "Ginny +should not have accepted Jerry's sacrifice. Girls, there's a simple +little thing called 'right' that we find in our hearts if we search +that's finer than even the precious honor of your school--and Gyp, you +speak very truly when you say that _that_ is something you must +valiantly always uphold. Now if you'll let me tell this story of yours +to the committee I think it can all be straightened out--and we'll feel +better all around." + +"And I'm glad it's Dana King," exclaimed Peggy Lee. "Garrett said he had +had to give up his plans to go to college next fall and he was terribly +disappointed and now maybe he won't have to----" + +Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind +Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled--in youth the sun is always so +happily close behind all the little clouds--the girls' spirits went +forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, +the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior +bouquets--the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of +girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school +life--graduates. + +Uncle Johnny watched his girls join others and troop away, with light +step, heads high. He chuckled, though behind it was a little sigh. + +"Doc, my boy, you were right--it _has_ made me ten years younger to mix +up with these youngsters." + +As he turned to go into the building he met Barbara Lee coming out. He +suddenly remembered that the business of the Award had to do with +Barbara Lee--somehow, he almost always had, nowadays, to consult her +about something! Very sweetly she went back with him to her office. He +told her what the girls had told him. She listened with triumph in her +face. + +"I _knew_ Jerry Travis did not do that. But, oh, aren't they funny?" +However, her tone said that these "funny" girls were very dear to her. +"It will take something very real out of my life when I leave Lincoln." + +"What do you mean?" John Westley's voice rang abruptly. + +"Of course--you haven't heard. I have had a wonderful offer from a big +export house in San Francisco. It's the same firm to which I expected to +go last summer--before I came here. You see the road I chose to climb to +the stars wasn't entirely along--physical training. My last year in +college I specialized in export work. There was a fascination in it to +me--it's such a _growing_ thing, such a challenging work, and it carries +one into new and untried fields. There's an element of adventure in +it----" her eyes glistened. "I shall spend a year at the main office, +then they're going to send me into China--because I can speak the +Chinese language." + +John Westley stared at her--she seemed like such a slip of a girl. + +"And mother is so much better now that there is no reason why I cannot +go." + +Though they had yet to straighten out the matter of the Award she quite +involuntarily held out her hand as she spoke, and John Westley took it +in both of his. + +"I hope this--_is_ the road to the stars." That did not sound properly +congratulatory, so he added, lamely: "I'm glad--if you want to go. But +what will we do without you here?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +COMMENCEMENT + + +"Commencements----" declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like +weddings--all sort of weepy." + +"What do _you_ know of weddings, little one?" from Graham. + +"I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always +crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried +herself!" + +"Did you cry, mother?" asked Tibby curiously. + +Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did--really. And I cried at my Commencement. +There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's +Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really _was_ the +end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over--then, I +remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress--we wore +organdie then, too, girls--with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm +and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a +rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back. +So I cried--for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else +to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid--to +look ahead into life----" + +"But there was father--you knew him then, didn't you?" + +A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes--there was father. I +said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was +married--and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy--but I knew +I was going away forever from my girlhood." + +"Mother----" protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I +wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day +exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had +given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be +worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to +be _married_----" + +"Darling"--and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers--"we leave our +childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always +there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying +there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth +we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears--tears that sweeten and +strengthen the spirit, too." + +"Well, I'm glad _I_ have two more years at Highacres," cried Gyp, +looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face. + +"And _I'm_ glad," Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to +college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't +be Amy Mathers for _anything_. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of +all she's going to do next winter--such _empty_ things!" Isobel, in her +scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do +just what Amy Mathers was planning to do! + +"Well,"--Graham stretched his arms--"school's all right but _I'm_ mighty +glad vacation has come." + +Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day +exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All +through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness +the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not +thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn, +until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the +school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school. +A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates. +Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award--to Dana King. A murmur had +swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records, +the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis. +Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's +hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd +do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and +had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant +a lot to him--for it made college possible." + +It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining +hill from which paths diverged--attractive paths that beckoned; that +precious word college--Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along +that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's +had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than +the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow, +little path, and led straight away from Highacres--but it led to +Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought +that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in +a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart--and Gyp and Isobel +would be with her. + +The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class +was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls +in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the +lapels of their coats. + +Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes. + +"You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew," she cried in +the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you +all--but it would muss you dreadfully." + +"Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any _dirt_ on me," exclaimed +Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing. + +"Am _I_ all right, mother?" begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy +white. + +Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a +flower in _his_ buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give +the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket. + +"A little graduating gift for my Bonnie." It was a circlet pin +of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of +her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things +eternal--everlasting--never ending. That's like my faith in you." He +lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on, +now--everybody ready?" + +If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have +noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's +manner--a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has +girded one's self for a great deed. + +He _had_ made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had +been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had +haunted him--thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in +her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened +his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really +meant, "What will _I_ do without you?" + +Absurd--he tried to reason the whole thing calmly--absurd that this slip +of a girl, who knew _Chinese_, had become necessary to his happiness! +How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that--and he +was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away--and he could not +_let_ her go away. + +So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John +Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was +asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me--if I tell +her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears +with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought +that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth +it seemed like ninety. + +"I'll tell her--just the same," was his final determination; she was on +her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with +a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years. + +From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces--and +saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness +and a beauty of thought that was inspired--not by the detached group of +graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with +a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the +others and bring them very close. + +"Loyalty" was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest +ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen." + +After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a +gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, +soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring +gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which +decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the +June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth. +More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with +reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the +promise of their day, stood at the start---- + +Then the school sang their Alma Mater--the undergraduates singing the +first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar +notes rang with a truer, braver cadence--one voice, clearer than the +others, broke suddenly with feeling. + +"Wasn't it all perfectly _beautiful_?" cried Gyp as the audience moved +slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't _tell_ which was best +of the program and it _was_ sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny +_splendid_? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was +just sick over her dress--it was so plain--and she looked as lovely as +_any_ of the others. Oh, goodness, _think_ how you'd feel if we were +graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's +Barbara Lee, let's _hug_ her--think how _dreadful_ to have her go away. +And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry----" Gyp ended her outburst +by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders. + +John Westley advanced upon them--with the strange new look still in his +eyes. + +"Gyp--you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness." He tried to make his tone +light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a +book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little, +Barbara Lee walked away with him. + +"Well, I never----" declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of +saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and +Barbara Lee. + +John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing +in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he +told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart. +There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that +brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips. + +"I wanted you to know," he finished, simply. "I don't suppose--what I +can offer--can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid +dreams--but, I wanted you to know that you have----" + +"There's more than _one_ way to the stars----" she interrupted, lifting +glowing eyes to his. + +Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she +remembered Uncle Johnny. + +"Do you s'pose they're in the library _yet_?" + +She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To +their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing +looking out of the window--with their hands clasped. + +Gyp coughed--a cough that was really a funny sputter. + +"Did--did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?" + +Uncle Johnny turned--without a blush. + +"_Hello_, Gyp!" (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find +the book--because I wasn't really after a book. But I _did_ find what I +wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your +Barbara Lee is _not_ going away?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CRAIG WINTON + + +"Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a" echoed through the wooded slopes of Kettle. Startled, +birds winged away from the treetops, little wild creatures skurried +through the undergrowth, yet in the care-free, silvery tinkle of those +merry voices there was no note to alarm. + +Jerry was leading Isobel and Gyp down the trail from Rocky Top. Baskets, +swinging from their shoulders, told of the jolly day's outing. Isobel +and Gyp were dressed in khaki middies and short skirts; Isobel's hair +was drawn back simply from her face and bound with a bright red ribbon; +Gyp's cheeks were tanned a ruddy brown, against which her lips shone +scarlet. Jerry wore the boyish outfit in which John Westley had found +her. Three happier, merrier girls could not have been found the world +over. + +A week--a week of hourly wonders, had passed since the girls had arrived +at Sunnyside with Uncle Johnny. To Jerry the homecoming was even sweeter +than she had dreamed. And to find her precious mother "exactly" the +same, she whispered in the privacy of a close hug, dispelled a little +fear that had tormented her. + +"Why, darling, did you think _I'd_ be different?" + +"I don't know----" Jerry had colored, but tightened the clasp of her +arms. "It's been so dreadfully long! I thought maybe--I'd forgotten----" + +And Little-Dad had not changed a bit, nor the house, nor the garden, nor +Bigboy--not a thing, Jerry had found on an excited round. The old lilac +bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still +daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves +marked a row of onions just where her onions had always +grown--Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown +bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room, +softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere. +Her own little room was just as she had left it. Oh, the wonder, the joy +of coming back! How different it would have been if there _had_ been any +change. What if Sweetheart--she rushed headlong to hug her mother again. + +Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were +genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle +caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from +his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the +trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries, +lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together +these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before. +To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant +summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist. + +And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all +through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her +mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother +alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to +know--concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked +to think it all over again, herself--those first days of school, the +classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that +never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two +"real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden +pipes--only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had +discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school, +school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big +girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying, +rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there lingered a +furtive questioning. Jerry, reveling in her own happiness, did not +realize that her mother was watching her every expression with the +anguishing fear that her Jerry might have changed. And she _had_ +changed; she had grown, though she was still as straight as one of +Kettle's young fir trees; her winter's experience had left its mark on +her sunny face in a new firmness of the lips, a thoughtfulness behind +the shining eyes. + +"Will these new friends, Jerry, these fine times you have had make you +love Sunnyside less--or be discontented here?" Her mother had +interrupted her flood of confidences to say. + +Jerry stared in such astonishment that her mother laughed, a shaky +laugh, and kissed her. + +"Because, my dear, remember you are only Jerauld Travis of Kettle +Mountain, and your life must lie just here. Oh, my precious, I thank God +I have you back!" she added with an intensity of emotion that startled +and puzzled Jerry. + +"Why, mother, honest truly there's never been a moment when I wasn't +glad I was only Jerauld Travis, and I wouldn't trade places with a soul, +only----" and Jerry could not finish, for she did not know just what she +wanted to say. She was oddly disturbed. Did her mother begrudge her +those happy weeks at Highacres? Had she been afraid of something? And +_was_ she the same Jerry who had wished on the Wishing-rock to just +_see_ the world which lay beyond her mountain? Didn't she want to go +away again--sometime, to college? And what would her mother say if she +told her that? + +Jerry managed to lock away these tormenting thoughts while she and the +girls were roaming Kettle. Certainly there was not a shadow in the face +she lifted now to the caress of the mountain breeze nor in the voice +that caroled its "Ka-a-a-a-a" and laughed as the echoes answered. + +From the Witches' Glade where the trail sloped down between white +birches, the girls ran fleetly, leaped the little gate through the +fringe of fir trees and, laughing and panting, tumbled upon the veranda +of the bungalow straight into Uncle Johnny's arms! + +Uncle Johnny had only stopped at Kettle long enough to unload his girls +and their baggage, then he had hurried on to Boston to consult the +lawyers who were tracing Craig Winton. He had not expected to return for +three or four weeks. "Not until I have this thing off my mind," he had +explained to Isobel and Gyp. + +Isobel, though she now looked at it from another angle, still thought it +very foolish to pursue the search for this Craig Winton. The Boston men +had reported that their search had led them to a blank wall and that +there was little use spending more money on it. But in spite of this, +Uncle Johnny had persisted in going ahead on some clue of his own and +wasting precious time away from Barbara Lee. Both Isobel and Gyp, from +thinking that no woman in the world was good enough for Uncle Johnny, +had now veered around to the happy conviction that heaven had patterned +Barbara Lee especially for Uncle Johnny's pleasure. They beamed upon the +engagement with such approval that even Uncle Johnny, head over heels in +love as he was, grew a little embarrassed by their enthusiasm. Gyp also +became reconciled to the school library as a setting for the proposal +and declared that, thereafter, the library at Highacres would be +enshrined in her heart as something other than a room to "make one's +head ache." But both girls were disgusted that Uncle Johnny could +cheerfully leave the lady of his choice and go off on a search that +appeared so useless! It was contrary to all their rules of romance. + +Something in Uncle Johnny's face and his unexpected appearance drew an +exclamation from each of the girls. Almost in the same voice, with no +more greeting than to vigorously grasp him by shoulder and arm, they +cried: "Did you find her? Have you come to stay?" + +He hesitated just a moment and glanced questioningly at Mrs. Travis. +Then for the first time the girls noticed that Mrs. Travis was very +pale, that her eyes burned dark against the whiteness of her skin as +though she had been racked by a great agitation and her hands clasped +tightly the back of a chair. She nodded to John Westley. + +"Yes, my search is ended. You see I had the right clue--though it was +only the mention of a pair of eyes. Do you remember in Uncle Peter's +letter about Craig Winton's eyes? 'They were glowing like they were +lighted within.' Well, have you ever seen a pair of eyes like that? I +have--only where Craig Winton's were sad with disappointment, these +others glow from the pure joy of being alive----" + +"_Jerry?_" interrupted Gyp, in a queer, tangled voice. + +"Yes--Jerauld." + +"_Oh-h!_" + +The girls stared at Jerry and Jerry stared at John Westley. Was he just +joking? How _could_ it be? She turned to her mother. Her mother nodded +again. + +"Yes, dear, you are Jerauld Winton. But--we gave you your stepfather's +name--he was so good to us!" + +In that moment of unutterable surprise Jerry's loyal little heart went +out quickly to Little-Dad. + +"Oh, even if he _is_ a stepfather I love him just the same!" she +exclaimed, wishing he was there that she might hug him. + +"You see, beginning at this end made my search quicker. It was hindered +a little, though, because the county courthouse at Waytown, where the +records of Jerry's birth and Craig Winton's death were filed, burned a +few years ago with everything in it. But I stumbled on an old codger who +used to be postmaster at Waytown and he told me more in a few moments +than all the Boston detectives had found in months. I went on to Boston +to interview those old friends the lawyers there had found and then came +back." + +There was a puzzled look on each face. Hesitatingly, Jerry put the +question that was in each mind. + +"But, mother, why didn't you ever tell? Were you--ashamed?" + +Her mother's face flared with color. She stepped forward and laid an +entreating hand on Jerry's. "Oh, no--_no_!" she cried. "You must not +think that--no one must. He--your father--was the finest man that ever +lived. But he made me promise, when you were a wee, wee baby, that I +would try to protect you from the bitterness of the world that +had--broken his heart. Oh, he died of a broken heart, a broken spirit. +He lived in his dreams, his inventions were a part of him--like his +right arm! When they failed he suffered cruelly. Then he had one that he +knew was good. But----" she stopped abruptly, remembering that these +people were Westleys. "But he could never have been happy. He was not +practical or--or sensible. His brain wore out his body--it was always, +always working along one line. And before he--died, he seemed to have +the fear that you might grow up to be like him--'a puppet for the +thieves to fleece and feed upon,' he used to say. After he--died, we +stayed on in Dr. Travis' cabin, where he had sheltered and cared for +your father. He moved down into the village but, oh, he was so good to +us! When, two years later I married him and we built this home, I vowed +that I would keep only the blessed peace of Sunnyside for you. So I +never told you of your own father and those dreadful years of poverty. +But I was not _ashamed_!" + +Jerry, not knowing exactly why, put one arm around her mother's shoulder +in a protecting manner. "Poor, brave Sweetheart," she whispered, laying +her cheek against her mother's arm. + +Isobel and Gyp were held silent by a disturbing sense of embarrassment. +That it should have been Jerry's father whom their Uncle Peter had +"fleeced"--the horrible word which had slipped reminiscently from Mrs. +Travis' lips burned in their ears! But a sudden delight finally broke +loose Gyp's tongue. + +"Oh, _Jerry_, isn't it _exciting_ to think we've been hunting everywhere +and all the time it's _you_! I'm glad--'cause it sort of makes you a +relation." And her logic was so extremely stretched that everyone +laughed. + +"I'd rather you got the money than anyone in the world," added Isobel. + +The money--Jerry had not thought of that! Her face flushed scarlet, then +paled. + +"Oh, I don't want it," she cried. "You've done so much for me." + +"My dear," Uncle Johnny's voice was very business-like. "It is something +you have not the right to decline, because it was given by a dying man +to purchase a peace of mind for his last moment on earth. And now let me +look you over, Jerry-girl." He tilted her chin and studied her face. +Then he glanced approvingly down her slim length, smiling at her boyish +garments. "I guess my experiment hasn't hurt you," he said, though no +one there knew what he meant. + +The evening was very exciting--why would it not be when Jerry had found +the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right in her very own lap? +Uncle Johnny stayed on overnight; some repairs to a tire were necessary +before he started homeward. + +"Do you remember what you said once, Jerry, when I asked you what you +would do if you had a lot of money?" Gyp had asked as they sat out on +the veranda watching the stars. "And you said you'd go to school as long +as ever you could and then----" + +Jerry had raised suddenly to an upright position from the step where she +was curled. + +"Oh"--she cried, her voice deep with delight--"now I can go back to +Highacres----" + +Then, at the very moment of her ecstasy, she was strangely disturbed by +the quick touch of her mother's hand laid on her shoulder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +HER MOTHER'S STORY + + +Sometime after she had gone to sleep, Jerry wakened suddenly with the +disturbing conviction that someone needed her. At the same moment her +ear caught a sound that made her slip her bare feet quickly to the floor +and stand, listening. It had been a soft step beneath her window--a +little sigh. + +In a flash Jerry sped down the narrow stairway, past the open door of +the room where Little-Dad lay snoring, and out across the veranda. In +the dim light of the moon that hung low in the arc of the blue-black +sky, Jerry made out the figure of her mother, standing near the rough +bench that overlooked the valley. + +"Mother!" + +"Jerry, child, and in your bare feet!" + +"I heard you out here. Isn't it dreadfully late? Can't you sleep? +Mother, look at me," for Mrs. Westley had kept her face averted. +"Mother, darling, why do you look so--sort of--sad?" Jerry's voice was +reproachful. "We're so happy now that we are together, aren't we? And it +_will_ be nice to have lots of things and Little-Dad won't ever have to +worry and----" + +Mrs. Travis lifted her hand suddenly and laid it across Jerry's lips. +"Child, I am not sad. I have been out here fighting away forever the +foolish fears that have stalked by my side since you were a very little +girl. Some day, when you're a mother, you'll know how I've felt--how +I've dreaded facing this moment! How often I've sat with you and watched +the baby robins make their first flight from the nest and have laughed +at the fussy mother robin scolding and worrying up in a nearby +branch----" + +"But, mamsey, you've always told me how the mother robin _pushes_ the +little ones out of the nest to make them _know_ that they can fly!" + +Mrs. Travis accepted the rebuke in silence. Jerry slipped her hand into +her mother's. Her mother held it close. + +"Jerry, dear, I've never told you much about myself because I could not +do that without telling you of your own father. I was a very lonely +little girl; I had no brothers or sisters--no near relatives. My mother +died when I was eight years old, and a housekeeper--good soul--brought +me up. My father was a professor of chemistry in Harvard, as you know, +and he was a queer man and his friends were peculiar, too--not the sort +that was much company for a young girl. But I was very fond of my father +and I was very content with my simple life until I met Craig Winton. He +was so different from anyone else who had ever crossed our threshold +that I fell in love with him at once. My father died suddenly and Craig +Winton asked me to marry him. It was the maddest folly--he had nothing +except his inventive genius and he should never have tied himself to +domestic responsibilities; they were always--such as they were--like a +dreadful yoke to his spirit. But we were happy, oh, we were _happy_ in a +wonderful, unreal way. Sometimes we didn't have enough to eat, but he +always had so much faith in what he was going to do that _that_ somehow, +kept us going. But when his faith began to die--it was dreadful. It was +as though some hidden poison was killing him, right before my eyes." + +"What made his faith die?" asked Jerry, curiously. + +"Because he grew to distrust his fellowmen. That second visit to Peter +Westley----" Mrs. Travis spoke quickly to hide her bitterness. "He was +so sure that what he had made was good--an inventor has always, my dear, +an irrational love for the thing he has created--and to have it +_spurned_! He was supersensitive, super--everything. Then my own health +went to pieces. I suppose I simply was not getting enough to eat to give +me the strength to meet the mental strain under which I had to live--and +you were coming. From his last visit to Peter Westley he returned with a +little money, but he was as a crushed, broken man--his bitterness had +unbalanced his mind. He said that it was for my health that he came away +with me, but I knew that it was to get away from the world that he +hated--and to hide his failure! Your Little-Dad took us in. He knew at +once that your father was a very sick man and he brought him to his +cabin here on Kettle. But even here your father suffered, and after you +were born he feared for you. He was obsessed with the thought that _you_ +had all life to face----" + +"How dreadfully sorry you must have felt for him," whispered Jerry, +shyly, trying to make it all seem true. + +"I felt sorry for him, child, not that he had been so disappointed but +because he had not the strength to rally from it. I don't believe God +made him that way; I think he sacrificed too much of himself to his +genius. This world we live in demands so much of us--such _different_ +things, that, if we are to meet everything squarely, we cannot develop +one side of our minds and let the other side go. I am telling you all +this, Jerry, that you may understand how I have felt--about you. The +months after your father died were sort of a blank to me--I lived on +here because I had nowhere else to go. Gradually my gratitude to John +Travis turned to real affection--not like what I had given your father, +but something quite as deep. And the years I have lived with him here +have been very happy--as though my poor little ship had found the still +waters of an inland stream after having been tossed on a stormy sea. And +I've tried to make myself think that in these still waters I could keep +_you_ always, that you would grow up here and--perhaps--marry +someone----" she laughed. "Mothers always dream way ahead, darling. +But as you grew older I could see that that was not going to be easy. +You've so quickly outgrown everything I can give you--or that +anyone--here--can; you have grown so curious, your mind is always +reaching out. What is here, what is there, what is this, where is +that--questions like these always on your tongue! And you _are_ like +your father--very." + +Jerry shivered the least little bit, perhaps from the night air, warm as +it was, perhaps from the thought that she was like poor, poor Craig +Winton, who did not seem at all like a real father. + +In a moment her mother had wrapped her in the soft shawl she carried. +Something in the loving touch of her hands broke the spell of unreality +that had held Jerry. + +"I don't understand, mamsey," she whispered, cuddling close, "if you +felt like--_that_--and worried, why did you let me go away?" + +"Because, my child," there was something triumphant in her mother's +voice, "some inner sense made me believe that though you look like your +father and act like him in many ways, you have a nature and a character +quite of your own. I tried to put away the fears I had had which I told +myself were foolish and morbid. John Westley's arguments helped me. I +knew immediately that he was related to the Peter Westley who had +crushed your father, but I felt certain he knew nothing of it--and I was +glad; to bury the past entirely was the only way to bury forever the +bitterness that had killed your father. And when John Westley made the +offer to give you a year of school, I thought it was only justice! I had +known school life in a big city where I had many schoolmates and I lived +for several years in the shadow of a great university, though the life +in it only touched me indirectly, and when the opportunity opened, I +wanted you to have the same experience; I felt it might solve the +problem that confronted me. And I told myself that I was _sure_ of you +that you could go away to school, go anywhere, and come back again and +be my same girl! Jerry, these people have been very, very good to you; +out of pure generosity they have given you a great deal, do you now--now +that you know the truth--feel any bitterness toward them?" + +Never had Jerry associated Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley, nor the +younger Westleys, nor the charming, hospitable home, with the Peter +Westley she had pictured from Gyp's vivid descriptions. And, too, +remembering the pathetic loneliness of the old man's last days, she felt +nothing but pity. + +"Oh, no," she answered, softly, decidedly. "Anyway, he made up for +everything he'd done when he gave beautiful Highacres to Lincoln +School," she added, loyally. + +Then Jerry fell silent. "I was sure of you," her mother's words echoed. +Had she not glimpsed more, in those months at Highacres, than her mother +dreamed? A promise of what college might hold for her--new worlds to +conquer? + +"Mother, am--am I the--same girl?" She put the question slowly. + +"No, Jerry--and that's what I've been fighting out here--all by myself. +For I realize that it was only selfishness made me dread finding a +change! A mother's selfishness! That you should grow and go on and +forward, even though you leave me behind, darling, I know must be my +dearest wish. But oh, my dear, I understand how the poor mother robin +feels just before she shoves her babies out of the nest! For don't you +think _she_ hates an empty nest as much as any human mother? Do you +remember the little story I used to tell you when you were small enough +to cuddle your whole self on my lap? How yours and my love was a +beautiful, sunny garden where you dwelt and that the garden had a very +high wall around it?" + +"I love that story, mamsey. I told it once to Mrs. Westley and she loved +it, too. And you used to say that there was a gate in the wall with a +latch but the latch was quite high so that when I was little I could not +find it!" + +"And then you grew bigger and your fingers could reach the latch--you +wanted to open it to go out and see what was outside. I had made the +little garden as beautiful as I knew how and it was very sunny and the +wall was so high that it shut out all trouble--but you wanted so much to +open the gate that I knew I must let you!" + +"And then I went away to Highacres----" put in Jerry, loving the story +as much as ever. + +"And I was alone in the garden our love had built, but I was not +lonely--I _will_ not be lonely, for--wherever you go--you are my girl +and I love you and you love me! _Nothing_ can change that. And I shall +leave the gate open--it will always be open!" She said it slowly; her +story was finished. + +Jerry's face was transfigured. "You mean--you _mean_"--she spoke +softly--"that--if I want to go--back to Highacres--you'll _let me_? I +can _go to college_? Oh, mamsey, you're wonderful! Mothers _are_ the +grandest things. And the gate will always be open so's I can always come +back? And you won't be lonely for I'll always love you most in the world +of anybody or anything. And when I'm very grown-up and can't go to +school any more we'll travel, won't we? You and me and Little-Dad--won't +we, mamsey?" + +"Yes, dear." But the mother's eyes smiled in the darkness--she was +thinking of the empty nest. + +Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath. + +"The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in +it, like my--father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that +he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall _never_ be like +that! And it's dreadful"--she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit +valley--"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to +school. Why, I'm the very, very richest girl in the world!" Then she +blushed. "I don't mean _that_ money, mamsey, I mean having you +and--Sunnyside and Kettle and just knowing about--our garden!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE WISHING-ROCK + + +Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its +mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a +momentous day--momentous because so many things had been decided and +such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with +Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, +then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was +going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett, +Renée La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee +was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed +upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile. + +"You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and +then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and----" + +Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a +chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed +an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little +tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted +it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he +yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately--he knew +just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a +sewing-machine. + +But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry +should go back to Highacres---- + +"_Pinch_ me, Gypsy Editha Westley--pinch me _hard_!" she cried as she +sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And _really, truly_ +going back to Highacres! I _can't_ be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to +sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver +ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them +because _they_ could go and _I_ couldn't. But it used to be fun +pretending I knew just what the world was like." + +Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been +anywhere?" + +"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being +places and seeing things yourself." + +Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the +great rock. + +"Do you suppose it really _is_ a 'wishing-rock'?" + +"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I +pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree +fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for +things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did +not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it +seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock. +Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things." + +"Well, it's funny if it wasn't _some_ sort of magic that made Uncle +Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you +were wishing! And your wish came _true_. And if he hadn't--why, you'd +never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that +secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known +that you were _really_ Jerauld Winton. Oh, it _has_ magic!" + +Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more +than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the +little things which shape our living! + +"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish! +It's so still you could 'most believe there _were_ fairies hiding +'round. I'll wish first." + +Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of +the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial +fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral +note. + +"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball +team--I wish _that_ dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the +college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through +college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly +spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a +tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has +asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry him and have six children and +I'll bring them to the mountains to live. Then"--she paused for +breath--"if I'm not asking too much I wish that my hair'll get curly." + +"Did I remember everything?" she asked anxiously, jumping down from the +rock. "Who's next?" + +Jerry politely waved Isobel to the top. + +Isobel laughed in her effort to frame all that she wanted to wish. + +"I just want to be the most famous decorator in the country. I want to +have women coming to me from all over, begging me to do their houses. +And if the women are cross and ugly I'll make everything pink to cheer +them up and if they're smug and conceited I'll make their houses dull +gray, and if they are too frivolous I'll make things a spiritual blue. +Oh, it will be _fun_! And I want to go to Paris to study just as soon as +I get through college, and I don't want to get married for a long, long +time, maybe never." + +It was Jerry's turn. Isobel and Gyp stood aside. Jerry's eyes were +shining--it _was_ fun to pretend that, maybe, a shadowy, spectral Fate +waited there in the valley to hear what they were saying! + +"I wish--oh, it seems as though just going back to Highacres is all +anyone _could_ wish! I want to go to school as long as ever I can and +then I want to go all around the world, and then I want to study to be a +doctor like Little-Dad and take care of sick people and make them well, +so they can enjoy things. And I want to marry a man who's jolly and +always young-acting and loves dogs and has light brown hair and a very +straight nose and----" + +"Jerry Travis, that's just like Dana King," cried Gyp, accusingly. + +Jerry flushed scarlet. "It isn't anything of the sort! I mean--can't +there be lots of men with light brown hair and straight noses--hundreds +of them? And anyway," loyalty blazed, "Dana King _is_ the nicest boy +I've ever known!" + +"And he thinks _you're_ the nicest girl," Gyp laughed back. "I know +it--he told Garrett Lee and Garrett told Peggy. So there----" + +"You've interrupted my wish and I don't know where I left off," Jerry +rebuked. "Oh, I wish most of all that I can always, no matter where I +am, come back to Sunnyside and Sweetheart and Little-Dad and--my garden! +There, I've wished everything!" + +The distant tinkle of a cowbell sounded faintly; a thrush sang; the sun, +dropping low toward the wooded crest of the opposite mountain, cast a +golden glow over valley and slope. The air was filled with the drowsy +hum and stirring of tiny unseen creatures, the birches that fringed the +glade leaned and whispered. The three girls sat silent, staring down +into the valley, each visioning a golden future of her own. But a +thoughtfulness shadowed the radiance of Jerry's face. Yesterday she had +been just Jerry Travis of Kettle, now she was another Jerry; on a page +far back in her life's book, opened to her, she had glimpsed the tragedy +of disappointment, of blighted hope, of defeat--her own young, undaunted +spirit cried out that none of this must come into _her_ life! Or, if it +did, she must be strong to meet it---- + +Gyp roused. For her the golden spell was broken. She yawned and +stretched. + +"Isn't school funny? You think you hate it and then when vacation comes +you keep thinking about going back. And you bury geometry and Cæsar +forever and try to forget them and then first thing you're thinking +about what you're going to take next year and whom you'll get and what +new girls will come and what sort of a team we'll have! We've just _got_ +to train a forward who'll be as good as Ginny when she graduates and I +believe, Jerry Travis, you're _it_." + +Jerry and Isobel turned promptly from their dreaming. + +"I wonder who'll take Miss Gray's place--and Barbara Lee's----" + +"And, oh," Jerry hugged them both. "I'll be _there_! I'll be _there_! I +hated to _think_ of your all going on without me. It would have broken +my heart! Dear old Highacres!" + + "To thy golden founts of wisdom, + Alma Mater, guide our step----" + +caroled the young voices, softly. + + * * * * * + +BY JANE ABBOTT + +HAPPY HOUSE + +A NOVEL + +"There is something of Louisa May Alcott in the way Mrs. Abbott unfolds +her narrative and develops her ideals of womanhood; something refreshing +and heartening for readers surfeited with novels that are mainly devoted +to uncovering cesspools."--_Boston Herald._ + + +STORIES FOR GIRLS + +KEINETH + +"'Keineth' is a life creation--within its covers the actual spirit of +youth. The book is of special interest to girls, but when a grown-up +gets hold of it there follows a one-session under the reading lamp with +'finis' at the end."--_Buffalo Times._ + +LARKSPUR + +"Mrs. Abbott takes her story writing seriously and the standards she +sets up in the actions of her characters must help to shape the judgment +and ideals of those who read her books."--_Christian Endeavor World._ + + +HIGHACRES + +"Saturated with the spirit of youth, and written in the happy vein +characteristic of Mrs. Abbott's previous stories and which is endearing +the author with her growing army of youthful readers."--_Brooklyn +Standard Union._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES*** + + +******* This file should be named 29865-8.txt or 29865-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/8/6/29865 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Highacres</p> +<p>Author: Jane Abbott</p> +<p>Release Date: August 30, 2009 [eBook #29865]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>HIGHACRES</h1> + +<h2>BY JANE D. ABBOTT</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "KEINETH," "LARKSPUR" AND "HAPPY HOUSE"</h3> + +<h3><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</i> HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h4>PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</h4> + + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</h4> + +<h4>PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br /> +AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS<br /> +PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +THOSE DEAR CHUMS</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"WRITE A STORY ABOUT SCHOOL," YOU ASKED<br /></span> +<span class="i8">ME. "WRITE A STORY IN WHICH THE HEROINE<br /></span> +<span class="i8">HAS A MOTHER AND A FATHER—WE'RE SO<br /></span> +<span class="i8">TIRED OF POOR ORPHANS," YOU BEGGED. I<br /></span> +<span class="i8">HAVE TRIED TO DO IT, ASKING YOUR FORGIVENESS<br /></span> +<span class="i8">FOR ONE LITTLE STEP-FATHER. TO<br /></span> +<span class="i8">YOU I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>AMID THE UNFORGETTABLE SHOUTS OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS SHE SLID EASILY ON DOWN THE TRAIL</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">Kettle Mountain</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Sunnyside</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">On the Road to Cobble</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">The Westleys</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Jerry's Wish Comes True</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">New Faces</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Highacres</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">School</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Secret Door</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">The Debate</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Aunt Maria</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">The Party</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Haskin's Hill</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">The Prize</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Cupid and Company</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">For the Honor of the School</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Disgrace</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Ravens Clean the Tower</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Letter</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">The Family Councils</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">Poor Isobel</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">Jerry Wins Her Way</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">The Third Violinist</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">Plans</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">The Lincoln Award</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. <span class="smcap">Commencement</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. <span class="smcap">Craig Winton</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. <span class="smcap">Her Mother's Story</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. <span class="smcap">The Wishing-rock</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_JANE_ABBOTT">BY JANE ABBOTT</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p><a href="#illus1">Amid the unforgettable shouts of the boys and girls she slid easily on +down the trail</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus2">She pointed down to the winding road</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus3">One by one, quite breathless with excitement, they climbed to the tower +room</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus4">Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HIGHACRES</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>KETTLE MOUNTAIN</h3> + + +<p>If John Westley had not deliberately run away from his guide that August +morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain, he would never have found +the Wishing-rock, nor the Witches' Glade, nor Miss Jerauld Travis.</p> + +<p>Even a man whose hair has begun to grow a little gray over his ears can +have moments of wildest rebellion against authority. John Westley had +had such; he had wakened very early that morning, had watched the sun +slant warmly across his very pleasant room at the Wayside Hotel and had +fiercely hated the doctor, back in the city, who had printed on a slip +of office paper definite rules for him, John Westley, aged thirty-five, +to follow; hated the milk and eggs that he knew awaited him in the +dining-room and hated, more than anything else, the smiling guide who +had been spending the evening before, just as he had spent every +evening, thinking out nice easy climbs that wouldn't tire a fellow who +was recuperating from a very long siege of typhoid fever!</p> + +<p>It had been so easy that it was a little disappointing to slip out of +the door opening from the big sun room at the back of the hotel while +the guide waited for him at the imposing front entrance. There was a +little path that ran across the hotel golf links on around the lake, +shining like a bright gem in the morning sun, and off toward Kettle +Mountain; feeling very much like a truant schoolboy, John Westley had +followed this path. A sense of adventure stimulated him, a pleasant +little breeze whipping his face urged him on. He stopped at a cottage +nestled in a grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to +wrap him a lunch to take with him up the trail. The good woman had +packed many a lunch for her husband, who was a guide (and a close friend +of the man who was cooling his heels at the hotel entrance), and she +knew just what a person wanted who was going to climb Kettle Mountain. +Three hours after, John Westley, very tired from his climb but not in +the least repentant of his disobedience, enjoyed immensely a long rest +with Mother Tilly's good things spread out on a rock at his elbow.</p> + +<p>At three o'clock John Westley realized that the trail he had chosen was +not taking him back to the village; at four he admitted he was lost. All +his boyish exhilaration had quite left him; he would have hugged his +despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of +the trail; he ached in every bone and could not get the thought out of +his head that a man could die on Kettle Mountain and no one would know +it for months!</p> + +<p>He chose the trails that went <i>down</i> simply because his weary legs could +not <i>climb</i> one foot more! And he had gone down such steep inclines that +he was positive he had descended twice the height of the mountain and +must surely come into some valley or other—then suddenly his foot +slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one +does on the ice—only much more softly—and slid on, down and down, +deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead +log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps, neatly +built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy +terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding +mountains and closed in on the other by leaning, whispering birches.</p> + +<p>It was not the amazing view off over the valley, nor the impact against +the old log that made his breath catch in his throat with a little +surprised sound—it was the sudden apparition of a slim creature +standing very straight on a huge rock! His first joyful thought was that +it was a boy—a boy who could lead him back to the Wayside Hotel, for +the youth wore soft leather breeches and a blouse, loosely belted at the +waist, woolen golf stockings and soft elkskin shoes, but when the head +turned, like a startled deer's, toward the unexpected sound, he saw, +with more interest than disappointment, that the boy was a girl!</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" he said, because her eyes told him very plainly that he +was intruding upon some pleasant occupation. "I'm very glad to see you +because, I must admit, I'm lost."</p> + +<p>The girl jumped down from her rock. She had an exceptionally pretty face +that seemed to smile all over.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come down?" she said graciously, as though she was the +mistress of Kettle Mountain and all its glades.</p> + +<p>Then John Westley did what in all his thirty-five years he had never +done before—he fainted. He made one little effort to rise and walk down +the rocky steps but instead he rolled in an unconscious heap right to +the girl's feet.</p> + +<p>He wakened, some moments later, to a consciousness of cool water in his +face and a pair of anxious brown eyes close to his own. He felt very +much ashamed—and really better for having given way!</p> + +<p>"Are you all right now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—or I will be in a moment. Just give me a hand."</p> + +<p>He marveled at the dexterity with which she lifted him against her slim +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Little-Dad's gone over to Rocky Point, but I knew what to do," she said +proudly. "I s'pose you're from Wayside?"</p> + +<p>He looked around. "Where <i>is</i> Wayside?"</p> + +<p>She laughed, showing two rows of strong, white teeth. "Well, the way +Little-Dad travels it's hours away so that Silverheels has to rest +between going and coming, and Mr. Toby Chubb gets there in an hour with +his new automobile when it'll <i>go</i>, but if you follow the Sunrise trail +and then turn by the Indian Head and turn again at the Kettle's Handle +you'll come into the Sleepy Hollow and the Devil's Pass and——"</p> + +<p>John Westley clapped his hands to his head.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, no wonder I got lost! And just where am I now?"</p> + +<p>"You're right on the other side of the mountain. Little-Dad says that if +a person could just bore right through Kettle you'd come out on the +sixth hole of the Wayside Golf course—only it'd be an awfully <i>long</i> +bore."</p> + +<p>John Westley laughed hilariously. He had suddenly thought how carefully +his guide always planned <i>easy</i> hikes for him.</p> + +<p>The girl went on. "But it's just a little way down this trail to +Sunnyside—that's where I live. Little-Dad's my father," she explained.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather believe that you're a woodland nymph and live in yonder +birch grove, but I suppose—your garments look so very man-made—that +you have a regular given-to-you-in-baptism name?"</p> + +<p>"I should say I had!" the girl cried in undisguised disgust. "<i>Jerauld +Clay Travis.</i> I <i>hate</i> it. Nearly every girl I know is named something +nice—Rose and Lily and Clementina. It was cruel to name any child +J-e-r-a-u-l-d."</p> + +<p>"I think it's—nice! It's so—different." John Westley wanted to add +that it suited her because <i>she</i> was different, but he hesitated; little +Miss Jerauld might misunderstand him. He thought, as he watched from the +corner of his eye, every movement of the slim, strong, boyish form, that +she was unlike any girl he had ever known, and, because he had three +nieces and they had ever so many friends, he really knew quite a bit +about girls.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's—different," she sighed, unconscious of the thoughts that +were running through the man's head. Then she brightened, for even the +discomfiture of having to bear the name Jerauld could not long shadow +her spirit, "only no one ever calls me Jerauld—I'm always just Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Jerry, you can't ever know how glad I am that I met you! If +I hadn't, well, I guess I'd have perished on the face of Kettle +Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over at Wayside, and I can +swear I never before did anything so silly as to faint, only I've just +had a rather tough siege of typhoid."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you shouldn't have <i>tried</i> to climb so far," she cried. "As soon as +you're rested you must go home with me. And you'll have to stay all +night 'cause Mr. Chubb's not back yet from Deertown and he won't drive +after dark."</p> + +<p>If John Westley had not been so utterly fascinated by his surroundings +and his companion, he might have tried immediately to pull himself +together enough to go on to Sunnyside; he was quite content, however, to +lean against a huge rock and "rest."</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to guess how old you are. And I thought you were a boy, too. +I'm glad you're not."</p> + +<p>"I'm 'most fourteen." Miss Jerry squared her shoulders proudly. "I guess +I do look like a boy. I wear this sort of clothes most of the time, +'cept when I dress up or go to school. You see I've always gone with +Little-Dad on Silverheels when he went to see sick people until I grew +too heavy and—and Silverheels got too old." She said it with deep +regret. "But I live—like this!"</p> + +<p>"And do you wander alone all over the mountain?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—just on this side of Kettle. Once a guide and a man from the +Wayside disappeared there beyond Sleepy Hollow and that's why they call +it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made me promise never to go beyond the turn +from Sunrise trail. I'd like to, too. But there are lots of jolly tramps +this side. This"—waving her hand—"is the Witches' Glade and +that"—nodding at the rock against which the man leaned—"is the +Wishing-rock."</p> + +<p>John Westley, who back home manufactured cement-mixers, suddenly felt +that he had wakened into a world of make-believe.</p> + +<p>He turned and looked at the rock—it was very much like a great many +other rocks all over the mountainside and yet—there <i>was</i> something +different!</p> + +<p>Jerry giggled and clasped her very brown hands around her leather-clad +knees.</p> + +<p>"I name everything on this side—no one from Wayside ever comes +this way, you see. I've played here since I was ever so little. I've +always pretended that fairies lived in the mountains." She leveled +serious eyes upon him. "They <i>must</i>! You know it's <i>magic</i> the way +things—<i>are</i>—here!"</p> + +<p>John Westley nodded. "I understand—you climb and you think you're on +top and then there's lots higher up and you slide down and you think +you're in the valley and you come out on a spot—like this—with all the +world below you still."</p> + +<p>"Mustn't it have been <i>fun</i> to make it all?" Jerry's eyes gleamed. "And +such beautiful things grow everywhere and the colors are <i>so</i> different! +And the woodsy glens and ravines—they're so mysterious. I've heard the +trees talk! And the brooks—why, they <i>can't</i> be just nothing but +brooks, they're so—so—<i>alive</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," John Westley was plainly convinced. "Fairies <i>must</i> live in +the mountains!"</p> + +<p>"Of course I know now—I'm fourteen—that there are no such things as +fairies but it's fun to pretend. But I still call this my Wishing-rock +and I come here and stand on it and wish—only there aren't so awfully +many things to wish for that you don't just ask Little-Dad for—big +things, you know."</p> + +<p>"Miss Jerry, you were wishing when I—arrived!"</p> + +<p>She colored. "I was. Little-Dad says I ought to be a very happy girl and +I am, but I guess everybody always has something real <i>big</i> that they +think they want more than anything else."</p> + +<p>John Westley inclined his head gravely. "I guess everybody does, Jerry. +I think that's what keeps us going on in the race. Does it spoil your +wish—to tell about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my, yes!" Then she laughed. "Only I suppose it couldn't because +there aren't really fairies."</p> + +<p>"What <i>were</i> you wishing?" He asked it coaxingly, in his eyes a deep +interest.</p> + +<p>She hesitated, her dark eyes dreaming. "That I could just go on +along that shining white road—down there—around and around to—the +other side of the mountain!" She rose up on her knees and stretched +a bare arm down toward the valley. "I've always wished it since +the days when Little-Dad used to ride that way and leave me home +because it was too far. I know that everything that's the other +side of the mountain is—oh, lots <i>different</i> from Miller's Notch +and—school—and—Sunnyside—and Kettle." Her voice was plaintively +wistful, her eyes shining. "I <i>know</i> it's different. From up here I can +watch the automobiles come along and they always turn off and go around +the mountain and never come to Miller's Notch unless they get lost. And +the trains all go that way and—and it <i>must</i> be different! It's like +the books I read. It's the <i>world</i>——" She sank back on her knees. +"Once I tried to walk and once I rode Silverheels, but I never seemed to +get to the real turn, it was so far and I was afraid. At sunset I look +at the colors and the little clouds in the sky and they look like +castles and I think it's the reflection of what's on the other side. +<i>That's</i> what I was wishing." She turned serious eyes toward Westley. +"Is it dreadfully wicked? Little-Dad said I was discontented and +Sweetheart—that's mother—cried and hugged me as though she was +frightened. But some day I've just <i>got</i> to go along that road."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SHE POINTED DOWN TO THE WINDING ROAD</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For some reason that was beyond even the analytical power of his trained +mind, John Westley was deeply stirred. Little Jerry, child of the +woods—he felt as her mother must have felt! There was a mystery about +the girl that held his curiosity; she could be no child of simple +mountain people. He rose from his position against the rock with +surprising agility.</p> + +<p>"If you'll give me a hand I'll stand on your rock and wish that your +wish may come true, if you want it so very much! But, maybe, child, +you'll find that what you have right here is far better than anything on +the other side of the mountain. Now, suppose you lead the way to +Sunnyside."</p> + +<p>Jerry sprang ahead eagerly. "And then you'll meet Sweetheart and +Little-Dad and Bigboy and Pepperpot!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>SUNNYSIDE</h3> + + +<p>Jerry had led her new friend only a little way down the +sharply-descending trail when suddenly the trees, which had crowded +thickly on either side, opened on a clearing where roses and hollyhocks, +phlox, sweet-william, petunias and great purple-hearted asters bloomed +in riotous confusion along with gold-tasseled corn, squash, beets and +beans. A vine-covered gateway led from this into the grassy stretch that +surrounded the low-gabled house.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hey-o!</i> Sweetheart!" called Jerry in a clear voice.</p> + +<p>In answer came a chorus of joyful yelping. Around the corner dashed a +Llewellyn setter and a wiry-haired terrier, tumbling over one another in +their eagerness to reach their mistress; at the same moment a door +leading from the house to the garden opened and a slender woman came +out.</p> + +<p>John Westley knew at a glance that she was Jerry's mother, for she had +the same expression of sunniness on her lips; her hair, like Jerry's, +looked as though it had been burnished by the sun though, unlike Jerry's +clipped locks, it was softly coiled on the top of her finely-shaped +head.</p> + +<p>"This is my mother," announced Jerry in a tone that really said: "This +is the wisest, kindest, most beautiful lady in the whole wide world!"</p> + +<p>Though the dress that Mrs. Travis wore was faded and worn and of no +particular style, John Westley felt instinctively that she was an +unusual woman; in the graciousness of her greeting there was no +embarrassment. Only once, when John Westley introduced himself, was +there an almost imperceptible hesitation in her manner, then, just for +an instant, a startled look darkened her eyes.</p> + +<p>While Jerry, with affectionate admonishing, silenced her dogs, Mrs. +Travis led their guest toward the little house. She was deeply concerned +at his plight; he must not dream of attempting to return to Wayside +until he had rested—he must spend the night at Sunnyside and then in +the morning Toby Chubb could drive him over. Dr. Travis would soon be +back and he would be delighted to find that she and Jerry had kept him.</p> + +<p>"We do not meet many new people on this side of the mountain," she said, +smilingly. "You will be giving us a treat!"</p> + +<p>So deeply interested was John Westley in the Travis family and their +unusual home, tucked away on the side of the mountain, to all +appearances miles away from anyone or anything (though Jerry had pointed +out to him the trail down the hillside that led to Miller's Notch and +the school and the little church and was a mile shorter than going by +the road), that he forgot completely the alarm that must be upsetting +the entire management of the Wayside Hotel over the disappearance of a +distinguished guest. Indeed, at the very moment that he stepped across +the threshold into the sunlit living room of the Travis cottage, a +worried hotel manager was summoning by telegraph some of the most expert +guides of the state for a thorough search of the neighborhood, and, at +the same time, a New York newspaperman, at the Wayside for a vacation, +was clicking off to his city editor, from the town telegraph station, +the most lurid details of the tragedy.</p> + +<p>Sunnyside, John Westley knew at once, was a "hand-made" house; each foot +of it had been planned lovingly. Windows had been cut by no rule of +architecture but where the loveliest view could be had; doors seemed to +open just where one would want to go. The beams of the low ceiling and +the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a +piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside +had crept into and clung to the little house. A great fireplace crowned +the room. Before it now stretched a huge Maltese cat. And most +surprising of all—there were books everywhere, on shelves built in +every conceivable nook and corner, on the big table, on the arm of the +great chair drawn close to the west window.</p> + +<p>All of this John Westley took in, with increasing wonder, while Mrs. +Travis brought to him a glass of home-made wine. He drank it gratefully, +then settled back in his chair with a little contented laugh.</p> + +<p>"I'm beginning to feel—like Jerry—that Kettle Mountain is inhabited by +fairies and that I am in their stronghold!"</p> + +<p>But there was little suggestive of the fairy in Jerry as she tumbled +through the door at that moment, Pepperpot held high in her arms and +Bigboy leaping at her side. They rudely disturbed the Maltese—Dormouse, +Jerry called her—and then occupied in sprawling fashion the strip of +rug before the hearth.</p> + +<p>"Be <i>still</i>, Pepper! Shake hands with the gentleman, Bigboy. They're as +offended as can <i>be</i> because I ran away without them," she explained to +John Westley. "Do you feel better now?" she asked, a little proprietary +note in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I do, indeed, and I'm glad, too, very glad, that I got lost."</p> + +<p>"And here comes Little-Dad up the trail! I'll tell him you're here. +Anyway, he'll want me to put up Silverheels." She was off in a flash, +the dogs leaping behind her.</p> + +<p>After having met Jerry and Jerry's mother, John Westley was not at all +surprised to find Dr. Travis a most unordinary man, also. He was small, +his clothes, country-cut, hung loosely on his spare frame, his hair +fringed over his collar in an untidy way, yet there was a kindliness, a +gentleness in his face that was winning on the instant; one did not need +to see his dusty, worn medicine case to know that his life was spent in +caring for others.</p> + +<p>Widely traveled as John Westley was, never in his whole life had he met +with such an interesting experience as his night at Sunnyside. Most +amazing was the hospitality of these people who seemed not to care at +all who he might be—it was enough for them that chance had brought him, +in a moment's need, to their door. Everything seemed to prove that Mrs. +Travis, at least, was a woman educated beyond the ordinary, yet nothing +in their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they +had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything +about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned +chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And +most mystifying of all was Miss Jerry herself, who had appeared at the +supper table in a much faded but spotless gingham dress, black shoes and +cotton stockings replacing the elkskins and woolen socks, very much a +spirited little girl, with a fearlessness of expression that amused John +Westley while at the same time he wondered if it could possibly be the +training of the school at Miller's Notch.</p> + +<p>He felt that Mrs. Travis must read in his face the curiosity that +consumed him. He did not know that deep in her heart was a poignant +regret that Jerry should have, in such friendly fashion, adopted this +stranger—Jerry, who was usually a little shy! Of course she could not +know that it was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found +something in Kettle that approached the magic—that he had stood on the +Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had +known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! +After Jerry, with Pepper, had gone off to bed and Dr. Travis with Bigboy +had slipped out to the little barn, John Westley said involuntarily, as +though the words tumbled out in spite of anything he could do: "Of +course, you know that I'm completely amazed to find a spot like +this—off here on the mountain."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Travis smiled, as though there were lots of things in her head that +she was not going to say.</p> + +<p>"Does Sunnyside seem attractive? We haven't any wealth—as the world +reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and we've made our little +corner in the world rich with them."</p> + +<p>"And you have Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" The mother's smile flashed, though there was a wistful look in +her eyes. "But Jerry's growing into a big girl."</p> + +<p>"You must have an unusually excellent school here." John Westley blushed +under the embarrassment of—as he plainly put it—"pumping" Jerry's +mother.</p> + +<p>Her explanation was simple. "It's as good as mountain schools are. When +the snow is so deep that she cannot go over the trail I have taught her +at home. You see I have not always lived at Miller's Notch—I came +here—just before Jerry was born."</p> + +<p>"Has she many playmates?" He remembered Jerry chattering about some Rose +and Clementina and a Jimmy Chubbs.</p> + +<p>"A few—but there are only a few of her own age. And she is outgrowing +her school." A little frown wrinkled Mrs. Travis' pretty brow. "That is +the first real problem that has come to Sunnyside for—a very long time. +Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and +the doctor's practice, though it isn't large, keeps us clothed, +but—Jerry's beginning to want something more than the school down +there—and these few chums and—even I—can give her!"</p> + +<p>John Westley recalled Jerry's face when she told her wish: "I want to go +along that shining road—down there—around and around—to the other +side of the mountain." He nodded now as though he understood exactly +what Mrs. Travis meant by "her problem." He understood, too, though he +had no child of his own, just why her voice trembled ever so slightly.</p> + +<p>"We can't keep little Jerry from growing into big Jerry nor from wanting +to stretch her wings a bit and yet—oh, the world's such a big, hard +place—there's so much cruelty and selfishness in it, so much +unhappiness! If I could only keep her here always, contented——" she +stopped abruptly, a little ashamed of her outburst.</p> + +<p>John Westley knew, just as though she had told him in detail all about +herself, that life, sometime and somewhere away from the quiet of +Sunnyside, had hurt this little woman.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Travis and I find company in our books," Mrs. Travis went on, "and +our neighbors, though we're quite far apart, are pleasant, +simple-hearted people. Jerry does all the things that young people like +to do; she swims down in Miller's Lake, and skates and skis and she +roams the year round all over the side of Kettle; she can call the birds +and wild squirrels to her as though she was a little wild creature +herself. She takes care of her own little garden. And I do everything +with her. Yet she is always talking as though some day she'd run away! +Of course I know she wouldn't do exactly <i>that</i>, but I sometimes wonder +if I have the right to try to hold her back. I haven't forgotten my own +dreams." She laughed. "I certainly never dreamed of <i>this</i>"—sweeping +her hand toward the shadowy room—"and yet this is better, I've found, +than the rosy picture my young fancy used to paint!"</p> + +<p>John Westley wished that he had read more and worked less hard at making +cement-mixers; so much had been printed in books about this reaching out +of youth that he might repeat now, if he knew it all, to the little +mother. Instead he found himself telling her of his own three nieces. +Then quite casually Mrs. Travis remarked:</p> + +<p>"Some very pleasant people have opened Cobble House over on Cobble +Mountain—Mr. and Mrs. Will Allan. I met her at church. She's—well, I +knew in an instant that I was going to like her and that she'd help me +about Jerry. I——"</p> + +<p>"Allan—Will Allan? Why, bless my soul, that's Penelope Everett, the +finest woman I ever knew! They come from my town." He sprang to his feet +in delight. "I never dreamed I was anywhere near them! I'll get Mr. +Chubb to take me there to-morrow. Of <i>course</i> you'll like her. +She's—well, she's just like <i>you</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE</h3> + + +<p>The next day Mr. Toby Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one +automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain +roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at +Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught +manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; +for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at +Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly +painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house which the Allans +had been remodeling, he coaxed Mrs. Allan to drive back to Sunnyside +that she might, before the day passed, get better acquainted with Jerry +and Jerry's mother.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't feel more excited if I'd found a gold mine there on the side +of Kettle!" John Westley had told his friends. Mrs. Allan, an attractive +young woman, who was accustomed to many congenial friends about her, had +been wondering, deep in her heart, if she was not going to find Cobble +just the least little bit lonely at times, so she listened with deep +interest to John Westley's account of Jerry and Sunnyside.</p> + +<p>"I can't just describe why the girl seems so different—it's that she's +so confoundedly natural! There's a freshness about her that's like one +of these clean, cool mountain winds whipping through you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Allan laughed at his awkward attempt to explain Jerry. She was used +to girls—she loved them, she understood just what he was trying to say. +He went on: "And here she is growing up, tucked away on the side of that +mountain with a mother who's more like a sister, I guess—says she +skates and skis and does everything with the child. And the most curious +father—don't believe he's been further away from Kettle than Waytown +more'n three or four times in his life; sits there with his books when +he isn't jogging off on his horse to see some sick mountaineer, and the +kindest, gentlest soul that ever breathed. There's an atmosphere in that +house that <i>is</i> different, upon my word—makes one think of the old +stories of kings and queens who disguised themselves as peasants—simple +meal, everything sort of shabby but you couldn't give all that a +thought, there was such a feeling of peace and happiness everywhere." +John Westley actually had to stop for breath. But he was too eager and +too much in earnest to mind the glint of amusement in Mrs. Allan's eyes. +"When I went to bed didn't that big, amber-eyed cat of Jerry's follow me +upstairs and into the room and stretch herself across my bed just as +though that was what I'd expect! I never in my life before slept with a +cat in the room, but I felt as though it would be the height of rudeness +to chuck her off the bed! And I haven't slept as soundly, since I've +been sick, as I did in that little room. I think it was the piney smell +about everything. Miss Jerry wakened me at an unearthly hour by throwing +a rose through my window. It hit me square in the nose. The little +rascal was standing down there in the sunshine, in her absurd trousers, +with a basket of berries in her hand—she'd been off up the trail after +them."</p> + +<p>Although John Westley's glowing account had prepared her for what she +would find at Sunnyside, ten minutes after Penelope Allan had crossed +the threshold she could not resist nodding to him, as much as to say: +"You were quite right." In such places as Sunnyside little conventional +restraints were unknown and in a very few moments the two women were +chatting like old friends while Dr. Travis was explaining in his +drawling voice the advantages of certain theories of planting, to which +Will Allan listened intently, because he was planning a garden at +Cobble, while John Westley, only understanding a word now and then, +wished he hadn't devoted so much of his time to cement and knew more +about spinach.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, as they drove down the rough trail back to Cobble, John +Westley demanded: "Honestly, Pen Allan, doesn't it strike you that there +<i>is</i> a mystery about these Travis people?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment before answering, then laughed lightly as she +spoke. "You funny man—the magic of these mountains is getting in your +blood! Of course not—they are just a very happy family who know a +little more than most of us about what's really worth while in this +world. Now tell me about your own nieces—Isobel, and that madcap Gyp, +and little Tib." She knew well how fond John Westley was of these three +girls and to talk of them brought to her a breath of what she had known +at home before she had married Will Allan, the spring before.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're as bad as ever," he said in a tone that implied exactly the +opposite. "Isobel's growing more vain each day and Gyp more heedless, +and Tibby's going to spoil her digestion if her mother doesn't make her +eat less candy and more oatmeal. I haven't seen much of the youngsters +since I was sick."</p> + +<p>"And Graham—poor boy, stuck in among those girls! He must be in long +trousers now."</p> + +<p>"Graham can take care of himself," laughed the uncle. "Wish I had the +four of them here with me! I wanted to bring them along but Dr. Hewitt +said it'd be the surest way to the undertaker. They are a good sort +but—sometimes, I wonder——"</p> + +<p>"You are an extraordinary uncle, to take the responsibility of your +nieces and nephew the way you do."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it; I've lived with them since they were babies and it's +just as though they were my own. And their father's away so much that I +think their mother sort of depends on me. Sometimes I get a little +bothered—they're having the very best schooling and all the things +money can give young people and yet—there's a sort of shallowness +possessing them that makes them—well, not value the opportunities +they're having——"</p> + +<p>"You talk like a veritable schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. Allan, teasingly.</p> + +<p>"Have you forgotten that when Uncle Peter Westley left Highacres to the +Lincoln School it made me trustee of the school? That's almost as bad as +being the principal. And this year I'm going to take an active interest +in the school, too. The doctor says I must have a 'diversity' of +interests to offset the strain of making cement-mixers and I think to +rub up against two hundred boys and girls will fill the bill, don't you? +They've remodeled the building at Highacres this summer and completed +one addition. There are twenty acres of ground, too, for outdoor +athletics."</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful gift," mused Mrs. Allan, recalling the pile of stone +and marble old Peter Westley had built in the outskirts of his city that +could never have been of any possible use to himself because he had been +a crusty old bachelor who hated to have anyone near him. Gossip had said +that he had built it just because he wanted his house to cost more than +any other house in the city; unworthy as his motive in building it might +have been, he had forever ennobled the place when he had bequeathed it +to the boys and girls of his city.</p> + +<p>"There'll be a chance, with the school out there, of offsetting just +what's threatening Isobel and Gyp—a sort of grownupness they're putting +on—like a masquerade costume!"</p> + +<p>"I love your very manlike way of describing things," laughed Mrs. Allan, +recalling certain experiences of her own when, for six months, she had +undertaken the care of her own niece, Patricia Everett. "It's +so—<i>vivid</i>! A masquerade make-up, too big and too long, and then when +you peep under the 'grown-up' costume, there's the little girl +still—really loving to frolic around in the delightful sports that +belong to youth and youth only."</p> + +<p>John Westley rode on for a few moments in deep silence, his mind on the +young people he loved—then suddenly it veered to the little girl he had +found on the Wishing-rock, her eyes staring longingly out into a +dream-world that lay beyond valley and mountain top.</p> + +<p>"I've an idea—a—<i>corker</i>!" he exclaimed, just as the Fly-by-day +bounced into the grass-grown drive of Cobble House.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE WESTLEYS</h3> + + +<p>"Gyp Westley, get right down off from that chair! You <i>know</i> mother +doesn't want you to stand on it!"</p> + +<p>Miss Gyp, startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell +promptly from her perch on the dainty chintz-cushioned chair.</p> + +<p>"I was only tacking up my new banner," she answered crossly. "Here, Tib, +put the hammer away. What are you going to do, Isobel?" Gyp's tone +asked, rather: "What in the world have you <i>found</i> to do?"</p> + +<p>Because Mrs. Hicks' mother had been so inconsiderate as to have a stroke +of apoplexy, much misery of spirit had fallen upon the young Westleys. +Mrs. Hicks was the Westley housekeeper and Mrs. Robert Westley, who, +with her four youngsters, was spending the month of August at Cape Cod, +had declared that she must return home at once, for Mrs. Hicks' going +would leave the house entirely alone with the two housemaids who were +very new and very inexperienced. There had been of course a great deal +of rebellion but Mrs. Westley, for once hardhearted, had turned deaf +ears upon her aggrieved children.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of silver packed away or anything, with that yellow-haired +Lizzie! And anyway, it'll only be two or three weeks before school +opens." Which was, of course, scant comfort!</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought I'd walk over and see if Ginny's home yet."</p> + +<p>"Of course she isn't. Camp Fairview doesn't close until September +second. I wish <i>I'd</i> gone there! Where's Graham?"</p> + +<p>Isobel stretched her daintily-clad self in the chintz-cushioned chair +that Gyp had vacated.</p> + +<p>"He went out to Highacres to see the changes. Won't it seem funny to go +to school in old Uncle Peter's house?"</p> + +<p>For the moment Gyp and Tibby forgot to feel bored.</p> + +<p>"It'll be like going to a new school. I know I shall be possessed to +slide down the banisters. I wish I'd known Graham was going out, I'd +have gone, too."</p> + +<p>"Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel +further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the +basketball team and the hockey team at college."</p> + +<p>"Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very +straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year +about doing things to build up the school spirit?"</p> + +<p>Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss +Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do +everything for that. This is my last year—I'm going to just see that +Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!"</p> + +<p>Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that +poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be—her face had the pink +and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples +and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes; +she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have +made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the +whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the +chaperoned escort of older boys.</p> + +<p>"Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail +him.</p> + +<p>Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen +years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an +unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite +a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell +before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face.</p> + +<p>His sisters deluged him now with questions.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go out there and look at it yourselves?" But he was too +enthusiastic about the new school to withhold his information. The +living room and the old library had been built into one big room for a +reference library; the classrooms were no end jolly; the billiard room +had been enlarged and was to be an assembly room. A wing had been added +for an indoor gymnasium. He and Stuart King had climbed way to the +tower, but the tower room was locked.</p> + +<p>"I remember—mother and Uncle Johnny said that Uncle Peter's papers and +books had been put up there. Mother wouldn't have them here."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it funny," mused Gyp as she balanced on the footboard of her bed. +"Everybody hated old Uncle Peter, he was such a cross old thing, and +nobody ever wanted to go to Highacres, and then he turns it into a +school and we'll all just love it and make songs about it——"</p> + +<p>"And celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday with an entertainment or +something," broke in Graham. "Maybe they'll even give us a holiday—to +show respect to his memory. Hurrah for old Bones!"</p> + +<p>"Graham—you're <i>dreadful</i>," giggled Gyp.</p> + +<p>"I don't care. It's Uncle Peter's own fault. It's anyone's fault if +nobody in the world likes 'em—it's because they don't like anybody +else!"</p> + +<p>Isobel ignored his philosophy. "You want to remember, Graham Westley, +that being Uncle Peter's grandnieces and nephew and having his money +gives us a certain——" she floundered, her mind frantically searching +for the word.</p> + +<p>"Prestige," cried Gyp grandly. "I heard mother say that. And I looked it +up—it means authority and influence and power. But I don't see how just +happening to be Uncle Peter's nieces——"</p> + +<p>At times Gyp's tendency to get at the very root of things annoyed her +older sister.</p> + +<p>"I don't care about dictionaries. Now that the school's going to be at +Highacres we four want to always be very careful how we speak of Uncle +Peter and act sort of dignified out there——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Rats!</i>" cut in Graham, with scorn. "I say, Gyp—that's <i>my</i> banner!" +Thereupon ensued a lively squabble, in which Tibby, who adored Graham, +sided with him, and Isobel, in spite of Gyp's tearful pleading, refused +to take part, so that the banner came down from the wall and went into +Graham's pocket just as Mrs. Westley walked into the room.</p> + +<p>"Why, my dears, all of you in the house this glorious afternoon?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley was a plump, bright-eyed woman who adored her four +children, and enjoyed them, with happy serenity, except at infrequent +intervals, when she worried herself "distracted" over them. At such +times she always turned to "Uncle Johnny."</p> + +<p>Isobel and Gyp had almost managed to answer: "There's no place to go," +when the mother's next words cut short their complaint.</p> + +<p>"I have the most astonishing news from Uncle Johnny," and she held up a +fat envelope.</p> + +<p>"Oh, when's he coming back?" cried Tibby.</p> + +<p>"Very soon. But what do you think he wants to do—bring back with him a +little girl he found up there in the mountains—or rather, <i>she</i> found +<i>him</i>—when he got lost on a wrong trail. Listen:</p> + +<p>"'...She is a most unusual child. And she has outgrown the school +here. I'd like, as a sort of scholarship, to send her for a year or two +to Lincoln School. But there is the difficulty of finding a suitable +place for her to live—she's too young to put in a boarding house. Could +not you and the girls stretch your hearts and your rooms enough to let +in the youngster? I haven't said anything to her mother yet—I won't +until I hear from you. But I want to make this experiment and it will +help me immensely if you'll write and say my little girl can go straight +to you. I had a long talk with John Randolph, just before I came up +here—we feel that Lincoln School has grown a little away from the real +democratic spirit of fellowship that every American school should +maintain; he suggested certain scholarships and that's what came to my +mind when I found this girl. Isobel and Gyp and all their friends can +give my wild mountain lassie a good deal—and she can give Miss Gyp and +Isobel something, too——'"</p> + +<p>"Humph," came a suspicion of a snort from Isobel and Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Wish he'd found a boy," added Graham.</p> + +<p>From the moment she had read the letter, Mrs. Westley's mind had been +working on ways and means of helping John Westley. She always liked to +do anything anyone wanted her to do—and especially Uncle Johnny.</p> + +<p>"If Gyp would go back with Tibby or——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mother!</i>" Gyp's distress was sincere—the spring before she had +acquired this room of her own and she loved it dearly.</p> + +<p>"And Gyp's things muss my room so," cried Tibby, plaintively.</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps you'll all help me fix the nursery for her." Everyone in +the household, although the baby Tibby was twelve years old, still +called the pleasant room on the second floor at the back of the house, +the "nursery." Mrs. Westley liked to take her sewing or her reading +there—for her it had precious memories; the old bookcase was still +filled with toys and baby books; Tibby's dolls had a corner of their +own; Isobel's drawing tools were arranged on a table in the bay window +and, on some open shelves, were displayed Graham's precious "specimens," +all neatly labeled and mixed with a collection of war trophies. To "fix +the nursery" would mean changes such as the Westley home had never +known! Each face was very serious.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be much to do for Uncle Johnny!"</p> + +<p>Isobel, Gyp, Graham and Tibby, each in her and his own way, adored Uncle +Johnny. Because their own father was away six months of every year, +Uncle Johnny often stood in the double rôle of paternal counsellor and +indulgent uncle.</p> + +<p>"And he's been so sick," added Tibby.</p> + +<p>"I can keep my stuff in my own room." Graham rather liked the idea.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I can do my drawing in father's study—even if the light +isn't nearly as good." Isobel, who underneath all her little +affectations had an honest soul, knew in her heart that hers was not +much of a sacrifice, because she had not touched her drawing pencils for +weeks and weeks, but she purposely made her tone complaining.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose we can play in there just the same?" asked Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Of course we can," declared her mother. "We'll put up that little old +bed that's in the storeroom."</p> + +<p>"What's her name?" Gyp's forehead was wrinkled in a scowl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley referred to the letter.</p> + +<p>"Jerauld Travis. What a pretty name! And she's just your age, Gyp!"</p> + +<p>But Gyp refused to be delighted at this fact.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Westley, relieved that the children had consented, even though +ungraciously, to the change in their household, slipped the letter back +into its envelope. "I'll write to Uncle Johnny right away," and she +hurried from the room, a little fearful, perhaps, of the cloud that was +noticeably darkening Isobel's face.</p> + +<p>"I think it's <i>horrid</i>," Isobel cried when she knew her mother was out +of hearing.</p> + +<p>"What <i>you</i> got to kick about? How'd you like it if you was <i>me</i> with +another girl around?"</p> + +<p>"If you was <i>I</i>," corrected Gyp, loftily. "I think maybe it'll be nice."</p> + +<p>"You won't when she's here! And probably Uncle Johnny'll like her better +than any of us." Which added much to the flame of poor Isobel's +jealousy.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall just pay no more attention to her than's if she was a—a +<i>boarder</i>!" Isobel had a very vague idea as to how boarders were usually +treated. "And it's silly to think that Uncle Johnny will like her better +than us—she's just a poor child he feels sorry for."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose mountain people dress differently from us?" asked Tibby.</p> + +<p>Graham promptly answered: "Yes, silly—she'll wear goatskin—and she'll +yodel."</p> + +<p>"Anyway," Isobel rose languidly, "we don't want to forget about Uncle +Peter——"</p> + +<p>"And our prestige," interrupted Gyp, tormentingly. "And we can't act +horrid to her 'cause <i>that'd</i> hurt Uncle Johnny's feelings——"</p> + +<p>Tibby suddenly saw a bright side of the cloud.</p> + +<p>"Say, it'll be fun seeing how she can't do things!"</p> + +<p>And, strangely enough, such is human nature in its early teens, little +Tibby's suggestion brought satisfying comfort to the three others. Gyp's +face cleared and she tossed her head as much as to say that <i>she</i> was +not going to worry any more about it!</p> + +<p>"Come on, Isobel, I'll treat down at Wood's."</p> + +<p>"Let me go, too," implored Tibby.</p> + +<p>Gyp hesitated. "I only have thirty cents——"</p> + +<p>"You owe me ten, anyway," urged Tibby.</p> + +<p>Graham, in a sudden burst of generosity, relieved the tension of their +high finance. "Oh, let's all go—I'll stand for the three of you!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>JERRY'S WISH COMES TRUE</h3> + + +<p>Jerry would, of course, never know how very hard Mr. John had had to +work to make her "wish" come true. Ever afterwards she preferred to +think that it was just standing on the Wishing-rock and wishing and +wishing!</p> + +<p>She had noticed, however, and had been a little curious, that every time +Mr. John had come to Sunnyside he and her mother had talked and talked +together in low tones so that, even when she was near them, she could +not hear one word of what they were saying, and that, after these talks, +her mother had been very pale and had, again and again, for no +particular reason, hugged her very close and kissed her with what Jerry +called a "sad" kiss.</p> + +<p>Then one afternoon Mrs. Allan had come with John Westley, and her +mother, to her disgust, had sent her down to the Notch with a message +for old Mrs. Teed that had not seemed a <i>bit</i> important. After her +return John Westley had invited her to take him and Bigboy and Pepperpot +to the Witches' Glade because, he said, he "had something to tell her!"</p> + +<p>It was a glorious afternoon. August was painting with her vivid coloring +the mountain slopes and valleys; over everything was a soft glow. It was +reflected on Jerry's eager face.</p> + +<p>John Westley pointed down into the valley where Jerry's "shining" road +ran off out of sight. They could see an automobile, like a speck, moving +swiftly along it.</p> + +<p>"Your road, down there, goes off the other side of the mountain and on +and on and after a very long way—takes me back home. I'm going on +Thursday."</p> + +<p>Jerry turned a disappointed face. Each day of John Westley's two weeks +near Miller's Notch had brought immeasurable pleasure and excitement +into her life.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Allan is going to drive back with me—she lived in my town, you +know. She hasn't been home for months and I shall enjoy her company."</p> + +<p>Jerry was staring at the distant road. After awhile the specks that were +automobiles and that she liked to watch would become fewer and fewer; +the days would grow colder, school would begin, the snow would come and +choke the trails and she and Sweetheart and Little-Dad would be shut in +at Sunnyside for weeks and weeks. Her face clouded.</p> + +<p>"And now listen very carefully, Jerry, and hold on to my arm so that you +won't fall off from the mountain! <i>You</i> are going with us!"</p> + +<p>Jerry <i>did</i> hold on to his arm with a grip that hurt. She stared, with +round, wondering eyes.</p> + +<p>He laughed at her unbelief. "Your wish is coming true! You're going to +ride along that road yonder, in my automobile, which ought to get here +to-morrow, straight around to the other side of the mountain, and on and +on—then you're going to stay all winter with my own nieces and go to +school with them——"</p> + +<p>Jerry's breath came in an excited gasp.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it <i>can't</i>—be—true! Mother'd <i>never</i> let me."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> true! Mothers are always willing to do the things that are +going to be best for their girls. Mrs. Allan and I have persuaded +her——"</p> + +<p>But Jerry, with a "whoop," was racing down the trail, Bigboy and +Pepperpot at her heels. She vaulted the little gate leading into the +garden and swept like a small whirlwind upon her mother, sitting in the +willow rocker on the porch. With a violent hug she tried to express the +madness of her joy and so completely was her face hidden on her mother's +shoulder that she did not see the quick tears that blinded her mother's +eyes.</p> + +<p>That was on Monday—there were only three days to get her small wardrobe +ready and packed and to ask the thousand questions concerning the +Westley girls (Graham was utterly forgotten) and the school. Then there +were wonderful, long talks with mother, sitting close by her side, one +hand tight in hers—solemn talks that were to linger in Jerry's heart +all her life.</p> + +<p>"I don't ever want to do anything, Mumsey Sweetheart, that'd make you +the least little, <i>little</i> bit unhappy!" Jerry had said after one of +these talks, suddenly pressing her mother's hand close to her cheek.</p> + +<p>On Wednesday afternoon she declared to Mr. John, when he drove over from +Cobble, that she was "ready." She said it a little breathlessly—no +Crusader of old, starting forth upon his holy way, felt any more +exaltation of spirit than did Jerry!</p> + +<p>"I've packed and I've mended my coat and I've finished mother's comfy +jacket that I began winter before last and I've said good-by to Rose and +poor old Jimmy Chubb, who's awfully envious, 'cause he wanted to go to +Troy to work in his uncle's store and he says it makes him mad to have a +girl see the world 'fore he does, but I told him he ought to keep on at +school, even if it was only Miller's Notch. And I've cleaned +Little-Dad's pipes. And I've promised Bigboy and Pepperpot and Dormouse +that they may all sleep on my bed to-night. I'm afraid Pepperpot—he's +so sensitive—is going to miss me dreadfully!" Jerry tried to frown away +the thought; she did not want it to intrude upon her joy.</p> + +<p>That last evening she sat quietly on the porch with one hand in her +mother's and the other in Little-Dad's. Not one of them seemed to want +to talk; Jerry was too excited and her mother knew that she could not +keep a tremble from her voice. At nine o'clock Jerry declared that she'd +just <i>have</i> to go to bed so that the morning would come quicker. She +kissed them both, kissed her mother again and again, then marched off +with her pets at her heels.</p> + +<p>Far into the night her mother sat alone on the edge of the porch, +staring at the stars through a mist of tears and praying—first that the +Heavenly Father would protect her little Jerry always and always, and +then that He would give her strength to let the child go on the morrow.</p> + +<p>When the parting came everyone tried to be very busy and very merry, to +cover the heartache that was under it all; John Westley fussed with the +covers and the cushions in the big car and had his chauffeur pack and +repack the bags. Mrs. Allan and Mrs. Travis discussed the lunch that had +been stowed away in the tonneau, as though the whole thing was only a +day's picnic. Jerry, a funny little figure in her coat that was too +small and a fall hat that Mrs. Chubb had made over from one of her +mother's, was, with careful impartiality, bestowing final caresses upon +Bigboy, Pepperpot, Silverheels, and her father and mother alike. Then, +at the last moment, she almost strangled her mother with a sweep of her +strong young arms.</p> + +<p>"Mumsey Sweetheart, if you want me <i>dreadfully</i>—you'll send for me," +she whispered, stricken for a moment by the realization that the parting +was for a very long time.</p> + +<p>Then, though her heart was almost breaking within her, Mrs. Travis +managed to laugh lightly.</p> + +<p>"Need you—of course we won't need you! Climb in, darling," and she +almost lifted the girl into the tonneau, where Mrs. Allan was already +comfortably fixed.</p> + +<p>But at this moment Bigboy tried to leap into the car. When Dr. Travis +gripped his collar he let out a long, protesting howl.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bigboy—he <i>knows</i>! Let me say good-by again," cried Jerry, jumping +out and, to everyone's amusement, embracing the dog.</p> + +<p>"You must be a good dog and take very good care of my Sweetheart and +Little-Dad," she whispered. Then, standing, she looked around.</p> + +<p>"Where's Pepperpot?" she asked anxiously. The little dog had +disappeared.</p> + +<p>"He'll think that I love Bigboy more than I do him," she explained, as +she climbed back in.</p> + +<p>The car started down the rough road. Jerry turned to wave; as long as +she could see her mother and father she kept her little white +handkerchief fluttering. Then she faced resolutely forward.</p> + +<p>"You know," she explained to John Westley, with shining eyes, "when +you've been wishing and wishing for something, you must enjoy it as hard +as you can."</p> + +<p>Even the familiar buildings of the Notch seemed different now to Jerry, +as she flew past them, and she kept finding new things all along the +way. Then, as they turned from the rough country road into her "shining" +road, which was, of course, the macadam highway, she looked back and up +toward Kettle to see if she could catch a glimpse of Sunnyside or the +Witches' Glade and the Wishing-rock. They were lost in a blaze of green +and purple and brown.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it <i>funny</i>? If I was up there watching I'd see you moving like a +speck! And in a moment you'd disappear around the corner. And now <i>I'm</i> +the speck and—I don't know when we reach the corner. But I'm—<i>going</i>, +anyway!"</p> + +<p>Then upon her happy meditations came a sudden, startling interruption in +the shape of a small dog that leaped out from the dense undergrowth at +the side of the road and hailed the automobile with a sharp bark.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pepperpot!</i>" cried Jerry, springing to her feet.</p> + +<p>The chauffeur had brought the car to a sudden stop to avoid hitting the +dog. At the sound of Jerry's voice the little animal made a joyous leap +into the car.</p> + +<p>"He came on <i>ahead</i>—through the Divide! <i>Oh</i>—the darling," and Jerry +hugged her pet proudly.</p> + +<p>John Westley looked at Penelope Allan and she looked at him and the +chauffeur looked at them both—all with the same question. In Jerry's +mind, however, there was no doubt.</p> + +<p>"He'll <i>have</i> to go with us, Mr. John, because I know he'd just die of a +broken heart if I—took him back!"</p> + +<p>Then, startled by John Westley's hesitation, she added convincingly, +"He's awfully good and never bothers anyone and keeps as still as can be +when I tell him to and I'll—I'll——"</p> + +<p>No one could have resisted the appeal in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Jerry—Pepperpot shall go, too."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>NEW FACES</h3> + + +<p>"Ten miles more... three miles more ... five blocks more," Mr. John had +been saying at intervals as the big car rolled along, carrying Jerry +nearer and nearer to her new home.</p> + +<p>For the two days of the trip Jerry had scarcely spoken; indeed, more +than once her breath had caught in her throat. Each moment brought +something new, more wonderful than anything her fancy had ever pictured. +She liked best the cities through which they passed, their life, the +bustle and confusion, the hurrying throngs, the rushing automobiles, the +gleaming railroad tracks like taut bands of silver, the smoke-screened +factories with their belching stacks, the rows upon rows of houses, +snuggling in friendly fashion close to one another.</p> + +<p>John Westley had found himself fascinated in watching the eager +alertness of her observation. He longed to know just what was passing +back of those bright eyes; he tried to draw out some expression, but +Jerry had turned to him an appealing look that said more plainly than +words that she simply couldn't tell how wonderful everything seemed to +her, so he had to content himself with watching the rapture reflected in +her face and manner.</p> + +<p>But when, after leaving Mrs. Allan at her brother's, Mr. John had said +"five blocks more," Jerry had clutched the side of the car in an ecstasy +of anticipation. From the deep store of her vivid imagination she had +drawn a mental picture of what the Westley home and Isobel, Gyp, Graham +and Tibby would be like. The house, in her fancy, resembled pictures of +turreted castles; however, when she saw that it was really square and +brick, with a little iron grille enclosing the tiniest scrap of a lawn, +she was too excited to be disappointed.</p> + +<p>Two small carved stone lions guarded each side of the flight of steps +that led to the big front door; their stony, stoic stare drew a sharp +bark of challenge from Pepperpot, snuggled in Jerry's arms.</p> + +<p>"Hush, Pepper," admonished Jerry. "You mustn't forget your manners."</p> + +<p>As John Westley opened the door of the tonneau his eyes swept the front +of the house in a disappointed way. He had expected that great door to +open and his precious nieces and nephew to come tumbling out to welcome +him.</p> + +<p>He could not know—because his glance could not penetrate the crisp +curtains at a certain window of the second floor—that from behind it +Gyp, Graham and Tibby had been watching the street for a half hour. +Isobel had resolutely affected utter indifference and had sat reading a +book, though more than once she had peeped covertly over Gyp's shoulder +down the broad avenue.</p> + +<p>"<i>There</i> they are!" Tibby had been the first to spy the big car.</p> + +<p>"Isobel"—Gyp screamed—"<i>look</i> at her hat!"</p> + +<p>"I wish she was a boy," groaned Graham again. "Doesn't Uncle Johnny look +great? I say—come on, let's go down!"</p> + +<p>It had been a prearranged pact among the young Westleys not to greet the +little stranger with any show of eagerness.</p> + +<p>Tibby welcomed the suggestion. "Oh—<i>let's</i>!" she cried.</p> + +<p>It was at that moment that Pepperpot had barked his disapproval of the +weather-worn lions. Graham and Gyp gave a shout of delight.</p> + +<p>"Look! <i>Look</i>—a dog! Hurray!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe now mother will have to let us keep him," Graham added. "Come on, +girls," he raced toward the stairs.</p> + +<p>Their voices roused Mrs. Westley. She had not expected Uncle Johnny for +another hour. She flew with the children; there was nothing wanting in +<i>her</i> welcome.</p> + +<p>"John Westley—you look like a new man! And this is our little girl? +Welcome to our home, my dear. Did you have a nice trip? Did you leave +Pen Allan at the Everetts? How is she?" As she chattered away, with one +hand through John Westley's arm and the other holding Jerry's, she drew +them into the big hall and to the living-room beyond. Jerry's round, +shining eyes took in, with a lightning glance, the rich mahogany +woodwork, the soft rugs like dark pools on the shiny floor, the long +living-room with its amber-toned hangings, and the three curious faces +staring at her over Mr. John's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Gyp, my dear," John Westley untangled long arms from around his neck, +"here's a twin for you. Jerry, this boy is my nephew Graham—he's not +nearly as grown-up as he looks. And this is Tibby!"</p> + +<p>Jerry flashed a smile. They seemed to her—this awkward, thin, +dark-skinned girl whom Uncle Johnny had called Gyp, the tall, +roguish-faced boy, and little Tibby, whose straight braids were black +like Gyp's and whose eyes were violet-blue—more wonderful than anything +she had seen along the way; they were, indeed, the "best of all."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she stammered, in a laughing, excited way, "it's just wonderful +to—really—be—be here." Before her glowing enthusiasm the children's +prejudice melted in a twinkling. Gyp held out her hand with a friendly +gesture and Pepperpot, as though he understood everything that was +happening, stuck his head out from the shelter of Jerry's arm and thrust +his paw into Gyp's welcoming clasp.</p> + +<p>Everyone laughed—Graham and Tibby uproariously.</p> + +<p>"Goodness <i>me</i>—a <i>dog</i>!" Mrs. Westley cried, with a startled glance +toward John Westley.</p> + +<p>"Let him down," commanded Graham, as though he and Jerry were old +friends. Jerry put Pepperpot down and the four children leaned over him. +Promptly Pepperpot stood on his hind legs and executed a merry dance.</p> + +<p>"He cut through the woods and headed us off, miles away from the +Notch—we couldn't do anything else but bring him along," Uncle Johnny +whispered to Mrs. Westley under cover of the children's laughter. "For +Heaven's sake, Mary, let him stay."</p> + +<p>There had been for years a very fixed rule in the Westley household that +dogs were "not allowed." "They bring their dirty feet and their greasy +bones and things on the rugs and the chairs," was the standing +complaint, though Mrs. Westley had never minded telltale marks from +muddy little shoes nor the imprint of sticky fingers on satin +upholstery; nor had she ever allowed painters to gloss over the initials +that Graham had carved with his first jackknife on one of the broad +window-sills of the library. "When he's a grown man and away from the +nest—I'll have <i>that</i>," she had explained.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what Mrs. Hicks will say," she answered rather helplessly, +knowing, as she watched the young people, that she would not have the +heart to bar Pepper from their midst.</p> + +<p>"I say, Jerry,"—Graham had Pepper's nose in his hand—"can I have him +for my dog? Nearly all the fellows have dogs, but mother——" he glanced +quickly in her direction.</p> + +<p>Graham might just as well have asked Jerry to cut out a part of her +heart and hand it over; however, his face was so wistful that she +answered, impulsively: "He can belong to all of us!"</p> + +<p>"Where's Isobel?" cried Uncle Johnny, looking around.</p> + +<p>Isobel had been listening from the turn of the stairway. She had really +wanted, more than anything else, to race down the stairs and throw +herself in Uncle Johnny's arms. (He was certain to have some pretty gift +for her concealed in one of his pockets.) But she must show the others +that <i>she</i> would stick to her word. So, in answer to his call, she +walked slowly down the stairway, with a smile that carefully included +only Uncle Johnny.</p> + +<p>Jerry thought that she had never in her whole life seen anyone quite as +pretty as Isobel! She stared, fascinated. To Uncle Johnny's introduction +she answered awkwardly, uncomfortably conscious that Isobel's eyes were +unfriendly. She wished, with all her heart, that Isobel would say +something nice, but Isobel, after a little nod, turned back to her +uncle.</p> + +<p>"Gyp, take Jerry to her room. Graham, carry her bags up," directed Mrs. +Westley.</p> + +<p>"Pepper, too?" cried Tibby.</p> + +<p>But Pepper had dashed up the stairs, and had turned at the landing and, +standing again on his hind legs, had barked. Even Mrs. Westley laughed. +"Pepper's answering that question himself," she replied. She turned to +Uncle Johnny. "If it comes to a choice between Mrs. Hicks and that dog I +plainly see Mrs. Hicks will have to go."</p> + +<p>John Westley declared he had not known how "good" it would feel to get +"home" again. Though he really lived in an apartment a few blocks away, +he had always looked upon his brother's house as home and spent the +greater part of his leisure time there. Mrs. Westley ordered tea. Uncle +Johnny slipped Isobel's hand through his arm and followed Mrs. Westley +into the cheery library.</p> + +<p>Above, Jerry was declaring that her room was just "wonderful." She ran +from one window to another to gaze rapturously out over the neighboring +housetops. The brick, wall-enclosed court below, with its iron gate +letting into an alleyway, was to her an enchanted battlement!</p> + +<p>Graham's trophies, Tibby's dolls, Isobel's drawing tools had +disappeared; a little old-fashioned white wooden bed had been put up in +one corner; its snowy linen cover, with woven pink roses in orderly +clusters, gave it an inviting look; there was a pink pillow in the deep +chair in the bay-window; a round table stood near the chair; on it were +some of Gyp's books and a little work-basket. And the toys had been left +in the old bookcase, so that, Mrs. Westley had decided, the room would +look as if a little girl could really live in it! Little wonder that +Jerry thought it all "wonderful."</p> + +<p>When Gyp heard the rattle of tea-cups below, they all tore downstairs +again, Pepper at their heels. They gathered around Uncle Johnny and +drank iced tea and ate little frosted cakes and demanded to be told how +he had felt when he knew he was lost on that "big mountain." They were +all so nice and jolly, Jerry thought, and, though Isobel ignored her, +she must be as nice as the others, because Uncle Johnny kept her next to +him and held her hand. The late afternoon sun slanted through the long +windows with a pleasant glow; the rows and rows of books on the open +shelves made Jerry feel at home; the great, deep-seated chairs gave her +a delicious sense of refuge.</p> + +<p>It was Uncle Johnny who, after dinner, sent Jerry off to bed early; +though she declared she was not one little bit tired, he had noticed +that the brightness had gone from her face. Gyp and Tibby went upstairs +with her; Graham disappeared with Pepperpot.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of my girl?" John Westley asked his sister-in-law. +They had gone back to the library. Isobel sat on a stool close to Uncle +Johnny's chair.</p> + +<p>"She seems like an unusually nice, jolly child. But——" Mrs. Westley +looked a little distressed. "May she not be homesick here, John—so far +from her folks?" She hated to think of such a possibility.</p> + +<p>"I thought of that," John Westley chuckled. "I said something about it +to her. What do you think she said? She waited a moment before she +answered me—as though she was carefully considering it. 'Well,' she +said, 'anyway, one wouldn't be homesick for very long, would one?' As +though it'd be like measles—or mumps. This is an Adventure to her; +she's been dreaming about it all her life!" He told, then, about the +Wishing-rock.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Mary, there's some sort of spirit about the girl that's +unusual! It must come from some fire of genius further back than her +hermit-parents. I'm as certain as anything that there's a mystery about +the child. I've knocked about among all sorts of people, but I never +found such a curious family before—in such a place. Dr. Travis is one +of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the +clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her +eyes as though she was always afraid of something—just behind. And then +Jerry—like them both and not a bit like 'em—her head in the clouds, +all right—a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in +everything—a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story +about her."</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"She's probably just a healthy girl who has been brought up in a simple +way by very sensible parents." Her matter-of-fact tone made John Westley +feel a little foolish. "She's a dear, sunny child and I hope she will be +happy here."</p> + +<p>"What got me was her utter lack of self-consciousness and her faith in +herself. Not an affectation about her—that's why I wanted her at +Lincoln school."</p> + +<p>"No one'll <i>look</i> at her there—she's so dowdy!" burst out Isobel.</p> + +<p>Her uncle turned quickly, surprised and a little hurt at the pettishness +of her tone.</p> + +<p>"Isobel, dear—" protested her mother.</p> + +<p>Then Uncle Johnny laughed. "I rather guess, from my observation of the +vagaries of you young people, that sometimes one little thing can make +even a 'dowdy' girl popular—then, if she has the right stuff in her, +she can be a leader. What is it starts you all wearing these little +black belts round your waists, or this mousetrap," poking the puffs of +pretty silk hair that hid her ears; "it's a psychology that's beyond +most of us! Maybe my Jerry will set a new style in Lincoln."</p> + +<p>Isobel blazed in her scorn.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd <i>die</i> before <i>I'd</i> look like her!" she cried. "I'm going to +bed." She felt very cross. She had wanted Uncle Johnny to tell her that +she looked well; she had on a new dress and her hair was combed in a +very new way; she had grown, too, in the summer. Instead he had talked +of nothing but Jerry, Jerry—and such silly talk about her eyes shining +as though they reflected golden visions within! She stalked away with a +bare good-night.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny might have said something if Isobel's mother had not given +a long sigh.</p> + +<p>"I can't—always—understand Isobel now," she said. "She has grown so +self-centered. I'll be glad when school begins." Mrs. Westley, like many +another perplexed parent, looked upon school as a cure for all evils.</p> + +<p>Jerry and Gyp had been busily unpacking Jerry's belongings and putting +them away in the little white bureau.</p> + +<p>"Where's Pepper?" asked Jerry, in sudden alarm. The children had been +warned to keep the little dog from "under Mrs. Hicks' feet." In a flash +Jerry had a horrible vision of some cruel fate befalling her pet.</p> + +<p>"I'll just bet Graham has him," declared Gyp, indignantly.</p> + +<p>They tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to Graham's door. Graham +lay in bed, sound asleep; beside him lay Pepper, carefully tucked under +the bedclothes. One of Graham's arms was flung out over the dog.</p> + +<p>Some instinct told Jerry that a long-felt yearning in this boy's heart +had at last been satisfied. And Pepper must have felt it, too, for, +though at the sight of his little mistress a distressed quiver shot +through him, he bravely pretended to be soundly sleeping.</p> + +<p>"Let him have him," whispered Jerry.</p> + +<p>But, for a long time, Jerry, under the pink and white cover, blinked at +the little circle of brightness reflected from the electric light +outside, trying hard not to wish she had Pepperpot with her "to keep +away the lonesomes." The night sounds of the city hummed in eerie +cadences in her ears. She resolutely counted one-two-three to one +hundred and back again to one to keep the thoughts of mother and +Sunnyside out of her head; then, just as she felt a great choking sob +rise in her throat, she heard a little scratch-scratch at her door.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Pepper</i>—I'm so <i>glad</i> you came!" She caught the shaggy little +form to her. She could not let him lie on the pink-and-whiteness, so she +carefully spread it over the footboard and folded her own coat for him +to sleep on.</p> + +<p>How magically everything changed—when a shaggy terrier snuggled against +her feet. The haunting shadows fled, the sob gave way to a contented +little sigh and Jerry fell asleep with the memory of Gyp's dark, roguish +face in her thoughts and a consuming eagerness to have the morning come +quickly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>HIGHACRES</h3> + + +<p>Old Peter Westley had made up his mind, so gossip said, to build +Highacres when he heard that Thomas Knowles, a business rival, had +bought a palatial home on the most beautiful avenue of the city. +"Pouf"—that was Uncle Peter's favorite expression and he had a way of +blowing it through his scraggly mustache that made it most impressive. +"Pouf! <i>I'll</i> show him!" The next morning he drove around to a real +estate office, bundled the startled real estate broker into his car and +carried him off to the outskirts of the city, where lay a beautiful +tract of land advertised as "Highacre Terrace," and held (with an eye to +the growth of the city) at a startling figure. In the real estate office +it had been divided into building lots with "restrictions," which meant +that only separate houses could be built on the lots. Peter Westley +struck the ground with his heavy cane and said he'd take the whole +piece. The real estate man gasped. Uncle Peter said "pouf" again and the +deal was settled.</p> + +<p>Then he summoned architects from all over the country who, to his +delight, spent hours in the office of the Westley Cement-Mixer +Manufacturing Company trying to outdo one another in finesse and +suavity. Fortunately he decided upon a man who had genius as well as +tact, who, without his knowing it, could quietly bend old Peter Westley +to his way of thinking. Under this man's planning the new home grew +until it stood in its finished perfection, a mass of stone and marble +surrounded by great trees and sloping lawns. Gossip said further that +Highacres so far surpassed the remodeled home of Thomas Knowles that +that poor gentleman had resigned from the Meadow Brook Country Club so +that he would not have to drive past it!</p> + +<p>What sentiment had led Peter Westley to leave Highacres to the Lincoln +School no one would ever know; perhaps deep in his queer old heart was +an affection for his nephew Robert's children, who came dutifully to see +him once or twice a year, but made no effort to conceal the fact that +they thought it a dreadful bore.</p> + +<p>"I think," Isobel said seriously to her family, as they were gathered +around the breakfast table, a few days after Jerry's arrival, "that it'd +be nice if Gyp and I put on black——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Black</i>——" cried Gyp, spilling her cocoa in her astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, black. We should have worn it when Uncle Peter died and now, going +to school out there, it would show the others that we respected——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley laughed, then when she saw the color deepen on Isobel's +cheeks she added soothingly: "Your thought's all right, Isobel dear, but +it will be hardly necessary for you and Gyp to put on black now to show +your respect. I think every pupil of Lincoln can best do it by building +up a reputation for scholarship that will make Lincoln known all over +the country."</p> + +<p>"Isobel just wants everybody to remember she's Uncle Peter's——"</p> + +<p>"Hush, Graham." Mrs. Westley had a way of saying "hush" that cleared a +threatening atmosphere at once.</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't it going to be <i>fun</i>?" cried Gyp. "Mother, can't we take +Jerry out there this morning?"</p> + +<p>"But I have to use the car——"</p> + +<p>"If you girls were fellows, we could walk," broke in Graham.</p> + +<p>"We can—we can! It's only two miles and a half. Simpson watched on the +speedometer the last time we drove out."</p> + +<p>Graham looked questioningly at Jerry and Jerry, suddenly recalling the +miles of mountain trail over which she had climbed, laughed back her +answer.</p> + +<p>Because a new world, that surpassed any fairy tale, had opened to Jerry +in these last few days, it seemed only fitting to go to school in a +building that was like a palace. She thrilled at the thought of the new +school life, the girls and boys who would be her classmates, the new +teachers, the new studies. For years and years, back at the Notch she +had always sat in front of Rose Smith and back of Jimmy Chubb; she had +progressed from fractions to measurements and then on to algebra and +from spelling to Latin with the outline of Jimmy's winglike ears so +fixed a part of her vision that she wondered if now she might not find +that she could not study without them. And there had always been, as far +back as she could remember, only little Miss Masten to teach +multiplication and geography and algebra alike; she and the other +children who made up the "advanced grade" of the school at Miller's +Notch always called her "Miss Sarah." Would there be anyone like Miss +Sarah at Lincoln?</p> + +<p>As they walked along, Gyp bravely measuring her step to Jerry's freer +stride, Gyp explained to Jerry "all about" Uncle Peter.</p> + +<p>"He's father's uncle. Father's father—that's my grandfather—was his +youngest brother. He died when he was just a young man and Uncle Peter +never got over it. Mother says my grandfather was the only person Uncle +Peter ever really liked. He always lived in the same funny little old +house even after he made lots of money, until he built Highacres. He was +terribly queer. I used to be dreadfully afraid of him because he always +carried a big cane and had the awfullest way of looking at you! His eyes +sort of bored holes right through you, so that you turned cold all over +and couldn't even cry. I'm glad he's dead. He was awfully old, +anyway—or at least he looked old. We used to just hate to have to go to +see him. The old stingy wouldn't ever even give us a stick of candy."</p> + +<p>"The poor old man," Jerry said so feelingly that Gyp stared at her. "My +mother always said that such people are so unhappy that they punish +themselves. Maybe he really wanted to be nice and just didn't know how! +Anyway, he's given his home to the school."</p> + +<p>If Peter Westley, looking down from another world, was reading that +thought in a hundred young hearts he must surely be finding his reward.</p> + +<p>"There it is!" cried Graham, who was walking ahead.</p> + +<p>School could not really seem a bit like school, Jerry thought, as she +followed the others through the spacious grounds into the building, when +one studied in such beautiful rooms where the sun, streaming through +long windows framed in richly-toned walnut, danced in slanting golden +bars across parqueted floors. Gyp's enthusiasm, though, made it all very +real.</p> + +<p>"Here, Jerry, here's where the third form study room will be. Look, +here's the geom. classroom! Oh, I <i>hope</i> we'll be put in the same class. +Let's go down to the Gym. Oh—look at the French room—isn't it +darling?" The trees outside were casting a shimmer of green through the +sunshine in the room. "Mademoiselle will say: 'Young ladies, it ees +beau-ti-ful!' Aren't these halls jolly, Jerry? Oh, I can't <i>wait</i> for +school to begin."</p> + +<p>On their way to the gymnasium, which was in the new wing of the +building, the girls met another group. One of these disentangled herself +from the arms that encircled her waist and threw herself into Gyp's +embrace. The extravagance of her demonstration startled Jerry, but when +Gyp introduced her, in an off-hand way: "This is Ginny Cox, Jerry," +Jerry found herself fascinated by the dash and "<i>camaraderie</i>" in the +girl's manner.</p> + +<p>There were other introductions and excited greetings; each tried to tell +how "scrumptious" and "gorgeous" and "spliffy" she thought the new +school. Like Gyp, none of them could wait until school opened. Then the +group passed on and Jerry, breathless at her first encounter with her +schoolmates-to-be, remembered only Ginny Cox.</p> + +<p>"She's the funniest girl—she's a perfect circus," Gyp explained in +answer to Jerry's query. "Everybody likes her and she's the best forward +we ever had in Lincoln." All of which was strange tribute to Jerry's +ears, for, back at the Notch, poor Si Robie had always been dubbed the +"funniest" child in the school and <i>he</i> had been "simple." Jerry did not +know exactly how valuable a good "forward" was to any school but, she +told herself, she knew she was going to like Ginny Cox.</p> + +<p>In the gymnasium the girls found Graham with a group of boys. Gyp +greeted them boisterously. Jerry, watching shyly, thought them all very +jolly-looking boys.</p> + +<p>"Do you see that tall boy down there?" Gyp nodded toward another group. +"That's Dana King. Isobel's got an awful crush on him. She won't admit +it but I <i>know</i> it, and the other girls say so, too. He's a senior."</p> + +<p>The boy turned at that moment. His pleasant face was aglow with +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Come on, fellows," he cried to the other boys, "let's give a yell for +old Peter Westley." And the yell was given with a will!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"L-I-N-C-O-L-N! L-I-N-C-O-L-N!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lincoln! Lincoln!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rah! Rah! Rah!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Peter Westley! Pe-ter! West-ley!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Jerry tingled to her finger-tips. Gyp had yelled with the others, so had +Ginny Cox, who had come back into the room. What fun it was all going to +be. Dana King was leading the boys in a serpentine march through the +building; out in the hall the line broke to force in a laughing, +remonstrating carpenter. Jerry heard their boyish voices gradually die +away.</p> + +<p>"Before we go back let's climb up to the tower room." That was the name +the children had always given to the largest of the turrets that crowned +Highacres' many-gabled roof. A stairway led directly to it from the +third floor. But the door of the room was locked.</p> + +<p>"How tiresome," exclaimed Gyp, shaking the knob. Not that she did not +know just what the tower room was like, but she hated locked doors—they +always made her so curious.</p> + +<p>"It's the nicest room—you can see way off over the city from its +windows." She gave the offending door a little kick. "They put all of +Uncle Peter's old books and papers and things up here—mother wouldn't +have them brought to our house, you see. I remember she told Graham the +key was down in the safety-deposit box at the bank. Well——" +disappointed, Gyp turned down the stairs. "I've always loved tower +rooms, don't you, Jerry? They're so romantic. Can't you just see the +poor princess who won't marry the lover her father has commanded her to +marry, languishing up there? Even chained to the wall!"</p> + +<p>Jerry shuddered but loved the picture. She added to it: "She's got long +golden, hair hanging down over her shoulders and she's tearing it in her +wretchedness."</p> + +<p>"And beating her breast and vowing over and over that she will <i>not</i> +marry the horrible wicked prince——"</p> + +<p>"And refusing to eat the dry bread that the ugly old keeper of the +drawbridge slips through the door——"</p> + +<p>At this point in the heartrending story the two laughing girls reached +the outer door. Gyp slipped an affectionate hand through Jerry's arm. +She forgot the languishing princess she had consigned to the prison +above in her joy of the bright sunshine, the inviting slopes of +Highacres, velvety green, and the new friend at her side.</p> + +<p>"I'm so <i>glad</i> Uncle Johnny found you!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>SCHOOL</h3> + + +<p>In the Westley home each school day had always begun with a rite that +would some day be a sacred memory to Mrs. Westley, because it belonged +to the precious childhood of her girls and boy. Graham called it +"inspection." It had begun when the youngsters had first started school, +Isobel and Graham proudly in the "grades," Gyp in kindergarten. The +mother had, each morning, laughingly stood them in a row and looked them +over. More than once poor Graham had declared that it was because his +ears were so big that mother could always find dirt somewhere; sometimes +it was Isobel who was sent back to smooth her hair or Gyp to wash her +teeth or Tibby for her rubbers. But after the inspection there was +always a "good-luck" kiss for each and a carol of "good-by, mother" from +happy young throats.</p> + +<p>So on this day that was to mark the opening of the Lincoln School at +Highacres, Jerry stood in line with the others and, though each young +person was faultlessly ready for this first day of school, Mrs. Westley +laughingly pulled Graham's ears, smiled reminiscently at Isobel's +primness, smoothed with a loving hand Gyp's rebellious black locks and +thought, as she looked at Jerry, of what Uncle Johnny had said about her +eyes reflecting golden dreams from within. And when she called Tibby +"littlest one" none of them could know that, as she looked at them and +realized that another year was beginning, it stirred a little heartache +deep within her.</p> + +<p>"Aren't mothers funny?" reflected Gyp as she and Jerry swung down the +street. They had preferred to walk.</p> + +<p>"Oh——" Jerry had to control her voice. "<i>I</i> think they're grand!"</p> + +<p>"I mean—they're so <i>fussy</i>. When I have children I'm just going to +leave them plumb alone. I don't care what they'll look like."</p> + +<p>"You will, though," laughed Jerry. "Because you'll love them. If our +mothers didn't love us so much I suppose they'd leave us alone. That +would be dreadful!"</p> + +<p>Jerry had slept very little the night before for anticipation. And now +that the great moment was approaching close she was obsessed by the fear +that she "wouldn't know what to do." The fear grew very acute when she +was swept by Gyp into a crowd of noisy girls, all rushing for space in +the dressing-rooms. Then, at the ringing of a bell, she was hurried with +the others up the wide stairway. She caught a glimpse of Gyp ahead, +surrounded by chums, all trying to exchange in a brief moment the entire +summer's experiences. She looked wildly around for a familiar face. She +caught one little glimpse of Ginny Cox, who smiled at her across a dozen +heads, then rushed away with the others.</p> + +<p>In the Assembly room a spirit of gaiety prevailed. The eager faces of +the boys and girls smiled at the faculty, sitting in prim rows on the +stage; the faculty smiled back. There was stirring music until the last +pupil had found her place. Then, just as Dr. Caton, the dignified +principal, rose to his feet, a boy whom Jerry from her corner recognized +as Dana King, leaped to the front, threw both arms wildly in the air +with a gesture that plainly commanded: "Come on, fellows," and the +beamed ceiling rang with a lusty cheer.</p> + +<p>Dr. Caton greeted the students with a few pleasant words. There were +more cheers, then everyone sang. Jerry thought it all very jolly. She +wondered if "assembly" was always like this. She recalled suddenly how +agitated poor Miss Sarah always became if there was the slightest noise +in that stuffy schoolroom, back at the Notch.</p> + +<p>"Look—there's the new gym. teacher—on the end—Barbara Lee," whispered +Jerry's neighbor, excitedly.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked with interest. In the entire faculty she had not found +anyone who resembled, even ever so slightly, poor Miss Sarah. Miller's +Notch, of course, had no gymnasium, therefore it had not needed any +gymnasium assistant. Jerry had imagined that a gym. teacher must, +necessarily, be a sort of young Amazon, with a strong, hard face. Miss +Lee was slender and looked like one of the schoolgirls.</p> + +<p>It had always been the custom at Lincoln School, on the opening day, to +assign the new pupils to the care of the Seniors. These assignments were +posted on the bulletin boards. Jerry did not know this: she did not know +that Isobel Westley had been appointed her "guardian." Before assembly, +Isobel had read her name on the lists and had promptly declared: "I just +<i>won't</i>! Let her get along the best way she can." So, when assembly was +over, Jerry found herself drifting helplessly, forlornly elbowed here +and there, too shy to ask questions, valiantly trying to beat down the +desire to run away. She envied the assurance with which the others, even +the new girls, seemed to know just where they ought to go. She had not +laid eyes on Gyp after that one fleeting glimpse on the stairs.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a hand touched her arm and, turning, she found Barbara Lee +beside her. The kind smile on Miss Lee's face brought a little +involuntary quiver to her lips.</p> + +<p>"Lost, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know—where——"</p> + +<p>"You are a new girl? What is your name?"</p> + +<p>"Jerauld Travis."</p> + +<p>"Oh—yes. Where is your guardian?" As she spoke Miss Lee stepped to the +bulletin board that hung in the corridor. She read Isobel's name.</p> + +<p>"You were assigned to Isobel Westley. It is strange that she has left +you alone. Come to the library with me, Jerauld."</p> + +<p>Jerry realized now why it had been so easy for all the other "new girls" +to find their places—<i>they</i> had had guardians. She tried to smother a +little feeling of hurt because Isobel had deserted her.</p> + +<p>The library, gloriously sunlit on this golden morning, was empty. Miss +Lee pulled two chairs toward a long table.</p> + +<p>"Sit here, Jerauld. Now tell me all about your other school—so we can +place you." And she patted Jerry's hand in a jolly encouraging way.</p> + +<p>It was very easy for Jerry to talk to Miss Lee. She told of the work she +had covered back at the Notch. Miss Lee listened with interest and, +knowing nothing of Jerry's home life and Jerry's mother, some amazement.</p> + +<p>"I believe you could go straight into the Junior class though +you're——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>can't</i> I be in Gyp's room?" cried Jerry in dismay. "Gyp Westley, I +mean. You see she's the only girl I know real well."</p> + +<p>Barbara Lee, for all that she was trying to look very grown-up and +dignified, as a teacher should, could remember well how much it meant in +school life to be near one's "chum." So she laughed, a laugh that warmed +Jerry's heart.</p> + +<p>"I think—perhaps—that can be arranged," she said in a tone that +indicated that she would help. "We will go to see Dr. Caton."</p> + +<p>Even after the long consultation with Dr. Caton, Miss Lee did not desert +Jerry. As they walked away from the office, she whispered assuringly to +Jerry: "Dr. Caton thinks you had better go into the Third Form room—for +a term, at least." Accordingly she led her into one of the smaller study +rooms. And there was Gyp smiling and beckoning her to an empty desk +beside her. But Miss Lee took Jerry to her classrooms; she introduced +her to Miss Briggs, the geometry teacher, then to Miss Gray of the +English department, and on to the French room and to the Ancient History +classroom. Bewildered, Jerry answered countless questions and registered +her name over and over.</p> + +<p>"There, my dear, you're settled for this term, at least," declared Miss +Lee as they left the last classroom, "Now go back to your study-room and +take that desk that Gyp Westley's saving for you."</p> + +<p>Assigned to classes and with a desk of her own—and with Gyp close at +hand—Jerry felt like a real Lincolnite and her unhappy shyness vanished +as though by magic. During the long recess that followed, the bad +half-hour forgotten, with a budding confidence born of her sense of +"belonging," she sought the other "new" girls. Among them was Patricia +Everett, who came directly to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I know you're Jerry Travis. I'm Aunt Pen Everett Allan's niece. I'm +crazy to go and visit Cobble Mountain. That's very near your home, isn't +it?" So sincere was her interest that Jerry felt as though she was +suddenly surrounded by a wealth of friendship. Patricia seemed to know +everyone else—they were nearly all Girl Scouts in her troop; she +introduced Jerry to so many girls that poor Jerry could not remember a +single name.</p> + +<p>Ginny Cox, spying Jerry from across the room, bolted to her.</p> + +<p>"You're going to sign up for basketball, aren't you? Of course you are. +Wait right here—I'll call Mary Starr." She rushed away and before Jerry +could catch her breath she returned with a tall, pleasant-faced girl who +carried a small leather-bound notebook in her hand.</p> + +<p>She wrote Jerry's name in it and went away.</p> + +<p>"Miss Travis, will you sign up for hockey?" Jerry, on familiar ground, +eagerly assented to this. Her name went into another book. Another girl +waylaid her. She signed for swimming. She noticed that the others around +her were doing the same thing. Patricia brought a girl to her whom she +introduced as Peggy Lee. Peggy carried a notebook, too.</p> + +<p>"Will you sign up for the debating club, Miss Travis?" she asked with a +dignity that was belied by her roguish eyes.</p> + +<p>Jerry was quite breathless; she had never debated in her life—but then +she had never played basketball either.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do sign. We're all joining and it's awfully exciting," pleaded +Patricia. So Jerry signed for the debates.</p> + +<p>"When<i>ever</i> will I find time to study Latin and geometry? I know I'm +going to be dumb in that," cried Jerry, that evening, to the Westley +family. She spoke with such real conviction that everyone laughed.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny had "dropped in." He was as eager as though he was a +schoolboy, himself, to hear the children's experiences of the day. +Though they all talked at once, he managed to understand nearly all that +they were telling.</p> + +<p>"And you, Jerry-girl, what did you think of it all?"</p> + +<p>Because she had felt like one little drop in a very big puddle, Jerry +simply couldn't tell. But her eyes were shining. Gyp broke in. "Jerry +could be a Junior if she wanted to, but she's going to stay in my +study-room for awhile. And they've signed her up for <i>every single +thing</i>!"</p> + +<p>Jerry, ignorant of Lincoln traditions, did not know that this was a +tribute.</p> + +<p>Then she had wondered when, with everything else, she would find time +for her Cicero and geometry.</p> + +<p>"Who you got? Speck-eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Graham——" cried Mrs. Westley. "I will <i>not</i> have you speaking in that +way of your teachers!"</p> + +<p>Graham colored; he knew that this was a point upon which his mother had +always been very firm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Briggs is all <i>right</i>—I like her, but all the fellows call +her that."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose they'll nickname Miss Lee?"</p> + +<p>To Jerry it seemed that <i>that</i> would be sacrilege—she was too dear! +Uncle John had, then, to hear all about her. He was much interested, he +had not realized that she was grown-up enough to teach.</p> + +<p>"But she really doesn't seem a bit so," Gyp explained.</p> + +<p>Then quite suddenly Graham asked Jerry: "Say, Jerry, who was your +guardian?"</p> + +<p>Jerry's face turned very red. She caught a defiant look from Isobel. She +did not want to answer; even the ethics of the little school at Miller's +Notch had had no tolerance for a telltale.</p> + +<p>"A—a Senior. She couldn't find me."</p> + +<p>Poor Jerry—Graham's careless inquiry had dimmed her enthusiasm. Why +hadn't Isobel found her? With the friendliness of spirit that was such a +part of the very atmosphere of Lincoln, why had Isobel, alone, stood +aloof? She looked at Isobel—she was so pretty now as she talked, with +animation, to Uncle Johnny. Jerry thought, as she watched her, that +she'd rather have Isobel love her than any of those other nice girls she +had met at Highacres—Patricia Everett, Ginny Cox, Peggy Lee, Keineth +Randolph——</p> + +<p>"I'll just <i>make</i> her," she vowed, gathering up her shiny new +school-books. And that solemn vow was to help Jerry over many a rough +spot in the schooldays to come.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE SECRET DOOR</h3> + + +<p>The routine of Jerry's new life shaped into pleasant ways. She felt more +like Jerry Travis and less like a dream-creature living in a golden +world she had brought around her by wishing on a wishing-rock. She could +not have found a moment in which to be homesick; twice a week she wrote +back to Sweetheart and Little-Dad long scrawly letters that would have +disgraced her in the eyes of Miss Gray of the English department, but +expressed such utter happiness and contentment that Mrs. Travis, with a +little regret, dismissed the fear that Jerry would be lonely away from +her and Sunnyside.</p> + +<p>After the first week of school the girls and boys settled down to what +Graham called "digging." Geometry looked less formidable to Jerry, +Cicero was like a beautiful old friend, Gyp was with her in English and +history, Ginny Cox was in one of her classes, too, and Jerry liked her +better each day. Patricia Everett was teaching her to play tennis until +basketball practice began.</p> + +<p>There were the pleasant walks to and from school through the city +streets, whose teeming life never failed to fascinate Jerry; the jolly +recess, breaking the school session, when the girls gathered around the +long tables and ate their lunch; and then the afternoon's play on the +athletic field at Highacres.</p> + +<p>Had old Peter Westley ever pictured, as he sat alone in his great empty +house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled +over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps, +to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices; +perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the +threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women +would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy or girl.</p> + +<p>One afternoon Gyp and Jerry lingered in the school building to prepare a +history lesson from references they had to find in the library. Gyp +hated to study; the drowsy stillness of the room was broken by the +pleasant shouting from the playground outside. She threw down her pencil +and stretched her long arms.</p> + +<p>"Oh, goodness, Jerry—let's stop. We can ask mother all these things."</p> + +<p>Jerry was quite willing to be tempted. She, too, had found it hard to +hold her attention to the Thirty-one Dynasties.</p> + +<p>Gyp leaned toward her. "I'll tell you—let's go exploring. There are all +the rooms in the back we've never seen."</p> + +<p>During the past six months workmen had been rebuilding the rear wing of +Highacres into laboratories. The changes had not been completed. Gyp and +Jerry climbed over materials and tools and little piles of rubbish, +poking inquisitive noses into every corner. Now and then Gyp stopped to +ask a workman a few questions. They stumbled around in the basement +where in a few weeks there would be a very complete machine-shop and +carpentry room. Then they found a stairway that led to the upper floors +and scampered up it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry Travis, I <i>wish</i> you could see yourself," laughed Gyp as they +paused on the third floor.</p> + +<p>"Your face is dirty, too," Jerry retorted.</p> + +<p>"Isn't this fun? It doesn't seem a bit like school, does it? I wonder if +they're ever going to use these rooms. Let's play hide-and-seek. I'll +blind and count twenty and you hide and we mustn't make a <i>sound</i>!" +which, you know, is a very hard thing to do when one is playing +hide-and-seek.</p> + +<p>Gyp's charm—and there was much charm in this lanky girl—lay in her +irrepressible spirits. Gyp was certain—and every boy and girl of her +acquaintance knew it—to find an opportunity for "fun" in the most +unpromising circumstances. No one but Gyp could have known what fun it +would be to play hide-and-seek in the halls and rooms of the third floor +of Highacres—especially when one had to step very softly and bite one's +lips to keep back any sound!</p> + +<p>It was Jerry's turn to blind. She leaned her arm against the narrow +frame of a panel painting of George Washington that was set in the wall +at a turn in the corridor. As she rested her face against her arm she +felt the picture move ever so slightly under her pressure. Startled, she +stepped back. Slowly, as though pushed by an invisible hand, the panel +swung out into the corridor.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gyp</i>——" cried Jerry so sharply that Gyp appeared from her +hiding-place in a twinkling. "Look—what I did!" Jerry felt as though +the entire building might slowly and sedately collapse around her.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake," cried Gyp, staring. She swung the panel out. "It's +a <i>door</i>! Jerry Travis, <i>it's a secret door</i>!" She put her head through +the narrow opening. "Jerry——" she reached back an eager hand. +"Look—it's a stairway—a secret stairway!"</p> + +<p>Jerry put her head in. Enough light filtered through a crack above so +that the girls could make out the narrow winding steps. They were very +steep and only broad enough for one person to squeeze through.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Jerry, let's——"</p> + +<p>"Gyp, you don't know where it'll take you——" Jerry suddenly remembered +their poor princess in her dungeon.</p> + +<p>"Silly—nothing could hurt us! Come on. Close the panel—there, like +that. I'll go first." She led the way, Jerry tiptoeing gingerly behind +her.</p> + +<p>The door at the top gave under Gyp's push and to their amazement the +girls found themselves in the tower room.</p> + +<p>It was a square room with a sloping ceiling and narrow windows; there +was nothing in the least unusual about it. Gyp and Jerry looked about +them, vaguely disappointed. It might have been, with its litter of old +furniture, chests of books, piles of magazines and papers, an attic room +in any house. The October sunshine filtered in thin bars through the +dust-stained windows, cobwebs festooned themselves fantastically +overhead. The opening that led to the secret stairway appeared, on the +inside of the room, to be a built-in bookcase on the shelves of which +were now piled an assortment of hideous bric-a-brac which Mrs. Robert +Westley had refused to take into her own home.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's fun, anyway, just having the secret stairway," decided Gyp, +scowling at what she mentally called the "junk" about her. "<i>Why</i> do you +suppose Uncle Peter had it built in?"</p> + +<p>Jerry could offer no explanation.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't we ought to tell someone?"</p> + +<p>Gyp scorned the thought—part with their precious secret—let everybody +know that that imposing portrait of George Washington hid a <i>secret +door</i>? Why, even mother and Uncle Johnny couldn't know it—it was their +very own secret!</p> + +<p>"I should say <i>not</i>. At least——" she added, "not for awhile. I guess +I'm a Westley and I have a right to come up here." Which argument +sounded very convincing to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I have the grandest idea," Gyp dragged Jerry to the faded +window-seat and plumped down upon it so hard that it sent a little cloud +of dust about them. "Let's get up a secret society—like the horrid old +Sphinxes."</p> + +<p>Fraternities and sororities were not allowed in Lincoln School, but from +time to time there had sprung up secret bands of boys and girls, that +held together by irrevealable ties for a little while, then passed into +school history. One of these was the Sphinxes. They were annoyingly +mysterious and dark rumors were current that their antics, if known, +would not meet, in the least, the approval of the Lincoln faculty. +Isobel was a Sphinx, most faithful to her vows, so that all the teasing +and bribing that Graham's and Gyp's fertile brains could contrive, +failed to drag one tiny truth from her.</p> + +<p>Of course Jerry had been at Lincoln long enough to know all about the +Sphinxes. And she knew, too, that Gyp meant to suggest a society that +would be like the Sphinxes only in that it was secret. She could not be +one of that Third Form study-room without sharing the general scorn of +the Sophomores for the Senior Sphinxes.</p> + +<p>"We can meet up here, you see—once a week. And let's have it a secret +society that'll stand ready to serve Lincoln with their very lives—like +those secret bands of men in the South—after the Civil War."</p> + +<p>Jerry declared, of course, that Gyp's suggestion was "wonderful."</p> + +<p>"We'll have a real initiation when we'll all swear our allegiance to +Lincoln School forever and ever and we'll have spreads and it'll be such +fun making every one wonder where we meet. And we'll have terribly funny +signs."</p> + +<p>"What'll we call it?" asked Jerry, ashamed that she could offer nothing +to the plan.</p> + +<p>"Let's call it the Ravens and Serpents—that sounds so awful and we +won't be at all. And a crawly snake is such a dreadful symbol and it's +easy to draw." Gyp's brain worked at lightning pace in its initiative.</p> + +<p>"What girls shall we ask?"</p> + +<p>Gyp rattled off a number of names. They were all girls who were in the +Third Form study-room.</p> + +<p>"Can't we ask Ginny Cox?"</p> + +<p>Gyp considered. "No," she answered decidedly. "She'd be fun but she's +too chummy with Mary Starr and Mary Starr's a Sphinx. We can't ask her."</p> + +<p>Gyp was right, of course, Jerry thought, but she wished Ginny Cox might +be invited to join.</p> + +<p>"Let's go down now. Oh, won't it be fun? Swear, Jerauld Travis, that +burning irons won't drag our secret from you!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing will make me tell," promised Jerry. They stole down the +stairway, moved George Washington carefully back into place, tiptoed to +the main floor and out into the sunshine.</p> + +<p>Thus did the secret order of the "Ravens and Serpents" have its birth. +Gyp assembled various symbols, impressive in their terribleness, that, +during the study hours of the next day, conveyed, with the help of +whispered explanations and a violent exchange of notes, invitations to +six other girls to join the new order. And after the close of school +eight pupils elected to remain indoors, ostensibly to study; eight heads +bent diligently over the long oak table in the library until a safe +passage into the deserted halls above was assured. Then Gyp and Jerry +led the new Ravens to the secret door where, in a sepulchral whisper, +Gyp extracted a solemn promise from each that she would not divulge the +secret of the hidden stairway. One by one, quite breathless with +excitement, they climbed to the tower room where Gyp with ridiculous +solemnity called "to order" the first assembly of the Ravens and +Serpents of Lincoln School.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3> ONE BY ONE, QUITE BREATHLESS WITH EXCITEMENT, THEY CLIMBED TO THE TOWER ROOM</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>All the Ravens agreed with Gyp that their secret society must pledge +itself to protect and serve the spirit of Lincoln; then, having disposed +of that they fell, eagerly, to discussing plans for "spreads."</p> + +<p>"Let's take turns bringing eats."</p> + +<p>"How often shall we meet?"</p> + +<p>"Let's meet every Wednesday. Melodia always makes tarts on Tuesday and +maybe I can coax her to make some extra ones," offered Patricia Everett.</p> + +<p>"And the dancing class is in the gym. then and no one will notice us."</p> + +<p>"We ought to have knives and forks and things like a regular club!"</p> + +<p>"And a president and a secretary."</p> + +<p>"I ought to be president." Gyp's tone was final.</p> + +<p>The other Ravens assented amicably. "Of course you ought to be. And +Jerry can be secretary because she helped find this spliffy room."</p> + +<p>"Girls, at the next meeting let's each bring a knife, fork, spoon, plate +and cup."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>won't</i> it be fun?" A Raven pirouetted on her toes in a most +unparliamentary and unbird-like fashion.</p> + +<p>"Pat and I'll bring the eats next Wednesday," declared Peggy. "Some one +has to start."</p> + +<p>"If we've decided everything we have to decide this meeting's +adjourned," and without further formal procedure Gyp summarily brought +to an end the first meeting of the Ravens. After a merry half-hour they +tiptoed down the secret stairway, George Washington went back into his +place on the wall and the eight girls scattered, each to her own home, +with hearts that were fairly bursting with excitement.</p> + +<p>That evening at the dinner table Gyp, very obviously, made a secret sign +to Jerry. She brought one hand, with a little downward, spiral movement, +to rest upon the other hand, the first two fingers of each interlocked.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh! That's a secret sign you made," cried Tibby.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe it is," answered Gyp, putting her spoon in her soup with +assumed indifference.</p> + +<p>"Some silly girls' society, I'll bet," put in Graham with a tormenting +grin.</p> + +<p>Gyp had passed beyond the age when Graham's teasing could disturb her. +She smiled to show how little she minded his words.</p> + +<p>"You'll know, my dear brother, <i>sometime</i>, whether we're silly or not," +she answered with beautiful dignity. "<i>We're</i> not a society that's +organized just for <i>fun</i>!" Which was, of course, a slap at the Sphinxes. +Isobel roused suddenly to an active interest in the discussion.</p> + +<p>"You're just copy-cats," she declared, with a withering scorn that +brought Graham to Gyp's defence.</p> + +<p>No wonder Jerry never found a moment in the Westley home dull!</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> needn't think," he shot across the table at Isobel, "that 'cause +you have waves in your hair you're the whole ocean!"</p> + +<p>"Funny little boy," Isobel retorted, trying hard to hold back her anger. +"Mother, I should think you'd make Graham stop using his horrid slang!"</p> + +<p>"That's not slang—that's <i>idiotmatic</i> English," added Graham, smiling +mischievously at his mother. He chuckled. "You should have heard Don +Blacke in geom. class to-day. He got up and said: 'Two triangles are +equal if two sides and the included angle of one are equal +<i>respectfully</i> to two sides,' and when we all laughed he got sore as a +cat!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE DEBATE</h3> + + +<p>"Gyp—<i>what</i> do you think has happened?" Jerry frantically clutched +Gyp's arm as they met outside of the study-room door. Jerry did not wait +for Gyp to "think." "My name's been drawn for the debate—this Friday +night! Miss Gray just told me. I'm taking Susan Martin's place."</p> + +<p>"What <i>fun</i>——"</p> + +<p>Jerry had wanted sympathy. "Not fun at all! I am scared to death."</p> + +<p>A bell rang and Gyp scampered off to her classroom, leaving Jerry to go +to her desk, sit down and contemplate with a heavy heart the task that +lay before her. She had never so much as spoken a "piece" in her life; +since coming to Highacres she had listened, with fascination, to the +weekly discussion of current topics, envying the ease with which the +boys and girls of the room contributed to it. She had wondered whether +she could ever grow so accustomed to large groups of people as to be +able to talk before them. Now Miss Gray, waving in her face the little +pink slip that had done all the damage, was driving her to the test.</p> + +<p>However, there had been a great deal in Jerry's simple childhood, spent +on the trails of Kettle Mountain, that had given to her an indomitable +courage for any challenge. Real fear—that horrible funk that turns the +staunchest heart cowardly, Jerry had never known—what she had sometimes +called fear had been only the little heartquake of expectation.</p> + +<p>Once, when she was twelve years old, she had ventured to climb Rocky +Point, alone, in search of the first arbutus of the year. Spring had +come to the lower slopes of the mountain but its soft hand was just +breaking the upper crusts of ice and snow. As she climbed up the trail a +deep rumble warned her that a snowslide was approaching. She had only +the briefest moment to decide what to do—if she retraced her steps she +must surely be overtaken! Near her was a tall crag of rock that jutted +out from the wooded slope of the trail; on this she might be safe. With +desperate haste she climbed it and, as she clung to its rough surface, +tons of ice and snow thundered past her, shaking her stronghold, +uprooting the smaller trees, piling in fantastic shapes against the +sturdier. As Jerry watched it had been fascination, not terror, that had +caught the breath in her throat; she had not recognized the threat of +Death; she had glimpsed only the picture of her beloved Kettle angrily +shaking old Winter from his mighty shoulders.</p> + +<p>So, as Jerry sat there in the study-room, her frowning eyes focussed on +a spot straight ahead of her, her spirit slowly rose to meet the +challenge of the debate. These others had all had to live through their +"first," ease had come to them only with practice, she reminded herself.</p> + +<p>It was pleasantly exciting, too, to be surrounded, after school, by a +group of interested schoolmates, each with a suggestion.</p> + +<p>"Just keep your hands tight behind your back," offered one.</p> + +<p>"I 'most choked to death in one debate," recalled Peggy Lee, laughing. +"I had a cough-drop in my mouth to make my voice smooth and when it came +my turn I was so scared I couldn't swallow it and there I had to talk +with that thing in my cheek, and every minute or two it'd get out and +'most strangle me! Oh, it was dreadful. I don't believe that story about +Demosthenes and the pebble."</p> + +<p>"I'd get some famous orator's speeches and practice 'em. It makes what +you say sound grand!"</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>look</i> at anybody—just keep your eyes way up," declared Pat +Everett, whose experience went no farther than reciting four French +verses before a room full of fond parents, at Miss Prindle's +boarding-school.</p> + +<p>All of this advice Jerry took solemnly to heart. Gyp volunteered to help +her. Gyp was far more concerned that she should practice the arts of +oratory than that she should build up convincing arguments for her side +of the question. From the Westley library Gyp dug out a volume of +"Famous Speeches by Famous Men." Curled in the deep rocker in Jerry's +room she searched its pages.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Jerry—isn't this grand? 'Let us pause, friends, let us feel +the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the +order to advance, let us behold the wild charge, the glistening +bayonets, the rushing horses, the blinding——'"</p> + +<p>"But, Gyp, that's nothing about the Philippine Islands!"</p> + +<p>"Of course not—at least all that about the horses and the bayonets—but +you could say, 'Let us pause——' and wave your hand—like this! Here, +he's used it again," her finger traced another line, "it sounds +splendid; so—so sort of—calm."</p> + +<p>Jerry pounced upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had +compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine +Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind +carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic.</p> + +<p>"Wave your hand <i>out</i> when you say: 'Let us pause and consider——' Oh, +that's splendid! Try it again Jerry—slower. You're going to be +<i>great</i>!" Gyp's loyal enthusiasm strengthened Jerry's confidence.</p> + +<p>There was for her, too, an added inspiration in the fact that Uncle +Johnny was to be one of the judges. She wanted to do her "very best" for +him. As the school weeks had flown by, each full of joys that Jerry +could realize more than any of the other girls and boys, her gratitude +toward John Westley had grown to such proportions that she ached for +some splendid opportunity to serve him. She had told Gyp, one day, that +she wished she might save his life in some way (preferably, of course, +with the sacrifice of her own), but as Uncle Johnny seemed +extraordinarily careful in front of automobiles and street cars, as the +Westley home was too fireproof to admit of any great fire and there +could not be, in November, any likelihood of a flood, poor Jerry pined +vainly for her great opportunity. Once, when she had tried to tell Uncle +Johnny, shyly, something of how she felt, he had drawn her +affectionately to him.</p> + +<p>"Jerry-girl, you're doing enough right here for my girls to pay me back +for anything I have done." Which Jerry could not understand at all. She +could not know that only the evening before Mrs. Westley had told Uncle +Johnny how Gyp and Tibby had both moved their desks into Jerry's room, +and had added:</p> + +<p>"Gyp and Tibby never quarrel since Jerry came. She has a way of +smoothing everything over—it's her sunniness, I think. Gyp is less +hasty and headstrong and Tibby isn't the cry-baby she was."</p> + +<p>The day before the debate Isobel asked Jerry to show her the arguments +she had prepared.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I can add some notes that will help you," she explained +condescendingly.</p> + +<p>Poor Jerry went into a flutter of joy over Isobel's apparent interest. +She ran to her room and took from her desk the sheets of paper upon +which were neatly written each step of her argument. She hoped Isobel +would think them good.</p> + +<p>"May I look over them in school?" Isobel asked as she took them.</p> + +<p>Jerry would have consented to anything! All through that day her heart +warmed at the thought of Isobel's friendliness. Like a small cloud +across the happiness of her life at the Westleys had been the +consciousness that Isobel disliked her; Gyp was her shadow, Tibby her +adoring slave, between her and Graham was the knowledge that they two +shared Pepper's loyalty, Mrs. Westley gave her exactly the same +mothering she gave her own girls, but Isobel, through all the weeks, had +maintained a covert indifference and coldness that hurt more than sharp +words. Now—Jerry told herself—Isobel must like her a little bit!</p> + +<p>Jerry discovered, when Friday night came, that the Lincoln debates were +popular events in the school life. Every girl and boy of Lincoln +attended; on the platform the faculty made an imposing background for +the three judges. Six empty chairs were placed, three on each side, for +the debaters who were to come up upon the stage at the finish of the +violin solo that opened the program.</p> + +<p>In the back of the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the +boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily +dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her +belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. +Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a +patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since +she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. +Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization of what +a ridiculous figure she would present, walking up before everybody in +her brown poplin that she knew now was different from any other dress +she had seen at school. And Jerry could not get that shiny pump out of +her mind! Her own feet, in their sturdy black, square-toed shoes, +commenced to assume such elephantine proportions that, when the signal +came for the debaters to go forward, she could scarcely drag them along!</p> + +<p>How much more weighty could her arguments be if she only had on a pretty +dress—like Cora Stanton's; if she could only sit there in her chair +smiling—like Cora Stanton—down at the girls she knew instead of +crossing and uncrossing her dreadful feet!</p> + +<p>After an interval that seemed endless to Jerry, Cora Stanton rose and +made a graceful little bow, first to the judges, then to the audience. +The speakers had agreed among themselves how much ground in the argument +each should cover; Cora Stanton was to outline the conditions in the +Philippine Islands before the United States had taken them over, Jerry +was to show what the United States had done and how qualified the +Islands were, now, to govern themselves, and Stephen Curtiss was to +conclude the argument for the affirmative by proving that, in order to +maintain a safe balance of power among the eastern nations of the world +it was necessary that the Philippine Islands should be self-governing.</p> + +<p>A hush followed the burst of applause that greeted Cora. Jerry settled +back in her chair with something like relief—the thing had begun. She +caught a little smile from Uncle Johnny that gave her courage. She must +listen carefully to what Cora said.</p> + +<p>But as Cora, prettily at ease, began speaking, in a clear voice, Jerry +grew rigid, paralyzed by the storm of amazement, unbelief and anger that +surged over her. For Cora Stanton was presenting, word for word, the +arguments <i>she had prepared and written on those sheets of paper</i>!</p> + +<p>And in the very front row sat Isobel, with Amy Mathers, their +handkerchiefs wadded to their lips to keep back their laughter.</p> + +<p>It was very easy for poor Jerry to recognize the treachery. She was too +angry to feel hurt. And, more than anything, she was too confused—for, +when it came her turn, what was <i>she</i> going to say?</p> + +<p>Wildly she searched her mind for something clear and coherent on the +hideous subject and all that would come was Gyp's "let us pause—let us +feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear +the order to advance—the wild charge——"</p> + +<p>She did not hear one word that the first speaker on the negative side +uttered, but the clapping that followed brought her to a pitiful +consciousness.</p> + +<p>She rose to her feet, somehow—those feet of hers still twice their +size—and stepped out toward the edge of the platform. A thousand spots +of black and white that were eyes and noses and hats danced before her; +she heard a suppressed titter from the front row. Then, out of it all +came Gyp's strained face. Gyp was leaning a little forward, anxiously.</p> + +<p>Jerry gulped convulsively. From somewhere a voice, not in the least like +her own, began: "You have been shown what the United States has done—" +(no, no—Cora Stanton had said <i>that</i>!) "I mean we must go back (that +was quite new) to—I mean—the ideals of America have been transplanted +to——" (oh, Cora Stanton had said <i>that</i>)! Jerry choked. Out of the +horror strained Gyp's agonized face. She lifted her chin, she must say +<i>something</i>——</p> + +<p>"Let us pause (ah, familiar ground at last)—let us pause——" There was +a dreadful silence. "Let us pause and—and—let us pause——"</p> + +<p>With the last word all power of speech died in Jerry's throat! With a +convulsive movement she rushed back to her seat. If they'd only +laugh—that crowd out there in the room. But that silence——</p> + +<p>Then, before anyone could stir, Dana King, the second speaker on the +negative side, leaped to his feet with a burst of oratory that was +obviously for the sole purpose of distracting attention from poor Jerry. +And something in the good nature of his act, in his reckless wandering +from the subject of the debate to gain his end, won everyone's +admiration. As one wakes from a consuming nightmare so poor Jerry roused +from her stupor of ignominy; she forgot Isobel, in the front row, and +clapped with the others when Dana King finished.</p> + +<p>Then came a determination to redeem herself in the rebuttal! She had +caught something of the fire of Dana King's tone. She was conscious, +now, of only two persons in the room, Gyp and Uncle Johnny. She turned, +as she rose again to speak, so that she might look squarely at Uncle +Johnny. Now she had no clamor of words jingling in her brain; very +simply she set against the arguments of her opponent the full weight of +those she had herself prepared—Cora Stanton, who had learned them at +the last moment, parrot-fashion, had found herself, in rebuttal, left +floundering quite helplessly.</p> + +<p>Dana King, speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis +had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only +one premise to fall back upon"—and Jerry had decided then, with +something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy she had ever, +ever known.</p> + +<p>There was tumultuous applause when the judges announced that the +affirmative had won. And there was a little grumbling that Dana King had +"sold" his side.</p> + +<p>Jerry, wanting to hide her ignominy, contrived to get away without +seeing Uncle Johnny. She could not, of course, escape Gyp, who declared +valiantly and defiantly that she had been "splendid."</p> + +<p>Gyp had not closely followed Cora Stanton's address, so she had not +guessed the truth, and Jerry could not tell her—Jerry could not tell +anyone. For, if she did, it must be traced to Isobel, and Isobel was +Uncle Johnny's niece. At that very moment Uncle Johnny was talking, down +in the front of the Assembly room, to Isobel and Amy Mathers, and he +stood with one arm thrown over Isobel's shoulder.</p> + +<p>But, alone in her own room, the pent-up passion that had been searing +poor Jerry's soul burst; with furious fingers she tore off the brown +poplin dress and threw it into a corner.</p> + +<p>"Ugly—horrid—hideous—old—thing! I <i>hate</i> it!" It was not, of course, +the brown poplin alone she hated! The offending shoes followed the brown +dress. "I hate <i>everything</i> about me! I wish—I wish—to-morrow would +never come! I wish——" Jerry threw herself face downward upon her bed. +"I wish I—was—home!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>AUNT MARIA</h3> + + +<p>"A letter from Aunt Maria," announced Graham, appearing at the door of +his mother's little sitting room, a large, square lavender envelope in +his hand. He carried it gingerly between a thumb and finger, and as far +as he could from his upturned nose, "I'd suggest, mother, that you put +on my gas-mask before you open it!"</p> + +<p>Gyp and Tibby laughed uproariously at his wit. Mrs. Westley reached for +the envelope.</p> + +<p>"Poor Aunt Maria, she must be so glad that the war is over and she can +get her favorite French sachet."</p> + +<p>Isobel perched herself upon the arm of her mother's chair.</p> + +<p>"Hurry, read it, mother."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet she's coming to visit us," groaned Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Don't expect us to throw away money, sis! She never writes 'cept when +she <i>is</i> coming. Break the news, mum; is it to be a little stay of a +year or more?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley lifted laughing eyes from the open letter.</p> + +<p>"She says she will come next Wednesday to spend a few days with us. She +is very sorry that that must be all—she is on her way to New York to +consult a famous nerve specialist. She sends love to 'the beautiful +children.'"</p> + +<p>Jerry was very curious—no one had ever mentioned an Aunt Maria! So Gyp +and Graham hastened to explain that Aunt Maria wasn't a <i>real</i> aunt but +was "only" Isobel's godmother and something of a nuisance—to the +younger Westleys.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't give us presents," Graham concluded.</p> + +<p>"She's forgotten all the things she 'did promise and vow' when Isobel +was baptized. She had a fad, then, for godchildren; she used to go +around picking out the girl babies who had blue eyes. She was a friend +of Grandmother Duncan's and mother couldn't refuse her. She has nine +altogether and always gives them the same things."</p> + +<p>"And every time you see her she has a new fad," added Graham. "Once she +was a suffragist but she switched because the suffs didn't serve tea at +their meetings and the antis did. One time she was building a home for +Friendless Females and another time she was organizing the poor +underpaid shop girls, and the next——"</p> + +<p>"Mother, listen," broke in Isobel. She had taken the letter from her +mother and had been re-reading it. "She says she's going to France next +spring and she's thinking about taking one of her godchildren with her. +She's studying French and she wants us to talk French to her while she +is here——"</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess <i>not</i>! <i>I'll</i> eat in the kitchen," vowed Graham.</p> + +<p>Gyp commenced to chuckle. "Let's say a whole lot of funny things in +French—like when Sue Perkins translated 'the false teeth of the young +man' and Mademoiselle sent her out of class."</p> + +<p>"Mother!" Isobel's brain was working rapidly. "<i>I</i> ought to be the +goddaughter she picks out." She did not consider it necessary to explain +to her family the process of reasoning by which the other eight were +eliminated. "Wouldn't it be wonderful?" But her beautiful vision was +threatened by the mischief written in every line of Gyp's and Graham's +faces. "Mother, <i>won't</i> you make the children promise to behave?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Children</i>——" snorted Graham.</p> + +<p>"——if they act dreadful the way they always do when Aunt Maria's here, +they'll spoil all my chances!" Isobel was sincerely distressed.</p> + +<p>"My dear," her mother laughed. "Don't build your castles in Spain—or +France—quite so fast. I am not sure I would <i>let</i> you go over with Aunt +Maria. But Gyp and Graham must promise to be very nice to Aunt Maria +because she is an old lady——"</p> + +<p>"But, mother, she's not exactly old; she's just—funny!"</p> + +<p>"Anyway, Gyp, she will be our guest."</p> + +<p>"<i>Make</i> them promise, mother——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're just thinking of yourself——" declared Graham.</p> + +<p>"Children, let's not spoil this Saturday by worrying over Aunt Maria. +Even though, sometimes, she is very trying, I know each one of you will +help make her visit pleasant and we'll overlook her little oddities. Who +wants to drive down to the market with me?"</p> + +<p>Gyp and Jerry begged eagerly to go; Tibby had to take a swimming lesson; +Graham was going out to Highacres to practice football; Isobel said she +preferred to stay home; "one of the girls" had promised to call up, she +explained, a little evasively.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley smothered the tiniest of sighs behind a smile; Isobel was +living so apart from the rest of the family, she never seemed, now, to +want to share the activities of the others. Her mother had always +enjoyed, so much, taking her biggest girl everywhere with her; she had +not believed that the time could come when Isobel would refuse to go.</p> + +<p>Driving through the city with Jerry and Gyp beside her, Mrs. Westley, +still thinking of Isobel, turned suddenly to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"<i>How</i> your mother must miss <i>you</i>, dear," she said. Jerry was startled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you think so?" she answered, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I mean—I was just thinking—mother love is such a <i>hungry</i> love, +dear."</p> + +<p>"Well——" Jerry, very thoughtful, tried to recall the exact words her +mother had once used. "When I was little, mother used to tell me a +story. She said that her heart was a little garden with a very high wall +built of love and that I lived there, as happy as could be, for the sun +was always shining and everything was bright and the wall kept away all +the horrid things. But there was a gate in the wall with a latch-way +high up; I had to grow big before I could lift the latch and go through +the wall—and she made lovely flowers grow over the little gate, too, so +that perhaps I might not find it! I always liked the story, but once I +asked mother what she'd do if I found the gate and went out of the +garden for just a little while and she answered me that the garden would +be very quiet, but the sun would go on shining because our love was +there. Now I'm older I think I understand the story, and maybe coming +here was like going through the gate. But if it <i>is</i> like the story, +then mother knows how much I love her, so she won't be <i>dreadfully</i> +lonely—only a little bit, maybe."</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful story," Mrs. Westley's eyes glistened. "I would like +to hear her tell it! Some day I want to know your mother, Jerry."</p> + +<p>That was such a pleasant thought—her dear mother meeting Mrs. Westley, +who was almost as nice as her mother—that Jerry's face grew bright +again. She answered the pressure of Mrs. Westley's fingers with an +affectionate squeeze.</p> + +<p>Except for the first dreadful ordeal of facing her schoolmates and the +hurt of Isobel's unkindness, Jerry had suffered little from the ignominy +of the debate. And she had found that the girls, instead of laughing at +her, envied her because Dana King had so gallantly come to her rescue!</p> + +<p>"You should have seen Isobel Westley's face—she was <i>furious</i>," Ginny +Cox had confided to her. And Jerry would not have been human if she had +not felt a momentary thrill of satisfied revenge.</p> + +<p>The attention of the younger Westleys was centered, during the +intervening days, on Aunt Maria's approaching visit. Isobel was much +disturbed over the dire hints which Gyp and Graham dropped at different +times. One of Graham's friends had a pet snake and Graham had asked to +borrow it "just over Wednesday."</p> + +<p>"It'll strengthen her nerves better'n any old doctor," Graham declared, +loftily.</p> + +<p>"Mother, <i>do</i> you hear them——" appealed Isobel, almost in tears.</p> + +<p>Isobel had been building for herself a rosy dream; she had even, +casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going +abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater—you know her mother +was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a +beautiful château near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the +time——" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no +one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her +room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel +corridors, to the Opera, to the little French shops, driving beside Aunt +Maria through the Bois de Boulogne and walking on the Champs Élysées, +admired everywhere, envied, too. And perhaps, through Aunt Maria's +relatives (it was very easy in the dark to pretend that there <i>was</i> a +Marquis of Balencourt) she might meet a handsome, dashing young +Frenchman who would go quite crazy about her, and it would be such fun +writing home to the girls——</p> + +<p>"Graham," and Mrs. Westley made her voice very stern. "You must not play +a single trick on Aunt Maria!"</p> + +<p>"But, mother, she may stay on and on——"</p> + +<p>"If you'll be very good," Mrs. Westley blushed a little, for she knew +she was "buying" her children, "while Aunt Maria's here I'll take you +all to see 'The Land o'Dreams.'"</p> + +<p>"We promise! We promise!" came in an eager assent.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell Joe I don't want his snake," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"I won't laugh all the while she's here," declared Gyp.</p> + +<p>"We'll be angelic, mother," they chorused, and they really meant it.</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria's arrival, an hour before dinner, was nothing short of +majestic. The taxi-driver (by a slight effort of the imagination easily +transformed into a uniformed lackey) unloaded a half-dozen bags and +boxes; next there alighted from the taxi a trim little maid in black +with a rug over her arm, a hamper in one hand, a square leather box, +books and magazines in the other. Then, by degrees, Aunt Maria emerged, +first a purple hat, covered with nodding purple plumes, then a very red +face, turned haughtily away from the driver, whom she was calling +"robber"; yards and yards of purple velvet hung and swished about her, +while a wide ermine mantle, set about her shoulders, added the royal +touch without which the picture would have been spoiled!</p> + +<p>"Isn't she <i>gor-ge-ous</i>?" whispered Gyp to Jerry as they peeped over +Mrs. Westley's shoulder.</p> + +<p>Jerry thought Aunt Maria very grand—she was like the picture of the +Duchess in her old Alice in Wonderland, only much more regal. It seemed +to her that the entire Westley family should bow their heads to the +floor—instead Mrs. Westley was embracing the purple and ermine in the +most informal sort of a way!</p> + +<p>"——<i>such</i> a train—a <i>disgrace</i> to the government, but then the +government is going <i>all</i> to pieces, I believe! And that miserable +<i>robber</i> of a taxi man! <i>Mon Dieu!</i>" She suddenly remembered her French, +"Ma chere amie Beaux Infants!" She sputtered her newly-acquired phrases +with little guttural accents. She beamed upon them all, graciousness (as +became a duchess) in every nod of the purple plumes. With the tips of +her fat, jeweled fingers she touched Isobel's cheek. "Plus jolie que +jamais, ma chere!"</p> + +<p>"Nous sommes si heureux de vous avoir ici, chere Aunt Maria," answered +Isobel, falteringly.</p> + +<p>"Aunt <i>Marie</i>, my dear. I have forsaken the good name that was given to +me in baptism. One <i>must</i> keep apace with the times, and though Maria +might be good enough for my greatgrandmother, my parents did not foresee +that it was scarcely suitable for <i>me</i>!" The purple folds swelled +visibly. "Peregrine, carry my bags upstairs."</p> + +<p>That was plainly more than one Peregrine could do. It was the welcome +signal for a general movement—none too soon; one glance at Gyp and +Graham told that a moment more must have broken their pretty manner!</p> + +<p>Peregrine took one bag, Graham seized two, Gyp and Jerry tugged one +between them. The procession marched up the stairway to the guest-room. +Gyp and Jerry heard Aunt Maria, behind them, explaining that Peregrine's +name was really Sarah!</p> + +<p>"I changed it—Peregrine is so much more 'chic.' I'm teaching her French +myself; in a little while she'll pass as a French maid and she will have +all the plain common-sense of her Hoosier bringing-up which those +fly-by-night French maids don't. A <i>very</i> good arrangement—<i>I</i> think."</p> + +<p>Thereafter, Peregrine, to the girls, was always Peregrine-Sarah.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley, at dinner, looking down the table at the prim, sober faces +of her youngsters, had an irresistible desire to laugh. Graham's solemn +eyes were glued to his plate, Gyp, spotlessly groomed, spoke only in +hoarse whispers, Jerry looked a little frightened—what would she do if +the Duchess should speak to <i>her</i>. (Not that there was much danger; Aunt +Maria, except for a "from the wilds of our mountains, how interesting," +had scarcely noticed her.) Isobel sat next to Aunt Maria and was +nervously attentive.</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria was more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels +shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her +head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to +see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in +the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as +even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so +was very easy, for everyone agreed with everything she said, remarked +Isobel with pathetic enthusiasm. Behind her smile Mrs. Westley was +thinking that Maria Drinkwater was a very silly woman!</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria spent most of her time berating the "government." That was +why, she explained, she was going to France. The officials in Washington +were just sitting there letting everything go to the dogs! "<i>Look</i> at +the prices! We're being <i>robbed</i> by Labor—actually robbed, every moment +of our lives!" She clasped her hands and rolled her eyes tragically +upward. "A crêpe de chine chemise—hardly good enough for +Peregrine—<i>fifteen dollars</i>! And Congress just talking about the League +of Nations! Ah, mon Dieu!"</p> + +<p>Graham, catching a fleeting glint of laughter in his mother's eyes, +slowly and solemnly winked, then dropped his glance back to his plate.</p> + +<p>"Let's say we have to study," whispered Gyp to Jerry, when the family +moved toward the library. Even Graham welcomed the suggestion. As they +approached Aunt Maria to say good-night, she poked each in the cheek.</p> + +<p>"Not going to wait to have coffee with us? <i>So</i> sensible—it hurts the +complexion! <i>Nice</i> children! Bon soir, Editha. Bon soir, Elizabeth. +What's <i>your</i> name, child? Jerauld? A <i>nice</i> name. Bon soir, Graham!"</p> + +<p>"She's the only creature in the whole world that calls me Editha and +Tibby Elizabeth," cried Gyp disgustedly. "<i>That's</i> why I just can't +endure her!"</p> + +<p>Safe in Jerry's room, Gyp cast off her "company" manner by a series of +somersaults on the pink-and-white bed.</p> + +<p>"Hurray, Jerry, we needn't see her again until to-morrow night! That +Peregrine-Sarah will take her breakfast up on a tray. Wasn't Isobel +funny, trying to be a nice little goddaughter? For goodness' sake, +what's <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>For there was a wild rush through the hall, then sharp shrieks from the +library!</p> + +<p>Out of consideration for Aunt Maria, Pepperpot had been shut on the +third floor. He would have found the separation from his beloved master +and mistress most irksome if he had not discovered, on Graham's table, +the box of white mice which Graham had brought from the garage during +the afternoon. To pass the time Pepper amused himself by tormenting the +imprisoned mice. When Graham startled him at his pleasant occupation he +jumped so hurriedly from the table that he sent the box tumbling to the +floor. The fall broke the box; the poor mice, mad to escape from their +persecutor, went scampering down the stairs and through the hall, Pepper +in pursuit and Graham frantically trying to catch them all. Of course +the chase led straight to the library!</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria, at the startling interruption, dropped a precious vase she +had been examining to the floor, where it lay in a hundred pieces. With +a shriek and an amazing agility she climbed to the safety of the +davenport. The mice circled the room and fled through another door, +Pepper and Graham after them. In the pantry Graham caught Pepper; Mrs. +Hicks, aided by her broom, succeeded in capturing two of the mice, but +the third escaped. Gyp and Jerry listening from the banisters, their +hands clapped over their mouths to suppress their laughter, heard Isobel +and Mrs. Westley in the library, trying to quiet poor Aunt Maria!</p> + +<p>"We didn't promise we'd make <i>Pep</i> behave," grumbled Graham as they shut +Pepperpot, for punishment—and protection—in Jerry's clothes closet.</p> + +<p>An hour later Jerry heard Isobel, outside of the guest-room door, +bidding Aunt Maria good-night. Jerry thought that she did not blame +Isobel for wanting to go abroad with Aunt Maria; it would be very +wonderful to travel with such a fine lady and with Peregrine! She hoped +Pepper had not spoiled everything!</p> + +<p>Quiet settled over the Westley home. A door opened and shut and +uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it +must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to +the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the +quiet pierced the wildest shrieking—a shrieking that brought back a +frightened Peregrine-Sarah, Graham, leaping in two bounds down the +stairway, Isobel, Mrs. Westley, Gyp and Jerry to the guest-room door!</p> + +<p>In the middle of the room, her hands clasped tragically over her heart, +her mouth open for another shriek, stood Aunt Maria, trembling. Stripped +of her regal trappings she made an abject picture; the snowy puff lay on +her bureau and from under a nightcap, now sadly awry, straggled wisps of +yellow-gray hair. Her round body was warmly clad in a humble flannelette +nightdress, high-necked and long-sleeved. And, strangest of all, her +face was covered with squares and strips of courtplaster!</p> + +<p>"Sarah!" (It was not Peregrine now.) "<i>Stupid</i>—standing there like an +<i>idiot</i>—my smelling salts! Won't <i>anyone</i> call a doctor? My heart——" +She shrieked again. "This <i>miserable</i> place! These—<i>brats</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has +happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"<i>Happened</i>——" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not <i>enough</i> to have my +digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but—oh, my poor heart, to +find a <i>mouse</i> under my pillow——"</p> + +<p>If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque +face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third +little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed!</p> + +<p>Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering +vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed, +bag and baggage.</p> + +<p>Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care, +they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>Who</i> spoiled it—who did anything?" laughed Graham.</p> + +<p>"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment.</p> + +<p>Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any +interruption; her story was Gyp-like.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> say, Uncle Johnny, <i>did</i> we break our promise just 'cause a poor +little mouse hid under her pillow?"</p> + +<p>"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog——" Isobel saw an opportunity +for sweet revenge. "Mother, why don't you send it away? You made Graham +give back that Airedale puppy Mr. Saunders sent him; I don't think it's +fair to keep this horrid old mongrel!"</p> + +<p>Jerry's face darkened. Graham came hotly to Pepper's rescue.</p> + +<p>"He's <i>not</i> a mongrel—he's better'n <i>any</i> old Airedale! He's got more +sense in his <i>tail</i> than Aunt Maria's got in her whole body! If he goes +I'll—I'll—go, too!"</p> + +<p>"Children," protested Mrs. Westley, giving way to the laughter that had +been consuming her from the first moment of Aunt Maria's arrival. "Let's +all feel grateful to Pepper. She's a poor, silly, selfish, vain old +woman, and if she ever comes here again I'm afraid that <i>I</i> won't +promise to be good myself! Isobel Westley, dry your eyes—do you think +I'd let any girl of mine go to France with her? She can take her eight +other goddaughters, if they want to stand her quarreling with every +single person in authority—I won't let her have <i>my</i> girl. Why," she +turned to John Westley and her face was very earnest, "she's such a +<i>waste</i>—of human energy, of brains—of just breath! How terrible to +grow old and be like—that."</p> + +<p>Gyp was furtively feeling of her firm cheeks. "I'd rather be ugly, +mother, than wear those funny things. <i>Look</i>, mummy," she ran to her +mother's chair and touched her cheek. "<i>You've</i> got a wrinkle! But—I +love it." With passionate tenderness she kissed the spot.</p> + +<p>"I'll take you to France myself some day," laughed Uncle Johnny, patting +Isobel's hand.</p> + +<p>"And can we go to see the 'Land o' Dreams'?" asked Graham, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Indeed we will—as a celebration," assented his mother.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE PARTY</h3> + + +<p>The Christmas holidays brought a welcome respite from the steady grind +of school work. And there was every indication, in the Westley home, +that they were going to be very merry! Mrs. Westley had one fixed rule +for her youngsters: "Work while you work and play while you play." So +she and Uncle Johnny, behind carefully closed doors, planned all sorts +of jolly surprises for the holiday week.</p> + +<p>But Jerry had a little secret, too, all of her own. She had written to +her mother begging to be allowed to go home "just for Christmas." She +had had to write two letters; the first, with its burst of longing, had +sounded so ungrateful that she had torn it up and had written another. +Then she waited eagerly, hopefully, for the answer.</p> + +<p>It came a few days before Christmas, and with it a huge pasteboard box. +Something told Jerry, before she opened the envelope, what her mother +had written. Her lips quivered.</p> + +<p>"...It will be hard for us both, dear child, not to be together on +Christmas, but it seems unwise for you to go to the trouble and expense +of coming home for such a short stay. We are snowed in and you would not +have the relaxation that you need after your long weeks of study. Then, +darling, it would be all the harder to let you go again. I want you to +have the jolliest sort of a holiday and I shall be happy thinking each +day what my little girl is doing. I have had such nice letters from Mrs. +Westley and Mr. John telling all about you—they have been a great +comfort to me. We are sending the box with a breath of Kettle in it. The +bitter-sweet we have been saving for you since last fall...."</p> + +<p>When Jerry opened the box the room filled with the fragrant odor of +pine. In an ecstasy she leaned her face close to the branches and +sniffed delightedly; she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh—it was +as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her +disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet +to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. +Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house +was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a +bit of her pine and a gay cluster of the bitter-sweet.</p> + +<p>The postman's ring brought Gyp's practice, with one awful discord, to an +abrupt finish. In a moment she came bounding up the stairs, two little +white envelopes in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Jerry—we're invited to a real party—Pat Everett's." She tossed one of +the small squares into Jerry's lap. "Hope to die invitations, just like +Isobel gets!"</p> + +<p>Jerry stared at the bit of pasteboard. Gyp's delight was principally +because it was the first "real" evening party to which she had been +invited; it was a milestone in her life—it meant that she was very +grown-up.</p> + +<p>"Jerauld Travis—you don't act a <i>bit</i> excited! It will be heaps of fun +for Pat's father and mother are the jolliest people—and there'll be +dancing and boys—and spliffy eats."</p> + +<p>"I never went to a party—like <i>that</i>." Jerry, with something like awe, +lifted the card.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a party's a party, anywhere," declared Gyp loftily, speaking from +the wisdom of her newly-acquired dignity.</p> + +<p>"And—I haven't anything to wear," added Jerry, putting the card down on +her desk with the tiniest sigh.</p> + +<p>Gyp's face clouded; that was too true to be disputed. Her own clothes +would not fit Jerry but Isobel's——</p> + +<p>"We'll ask Isobel to let you——"</p> + +<p>"No—<i>no</i>!" cried Jerry vehemently. Her face flushed. "Don't you +<i>dare</i>!"</p> + +<p>Gyp looked aggrieved. "I don't see why not, but if you feel like +that—only, it'll spoil the whole party. Oh——" she suddenly sniffed. +"<i>What's</i> that woodsy smell? Where did you get it?"</p> + +<p>And the pine and the berries made Gyp and Jerry forget, for the moment, +the Everett party.</p> + +<p>The holiday frolics began with the appropriate ceremony of consigning +all the school books to the depths of a great, carved chest in the +library, turning the curious old key in the lock and handing it over to +Mrs. Westley. Jerry had demurred, but she recognized, behind all the +fun, a real firmness. "Every book, my dear! Not one of you children must +peep inside of the cover of even a—story, until I give back the key." +Mrs. Westley pinched Jerry's cheek. "I want to see red rosies again, my +dear girl."</p> + +<p>Christmas eve brought a glad surprise to the family in the unexpected +arrival of Robert Westley. Jerry had wondered a little about Gyp's +father; it was very nice to find him so much like Uncle Johnny that one +liked him at the very first moment. He had, it seemed, resorted to all +sorts of expedients to get from Valparaiso to his own fireside in time +for Christmas, but everyone's delight had made it very worth while.</p> + +<p>"That's one thing that makes up for father being away so much," +explained Gyp. "He 'most always just walks in and surprises us and +brings the jolliest things from queer places."</p> + +<p>On Christmas morning Jerry opened sleepy eyes to find soft flurries of +snow beating against her windows, a piney odor in her nostrils and Gyp +in a red dressing-gown by the side of her bed.</p> + +<p>"Merry Christmas!" In her arms Gyp carried some of the contents of her +own Christmas stocking. "Wake up and see what Santa has brought you!"</p> + +<p>On the bedpost hung a bulging stocking; queer-shaped packages, tied with +red ribbon, were piled close to it, and across the foot of Jerry's bed +lay a huge box.</p> + +<p>"Open this first. What <i>is</i> it? I don't know." Gyp was as excited as +though the box was for her. Jerry untied the cord and lifted the cover. +Within, beneath the folds of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a +blue serge school dress and a fluffy, shimmery party frock; beneath them +a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been +written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus."</p> + +<p>Jerry did not know that ever since the eventful debate there had been +much secret planning between Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley over her +wardrobe. He had realized that night, for the first time, that Jerry, in +her queer, country-made clothes, was at a disadvantage among the city +girls and boys. It was all very well to argue that fine feathers did not +make fine birds—Uncle Johnny knew the heart of a girl well enough to +realize how much a pretty ribbon or a neat new dress could help one hold +one's own! He had wanted to buy out almost an entire store, but Mrs. +Westley had held him in restraint. "You may offend her and spoil your +gift if you make it seem too much," she had warned him.</p> + +<p>Jerry knew too little of the price of the materials that made up her +precious dresses to be distressed with the gift. In rapture she kissed +the shimmering blue folds. And Gyp executed a mad dance in the middle of +the room.</p> + +<p>"<i>Now</i> you've just got to go to the Everett party."</p> + +<p>On Christmas afternoon Mrs. Allan walked into the Westley home. She and +her husband had come to the Everetts for the holidays. She brought a +little gift to Jerry from her mother. It was a daintily embroidered set +of collar and cuffs. Jerry pictured her mother in the lamplight of the +dear living-room at Sunnyside, working the shining needle in and out and +loving every stitch! Oh, it was <i>much</i> nicer than the grandest gift the +stores could offer.</p> + +<p>Christmas past, Gyp and Jerry thought of nothing but the Everett party. +Isobel, flitting here and there like a pretty butterfly, divided her +enthusiasm. She indulged in a patronizing attitude—she would go, of +course, to the Everetts', though it was a kids' party and <i>she'd</i> +probably be bored to death.</p> + +<p>But within a few hours of the Great Event a horrible realization +overtook Gyp's and Jerry's golden anticipation. Santa Claus had +forgotten to put any dancing shoes in the Christmas box!</p> + +<p>The two girls shook their heads dolefully over Jerry's three pairs of +square-toed shoes.</p> + +<p>"I just can't wear <i>one</i> of them," cried Jerry.</p> + +<p>Gyp would not be disappointed. "Then you'll <i>have</i> to squeeze your feet +into my last summer's pumps. They won't hurt very much, and anyway, when +the party begins you'll forget them!"</p> + +<p>Jerry wanted so much to wear the new blue dress that she was persuaded. +Gyp helped her get them on and Jerry stumped about in them—"to get used +to them!"</p> + +<p>"Now, <i>do</i> they hurt awfully?" Gyp asked, in a tone that said, "Of +course they don't," and Jerry, fascinated by the strange girl she saw in +the mirror, answered absently: "Oh, they just feel queer!"</p> + +<p>Anyway, going to a "real" party <i>was</i> too exciting to permit of thinking +of one's feet. Jerry moved as though in a dream. Like Gyp, she felt +delightfully grown-up. The spacious, old-fashioned Everett home was gay +with holiday greens, in one corner an orchestra played, Patricia with +her mother and her older sister greeted each guest in such a jolly way +that one felt in a moment that one was going to have the best sort of a +time.</p> + +<p>For awhile, very happily, Jerry trailed Gyp among the young people, +exchanging merry greetings. Then suddenly dreadful pains began to cut +sharply through her feet; they climbed higher and higher until they +quivered up and down her spine. Poor Jerry found it hard to keep the +tears from her eyes. She limped to a half-hidden corner near the +orchestra, and slipped off the offending pumps.</p> + +<p>Isobel spied her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the +pumps—she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful +smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, +when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not +told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such +moments, she had hardened her heart all the more toward Jerry. She was +savagely jealous, too, over Uncle Johnny's Christmas box to Jerry; she +had figured that the dresses had cost a great deal more than the +bracelet he had given her! So into her head flashed a plan that should +have found no place there, for Isobel was indisputably the prettiest +girl in the room and the most-sought-for dancing partner.</p> + +<p>She beckoned gaily to Dana King. She would kill two birds with one +stone, she thought—though not in just those words; she would have the +pleasant satisfaction of seeing Jerry make a ridiculous figure of +herself trying to dance (for Jerry had told her she only knew the +"old-fashioned" dances) and she would see Dana King embarrassed before +all the others! Isobel had never forgiven him for championing Jerry the +night of the debate.</p> + +<p>"Will you do me a favor, Dana?" she asked sweetly. "Dance with that poor +Jerry Travis over there. She's <i>perfectly</i> miserable."</p> + +<p>Dana hastened, politely, to do what Isobel asked. He had never exchanged +a word with Jerry; however, after the debate, no introduction seemed +necessary. When Jerry saw him approach a flood of color dyed her +cheeks—not from shyness, but because she did not know what to do with +her unshod feet!</p> + +<p>"Will you dance this, Miss Travis?"</p> + +<p>Jerry lifted eyes dark with laughter. She did not look in the least +"perfectly miserable." "I—I—can't!" She put out the tips of her +unstockinged toes. Then she told him how she had had to wear Gyp's +pumps. "And they hurt so dreadfully that I slipped them off and now +<i>nothing'll</i> get them back on. I guess I've got to stay here the rest of +my life."</p> + +<p>There was something so refreshing in Jerry's frankness and +unaffectedness that Dana King sat down eagerly beside her.</p> + +<p>"Let me sit here and talk, then. Say, what on earth was the matter with +you the night of the debate? Was it your shoes—<i>then</i>? You <i>could</i> have +talked—I know!"</p> + +<p>He spoke with such conviction that Jerry's eyes shone.</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't—entirely—my shoes. Something <i>did</i> happen—but I can't +tell. Isn't this the jolliest party? I never went to one before—like +this. There aren't this many people in all Miller's Notch."</p> + +<p>Isobel, watching Jerry's corner, grew very angry when she saw that Dana +King lingered with Jerry. She wondered what on earth Jerry could be +saying that made him laugh so heartily; they were acting as though they +had known one another all their lives.</p> + +<p>Just as Dana King was asking Jerry what she would do if the midnight +hour struck and found her slipperless, Mrs. Allan discovered them. <i>She</i> +had to hear about the pumps, too.</p> + +<p>"You blessed child, I'll get a pair of Pat's—they'd fit anything!" She +returned in a few moments, two shiny, patent-leather toes protruding +from the folds of her spangled scarf. Pat's pumps slipped easily over +Jerry's poor swollen feet.</p> + +<p>"There, now, Cinderella, let's go and get some ice cream." And Dana King +led Jerry through the dancers, past Isobel and a fat boy whose curly red +head only reached to her shoulder, to the dining-room where, around +small tables, boys and girls were devouring all sorts of goodies.</p> + +<p>The party was spoiled for Isobel; not so for Gyp who, besides having had +the jolliest sort of a time herself, was bursting with satisfaction +because Jerry had "captured" the most popular boy in the room.</p> + +<p>"He sat out <i>six</i> dances with you—I counted! He took you to <i>supper</i> I +heard him ask you, Jerry Travis, if you were going out to the school +Frolic. And why did he call you Cinderella?" asked Gyp as the young +people rode homeward.</p> + +<p>Jerry had no intention of telling Isobel of the ignominy of the pumps, +so she answered evasively: "Because it was my first party, I guess," +then, with a long, happy sigh, she cuddled back against Gyp's shoulder +and watched the street lamps flash past. Oh, surely the Wishing-rock had +opened a wonderful new world to little Jerry!</p> + +<p>"Did you tell him it <i>was</i> your first party?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—nothing. <i>I</i> wouldn't have been honest 'nough to—I'd have +pretended I'd gone to lots."</p> + +<p>"<i>I'm</i> not going to the Frolic," Isobel broke in. "I'm too old for such +things."</p> + +<p>Gyp straightened indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Too old to coast? Well, I hope <i>I</i> never grow as old as <i>that</i>!" she +cried.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> never <i>will</i>!" was Isobel's withering answer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>HASKIN'S HILL</h3> + + +<p>"Jerry—it's <i>perfect</i>! Come and look." Gyp, shivering in her pajamas, +was standing with her small nose flattened against Jerry's cold window. +Downstairs a clock had just chimed seven.</p> + +<p>Jerry sprang from her bed with one bound. She peeped over Gyp's +shoulder. A thaw the day before had made the girls very anxious, but now +a sparkling crust covered the snow and the early sun struck coldly +across the housetops.</p> + +<p>This was the day of the Lincoln Midwinter Frolic.</p> + +<p>"Bring your clothes into my room and we'll dress in front of the fire. +Uh-h-h, isn't it cold? But won't it be <i>fun</i>? Don't you wish it was ten +o'clock now? It's going to be the very best part of the whole holiday!"</p> + +<p>Jerry thought so, too, when, a few hours later, she and Gyp joined a +large group of the Lincoln girls and boys at the trolley station. A +special car, attached to the regular interurban trolley, was to take +them and their sleds and skis—and lunch—out to Haskin's Hill where the +Midwinter School Frolic was always held.</p> + +<p>Jerry had not caught a glimpse of the country since arriving with Uncle +Johnny at the Westley home. As the car sped along she sat quiet amid the +merry uproar of her companions, but her eyes were very bright; these +wide, open stretches of fields, with the little clusters of buildings +and the hills just beyond, made her think of home.</p> + +<p>The founders of Lincoln School had wanted to thoroughly establish the +principle of co-education. "These young people," one of them had said, +"will have to live and work and play in a world made up of both men and +women; let them learn, now, to work and play together." The records of +the school showed that they worked well together and one had only to +give the briefest glance at the merry horde that swarmed over Haskin's +Hill on that holiday morning to know that they played well together, +too.</p> + +<p>"It's most like Kettle," cried Jerry, excitedly, for at Haskin's +station, where the picnickers left the trolley, the hills pressed about +so close that they, indeed, seemed to Jerry like her beloved mountains. +"But how horrid to call a lovely place like this Haskin's!"</p> + +<p>"It's named after a funny little hermit who lived for years and +years—they say he was 'most one hundred and fifty when he died—in the +little cabin at the foot of the hill where we coast. He used to write +poetry about the wind and the trees and he'd wander around and sit in +his door playing a violin and singing the verses he'd written."</p> + +<p>"Then his name could be any old thing," declared Jerry, delighted at the +picture Gyp had drawn, "if he did such lovely things! Let's <i>us</i> call it +the Singing Hill."</p> + +<p>The scent of pine on the frosty air and the knowledge that her new +sweater and tam-o'shanter were quite as pretty as the prettiest there, +transformed Jerry into a new Jerry. She felt, too, that out here in the +open she was in her element; a familiarity with these sports that had +been her winter pastime since she was a tiny youngster gave her an +assurance that added to her gay spirits.</p> + +<p>Thanks to long hours of play with Jimmy Chubb she could steer the +bob-sled with a steadier hand than any of the others; Barbara Lee, +looking more like a schoolgirl than ever in a jaunty red scarf and cap, +declared she'd trust her precious bones to no one but Jerry!</p> + +<p>The morning passed on swift wings; only the pangs of hunger persuaded +the girls and boys to leave their fun. They gathered in front of the +picturesque old cabin about a great bonfire over which two of the older +boys were grilling beefsteak for sandwiches. And from a huge steaming +kettle came a delicious odor of soup.</p> + +<p>"Imagine Isobel saying she's too <i>old</i> for all this fun," exclaimed Gyp +as she stood in the "chow line" with her mess tin ready in her hand. +"Why, a lot of these girls and boys are older than she is! The trouble +with Isobel is"—and her voice was edged with scornful pity—"she's +afraid of mussing her hair!"</p> + +<p>Skiing was a comparatively new sport among the Lincoln boys and girls. +Only a few of the boys had become even fairly skillful at it, yet there +had been much talk of forming a team to defeat Lincoln's arch-enemy—the +South High. While the young people ate their lunch their conversation +turned to this.</p> + +<p>"We haven't anyone that can touch Eric Hansen, though—he learned how to +ski, I guess, in the cradle," declared Dana King, frowning thoughtfully +at the long hill that stretched upward from where they were grouped.</p> + +<p>During the morning Ginny Cox had borrowed Graham Westley's skis and had, +after many tumbles, succeeded in one thrilling descent. She declared now +to the others, between huge mouthfuls of sandwich, that it was the most +exciting thing she'd ever done—and Ginny, they all knew, had done many! +Jerry, next to her, had agreed, quietly, that skiing <i>was</i>—very +exciting. Ginny's head was a bit turned by that one moment of victory +when she had stood flushed—and upright—at the foot of the hill, trying +to appear indifferent as the boys showered laughing congratulations upon +her for her feat, so, now, she turned amused eyes upon Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Can <i>you</i> ski?" There was a ring of derision in her voice. Jerry +nodded. "Then I <i>dare</i> you to try it from the <i>very top</i>!"</p> + +<p>The face of Haskin's Hill was divided by a road that wound across it. +Because of the steep descent of the upper part and because the level +stretch of the road made a jump too high for anyone's liking, only one +or two of the boys had attempted to ski from the very top, and they had +met with humiliating disaster.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up to the top of the hill. Ginny's tone fired her. She was +conscious, too, that Ginny's dare had been followed by a hush—the +others were waiting for her answer.</p> + +<p>"If someone will lend me their skis——" She tried to make her tone +careless.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Travis, you never would!"</p> + +<p>"Take Dana King's skis. They're the best."</p> + +<p>"The <i>very</i> top——" commanded Ginny.</p> + +<p>"May I use your skis, Dana?"</p> + +<p>"Let her use your skis, King."</p> + +<p>"Jerry, <i>don't</i>——" implored Gyp.</p> + +<p>Jerry put down her plate and cup. Miss Lee was in the little cabin, so +she did not know what was happening. The girls and boys pressed about +Jerry, watching her with laughing eyes. Not one of them believed that +she had the nerve to accept Ginny Cox's "dare."</p> + +<p>But when, very calmly, she shouldered Dana King's skis and started off +up the hill alone, their amusement changed to wonder and again to alarm. +Jerry looked very small as she climbed on past the level made by the +road.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'll fall before she even <i>gets</i> to the jump—that part's awfully +steep," consoled one boy, speaking the fear that was in each heart.</p> + +<p>"If she kills herself you'll be her murderer," cried Gyp passionately to +Ginny Cox.</p> + +<p>Ginny was wishing very much that she hadn't made that silly, boastful +dare—trying to make someone else do what she was afraid to try herself! +She was very fond of Jerry. The red faded from her face; she clenched +her hands tightly together.</p> + +<p>Tibby commenced to cry hysterically. One of the older girls declared +they ought to call Jerry back. The boys shouted, but Jerry, catching the +sound faintly, only waved her hand in answer.</p> + +<p>At the top of the hill Jerry turned and looked down the long stretch. +She had skied over many of the trails of Kettle, but none of them had +had "jumps" as difficult as this. Quite undaunted, however, she told +herself that she needed only to "keep her head." She adjusted her skis, +then tried the weight of her pole, carefully, to learn its balance. She +began to move forward slowly, her eyes fixed on the narrow tracks before +her, her knees bent ever so little, her slim body tilted forward. Only +for one fleeting moment did she see the group below, standing immovable, +transfixed by their concern—then their faces blurred. The sharp wind +against her face, the lightning speed sent a thrill through every fibre +of Jerry's being; her mind was intensely alert to only one thing—that +moment when she must make the jump! It came—instinctively she balanced +herself for the leap, her back straightened, her arms lifted, her head +went up—as though she was a bird in flight she curved twenty feet +through the air ... her skis struck the snow-crusted tracks, her body +doubled, tilted forward ... then, amid the unforgettable shouts of the +boys and girls she slid easily, gracefully, on down the trail.</p> + +<p>Ginny Cox was the first to reach her. She threw her arms about her and +almost strangled her in a passionate hug.</p> + +<p>"You <i>wonder</i>! Oh, if anything had happened to you——"</p> + +<p>The boys were loud and generous in their praise.</p> + +<p>"Now we've found someone that can put it all over Hansen," shouted one +of them. "Let's challenge South High right off!"</p> + +<p>"Who'd ever believe a little <i>kid</i> like you could do it," exclaimed Dana +King with laughable frankness, but he stared at Jerry with such open +admiration that any sting was quite taken from his words.</p> + +<p>Jerry could not know, of course, that, all in a moment, she had become a +"person" in Lincoln School. Uncle Johnny, that afternoon in the Westley +library, had said very truly that it was usually some unexpected little +thing that set a style or made a leader. He had not, of course, foreseen +this episode of Haskin's Hill, but he had known that Jerry had +determination with her sunniness and a faith in herself that could never +be daunted.</p> + +<p>"Come on, fellows, let's <i>us</i> try it. We can't let little Miss Travis +beat us," challenged one of the boys.</p> + +<p>There was general assent to this. Half a dozen picked up their skis. But +Jerry lifted an authoritative hand—Jerry, who, until this moment, had +been like a little mouse among them all!</p> + +<p>"Oh, boys, <i>don't</i> try it. Unless you can ski <i>very</i> well, a jump like +that's awfully dangerous. I've skied all my life and I've jumped, too, +but never any jump as high as that and—and <i>I</i> was a little +scared—too!" And, because Jerry was a "person" now, they listened. She +had spoken with appealing modesty, too, not at all with the arrogance +that comes often with success and can never be tolerated by +fellow-students.</p> + +<p>"Miss Travis is right, fellows," broke in Dana King. "Let's learn to ski +a little better before we try that jump. This very minute we'll begin +practice for the everlasting defeat of South High! You can use my skis, +Jerry. Come on, Ginny—the All-Lincoln Ski Team!" He led the way up the +hill followed by a number of the boys and Ginny Cox and Jerry—Jerry +with a glow on her cheeks that did not come entirely from the wintry +air; she "belonged" now, she was not just a humble student, struggling +along the obscure paths—she was one of those elected ones, like Ginny +and Dana King, to whom is given the precious privilege of guarding the +laurels of the school at Highacres!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE PRIZE</h3> + + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Westley!"</p> + +<p>Barbara Lee's demure voice halted John Westley in a headlong rush +through the school corridor.</p> + +<p>"Oh—good-morning, Miss Lee." If a stray sunbeam had not slanted at just +that moment across Miss Lee's upturned face, turning the curly ends of +her fair hair to threads of sheen, John Westley might have passed right +on. Instead, he stopped abruptly and stared at Miss Lee.</p> + +<p>"I declare—it's hard to believe you're grown-up! And a teacher! Why, I +could almost chuck you under the chin—the way I used to do. I suppose +I'd get into no end of trouble if I ever tried it——"</p> + +<p>"Well," her face dimpled roguishly, "I don't think it's ever been done +to anyone in the faculty. I don't know what the punishment is. Anyway, +I'm trying so hard to always remember that I <i>am</i> very much grown-up +that it is unkind of you to even hint that I am failing at +it—dismally."</p> + +<p>"I think—from what my girls say—that you're succeeding rather +tremendously, here at Highacres."</p> + +<p>"That is nice in you—and them! I wonder if I can live up to what they +think I am." Miss Lee's face was very serious; she was really grown-up +now.</p> + +<p>"Miss Lee, can you give me half an hour? I was on my way to Dr. Caton's +office when——"</p> + +<p>"You nearly knocked me over!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—thinking you were one of the school children——"</p> + +<p>"We can go into my library or—down in my office."</p> + +<p>"Your office, by all means." John Westley was immensely curious to see +Miss Lee's "office."</p> + +<p>It was as business-like in its appearance as his own. A flat-topped +desk, rows of files, a bookcase filled with books bearing formidable +titles, and three straight-backed chairs against the wall gave an +impression of severity. Two redeeming things caught John Westley's +eye—a bowl of blooming narcissi and a painting of Sir Galahad.</p> + +<p>"I brought that from Paris," explained Barbara Lee. "I stood for hours +in the Louvre watching a shabby young artist paint it and—I <i>had</i> to +have it. It seemed as if he'd put something more into it than was even +in the original—a sort of light in the eyes."</p> + +<p>"Strange——" John Westley was staring reflectively at the picture. +"Those eyes are like—Jerry Travis!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes! I had never noticed why, but something familiar in that +child's expression <i>has</i> haunted me."</p> + +<p>Though John Westley had come to Highacres that morning with an important +matter on his mind and had, on a sudden impulse, begged Miss Lee to give +him a half-hour that he might talk it over with her, he had to tell her, +now, of Jerry and how he had found her standing on the Wishing-rock, +visioning a wonderful world of promise that lay beyond her mountain.</p> + +<p>"Her mother had made an iron-clad vow that she'd always keep the girl +there on Kettle. Why, nothing on earth could chain that spirit anywhere. +She's one of the world's crusaders."</p> + +<p>Barbara Lee had not gone, herself, very far along life's pathway, yet +her tone was wistful.</p> + +<p>"No, you can't hold that sort of a person back. They must always go on, +seeking all that life can give. But the stars are so very far off! +Sometimes even the bravest spirits get discouraged and are satisfied +with a nearer goal."</p> + +<p>John Westley, sitting on the edge of the flat-topped desk, leaned +suddenly forward and gently tilted Miss Lee's face upward. There was +nothing in the impulsive movement to offend; his face was very serious.</p> + +<p>"Child, have <i>you</i> been discouraged? Have you started climbing to the +stars—and had to halt—on the way?"</p> + +<p>The girl laughed a little shamefacedly. "Oh, I had very big dreams—I +have them still. And I had a wonderful opportunity and had to give it +up; mother wanted me at home. She isn't well—so I took this position." +She made her little story brief, but her eyes told more than her words +of the disappointment and self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>"Well, mothers always come first. And maybe there's a <i>different</i> way to +the stars, Barbara."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence between them. John Westley was the first to +break it.</p> + +<p>"I want your advice, Miss Lee. I believe you're closer to the hearts of +these youngsters out here than anyone else. I've something in my mind +but I can't just shape it up. I want to build some sort of a scholarship +for Lincoln that isn't founded on books.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is," he went on, "that every school turns out some real +scholars—boys and girls with their minds splendidly exercised and +stored—and what else? Generally always—broken bodies, physiques that +have been neglected and sacrificed in the struggle for learning. Of what +use to the world are their minds—then? I've found—and a good many men +and women come under my observation—that the well-trained mind is of no +earthly value to its owner or to the rest of the world unless it has a +well-trained body along with it."</p> + +<p>"That's my present business," laughed Miss Lee. "I must agree with you."</p> + +<p>"So I want to found some sort of a yearly award out here at Highacres +for the pupil who shows the best record in work—<i>and</i> play."</p> + +<p>"That will be splendid!" cried Miss Lee, enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>"Will you help me?" John Westley asked with the diffidence of a +schoolboy. "Will you tell me if some of my notions are ridiculous—or +impossible?" He picked up one of the sharpened pencils from the desk and +drew up a chair. "Now, listen——" and he proceeded to outline the plan +he had had in mind for a long time.</p> + +<p>One week later the Lincoln Award was announced to the pupils of the +school. So amazing and unusual was the competition that the school +literally buzzed with comments upon it; work for the day was abandoned. +Because the award was a substantial sum of money to be spent in an +educational way, most of the pupils considered it very seriously.</p> + +<p>"Ginny Cox has the best chance 'cause she always has the highest marks +and she's on all the teams."</p> + +<p>"It isn't just being on <i>teams</i>," contradicted another girl, studying +one of the slips of paper which had been distributed and upon which had +been printed the rules covering the competition. "It's the number of +hours spent in the gym, or in out-of-door exercise. And you get a point +for setting-up exercises and for walking a mile each day. And for +sleeping with your window open! <i>Easy!</i>"</p> + +<p>"And for drinking five glasses of water a day," laughed another.</p> + +<p>"And for eating a vegetable every day. And for drinking a glass of +milk."</p> + +<p>"That lets <i>me</i> out. I just loathe milk."</p> + +<p>"Of course—so do I. But wouldn't you drink it for an award like +<i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Look, girls, you can't drink tea or coffee," chimed in another.</p> + +<p>"And you get a point for nine hours' sleep each school night! That'll +catch Selma Rogers—she says she studies until half-past eleven every +night."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's why it's put in."</p> + +<p>"And a point for personal appearance—and personal conduct in and out of +school! Say, I think the person who thought up <i>this</i> award had +something against us all——"</p> + +<p>Patricia Everett indignantly opposed this. "Not at all! Miss Lee, and +she's the chairman of the Award Committee, said that the purpose of the +award is to build up a Lincoln type of a pupil whose physical +development has kept pace with the mental development. <i>I</i> think it will +be fun to try for it, though eating vegetables will be lots worse than +the bridge chapter in Cæsar!"</p> + +<p>Jerry Travis, too, had made up her mind to work for the award. She had +read the rules of the competition with deep interest; here would be an +opportunity to make her mother and Little-Dad proud of their girl. And +it ought not to be very hard, either—if she could only bring up her +monthly mark in geometry! She had, much to her own surprise, lived +through the dreaded midwinter examinations, though in geometry only by +the "skin of her teeth," as Graham cheerfully described his own +scholastic achievements.</p> + +<p>Jerry found that Gyp had been carefully studying the rules—Gyp who had +never dreamed of trying for any sort of an honor! But poor Gyp found +them a little terrifying; like Pat Everett she hated vegetables and she +despised milk; there was always something awry in her dress, a shoelace +dangling, a torn hem, a missing button. But if one could win a point for +correcting these little failings just the same as in chemistry or higher +math., was it not worth trying?</p> + +<p>"Who<i>ever</i> do you s'pose thought of it all?" Gyp asked Jerry and Graham. +The name of the Lincoln "friend" who was giving the award had been +carefully guarded.</p> + +<p>Not one of the younger Westleys suspected Uncle Johnny who sat with them +and listened unblushingly and with considerable amusement to their +varied comments.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll <i>try</i> for it," conceded Graham. "Who wouldn't? Even Fat +Sloane says he's goin' to and he just hates to move when he doesn't have +to! But <i>five hundred dollars</i> for washing your teeth and walking a +mile——"</p> + +<p>"And standing well in Cicero," added Uncle Johnny, mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Do you s'pose Cora Stanton will be marked off in personal appearance +'cause she rouges and uses a lipstick?" asked Gyp, with a sly glance +toward Isobel, who turned fiery red. "I <i>know</i> she does, 'cause Molly +Hastings went up and deliberately kissed her cheek and she said she +could taste it—awfully!"</p> + +<p>"Cora's a very silly girl. Anyway, if she lives up to the rules of the +competition she won't need any artificial color—she'll have a bloom +that money couldn't buy!"</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>I'm</i> not going to bother about the silly award," declared +Isobel. "Grind myself to death—no, indeed! I don't even want to go to +college. If you're rich it's silly to bother with four whole years at a +deadly institution—some of the girls say you have to study awfully +hard. Amy Mathers is going to come out next year and I want to, too." +Isobel talked fast and defiantly, as she caught the sudden sternness +that flashed across Uncle Johnny's face.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley started to speak, but Uncle Johnny made the slightest +gesture with his hand.</p> + +<p>Into his mind had come the memory of that half-hour with Barbara Lee and +something she had said—"the stars are very far off!" <i>Her</i> face had +been illumined by a yearning; he was startled now at the realization +that, in contrast, Isobel's showed only a self-centered, petty +vanity—his Isobel, who had been so pretty and promising, for whom he +had thought only the very noblest things possible.</p> + +<p>But although he saw the dreams he had built for Isobel dangerously +threatened, he clung staunchly to his faith in the good he believed was +in the girl; that was why he lifted his hand to stay the impulsive words +that trembled on the mother's lips and made his own tone tolerant.</p> + +<p>"Making plans without a word to mother—or Uncle Johnny? But you'll come +to us, my dear, and be grateful for our advice. I don't believe just a +lot of dances will satisfy my girl—even if they do Amy Mathers. And +after they're over—what then? Will you really be a bit different from +the other girl because you've 'come out'? What do you say to taking up +your drawing again and after a few years going over to Paris to study?"</p> + +<p>The defiant gleam in Isobel's eyes changed slowly to incredulous +delight. Uncle Johnny went on:</p> + +<p>"And even an interior decorator needs a college training."</p> + +<p>"John Westley, you're a wonder," declared Mrs. Westley after the young +people had gone upstairs. "You ought to have a half-dozen youngsters of +your own!"</p> + +<p>He stared into the fire, seeing visions, perhaps, in the dancing flames. +"I wish I did. I think they're the greatest thing in the world! To make +a good, useful man or woman out of a boy or girl is the best work given +us to do on this earth!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>CUPID AND COMPANY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>scanned Gyp in a singsong voice. Then she stopped abruptly; she realized +that Miss Gray was not hearing a word that she was saying!</p> + +<p>Miss Gray had asked Gyp to come to her after school. It was a glorious +winter day and Gyp's friends were playing hockey on the little lake. Gyp +had faced Miss Gray resentfully.</p> + +<p>"Please scan three pages, Miss Westley," Miss Gray had said, putting a +book into Gyp's hands. And now, in the middle of them, Miss Gray was +staring out across the snowy slopes of the school grounds, not hearing +one word, and blinking real tears from her pale-blue eyes!</p> + +<p>Little Miss Gray, for years, had come and gone from Lincoln in such a +mouse-like fashion that no one ever paid much attention to her; upon her +changing classes, as an individual, she left scarcely any impression; as +a teacher she was never cross, never exacting, gave little praise and +less censure; she worked more like a noiseless, perfect machine than a +human being.</p> + +<p>Gyp had never noticed, until that moment, that she had blue eyes—very +pretty blue eyes, fringed with long, dark lashes. No one could see them +because she was nearsighted and wore big, round, shell-rimmed glasses, +but now she had removed these in order to wipe her tears away. Gyp, +fascinated by her discoveries, stared openly.</p> + +<p>Gyp's heart never failed to go out to the downtrodden or oppressed, +beast or human. Now she suddenly saw Millicent Gray, erstwhile teacher +in Second-year English, as an appealing figure, very shabby, a pinched +look on her oval-shaped face that gave the impression of hunger. Her +hair would really be very pretty if she did not twist it back quite so +tight. She was not nearly as old as Gyp had thought she was. And her +tears were very pathetic; she was sniffing and searching in a pocket for +the handkerchief that was probably in her knitting bag.</p> + +<p>"T-that will d-do, Miss Westley," she managed to say, still searching +and sniffing.</p> + +<p>But Gyp stood rooted.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry you feel bad, Miss Gray. Will you take my handkerchief? It's +clean," and Gyp, from the pocket of her middy blouse, proudly produced a +folded square of linen.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't believe that just <i>that</i> could open the flood-gates of a +broken heart," she exclaimed later to Jerry and Pat Everett, feeling +very important over her astonishing revelation.</p> + +<p>"Who'd ever dream that Miss Gray could squeeze out the littlest tear," +laughed Pat, at which Gyp shook her head rebukingly.</p> + +<p>"Teachers are human and have hearts, Pat Everett, even if they <i>are</i> +teachers. And romance comes to them, too. Miss Gray is very pretty if +you look at her real close and she's quiet because her bosom carries a +broken heart."</p> + +<p>Sympathetic Jerry thought Gyp's description very wonderful. Pat was less +moved.</p> + +<p>"What did she tell you, Gyp?"</p> + +<p>Gyp hesitated, in a maddening way. "Well, I suppose it was giving her +the handkerchief made her break down and I don't believe she thought I'd +come straight out here and tell you girls. And I'm <i>only</i> telling you +because I think maybe we can help her. After she'd taken the +handkerchief and wiped her nose she took hold of my hand and pressed it +hard and told me she hoped I'd never know what loneliness was. And then +I asked her if she didn't have anyone and she said no—not a soul in the +whole wide world cared whether she lived or died. Isn't that dreadful? +And she said she didn't have a home anywhere, just lived in a horrid old +boarding house. Well, she was beginning to act more cheerful and I was +afraid she was recovering enough to tell me to go on with the scanning, +so I got up my nerve and I asked her point-blank if she'd ever had a +lover——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Gyp Westley</i>——" screamed Pat.</p> + +<p>"Well, there wasn't any use beating 'round the bush and I knew we'd want +to know and I read once that men were the cause of most heartaches, so I +asked her——"</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> she say? Wasn't she furious?"</p> + +<p>"No—I think she was glad I did. Maybe, if you didn't have any family +and lived in a great big boarding house where you couldn't talk to +anyone except 'bout the weather and the stew and things, you'd even like +to confide in me. She just blushed and looked downright pretty, but +dreadfully sad. She said she'd had a very, very dear friend—you could +tell she meant a lover—but that it was all past and he had forgotten +her. I suppose I should have said to her that it's 'better to have loved +and lost than never to have loved at all,' but I just asked her if he +was handsome, which was foolish, because she'd think he was if he was as +homely as anything."</p> + +<p>"And was he?"</p> + +<p>"She said he was distinguished—a straight nose and a firm chin and +black hair with a white streak running straight down through the middle, +like Lee's black-and-white setter dog, I guess. Girls, mustn't it be +<i>dreadful</i> to have to go on day after day with your heart like a cold +stone inside of you and no one to love you and to teach school?"</p> + +<p>Each girl, with her own life full to brimming with love, looked as +though they felt very sorry, indeed, for poor little Miss Gray.</p> + +<p>"Let's do something to make her happy," suggested Pat.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose we could find the man? They must have quarreled and +maybe, if he knew——"</p> + +<p>"There can't be many men with white streaks in their hair and if we get +the other girls to help us, perhaps by watching real closely, we can +find him."</p> + +<p>"And I thought, too, we might send her some flowers after a few days +without any name or any sign on them where they came from. She'll be +dreadfully excited and curious and then in a week or so we can send some +more——"</p> + +<p>"Aren't flowers very expensive?" put in Jerry. Gyp understood her +concern; Jerry had very little spending money.</p> + +<p>"I know—Pat and I'll buy the flowers and maybe some of the others will +help, and you write some verses to go with them, Jerry."</p> + +<p>Though to write verses would, ordinarily, to Jerry be a most alarming +task, she was glad of anything that she could do to help Miss Gray and +assented eagerly.</p> + +<p>Peggy Lee was enlisted in the cause, and the next day the conspirators +made a trip to the florist's shop. They were dismayed but not +discouraged by the exorbitant price of flowers; they scornfully +dismissed the florist's suggestion of a "neat" little primrose +plant—they were equally disdainful of carnations. Patricia favored +roses, and when the florist offered them a bargain in some rather wilted +Lady Ursulas, she wanted to buy them and put them in salt and water +overnight, to revive them. Finally they decided upon a bunch of violets, +which sadly depleted their several allowances. And Jerry attached her +verses, painstakingly printed on a sheet of azure-blue notepaper in red +ink. "Blue's for the spirit, you know, and the red ink is heart's blood. +Listen, girls, isn't this too beautiful for words?" Gyp read in a tragic +voice:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Only to love thee, I seek nothing more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No greater boon do I ask,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only to serve thee o'er and o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in thy smile to bask.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Only to hear thy sweet voice in my ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though thy words be not spoken for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only to see the lovelight in thy eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The love of eternity.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"They're <i>wonderful</i>, Jerry! And so sad, too."</p> + +<p>"Do they sound like a lover?" asked Jerry anxiously.</p> + +<p>"<i>Exactly</i>," declared Pat, solemnly. "Oh, <i>won't</i> it be fun to see her +open it? And she'll think, of course, that it comes from the +black-and-white man."</p> + +<p>"And we must each one of us pledge to keep our eyes open for the +creature."</p> + +<p>"Think of it, girls—if we could make Miss Gray happy again it would be +something we could remember when we're old ladies. Mother told me once +that things we do for other people to make them happy come back to us +with interest."</p> + +<p>In the English class, on the following day, four girls sat very demurely +in the back row, their eyes riveted on their books. When presently there +was a knock at the door (Gyp had timed carefully the arrival of the +messenger), Pat Everett exclaimed, "my goodness" aloud, and Jerry +dropped her book to the floor. But their agitation passed unnoticed; +Miss Gray's attention was fixed upon the little square box that was +brought to her.</p> + +<p>Jerry had a moment of panic. She scribbled on the top of a page in her +text-book: "What if she's angry?" To which Gyp replied: "If <i>your</i> life +was empty, wouldn't you jump at a crumb?"</p> + +<p>Only for a moment was the machinelike precision of the English class +broken. Miss Gray untied the cord, and peeped under the cover. The +girls, watching from the back row, saw a pink flush sweep from her small +nose to the roots of her hair, then fade, leaving her very white. Then:</p> + +<p>"Please continue, Miss Chase."</p> + +<p>When the class was dismissed even Gyp had not the courage to linger and +watch Miss Gray open the box. "She might suspect you," Patricia had +warned. But at recess she rushed to the girls, her eyes shining.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jerry! Pat!</i> She's <i>crazy</i> about 'em! I went in after the third hour +and pretended I was hunting for my book. The violets were sitting up on +her desk and she had a few of them fastened in her old cameo pin—and +she looked <i>different</i>—already! Let's keep up our good work! Let's +swear that we'll leave no stone unturned to find the black-and-white +man!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL</h3> + + +<p>"Oh, I'm <i>sick</i> of winter! I wish I was a cannibal living on a tropical +island eating cocoanuts."</p> + +<p>"——Missionaries, you mean," laughed Isobel.</p> + +<p>Virginia Cox threw her skates over her shoulder; Isobel, Dorrie Carr and +herself were the last to leave the lake. The school grounds were +deserted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, look at the snowman someone's started," cried Ginny, as they walked +through the grounds. "Say, this is spliffy snow to pack! Let's finish up +the work of art." In her enthusiasm over her suggestion her ennui was +forgotten. "I know, let's make him into a snowlady."</p> + +<p>Ginny's fingers were clever. Her caricatures, almost always drawn in +ridicule of the faculty or her fellow-classmates, were famous. If, in +her make-up, she had had a kindlier spirit and a truer sense of the +beautiful, she might have become a great artist or sculptor.</p> + +<p>Now she worked feverishly, shaping a lifelike figure from the huge cakes +of snow that the others brought to her. As she stood back to view her +handiwork a naughty thought flashed into her mind.</p> + +<p>"Girls—it's going to be Miss Gray! And mother's got a funny old +lavender crocheted shawl like that thing Miss Gray wears when it's cold, +that the moths won't even eat. And I can fix a hat like the dreadful +châpeau of hers that came out of the ark. And glasses, too——"</p> + +<p>Isobel and Dorrie laughed delightedly.</p> + +<p>"How can you get them out here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I'll</i> find a way!" Ginny always could! "Do you think that nose is +pug enough?" She deftly packed it down on each side with a finger, then +gave it a quick, upward touch. "Isn't that better?"</p> + +<p>Her companions declared the likeness perfect—as far as snow could make +it.</p> + +<p>"And I can hunt up two blue glass allies for eyes." There was, plainly, +no end to Ginny's resourcefulness. "You just wait and see what you'll +see in the morning."</p> + +<p>During the night King Winter maliciously abetted Ginny in her work, for +a turn in his temper laid a sparkling crust over everything—and +especially the little snowlady who waited, immovable, on a little rise +of ground near the main entrance of the school.</p> + +<p>The pupils, arriving at Highacres the next morning, rubbed their eyes in +their amazement. Not one failed to recognize the English teacher in the +funny, shawl-draped figure, with enormous glasses framing round blue +eyes, shadowed by a hat that was almost an exact counterpart of the +shabby one Miss Gray had hung each morning for the past three winters on +her peg in the dressing-room. But there was something about the rakish +tilt of the hat that was in such strange contrast to the severe +spectacles and the thin, frosty nose, that it gave the snowlady the +appearance of staggering and made her very funny.</p> + +<p>All through the school session groups of pupils gathered at the windows, +laughing. There was much speculating as to who had built the snowlady; +the three little sub-freshmen who had begun the work Ginny had finished +were vehement in their assertions that they had not. Gradually it was +whispered about that Ginny Cox had done it.</p> + +<p>"We might have known that," several laughed, thinking Ginny very clever.</p> + +<p>Then, over those invisible currents of communication which convey news +through a school faster than a flame can spread, came the rumor that +trouble was brewing. One of the monitors had told Dorrie Carr that Miss +Gray had had hysterics in the office; that, in the midst of them, she +had written out her resignation and that, after the first period, not an +English class had been held!</p> + +<p>Another added the information that Barbara Lee had quieted Miss Gray +with spirits of ammonia and that Dr. Caton had refused to accept her +resignation and had been overheard to say that the culprit would be +punished severely.</p> + +<p>Ginny's prank began to assume serious proportions. Ginny was more +thoughtless than unkind; it had not crossed her mind that she might +offend little Miss Gray. But she was not brave, either—she had not the +courage to go straight to Miss Gray and apologize for her careless, +thoughtless act.</p> + +<p>There had been, for a number of years, one well-established punishment +at Lincoln; "privileges" were taken away from offenders, the term of the +sentences depending upon the enormity of the offence. And "privileges" +included many things—sitting in the study-room, mingling with the other +pupils in the lunch rooms at recess, sharing the school athletics. This +system had all the good points of suspension with the added sting of +having constantly to parade one's disgrace before the eyes of the whole +school.</p> + +<p>"If Ginny Cox is found out, she can't play in the game against the South +High," was on more than one tongue.</p> + +<p>Gyp, deeply impressed by the criticalness of the situation, summoned a +meeting of the Ravens. Her face was very tragic.</p> + +<p>"Girls—it's the chance for the Ravens to do something for the Lincoln +School! We've had nothing but spreads and good times and now the +opportunity has come to test our loyalty."</p> + +<p>Not one of the unsuspecting Ravens guessed what Gyp had in mind!</p> + +<p>"Ginny Cox did build that snowlady—Isobel saw her. But if she gives +herself up she'll be sent to Siberia!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it'll serve her right. She needn't have picked out poor little +Miss Gray to make fun of."</p> + +<p>Gyp frowned at the interruption. "Of course not. <i>We</i> know all about +Miss Gray and feel sorry for her, but Ginny doesn't. And, anyway, that +isn't the point. I was talking about loyalty to Lincoln." Gyp made her +tone very solemn. "Disgrace—everlasting, eternal, black disgrace +threatens the very foundations of our dear school!" She paused, +eloquently.</p> + +<p>"Next week, Tuesday, our All-Lincoln girls' basketball team plays our +deadly enemy, South High. And what will happen without Ginny Cox? Who +<i>else</i> can make the baskets she can? Defeat—ignominious defeat will be +our sad lot——" Her voice trailed off in a wail that found its echo in +every Raven's heart.</p> + +<p>"I'd forgotten the game! <i>What</i> a shame!"</p> + +<p>"Why <i>couldn't</i> Ginny have thought of that?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe Doc. Caton will just let her play that once."</p> + +<p>"Not he—he's like iron. Didn't he send Bob Morely down for three whole +days just before the Thanksgiving game 'cause he got up in Cæsar class +and translated 'bout the 'Garlic Wars'?"</p> + +<p>Gyp sensed the psychological moment to strike.</p> + +<p>"Never before in the history of our secret order has such an opportunity +to serve our school been given to us——"</p> + +<p>"What can we do?"</p> + +<p>"One of us can offer ourself on the altar of loyalty——"</p> + +<p>Her meaning, stripped of its eloquent verbage, slowly dawned upon six +minds! A murmur of protest threatened to become a roar. Gyp hastily +dropped her fine oratory and pleaded humbly:</p> + +<p>"It's so <i>little</i> for one of us to do compared to what it means, and if +we <i>didn't</i> do it and South High beat us, why, we'd suffer lots more +with remorse than we would just taking Ginny's punishment for her. +Anyway, what did the promise we solemnly made <i>mean</i>? Nothing? We're a +nice bunch! <i>I'm</i> perfectly willing to take Ginny Cox's place, but I +think each Raven ought to have the chance and we should draw lots——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that would be the fairest way," agreed Pat Everett in a tone that +suggested someone had died just the moment before.</p> + +<p>"I always draw the unlucky number in everything," shivered Peggy Lee.</p> + +<p>"There'll have to be two this time, then, for I always do, too," groaned +a sister Raven.</p> + +<p>"Shall we do it, girls? Shall we prove to the world that we Ravens can +make any sacrifice for our school?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes," came thickly from paralyzed throats.</p> + +<p>In a dead silence Gyp and Pat prepared seven slips of paper. Six were +blank; upon the seventh Pat drew a long snake with head uplifted, ready +to strike. The slips were carefully folded and shaken in Jerry's hat. +Gyp put the hat in the middle of the room.</p> + +<p>"Let's each one go up with her eyes shut tight and draw a slip. Then +don't open it until the last one has been drawn." They all agreed—if +they had to do it they might as well make the ceremony as much of a +torture as possible!</p> + +<p>So horrible was the suspense that a creaking board made the Ravens jump; +a shutter slamming somewhere in another part of the building almost +precipitated a panic. After an interval that seemed hours each Raven sat +with a white slip in her nervous fingers.</p> + +<p>"Now, one—two—three—<i>open</i>!" cried Gyp.</p> + +<p>Another moment of silence, a sharp intake of breath, a rattle of paper, +then: "Oh—<i>I have it</i>!" cried Jerry in a small, frightened voice.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>DISGRACE</h3> + + +<p>"Will the young gentleman or lady who built the snow-woman that stood on +the school grounds yesterday morning go at once to my office?"</p> + +<p>Dr. Caton's tone was very even; he might have been asking the owner of +some lost article to step up and claim it, but each word cut like a +sharp-edged knife deep into poor Jerry Travis' heart.</p> + +<p>She sat in the sixth row; that meant that, to reach that distant door, +she must face almost the entire school! Her eyes were downcast and her +lips were pressed together in a thin, bluish line. She heard a low +murmur from every side. Above it her steps seemed to fall in a heavy, +echoing thud.</p> + +<p>Not one of the Ravens dared look at poor Jerry; each wondered at her +courage, each felt in her own heart that had the unlucky slip fallen to +<i>her</i> lot she could never have done as well as Jerry had——</p> + +<p>Then, instinctively, curious eyes sought for Ginny Cox—Ginny, who had +been unjustly accused by her schoolmates. But Ginny at that moment was +huddled in her bed under warm blankets with a hot-water-bag at her feet +and an ice-bag on her head, her worried mother fluttering over her with +a clinical thermometer in one hand and a castor-oil bottle in the other, +wishing she could diagnose Ginny's queer symptoms and wondering if she +had not ought to call in the doctor!</p> + +<p>Jerry had had a bad night, too. At home, in her room, Gyp's eloquent +arguments had seemed to lose some of their force. Jerry persisted in +seeing complications in the course that had fallen to her lot.</p> + +<p>"It's acting a lie," she protested.</p> + +<p>"The cause justifies <i>that</i>," cried Gyp, sweepingly. "Anyway, I don't +believe Dr. Caton will be half as hard on you as he would have been on +Ginny Cox. It's your first offence and you can act real sorry."</p> + +<p>"How can I act real sorry when I haven't <i>done</i> anything?" wailed Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You'll <i>have</i> to—you must pretend. The harder it is the nobler your +sacrifice will be. And some day everyone will know what you did for the +honor of the school and future generations will——"</p> + +<p>"And I was trying so hard for the Lincoln Award!" Real tears sprang to +Jerry's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can work harder than ever and win it in spite of this," +comforted Gyp, who truly believed Jerry could do anything.</p> + +<p>"And I can't play on the hockey team in the inter-class match this +week!"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i> it's hard, Jerry." Gyp did not want to listen to much +more—her own conviction might weaken. "But nothing matters except the +match with South High. <i>That's</i> why you're doing it! Now if you want to +just back out and bring shame upon the Ravens as well as dishonor to the +school—all right! Only—I've told Ginny."</p> + +<p>"I'll do it," answered Jerry, falteringly. But long after Gyp had gone +off into dreamless slumber she lay, wide-eyed, trying to picture this +sudden and unpleasant experience that confronted her. Her whole life up +to that moment when, in Mr. John's automobile, she had whirled around +her mountain, bound for a world of dreams, had been so simple, so +entirely free from any tangles that could not be straightened out, in a +moment, by "Sweetheart" that her bewilderment, now, made her lonely and +homesick for Sunnyside and her mother's counsel. The glamour of her new +life, happy though it was, lifted as a curtain might lift, and revealed, +in the eerie darkness of the night, startling contrasts—the rush and +thronging of the city life against the peaceful quiet of Jerry's +mountain. It was so easy, back there, Jerry thought, to just know at +<i>once</i>, what was right and what was wrong; there were no uncertain +demands upon one's loyalty to the little old school in the Notch—one +had only to learn one's lesson and that was all; even in her play back +there there had not been any of the fierce joy of competition she had +learned at Highacres!</p> + +<p>And mother, with wonderful wisdom, had brought her so close to God and +had taught her to understand His Love and His Anger. Jerry dug her face +deep into her pillow. Wouldn't God forgive a lie that was for the honor +of the school? Wouldn't He know how Ginny was needed as forward on the +Lincoln team? It was a perplexing thought. Jerry told herself, with a +sense of shame, that she had really not thought much about God since she +had come to the Westleys. She had gone each Sunday with the others to +the great, dim, vaulted church, but she had thought about the artists +who had designed the beautiful colored saints in the windows and about +the pealing music of the organ and not about God or what the minister +was saying. Back home she had always, in church, sat between her mother +and the little window where through the giant pines she could see a +stretch of blue sky broken by a misty mountain-top; when one could see +that and smell the pine and hear, above the drone of the preacher's +voice, the clear note of a bird, one could feel very close to the God +who had made this wonderful, beautiful world and had put that sweet note +in the throat of a little winging creature.</p> + +<p>Then Gyp's words taunted her. "You can back out—if you want to!" Oh, +no—she would not do that—now; she would not be a coward, she would see +it through; she would measure up to the challenge, let it cost what it +might she would hold the honor of the school—<i>her</i> school (she said it +softly) above all else!</p> + +<p>Jerry had never been severely punished in her life; as she sat very +quietly in Dr. Caton's office waiting for assembly to end she wondered, +with a quickening curiosity, what it would seem like. Anyway, <i>nothing</i> +could be worse than having to walk out of the room before all those +staring boys and girls.</p> + +<p>But Jerry found that something <i>was</i>! Barbara Lee came into the room, +looking surprised, disappointed and unhappy.</p> + +<p>"Jerry," she exclaimed, "I can't believe it."</p> + +<p>Jerry wanted to cry out the truth—it wasn't fair. Miss Lee sat down +next to her.</p> + +<p>"If you had to make fun of someone, why <i>didn't</i> you pick out me—anyone +but poor little Miss Gray! I think that if you knew how unhappy and—and +<i>drab</i> poor Miss Gray's life has been, how for years she had to pinch +and save and deny herself all the little pleasures of life in order to +care for her mother who was a helpless invalid, you'd be sorry you had +in the smallest measure added any to her unhappiness."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world," burst out Jerry. Did she +not know more about poor little Miss Gray than did even Barbara Lee?</p> + +<p>"Then <i>why</i>——" But at this dangerous moment Dr. Caton walked into the +room.</p> + +<p>Jerry's sentence was very simple. She listened with downcast eyes. She +was to lose all school privileges for a week; during that time she must +occupy a desk in the office, she must eat her lunch alone at this desk, +she must not share in any of the school activities until the end of +suspension. She must apologize to Miss Gray.</p> + +<p>In Jerry's punishment there was an element of novelty that softened its +sting. It was very easy to apologize to Miss Gray, partly because she +was really innocent and partly because a fresh bunch of violets adorned +Miss Gray's desk toward which Jerry had contributed thirty-four cents. +Then a message from the Ravens was spirited to her.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>You're <i>wonderful</i>! We're proud of you. Keep up your nerve. Blessed +is the lot of the martyr when for honor he has suffered.</p> + +<p>The Ravens.</p> + +<p>P. S. Coming out of history I heard Dana King say to another boy +that he didn't believe you did it at <i>all</i>—that you are shielding +SOME ONE else!</p> + +<p>Your Adoring Gyp.</p></div> + +<p>Too, Jerry found the office a most interesting place. No one glanced +toward her corner and she could quietly watch everything that happened. +And on the second day Uncle Johnny "happened"—in a breezy fashion, +coming over and pinching her cheek. Uncle Johnny did not know of her +disgrace; by tacit agreement not a word of it had been breathed at home. +Dr. Caton, annoyed and disapproving, crisply intimated why Jerry was +there. Uncle Johnny tried to make his lips look serious but his eyes +danced. Over Dr. Caton's bald head he winked at Jerry.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny had come to Highacres to talk over some plans for an +enclosed hockey rink. For various reasons, of which he was utterly +unconscious, he was enjoying "mixing" school interests with the demands +of his business. He lingered for half an hour in the office, talking, +while Jerry watched the back of his brown head and broad shoulders. +Before leaving he walked over to her corner.</p> + +<p>"My dear child," he began in a severe tone. He leaned over Jerry so that +Dr. Caton could not hear what he said. A trustee had privileges!</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't give a cent for a colt that never kicked over the traces!" +Which, if Jerry had really been guilty of any offence, would have been +very demoralizing. But she was not and she watched Uncle Johnny go out +of the room with a look of adoration in her eyes.</p> + +<p>A sense of reward came to Jerry, too, when Ginny Cox returned to school. +Having fully recovered from the funk that had laid her, shivering and +feverish, in bed, that first day she came back in gayer spirits than +ever, declaring to many that she thought Miss Gray a "pill" to make such +a fuss over just a little joke and, to a few, that it was fine in Jerry +to shoulder the blame so that she might play in the game against South +High. But her gaiety covered the first real embarrassment she had ever +suffered, for Ginny, who had always, because of her peculiar charm, +coming from a sense of humor, a hail-fellow spirit, an invariable +geniality and an amazing facility in all athletics, exacted a slavish +devotion from her schoolmates, and was accustomed to dispense favors +among them, hated now to accept, even from Jerry, a very, very great +one! And Jerry sensed the humility that this embarrassment called into +being.</p> + +<p>Ginny waylaid Jerry going home from school. Jerry was carefully living +up to the terms of her "sentence"; each day, directly after the close of +school, she walked home alone.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, I—I haven't had a chance to tell you—oh, what a <i>peach</i> you +are," Ginny's words came awkwardly; she knew that they did not in any +way express what she ought to be saying.</p> + +<p>Jerry did not want Ginny's gratitude. She answered honestly: "I didn't +want to do it. I <i>had</i> to—I drew the unlucky slip, you see. And you +were needed on the team."</p> + +<p>"It's all so mixed up and not a bit right. Can I walk along with you? +Who'd ever have thought that just building that silly snow-woman would +have made all this fuss!"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Caton says thoughtlessness always breeds inconsiderateness and +inconsiderateness develops selfishness, selfishness undermines good +fellowship and good fellowship is the foundation of the spirit of +Lincoln," quoted Jerry in a voice so exactly like Dr. Caton's that both +girls laughed.</p> + +<p>"He's dead right," answered Ginny, with her characteristic bluntness. "I +just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever +and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the +way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there isn't +anything I wouldn't do for you, Jerry Travis. If I don't play better +basketball Friday night than I ever have in my life, well, you can walk +all over me like dirt." There was a humble ring in Ginny's voice that +had surely never sounded there before!</p> + +<p>But the hard part of Jerry's punishment came when the others, without +her, trooped off to the game against South High, the blue and gold +colors of Lincoln tied on their arms. It promised to be the most +exciting game of the season; if Lincoln could defeat South High it would +win the Interschool cup.</p> + +<p>There had, alas, to be practiced a little more deception to explain why +Jerry remained at home. Gyp had announced that Jerry had a headache and +Mrs. Westley had been much concerned—Jerry, who never had an ache or a +pain! She had gone to Jerry's room, had tucked her in bed and had sat by +the side of the bed gently smoothing Jerry's guilty forehead.</p> + +<p>"When I get through this I'll never, never tell a lie for anybody or +anything," vowed Jerry in her heart, as she writhed under the loving +touch.</p> + +<p>Two hours later Gyp tiptoed to her door, opened it softly and peeped in. +Jerry, expecting her, sat bolt upright. Gyp bounded to the exact centre +of the bed.</p> + +<p>"We <i>won</i>! We <i>won</i>! But, oh, <i>Jerry</i>, it was a squeak! Honest to +goodness, my heart isn't beating right <i>yet</i>. <i>Tied</i>, Jerry—at the +half. Then Muff Bowling on the South High made two spliffy baskets—they +were <i>great</i>, even if she made 'em! Our girls acted as though they were +just dummies, but didn't they wake up? You should have seen their +passing <i>then</i>. Why, honest, Midge Fielding was <i>everywhere</i>! Caught a +high ball and passed it <i>under</i>—before you could <i>wink</i>! And, oh, +Ginny—<i>she</i> was <i>possessed</i>. She could make that basket <i>anywhere</i>. +And, <i>listen</i>, Jerry, with <i>only two minutes more to play</i> if they +didn't make <i>another</i> and then Ginny <i>fell</i>—<i>flat</i>, Jerry, with the +South High guard <i>right on her chest</i> and her wrist doubled under +her—and she got up like a <i>flash</i> and her face was as white as that +sheet—and <i>she made a basket</i>! <i>And we won!</i>" And Gyp, drawing a long, +exultant breath, dropped her chin on her knees.</p> + +<p>"Did—did they all cheer, then, for Ginny?"</p> + +<p>"I should <i>say</i> so." With a long yawn Gyp uncurled her legs. "I'm dead. +I'm going to bed." She turned toward the door. "Oh, say, I most forgot. +Ginny told me to tell you that the reason she played the way she did +to-night was 'cause she kept thinking of you and what you'd done for her +and she wanted to prove that she was worth it. Ginny <i>is</i> a good sort, +isn't she?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE RAVENS CLEAN THE TOWER</h3> + + +<p>The Ravens, now enjoying a pleasant distinction among the Lincoln +students because of Jerry's suffering, the truth of which had become +known after a few weeks to nearly everyone in the school, except, of +course, the faculty, decided to admit more members to their circle. This +necessitated an elaborate ceremony of initiation, and an especially +elaborate spread.</p> + +<p>"Let's us clean the tower room," suggested Gyp one afternoon, with this +in mind. "I don't mean sweep or scrub or anything like that—'cause the +dust and the cobwebs make it lots more romantic. I mean just shove +things further back. We'll need more room."</p> + +<p>Jerry agreed. So the two pushed George Washington aside and climbed the +little stairway. A sharp wind howled around the tower room, making +weird, wailing sounds.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it spooky up here this afternoon?" whispered Gyp. "Let's hurry. +Here, I'll hand you these books and you pile them over there in that +corner."</p> + +<p>Gyp tossed the books about as though they were bricks. Jerry handled +them more carefully. From her infancy she had been brought up to respect +any kind of a book; those at home had seemed almost a part of her dear +mother and Little-Dad; these had belonged to Peter Westley. He must have +spent a great deal of his time reading, she thought, the volumes were +worn about their edges, the pages thumbed. She peeped into one or two. +Peter Westley, who had shunned the companionship of his fellow-mortals, +had made these his friends.</p> + +<p>Gyp divined what was passing in Jerry's thoughts.</p> + +<p>"These books look all dried up and dreary—just like Uncle Peter was," +she exclaimed, throwing one over.</p> + +<p>Jerry opened it at random.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>this</i> isn't! Listen, isn't it beautiful?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl——<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"It makes me think of a sunrise from Rocky Point. Often Little-Dad takes +me up there and we sleep all night rolled in blankets."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could do things like that," sighed Gyp longingly. "I hate just +doing the regular sort of things that everyone else is doing."</p> + +<p>Jerry regarded her in astonishment; that Gyp might, perhaps, envy her +the childhood she had had on Kettle had never occurred to her!</p> + +<p>"Perhaps sometime you can visit me in Sunnyside." Her eyes shone at the +thought. "Don't you love poetry?" She read again:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If 'chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Extend his ev'ning beam, the fields revive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Attest their joy, that hill and valley ring——<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"It's like that—at sunset—in the Witches' Glade," Jerry said slowly. +She closed the book. "I think Peter Westley must have had something nice +in him to like this. There used to be an old, old lady who lived in a +funny little house in the Notch; I always pretended she was old Mother +Hubbard who lived in the cupboard. Jimmy Chubb used to throw apples at +her roof to make her run out and chase him. But her garden was the +loveliest anywhere around—mother used to beg seeds from her. And she'd +talk to her flowers—sometimes when we'd hide behind the hedge next door +to her house we'd hear her. And mother said that there must be something +lovely in her soul if she cared so much for flowers. Perhaps that's the +way it was with your Uncle Peter and his books."</p> + +<p>Gyp frowned as though she was trying very hard to think this possible. +She lifted a huge Bible and dusted it thoughtfully with her +handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I heard Uncle Johnny say once to my father that Uncle +Peter was as hard as rocks when it came to driving a bargain and he'd +never give a cent to anyone. Mother said that riches that came like that +only brought unhappiness and she was sorry we had any of it, though——" +Gyp laughed. "Money's funny. It wouldn't matter how much of an allowance +father gave Graham or me we'd never have any and I don't know where it +goes. And Isobel always has a lot. Maybe she's going to be like Uncle +Peter——" There was horror in Gyp's voice.</p> + +<p>Jerry sat on the table, the huge Bible on her knees. Her eyes stared out +through the dusty window-glass.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't be <i>like</i> him because <i>she</i> won't have to work hard to get +the money the way he did! Mother says——" Jerry had a way of saying +"mother says" as though it was precious, indisputable wisdom. "Mother +says that sometimes when a person sets his heart on just one thing in +this world and thinks about it all the time, he kills everything else in +him. Doesn't that seem dreadful? Not to enjoy all the beautiful, jolly +things in the world?"</p> + +<p>Jerry's philosophy was beyond Gyp's practical mind. "What would you do +if you had lots and lots of money, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>This was a stupendous question and one Jerry had often liked to ask of +herself. Her answer was prompt.</p> + +<p>"I'd keep going to school just as long as ever I could. And then I'd go +all over the world—to Japan and Singapore and India and to the Nile and +Venice and Switzerland and Gibraltar——" her tongue stumbled in its +effort to circle the globe. "Oh—<i>everywhere</i>. I'd want to see +everything."</p> + +<p>How many young hearts have dreamed of such adventure!</p> + +<p>"And yet," Jerry went on, "if I had all the gold in the world right in +my hand I don't believe I could make myself go so far away from +Sweetheart and Little-Dad and the dogs and—and Sunnyside!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," Gyp quickly settled such an obstacle. "If you had all the gold in +the world you could take 'em with you."</p> + +<p>At that moment they were startled by a loud thud in the hall beneath +them. The Bible crashed to the floor. Each girl instinctively clapped +her hand to her mouth to smother a cry. Then they laughed.</p> + +<p>"What <i>ever</i> do you suppose it was? Hark—I hear footsteps." Gyp spoke +in sepulchral tones.</p> + +<p>"They're going away," whispered Jerry, relieved. "Goodness, how it +frightened me!" Jerry leaned over to lift the poor Bible. From its pages +had dropped a long envelope. It lay, white and smooth, the address side +upward, on the dusty floor.</p> + +<p>"Look, Gyp—a <i>letter</i>! It must have been in this Bible."</p> + +<p>Gyp took the envelope gingerly.</p> + +<p>"It's addressed to father! It's never been opened. It looks as though it +had <i>just</i> been written! Jerry—<i>that's Uncle Peter's handwriting</i>!"</p> + +<p>Jerry stared at the envelope—except that the letter had been pressed +very flat, it did indeed look as though it had just been written.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it <i>creepy</i>?" Gyp shivered. "Do you believe in ghosts? <i>Could</i> +Uncle Peter Westley have come here and written that—just—maybe, <i>last +night</i>?"</p> + +<p>It was a horrible thought—Jerry tried not to entertain it. But the +wailing wind made it seem possible!</p> + +<p>"What'll we do with it?" Gyp had laid it on the table.</p> + +<p>"Let's put it back in the Bible"—that seemed a safe place—"and take it +home. Maybe there is an important message in it that someone ought to +see! But I wish we'd never come here this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"And see how dark it is—it's getting late. Let's let these other things +go." Jerry's voice, betraying her eagerness to quit the tower room, made +Gyp feel creepier than ever.</p> + +<p>Each took a corner of the ghostly envelope and slipped it between the +pages of the Bible.</p> + +<p>"There—it's safe enough now. We can take turns carrying it." The girls +hurriedly donned their outer wraps. Then, without one backward glance, +they tiptoed down the narrow stair. But, to their amazement, the panel +at the foot of the stair would not budge. Vainly they shoved, and +pressed their shoulders against the solid oak. Breathless, Gyp sat down +on the Bible.</p> + +<p>"<i>What'll</i> we do?"</p> + +<p>"We'll have to shout and bring someone—'cause we can't open the other +door."</p> + +<p>"Then Old Crow will know our secret," wailed Gyp.</p> + +<p>"But we don't want to stay here all <i>night</i>!"</p> + +<p>Gyp gave one swift, backward glance up the secret stairway to the +haunted tower room.</p> + +<p>"No—no! Well, let's shout together."</p> + +<p>They shouted and shouted, with all the strength of their young lungs. +But Old Crow, who really was Mr. Albert Crowe, for many years janitor of +Lincoln School, had gone, ten minutes earlier, in his Sunday best, to +attend the annual banquet of the Janitors' Association and his assistant +had made his last rounds of the School, so that the shouts of the girls +echoed and re-echoed vainly through the deserted halls of Highacres.</p> + +<p>Jerry leaned, exhausted, against the wall.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's a bit of use—not a soul can hear us."</p> + +<p>"What'll we do?" asked Gyp again—Gyp, who was usually so resourceful. +"If we only hadn't found that old letter we never'd have <i>thought</i> of +ghosts and we wouldn't have minded a bit being shut in the tower room."</p> + +<p>Jerry commenced to laugh nervously. "Gyp, maybe you don't <i>know</i> you're +sitting on the Bible!" Gyp sprang up.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's anything to laugh about! Not me, I mean, but—but +having to stay all night—up <i>there</i>!"</p> + +<p>Jerry started back up the stairway.</p> + +<p>"Come on," she encouraged. "<i>I'm</i> not afraid. If there <i>are</i> ghosts I +want to see one." Gyp followed with the Bible. The tower room was +shadowy in the fast-falling twilight. The girls tried to open each of +the small windows; though they rattled busily enough they would not +budge.</p> + +<p>Gyp sat down resignedly on the window-seat. "We'll just sit here until +we're rescued. Only—no one will <i>guess</i> where we are."</p> + +<p>"I think it's a grand adventure," declared Jerry valiantly.</p> + +<p>"If we only hadn't begun to <i>think</i> about ghosts! You never can see +them, anyway—you just feel them. Is that the wind? Sit close to me, +Jerry."</p> + +<p>Jerry sat very close to her chum and they gripped hands; it was easier, +that way, to endure the dreadful silence.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry," whispered Gyp, after awhile. Then, a moment later, "Did +you hear something, Jerry—like a long, long sigh?"</p> + +<p>Jerry nodded and Gyp drew closer to her, shivering.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she murmured in a voice lowered to the etiquette of a +haunted room. "<i>You're</i> not frightened because you didn't <i>know</i> Uncle +Peter. If I was afraid of him when he was <i>alive</i> what——"</p> + +<p>"Sh-h-h!" commanded Jerry. Uncle Peter's ghost might be hovering very +close to them and might hear! Gyp's words did not sound exactly +respectful.</p> + +<p>Jerry tried to talk of everyday things but it was of no use—what +mattered the color of Sue Knox's new sweater when the very air tingled +with spirits?</p> + +<p>"<i>Oh-h!</i>" Gyp clutched Jerry in a spasm of fright. "<i>Something</i> grabbed +my elbow——" her voice was scarcely audible. "Jerry—<i>true</i> as I +live—cross my heart! Long—bony—fingers—just like Uncle Peter's used +to feel—<i>Oh-h</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE LETTER</h3> + + +<p>"I don't understand——" Mrs. Westley lifted anxious eyes from her +soup-plate. "Gyp <i>always</i> telephones! And <i>both</i> of them——"</p> + +<p>"I saw Peggy Lee and Pat Everett coming home from the dressmaker's and +she wasn't with them," offered Isobel. "But she's all right, mother."</p> + +<p>"Such dreadful things happen——"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see anyone try to kidnap <i>Gyp</i>," laughed Graham. Then he +added, in an off-hand way: "The ice broke on the lake out at Highacres +to-day. Guess the skating's over."</p> + +<p>"Graham!" cried Mrs. Westley, springing to her feet so precipitously +that her chair fell backward with a crash. Her face was deathly white.</p> + +<p>Graham, frightened by his careless remark, went to her quickly.</p> + +<p>"Mother—I didn't mean to frighten you! Why there's only one chance in a +hundred the girls were on the ice. If they'd been skating <i>some</i> of us +would have seen them!"</p> + +<p>"Where <i>are</i> they?" groaned the mother. "They might have gone on the +lake—afterwards—and not known—and broken through—and—no one +would—know——" She shuddered; only by a great effort could she keep +back the tears.</p> + +<p>"Mother, please don't worry," begged Isobel. "Let's call up every one of +the girls and then we'll surely find them."</p> + +<p>Not one of them wanted any more dinner. They went to the library and +Graham began telephoning to Gyp's schoolmates—a tedious and +discouraging process, for each reported that she had not seen either Gyp +or Jerry since the close of school.</p> + +<p>"I can't <i>bear</i> it! We must do something——" Mrs. Westley sprang to her +feet. "Graham, call Uncle Johnny and tell him to come <i>at once</i>."</p> + +<p>Something of the mother's alarm affected Isobel and Graham. Graham's +voice was very serious as he begged Uncle Johnny, whom he found at his +club, to come over "at once." Then he slipped his arm around his mother +as though he wanted her to know that he would do anything on earth for +her.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny listened to the story of Gyp's and Jerry's disappearance +with a very grave face. He made Graham tell twice how the ice had broken +that afternoon on the lake, frightening the skaters away.</p> + +<p>"What time was that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—early. About three o'clock. There were only four or five of us on +the lake. You see, hockey practice is over."</p> + +<p>"But I remember Gyp saying this morning that she was going to have one +more skate!" cried Isobel suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Before we report this to the police, Mary, we'll go out to Highacres," +Uncle Johnny said. And the thought of what he might find there made Mrs. +Westley grip the back of a chair for support. "Come with me, Graham. +Isobel—stay with your mother."</p> + +<p>Graham went off to the garage to give such directions as Uncle Johnny +had whispered to him. Just then Barbara Lee, whom Isobel had reached on +the telephone, came in, hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"I talked to the girls for a moment after the close of school. They were +standing near the library door. They had on their coats and hats." Her +report was disquieting.</p> + +<p>"May I go with you?" she asked John Westley. He turned to her—something +in her face, in her steady eyes, made him feel that if out at Highacres +he found what he prayed he might <i>not</i> find—he would need her.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I want you," he answered simply, wondering a little why, at this +distressed moment, he should feel such an absurd sense of comfort in +having her with him.</p> + +<p>They drove away, two long poles and a coil of rope in the tonneau. In +the library Isobel sat holding her mother's hand, wishing she could say +something that would drive that white look from her mother's face. But +her distress left room for the little jealous thought that Uncle Johnny +had told <i>her</i> to stay at home and then had taken Barbara Lee! And she +wondered, too, if it were <i>she</i> who was lost, and not Gyp, would mother +care as much?</p> + +<p>At that moment Mrs. Westley threw her arms about her and held her very +close.</p> + +<p>"I just must feel <i>you</i>, dear, safe here with me—or I couldn't—stand +it—waiting."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Jerry! Look! That flash—it comes—and goes!" Gyp's voice, scarcely a +whisper, breathed in Jerry's ear.</p> + +<p>The two girls were huddled in the little window of the tower room. Gyp +was almost hysterical; Jerry had had all she wanted of ghosts. Gyp had +felt thin fingers grip her elbow, her shoulder—even her ankle. Someone +had breathed in her ear. Jerry, too, had admitted that she had heard +sounds of irregular breathing from a corner of the room near the secret +door. And there had been a constant tap-tapping! And something had +laughed—a horrible, thin, ghost laugh, though Jerry said afterwards +that it <i>might</i> have been the wind.</p> + +<p>Gyp had seen white figures floating about outside, too. Uncle Peter had +brought spirit-cronies with him! And now the ghostly flash of light——</p> + +<p>"Gyp——" Jerry suddenly spoke aloud. "It's a—<i>flashlight</i>! See, +someone is swinging it as they walk. <i>Oh</i>——" Inspired to action, Jerry +seized a huge book and sent it crashing through the window. "<i>Help! +Help!</i>" she screamed, through the broken glass.</p> + +<p>Startled, Uncle Johnny, Graham, Barbara Lee and the assistant janitor, +whom they had aroused, halted. Graham, dropping the coil of rope, +pointed excitedly to the tower.</p> + +<p>"Look—they're in the tower room! <i>Well, I never</i>——" That the tower +room and its mysteries should remain under lock and key had been a +grievance to Graham.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny shouted to the girls; a great relief, surging through him, +made his voice vibrate with joy. And in the light of the electric flash +he saw that Barbara Lee's eyes were glistening with something +suspiciously like tears.</p> + +<p>"Now, to rescue the imprisoned maidens," he laughed, turning to the +engineer.</p> + +<p>It took but a few moments for the little party to reach the third floor. +Then from above came a plaintive voice.</p> + +<p>"If you'll just touch George Washington on the left-hand side of +the—the frame—he'll move—and——"</p> + +<p>For a moment, John Westley, staring at the panel, wondered if <i>he</i> were +crazy or if Gyp and Jerry——</p> + +<p>"We got in—that way," the voice explained. "You can't open the other +door! And <i>please</i> hurry—it's <i>dreadfully</i> dark and——"</p> + +<p>The truth flashed over Graham. "Of all <i>things</i>! A secret door!" he +shouted. He put his shoulder to the huge box of books that had been +shoved close to the picture, until it could be unpacked. "Give a hand +here!" he commanded excitedly.</p> + +<p>They all obeyed him—even Barbara Lee, next to Uncle Johnny, shoved with +all the strength of her muscular arms. And Uncle Johnny commenced to +chuckle softly.</p> + +<p>"The imps," he muttered. "Trapped in their lair."</p> + +<p>The box well out of the way, Graham pressed the left-hand side of the +panel picture and it swung out under his amazed eyes, revealing a +white-faced Gyp standing in the narrow aperture, and Jerry close behind. +Their big, frightened eyes blinked in the flashlight.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny managed to embrace both at once. He wisely asked no +explanations, for he could see that tears were not far away. Barbara Lee +hugged them, too, and the assistant janitor, who had a girl of his own +and at the suggestion of dragging the lake, had been startled "out of a +year's growth" as he said afterwards (though he was six feet tall, +then), beamed on them as though <i>he</i> would like to caress them, too. +Graham was excitedly swinging the panel back and forth and peering +longingly up the dark, narrow stairway.</p> + +<p>"How'd you find it? Does it open right into the tower room? Were you +scared?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry," declared Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Let's hear all about it on the way home," suggested Uncle Johnny. "And +we'll put George Washington back in place—there's no use letting the +entire school know about this." His words were directed to Graham and to +the janitor. "Now, my girlies—what in the world have you got?" For +Jerry had picked up the huge Bible.</p> + +<p>"It's a—a letter we found—in the Bible——"</p> + +<p>"So you brought the whole thing?" Uncle Johnny laughed. "Lead the way, +Miss Lee."</p> + +<p>In the automobile Gyp had to have an explanation of the poles and the +rope. When she heard of their fears her face grew troubled.</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>how</i> mumsey must have worried!" As the automobile drew up at the +curb she sprang from it and rushed into the house, straight into her +mother's arms—Mrs. Westley had heard the car stop and had walked with +faltering steps to the door.</p> + +<p>"Mother, I didn't <i>want</i> you to be worried—not for the <i>world</i>! But we +couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>With the girls safe at home the horrible fears that had tortured them +all seemed very foolish. The entire family listened with deep interest +while Gyp told of that first afternoon when she and Jerry had discovered +the secret stairway and of the subsequent meetings of the Ravens in the +tower room.</p> + +<p>"Please, Uncle Johnny, make Isobel and Graham promise they won't tell +<i>anybody</i>! It ought to be ours 'cause we found it and we're Westleys," +begged Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Whatever in the world possessed Peter Westley to build a secret +stairway in his house?" Mrs. Westley asked John Westley. "Who ever heard +of such a thing in this day and age?"</p> + +<p>"It's not at all surprising when one recalls how persistently he always +avoided people. He planned that as a way of escaping from anyone—even +the servants. Can't you picture him grinning down from those windows +upon departing callers? Doubtless many a time I've walked away myself, +after that man of his told me he couldn't be found."</p> + +<p>"I think it's deliciously romantic," exclaimed Isobel, "and I have just +as much right to use it as Gyp has."</p> + +<p>"My girls—I am afraid the whole matter will have to go to the board of +trustees. Remember—Uncle Peter gave Highacres to Lincoln School—we +have nothing to say about it."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it <i>dark</i> up there?" asked Graham.</p> + +<p>Gyp looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Gyp. By some process of mental +communication they agreed to say nothing about Uncle Peter's ghost. Back +here in the softly-lighted, warm living-room, those weird voices and +clammy fingers seemed unreal. However, there was the letter—Gyp reached +for the Bible.</p> + +<p>"We were looking through some books—and we found this." Holding the +envelope gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, she handed it to +Uncle Johnny.</p> + +<p>He read the address, turned the envelope over and over in his hand.</p> + +<p>"How strange—it has never been opened. It's addressed to Robert. I'll +give it to you." He handed it to Mrs. Westley.</p> + +<p>She took it with some of Gyp's reluctance. "It's Uncle Peter's +handwriting—but how fresh it looks. It's dated two days before he died, +John! I suppose he put it in that Bible and it was never found." She +tore the envelope open and spread out the sheets. "It's to both you and +Robert—read it."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My Dear Nephews:</p> + +<p>It won't be long before I go over the river, and I'm glad—for I am +an old man and I've lived my life and I can't do much more, and I'd +better be through with it. But I wish I could live long enough to +right a few things that are wrong. I mean things that I've done, +especially one thing. Lately there isn't much peace of mind for me. +I've tried to find it in the Bible, but though there's a lot about +forgiveness I can't figure out what a man ought to do when he's +waited almost a lifetime to get it. I've always been hard as rock; +I thought a man had to be to make money, but now it all don't seem +worth while, for what good is your money when you're old if your +conscience is going to torment you?</p> + +<p>Right now I'd give half I possessed if I could make up to a young +fellow for a contemptible wrong I did him. So I'm writing this to +ask you to do it for me, and then I guess I'll rest +easier—wherever I am.</p> + +<p>Neither of you knew, I suppose, just what made the Westley Cement +Mixer a success; it came near not being one. Back there when we +were just starting it up, Craig Winton, a young, smart-looking +chap, came to me with a mechanical device he'd invented that he +believed we needed in our cement-mixing machine. We did—I knew +right off that that invention was what we had to have to make our +business a success; without it every cent the other stockholders +and myself had put into the thing would be lost. I offered the +young fellow a paltry amount, and when he wouldn't accept it, I let +him go away. Our engineers worked hard to get his idea, but they +couldn't. After a few months he came back. He looked ill and he was +shabby and low-spirited. I told him we wouldn't give him a cent +more, that I didn't think his invention would help us much, and I +let him go away again. The directors were all for paying him any +amount, but I told them that if we'd wait he'd come back and as +good as give the thing to us or I couldn't read signs, for I'd seen +something mighty like desperation in the chap's eyes. Even though +the directors talked a lot about failure, I thought the gamble was +worth a try, and I made them wait. I was right—young Winton came +back, looking more like a wreck than ever, and he took just what I +offered him, which was a little less than my first price. And I +made him sign a paper waiving all future claims on the patents or +the stockholders of the firm. That little invention made all our +money. But lately I can't get the fellow's eyes out of my +mind—they were queer eyes, glowing like they were lighted, and +that last time they had a look in them as though something was +dead.</p> + +<p>I'm too old to face this thing before the world, but I want you to +find Craig Winton and give him or his heirs a hundred thousand +dollars, which I've figured would be something like his percentage +of the profits if I had drawn an honorable contract with him. The +time he came to me he lived in Boston. I've always laughed at men +that talked about honor in business, but now that I'm looking back +from the end of the trail I guess maybe they're right and I've been +wrong....</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE FAMILY COUNCILS</h3> + + +<p>Uncle Johnny laid Peter Westley's letter down. A silence held them all; +it was as though a voice from some other world had been speaking to +them. Mrs. Westley shivered.</p> + +<p>"How I hate money," she cried impulsively. Then, the very comfort and +luxury of the room reproaching her, she added: "I mean, I hate to think +that wherever big fortunes are made so many are ground down in the +process."</p> + +<p>Graham was frowning at the letter.</p> + +<p>"Of course you're going to hunt up this fellow?" he asked, anxiously, a +dull red flushing his cheeks. "Wasn't that as bad as stealing?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe he's dead now and it's too late," cried Gyp, who thought the +whole thing full of intensely interesting possibilities.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Peter cannot defend himself, now, Graham, so let us not pass +judgment upon what he has done. And I don't suppose I can act on this +matter until your father comes home."</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, I know he will want to carry out his Uncle Peter's wish! You +need not wait; too much time has been lost already," urged Mrs. Westley.</p> + +<p>Graham was standing in front of the fire, his back to the blaze. It +struck Uncle Johnny and his mother both that there was a new manliness +in the slim, straight figure.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> want to help find him. It's when you know about such tricks and +cheating and—and injustice that you hate this trying to make money. I +think things ought to be divided up in this world and every fellow given +an equal chance."</p> + +<p>John Westley laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Real justice is the +hardest thing to find in this world, sonny. But keep the thought of it +always in your mind—and look out for the rights of the other fellow, +then you'll never make the mistakes Uncle Peter did."</p> + +<p>"Poor old man, all he cared about in the world was making money, and +then in his old age it gave him no joy—only torment. And he'd killed +everything else in him that might have brought him a little happiness! +I'm glad you and Robert aren't like him," Mrs. Westley added.</p> + +<p>"I am, too," cried Gyp, so fervently that everyone laughed.</p> + +<p>"How do you find people?" put in Tibby, who was trying very hard to +understand what it was all about.</p> + +<p>"It <i>will</i> be somewhat like the needle in the hay-stack. Boston is a big +place—and a lot can happen in—let me see, that must have been fifteen +years ago."</p> + +<p>"Will you hire detectives?" Gyp was quivering with the desire to help +hunt down the mysterious Craig Winton.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to; I've always had a sort of distrust of detectives and +yet we may have to. We have so little to start on. I'll get Stevens and +Murray together to-morrow—perhaps they can tell me more about the +buying of the patent. And I'll have Watkins recommend some reliable +Boston attorney." Uncle John's voice sounded as though he meant +business.</p> + +<p>Isobel had said nothing during the little family council. She suddenly +lifted her head, her eyes dark with disapproval.</p> + +<p>"Won't giving this person all that money make <i>us</i> poor?"</p> + +<p>Something in her tone sent a little shock through the others.</p> + +<p>"My dear——" protested her mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>you'd</i> go on cheating him—just like Uncle Peter! That's like +you—just think about yourself," accused Graham, disgustedly.</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>want</i> tainted money?" cried Gyp grandly.</p> + +<p>Isobel's face flamed. "You're hateful, Graham Westley. I don't like +money a bit better than you do—<i>you'd</i> be squealing if you couldn't get +that new motorcycle and go to camp and spend all the money you do. And I +think it's <i>silly</i> to hunt him up after all this time. He's probably +invented a lot of things since and doesn't need any money, and if he +hasn't—well, inventors are always poor, anyway." Isobel tried to make +her logic sound as reasonable to the others as it did to her.</p> + +<p>"Bonnie, dear——" That was the name Uncle Johnny had given to her in +nursery days; he had not used it for a long time. "There are two reasons +why we must carry out the wish Uncle Peter has expressed in this letter. +One is, because he <i>has</i> asked it. He thought he would have time to give +the letter to us himself—perhaps tell us more about it; he did not +dream that it would lie for two years in that Bible. The other reason is +that it is the honorable thing to do—and it not only involves the honor +of Uncle Peter's name but your father's honor and mine—your mother's, +yours, Graham's—even little Tibby's. We would do it if it took our last +cent. But it won't——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Johnny, you're great——" Graham suddenly turned his face to +the fire to hide his feeling. "When I'm a man I want to be just like +you—and father."</p> + +<p>Isobel would not let herself be persuaded to accept her family's point +of view. In her heart there still rankled the thought that Uncle Johnny +had taken Barbara Lee with him to Highacres and had made <i>her</i> stay at +home. And it had been silly for them all to get so excited and make such +a fuss over Gyp and Jerry—they might have known that they'd turn up all +right. When she had seen Uncle Johnny pull Jerry down to a seat beside +him on the davenport she had hated her!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley followed John Westley to the little room that was always +called "father's study."</p> + +<p>"Won't it be exciting hunting up this Craig Winton?" Gyp asked the +others. "Isn't it an interesting name? Maybe he'll have a lot of +children. I hope there'll be some girls." Gyp hugged her knees in an +ecstasy of anticipation. "If they're dreadfully poor it'll be like their +finding a fairy godmother. Think of all they can have with that money!"</p> + +<p>"All <i>I</i> hope"—Isobel's voice rang cruelly clear—"is that Uncle Johnny +won't want to bring any more <i>charity</i> girls here!" She rose, then, and +without looking at any of them, walked from the room.</p> + +<p>Gyp opened her lips to speak, then closed them quickly. Whatever she +might say, she knew, instinctively, would only add to the hurt Isobel +had inflicted. She could not even throw her arms around Jerry's neck and +hug her the way she wanted to do, because the expression of Jerry's face +forbade it. It was a very terrible expression, Gyp thought, a little +frightened—Jerry's eyes glowed with such a fierce pride and yet were so +hurt!</p> + +<p>After a moment Jerry said slowly, "I—I am going to bed." Gyp wished +that Graham would say something and Graham wished Gyp would say +something, and both sat tongue-tied while Jerry walked out of the room.</p> + +<p>"Do you think we ought to tell mother?" Gyp asked, in a hushed voice.</p> + +<p>"N-no," Graham hated the thought of tale-bearing. "But Isobel's an awful +snob. It's her going around with Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers." To think +this gave some comfort to Graham and Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know what Jerry will <i>do</i>," sighed Gyp forlornly.</p> + +<p>The door of Jerry's room was shut and Gyp had not the courage to open +it. She listened for a moment outside it—there was not a sound from +within. She went into her own room and undressed slowly, with a vague +uneasiness that something was going to happen.</p> + +<p>There had been no sound in Jerry's room because she had been standing +rigid in the window, staring with burning, angry eyes out into the +darkness. Her beautiful, happy world, that she had thought so full of +kindness and good-fellowship, had turned suddenly upside down! "Charity +girl——" She did not know just what it meant, but it made her think of +homeless, nameless, unloved waifs—motherless, fatherless, dependent +upon the world's generosity. Her hand went to her throat—<i>charity +girl</i>—was not her beloved Sunnyside, with Sweetheart and Little-Dad, +richer and more beautiful than anything on earth? And hadn't she always +had——Like a flash, though, she saw herself in the queerly-fashioned +brown dress that had seemed very nice back at Miller's Notch, but very +funny when contrasted with the pretty, simple serge dresses that the +other girls at Highacres wore. Perhaps they had all thought she <i>was</i> a +"charity girl," a waif brought here by Uncle Johnny. To be sure, her +schoolmates had welcomed her into all their activities, but perhaps they +had felt sorry for her and, anyway, it <i>had</i> been after Uncle Johnny had +given her the Christmas box——</p> + +<p>She looked down at the dress she wore—it was the school dress that had +been in the box. Perhaps she should not have taken it—taking it may +have made her a charity girl. She should never have come here. It was +costing someone money to send her to Highacres and to feed her; and +often Mrs. Westley gave little things to her—and none of this could she +repay!</p> + +<p>With furious fingers Jerry unfastened and tore off the Christmas dress. +From its hook in her clothes closet she took down the despised brown +garment. Her only thought, then, was to sort out her very own +possessions, but, as she collected the few things, the plan to go +away—anywhere—took shape in her mind. She would go to Barbara Lee +until her mother could send for her!</p> + +<p>Then her door opened slowly. On the threshold stood Gyp in her red +dressing-gown. It was not so dark but that Gyp could see that Jerry wore +her old brown dress and that she held her hat in her hand. With one +bound she was at her friend's side, holding her arm tightly.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, you're <i>not</i> going away! You're <i>not</i>——"</p> + +<p>"I've—got—to. I <i>won't</i> be——"</p> + +<p>"You're <i>not</i> a—whatever Isobel said! She's horrid—she's jealous of +you because Dana King and—and <i>everybody</i> thinks you're the most +popular girl at Lincoln. Peggy Lee said she heard a crowd of girls +saying so—that it was 'cause you're always nice to everybody and 'cause +you like to do everything—I won't <i>let</i> you go!" There was something +very stubborn in Gyp's dark face; Jerry wished she had not come in. Just +before it had seemed so easy to slip away to Barbara Lee's and now——</p> + +<p>"I never should have come here. I never should have let you all——"</p> + +<p>Gyp gave her chum a little shake.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Travis, Uncle Johnny brought you 'cause he said he knew you could +give Lincoln School and Isobel and me a lot—oh, of something—mother +read it in his letter—I remember. He said it was like a sort of +scholarship. And I heard mother tell him the day I was teasing her to +let me cut my hair short like yours, that she'd be willing to let me do +anything if I could learn to be as sunny as you are—I heard her, 'cause +I was listening to see if she was going to let me. So you've <i>more</i> than +paid for everything. There's something more than just <i>money</i>! <i>You're</i> +too proud; you're prouder than Isobel herself——"</p> + +<p>Jerry dropped her hat on the bed. Gyp took it as a promising sign and +she closed her arms tight around Jerry's shoulders.</p> + +<p>"If you go away it will break my heart," she declared. "I love you +more'n any chum I ever had—more than <i>anybody</i>—except my family, of +course, and I love them differently, so it doesn't count. And mother +loves you, too, and so does Tibby, and so does Uncle Johnny. And if you +don't tell me right off that you won't go away I'll go straight to +mother and then we'll have to tell her how nasty Isobel was, and that'll +make <i>her</i> unhappy. And I mean it." There was no doubt of that.</p> + +<p>Gyp's concluding argument broke down Jerry's determination to go. No, +she could not; as Gyp had said, if she went away Mrs. Westley and Uncle +Johnny must know why. She could not do a single thing that would make +either of them the least unhappy. That would be poor gratitude. Perhaps +Gyp was right, too—that <i>she</i> was too proud! Surely her mother would +never have let her come if it was going to bring the least humiliation +to her.</p> + +<p>Gyp with quick fingers began to unbutton the brown dress. "Let's just +show Isobel that we don't care what she says. I think it's that horrid +Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers that makes her act so, anyway. They're +horrid! Amy Mathers puts peroxide on her hair and Cora Stanton cheated +in the geometry exam—everyone says so—I know what let's do, Jerry, +there were some cup cakes left; I saw them in the pantry—let's go down +ever so quietly and get them—and we'll have a spliffy spread." As she +spoke she caught up Jerry's warm eiderdown wrapper and threw it around +her.</p> + +<p>Gyp's devotion was very soothing to poor distraught Jerry—so, too, was +the suggestion of the cup cakes. But half-way down the stairs Jerry +stopped short and whispered tragically in Gyp's ear:</p> + +<p>"Gyp—<i>we can't eat them</i>! Our school record—no sweets between meals!" +And at the thought of school Jerry's world suddenly righted again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well——" Gyp would have liked to suggest missing a point. "We can +eat crackers and peanut butter—instead."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>POOR ISOBEL</h3> + + +<p>The rawness of March gave way to a half-hearted April, days of pelting +rain with a few hours now and then of warm sunshine. Patches of grass +showed green against the dirty snowbanks lingering stubbornly in +sheltered corners; here and there a tiny purple or yellow crocus put up +its bright head; a few brave robins started their nest-keeping and, +perched shivering on bare boughs, valiantly sung the promise of spring.</p> + +<p>There were other signs to mark the changing of the seasons—an +organ-grinder trundled his wagon down the street, rag-pickers chanted, +small, scurrying figures darted in and out on roller-skates, marbles +rattled in ragged pockets, and the Lincoln boys and girls at Highacres +turned their attention from basketball and hockey to swimming and the +school dramatics.</p> + +<p>Isobel Westley had been chosen to play the part of Hermia in "A +Midsummer Night's Dream." Her family shared her pleasure—they felt that +a great distinction had come to them. Gyp and Jerry, particularly, were +immensely excited. Jerry, who had only been to the theatre twice in her +life, thought Isobel far more wonderful than the greatest actress who +ever lived. Both girls sat by the hour and listened admiringly while +Isobel rehearsed her lines before them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley, who had never quite outgrown a love of amateur dramatics, +gave her approval to Isobel's plans for her costume. The other girls, +Isobel explained, were making theirs, but Hermia's should be especially +nice—so couldn't Madame Seelye design it? Madame Seelye did design +it—Isobel standing patiently before the long mirror in the fashionable +modiste's fitting-room while Madame, herself, on her knees, pinned and +unpinned and pinned again soft folds of pink satin which made Isobel's +face, above it, reflect the color of a rose.</p> + +<p>"You'd think the whole world revolved 'round your old play," exclaimed +Graham, not ill-humoredly. He had asked to be allowed to use the car to +take a "crowd of the fellows" out to see if any sap was running in the +woods and Mrs. Westley had explained that Isobel had to have her last +fitting, stop at the hair-dresser's to try on a wig, and then go on to +Alding's to match a pair of slippers.</p> + +<p>"It does," laughed Isobel back, her eyes shining. She was very happy, +and when she was happy she was a gay, good-natured Isobel and a very +beautiful Isobel. All through the school year her spirit had smarted +under the prominence attained by her schoolmates in the various school +activities—Ginny Cox was conspicuous in everything and on the honor +roll, besides; Peggy Lee played hockey and basketball, Dorrie was in the +Glee Club, Pat Everett was a lieutenant in her scout troop, Cora Stanton +was editor of the school paper, Sheila Quinn was the class +president—even Gyp was a sub on the all-school basketball team, and +Jerry—since that day she had skied down Haskin's Hill <i>she</i> had pushed +her way into everything (that was the way Isobel thought of it); she +played on the hockey team and had "subbed" on the sophomore basketball +team and it was certain she would be picked on the swimming team. Though +Isobel scorned all these activities because they were not "any fun," +according to her creed, deep in her heart she had envied the girls who +could enjoy them. But now her vanity was soothed and satisfied; anyone +could play basketball or skate or swim, but no one could be the Hermia +that <i>she</i> was going to be! Miss Gray had complimented her upon the +interpretation she gave the rôle and her eyes told her what she saw in +Madame Seelye's mirror.</p> + +<p>And Dana King was playing Lysander—a fine Athenian lad he made. Isobel +could afford now to forget the grudge she had nursed against him ever +since the Christmas party. He looked so really grown-up that it pleased +her to be a little shy with him, as though she had just met him—to +forget that they had been schoolmates since kindergarten days. She read +admiration in his eyes. What would he think, she said to herself, with a +little flutter, when he saw the rose-pink costume?</p> + +<p>"Isobel Westley, what <i>fun</i> to have a rehearsal every afternoon," had +cried one of a group of girls which surrounded her.</p> + +<p>"Does Lysander walk home with Hermia every day?" asked another, with a +meaning laugh.</p> + +<p>"Tell us all about it," coaxed Amy Mathers. "It's too romantic for +anything."</p> + +<p>Isobel blushed and laughed and pushed them away. She knew that they all +envied her—she <i>wanted</i> them to envy her. She knew that anyone of them +would gladly change places with her. Even Gyp and Jerry had sighed and +begged their mother to help them get up some sort of a play in which +they could take part. Gyp had asked Miss Gray to be allowed to help in +the make-up room, even if she did nothing more than pass the little jars +of cream and sticks of paint. And to Jerry had been assigned the +especial task of shoving Puck, who was sadly rattle-brained, upon the +stage, when the cues came.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>GYP, JERRY, TIBBY, EVEN GRAHAM, SUPERINTENDED ISOBEL'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE DRESS REHEARSAL</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The play was to be given on Saturday evening. On Friday evening a +full-dress rehearsal was called. Hermia's costume was finished and was +spread, in all its ravishing beauty, across the guest-room bed. On the +floor from beneath it peeped the slippers which had been made to order.</p> + +<p>"It'll make all the others look cheap," declared Isobel, thrilling at +the pretty sight.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley looked troubled. Certain doubts had been disturbing her +ever since that first moment of enthusiasm when she had yielded to +Isobel's coaxing. Isobel had said that the other girls were making their +own costumes—she knew that the faculty disliked any extravagance or +great expenditures of money in any of the school affairs—might it not +have been better to have helped Isobel fashion something simple and +pretty at home? Then when she watched Isobel's flushed, happy face, +radiantly pretty, she smothered her doubt.</p> + +<p>"Pride goeth before a fall, daughter mine. Take care that your costume +doesn't make you forget your part," she laughed. After all, Isobel was +so pretty that she would outshine the others, anyway—let her costume be +ever so dowdy!</p> + +<p>Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal. Gyp sat back on her heels and declared that Hermia +was "good enough to eat." Jerry thought so, too, though she had not the +courage to say so. Graham straddled the footboard of the bed and passed +scathing remarks concerning girls' "duds," but his eyes were proudly +admiring and in his pocket he treasured a ticket for the first row that +he had bought from another fellow at an advanced price. Isobel ready, +they all squeezed merrily into the automobile, taking care not to crush +the rose-pink finery, and whirled off to Highacres.</p> + +<p>Isobel, who loved dramatic situations in real life quite as well as in +make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance +on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, +with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with +her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble +part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the +dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. Oliver, the coach, +giving sharp orders. There was some trouble with the curtain. She took a +quick step forward to see what it was; the high heel of her satin +slipper caught in a coil of rope from the staging and she fell forward +to her knees. With the one thought to save the satin gown, she jerked +her body quickly backward.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Isobel, are you hurt?" Jerry was at her side in a moment.</p> + +<p>"N-no, only——" Isobel managed to get to her feet, but she leaned +dizzily against the scene propping. "Whoever left that old rope here! +They ought to be reported!" She glared angrily at poor Jerry as though +the fault must be hers. "I've—I've ruined my dress," she sobbed.</p> + +<p>Jerry examined the satin skirt. "There isn't the tiniest spot, Isobel. +But are you sure you are not hurt? Please try to walk."</p> + +<p>That was exactly what Isobel did not want to do, for there was a +horrible aching pain around her knee. Then she heard Mr. Oliver's voice +again. The curtain had been fixed; in a moment——</p> + +<p>"<i>Leave</i> me alone! You'd just <i>like</i> it if I couldn't go on——"</p> + +<p>"Isobel! Oh, here you are." Dana King stuck his head around the corner. +Isobel let her cape drop to the floor. The whiteness of her face only +added to the pleasing effect. "<i>Whew!</i>" Lysander whistled. "Some class! +Say, you're <i>great</i>! Come on—old Oliver's throwing a fit."</p> + +<p>With Jerry's anxious eyes and Dana King's admiring gaze upon her, it was +possible for Isobel to walk out upon the stage. Somehow or other she got +through her part—miserably, she knew, for again and again Mr. Oliver +made her repeat her lines and once, in despair, stopped everything to +ask her if she was ill, and did not wish to have Miss Lee take her part. +Isobel did not intend giving up her part to anyone; she gritted her +little white teeth and went on.</p> + +<p>Upon arriving home she declined the hot cocoa Mrs. Westley had waiting +for her and hurried to her room on the plea of being very tired. She sat +huddled in her dressing gown waiting, with a white, strained face, until +she heard the girls' steps on the stairs. Then she called Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Close the door," she whispered, without further greeting. "I want you +to promise not to tell mother or—or anyone that—I hurt myself. I +didn't hurt myself—<i>much</i>, and, anyway, I'm going to be in that play +<i>if I die</i>!" Isobel had hard work to keep back the tears.</p> + +<p>Jerry was all sympathy. "I won't tell anyone, Isobel, if you don't want +me to. And let me look at your knee—it is your knee, isn't it? I know a +lot about those things 'cause Little-Dad's a doctor, you see." Jerry +knelt by the side of Isobel's chair and gently drew aside the dressing +gown. "Oh, Isobel!" she cried softly. The knee was badly swollen and the +flesh had discolored. "That looks—maybe you ought——"</p> + +<p>Isobel jerked away from her. "If you're going to make a fuss you can go +to bed! But if you <i>know</i> anything—oh, it hurts—terribly——"</p> + +<p>Without another word Jerry went after hot water and towels. Half through +the night she sat by Isobel's bed, her eyes heavy with sleep, patiently +administering pack after pack. Gradually the pain subsided and Isobel +dropped off into slumber.</p> + +<p>All the next day Isobel's secret weighed heavily on Jerry's conscience; +with it, too, was an uncertain admiration for Isobel's grit. But Jerry +wondered if she, even though she might be the Hermia that Isobel was and +wear the rose satin—could want it enough to endure the pain silently.</p> + +<p>Isobel had begged to be allowed to stay in bed all day and "rest" and +her mother had willingly acquiesced, carrying her meals to her room and +chatting with her, unsuspecting, while she nibbled at what was on the +tray.</p> + +<p>Jerry helped Isobel dress. The pain caused by the effort to stand on the +injured leg brought a deep flush to Isobel's cheeks and tiny purplish +shadows under her pretty eyes, so that she made even a lovelier Hermia +than on the evening before. That knowledge, the murmur of admiration +that swept through the crowded hall, the envy she read on the other +girls' faces, the shy, boyish wonder in Lysander's lingering glance, +helped her through the agony of it all until the very end when, quite +suddenly, she crumpled into Lysander's quickly-outstretched arms! The +last scene had a touch of reality not expected; no one had the presence +of mind to ring down the curtain; the girls and boys rushed pell-mell +upon the stage.</p> + +<p>Graham and Dana King carried Isobel to an empty classroom where she +quickly regained consciousness. Her first sensation was a deep +thankfulness that the play was over and that she could tell about her +injured knee. Jerry had already done so, a little conscience-smitten, +and Uncle Johnny had rushed away for a doctor. Isobel looked at her +crumpled rose-pink skirts with something akin to loathing and clung +tightly to her mother's hand. Graham, in a voice that sounded far off, +was assuring her that he could carry her out to the car without hurting +her the least bit! And Dana King was asking, at regular intervals, and +in an anxious voice, if she felt better. Oh, it was <i>nice</i> to have them +all care—it made the pain easier——</p> + +<p>...She liked the funny bright lights swimming all around her and the +quick steps and the hushed voices.... Mrs. Hicks' little round eyes +blinking at her ... the feel of the soft sheets and the doctor's cold +touch on her poor, swollen knee ... the swinging things before her eyes +and the far-off hum of voices that were really very close and the tiny +star of light over the blur in the other end of the room ... the million +stars ... the slippery taste of the medicine someone gave her ... and +always mother's fingers tight, tight about her own....</p> + +<p>"This is very serious," came in a small voice that couldn't be the +doctor's because <i>he</i> spoke with a deep boom ... then she went to +sleep....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>JERRY WINS HER WAY</h3> + + +<p>Poor, pretty Hermia—trying days followed her little hour of triumph. +While the whole school buzzed over the gorgeousness of her costume, over +the satin and silver-heeled slippers, over her prettiness and how she +had really acted just as well as Ethel Barrymore, she lay very still on +her white bed and let one doctor after another "do things" to her poor +knee. There were consultations and X-ray photographs, and all through it +old Doctor Bowerman, who had dosed her through mumps and measles, kept +saying, at every opportunity, with a maddening wag of his bald head: "If +you only hadn't been such a little fool as to walk on it!" Finally, +after what seemed to Isobel a great deal of needless fuss, the verdict +was given—in an impressive now-you'll-do-as-I-tell-you manner; she had +torn the muscles and ligaments of her knee; some had stretched, little +nerves had been injured; she must lie very quietly in bed for a few +weeks and then—perhaps——</p> + +<p>"I know what he means," Isobel had cried afterwards, in a passion of +fear; "he means he can tell then whether I will ever be able to—to +dance again or not!" The thought was so terrible that her mother had +difficulty soothing her.</p> + +<p>"If you do what he tells you now you'll be dancing again in less than no +time," reassured Uncle Johnny. "Dr. Bowerman wants to frighten you so +that you will be careful."</p> + +<p>The first week or so of the enforced quiet passed very pleasantly; +mother had engaged a cheery-faced nurse who proved to be excellent +company; every afternoon some of the girls ran in on their way home from +school with exciting bits of school gossip and the whispered inquiry—of +which Isobel never wearied—how had it felt to faint straight into Dana +King's arms? Uncle Johnny brought jolly gifts, flowers, books, puzzles; +Gyp tirelessly carried messages to Amy Mathers and Cora Stanton and back +again.</p> + +<p>But as the days passed these pleasant little excitements failed her, one +by one. Mother decided that the nurse was not needed—there was no +medicine to be given—and a tutor was engaged, instead, to come each +morning. Her school friends grew weary of the details of Isobel's +accident and the limitations of her pink-and-white room; other things at +school claimed their attention—a new riding club was starting, and the +Senior parties; they had not a minute, they begged Gyp to tell Isobel, +to play—they were "awfully" sorry and they'd run in when they could. +Gyp and Jerry, too, were swimming every afternoon in preparation for the +spring inter-school swimming meet. The long hours dragged for the little +shut-in; she nursed a not-unpleasant conviction that she was abused and +neglected. She consoled her wounded spirit with morbid pictures of how, +after a long, bedridden life, she would reap, at its end, a desperate +remorse from her selfish, inconsiderate family; she refused to be +cheered by the doctor's assertion that she was making a tremendously +"nice" recovery and would be as lively on her feet as she'd ever +been—though he never failed to add: "You don't deserve it!"</p> + +<p>One afternoon, three weeks after the accident, Isobel looked at her +small desk clock for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. A ceaseless +patter of rain against the window made the day unusually trying. Her +mother had gone, by the doctor's orders, to Atlantic City for a week's +rest, leaving her to the capable ministrations of Mrs. Hicks. That lady +had carried off her luncheon tray with the declaration that "a body +couldn't please Miss Isobel anyways and if Miss Isobel wanted anything +she could ring," and Isobel had mentally determined, making a little +face after the departing figure, that she'd die before she asked old +Hicks for anything! It was only half past two—it would be an hour +before even Tibby would come, or Gyp or Jerry. What day was it?</p> + +<p>When one spent every day in one small pink-and-white room it was not +easy to remember! Thursday—no, Wednesday, because Mrs. Hicks had said +the cook was out——</p> + +<p>A door below opened and shut. Footsteps sounded from the hall; quick, +bounding, they passed her door.</p> + +<p>"Gyp!" Isobel called. There was no answer. Someone was moving in the +nursery; it was Jerry, then, not Gyp.</p> + +<p>"Jerry!" Still there was no answer. Jerry was too busy turning the +contents of her bureau drawer to hear. She found the bathing-cap for +which she was hunting and started down the hall. A sudden, pitiful, +choky sob halted her flight.</p> + +<p>When she peeped into Isobel's room Isobel was lying with her face buried +in her pillow.</p> + +<p>"Isobel——" Jerry advanced quickly to the side of the bed. "Is anything +wrong? What is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I—I wish I—were dead!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>Isobel</i>!"</p> + +<p>"So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a—a helpless +cripple and left all alone——"</p> + +<p>Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely +about it—and that patter of the rain——</p> + +<p>"Isn't Mrs. Hicks——"</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>Hicks</i>. She's just a crosspatch! You all leave me to servants +because I can't move. Nobody loves me the least little bit. I—I wish I +were dead."</p> + +<p>To Jerry there was something very dreadful in Isobel's words. What if +her wish came true, then and there? What if the breath suddenly +stopped—and it would be too late to take back the wish——</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i> say that again, Isobel. Can't I stay with you?"</p> + +<p>Isobel turned such a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart +was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp <i>had</i> +selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for +her, she would doubtless be better company than—no one. She slipped the +bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her coat and hat.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind staying?" Isobel asked in a very pleading voice.</p> + +<p>Jerry might reasonably have answered: "I do mind. I cannot stay; this is +the afternoon of the great inter-school swimming meet and I am late, +now, because I came home for my cap," but she was so thrilled by the +simple fact of Isobel's wanting her—<i>her</i>, that everything else was +forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't. It's horrid and stupid for you to lie here all day +long. Shall I read?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>—after that dreadful tutor goes I don't want to see a book!"</p> + +<p>"Let's think of something jolly—and different. Would you like to play +travel? It's a game my mother and Little-Dad and I made up. It's lots of +fun. We pick out a certain place and we say we're going there. We get +time-tables for trains and boats and we decide just what we'll pack—all +pretend, of course. Then we look up in the travel books all 'bout the +place and we have the grandest time—most as good as though we really +went. Last winter we traveled through Scotland. It made the long +evenings when we were shut in at Sunnyside pass like magic. Little-Dad +has a perfect passion for time-tables and he never really goes anywhere +in his life—except in the game."</p> + +<p>"What fun," cried Isobel, sitting up against her pillows. A few weeks +before Isobel would have scorned such a "babyish" suggestion from +anyone. "Where shall we go?"</p> + +<p>"I've always wanted to go to Venice. We got as far as Naples and then +'Liza Sloane's grandson got scarlet fever and Little-Dad went down and +stayed with him. I'd love to live in a palace and go everywhere in +little boats."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll go to Venice and we'll travel by way of Milan and Florence. +Jerry, down in father's desk there are a whole lot of time-tables and +folders he collected the spring he planned to go abroad. And you can get +one of Stoddart's books in the library—and a Baedeker, too. We ought to +have a whole lot of clothes—it's warm in Italy. Bring that catalogue +from Altman's that's on mother's sewing table and we'll pick out some +new dresses. What fun!"</p> + +<p>Jerry went eagerly after all they needed for their "game." She sat on +the other side of Isobel's bed and spread the books out around her. +First, they had to select from the colored catalogue suitable dresses +and warm wraps for shipboard; then they had to fuss over sailing dates +and cabin reservations. In the atlas Jerry traced from town to town +their route of travel, reading slowly from Baedeker just what they must +see in each town. She had a way of reading the guidebook, too, that made +Isobel see the things. It was delightful to linger in Florence; Jerry +had just suggested that they postpone going on to Venice for a few days, +and Isobel had decided to send back to America for that pale blue dotted +swiss, because it would blend so wonderfully with the Italian sky and +the pastel colors of the old, old Florentine buildings, when they were +interrupted by Gyp and Uncle Johnny.</p> + +<p>Gyp was a veritable whirlwind of fury, her eyes were blazing, her cheeks +glowed red under her dusky skin, every tangled black hair on her head +bristled. She confronted Jerry accusingly.</p> + +<p>"So <i>here's</i> where you are!" Her words rang shrilly. "Here—fooling +'round with Isobel and you let the South High beat us by two points! You +<i>know</i> you were the only girl we had who could beat Nina Sharpe in the +breast stroke. They put in Mary Reed and she was like a <i>rock</i>. And you +swam thirty-eight strokes under water the other day. I saw you—I +counted. And—and the South High girl only got up to <i>twenty</i>! <i>That's</i> +all you cared."</p> + +<p>Jerry turned, a little frightened. She had hated missing the swimming +meet—contests were such new things in her life that they held a +wonderful fascination for her—but she had not dreamed that, through her +failure to appear, Lincoln might be beaten! She faced Gyp very humbly.</p> + +<p>"Isobel was alone——"</p> + +<p>Gyp turned on her sister.</p> + +<p>"You're the very selfishest girl that ever lived, Isobel Westley, and +you're getting worse and worse. You never think of anyone in this whole +world but yourself! You never would have hurt your knee so badly only +you wanted to save your precious old dress, and you wouldn't give in and +let Peggy Lee take your part! Maybe you <i>are</i> lonely and get tired lying +here and everyone's sorry 'bout that, but that's not any reason for your +keeping Jerry here when we needed her so badly—and she missed all the +fun, too!"</p> + +<p>Isobel drew herself back into her pillows. She was no match for her +indignant sister. And she was aghast at the enormity of her selfish +thoughtlessness.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know—honestly, Gyp. I thought the match was on Thursday——"</p> + +<p>"It was. <i>This</i> is Thursday," scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's <i>Wednesday</i>. Isn't it Wednesday? Mrs. Hicks said cook was out +and——"</p> + +<p>"As if the calendar ran by the cook! Cook's sister's niece's sister was +married to-day and she changed her day out. If you'd think of someone +else——"</p> + +<p>Jerry took command of the situation.</p> + +<p>"It's my fault, Gyp. I could have told Isobel but—I didn't. I sort of +realized how I'd feel if I had to lie there in bed day after day when +everyone else was having such a good time and—well, the swimming match +didn't seem half as important as making Isobel happy and—I don't +believe it was!" There was triumphant conviction in Jerry's voice, born +of the grateful little smile Isobel flashed to her.</p> + +<p>Gyp turned disgustedly on her heel. From the doorway where Uncle Johnny +had been taking in the little scene came a chuckle. As Gyp walked +haughtily out of the room he came forward and laid his hand on Jerry's +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Right-o, Jerry-girl. There's more than one kind of a victory, isn't +there? Now run along and make peace with Miss Gypsy and let me get +acquainted with my Bonnie—four whole days since I've seen you." There +was a suspicious crackling of tissue-paper in his pocket. One hand +slowly drew forth a small, blue velvet box which he laid in Isobel's +fingers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Johnny!" For, within, lay a dainty bracelet set with small +turquoise. Quite unexpectedly Isobel's eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>"What is it, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"It's lovely only—only—everybody's too good to me for—I +guess—I'm—what Gyp said I was!"</p> + +<p>There was everything in Isobel's past experience to warrant her +expecting that Uncle Johnny would vehemently protest the truth of her +outburst and assure her that no one could do enough for her. She +<i>wanted</i> him to do so. But, alas, she read in his face that he, too, +thought what Gyp had said was very true.</p> + +<p>"Isobel, dear—I think I ought to try and make you see something—for +your own good. Have you ever pictured the fight that's going on in the +human blood all the time—the tiny warriors struggling constantly, one +kind to kill and the other to keep alive? The same sort of fight's going +on in our natures, too. Every one of us is born with a whole lot of good +things; they're our heritage and it's our own fault when we don't keep +'em. I don't mean outward things, dear—like your golden hair and those +sky-blue eyes of yours—I mean the inside things, the things that grow +and make our lives. But they've got to fight to live. If vanity and +selfishness get the upper hand—where do they lead you? Well," he +laughed, "I can't make you understand any more clearly what I mean than +just to point to poor old Aunt Maria!"</p> + +<p>Isobel had turned her face away; he could not see how she was taking his +clumsy little lecture.</p> + +<p>"<i>She's</i> just a pathetic waste of God's good clay—moulded once as He +wants His children, but what has she done? She's lived—no one knows how +many years—only to feed her own body and glorify her own nest; she's +grown <i>in</i> instead of <i>out</i>; she's never given an honest thought to +making this world or anyone in it one bit better for her having lived in +it. She's stealing from God. And what's done it—vanity, that years ago +mastered all the good things in her. Poor old soul—she was once a +young, pretty girl, like you——"</p> + +<p>Isobel jerked her head petulantly. The blue velvet box lay neglected on +the counterpane.</p> + +<p>"I think you're horrid to lecture me, Uncle Johnny. Mother and +father——"</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny smiled whimsically at the childish face.</p> + +<p>"Mothers and fathers sometimes don't see things as clearly as mere +uncles—because they're so close. And Bonnie, dear, it's because we all +want so much of you! Let me tell you something else—this isn't a +lecture, either. It's a little thing that happened when you were a baby +and I've never forgotten it. I didn't see you until you were a year +old—I was abroad, studying, when you were born. When I went up to your +nursery that first time, and looked at you, I thought you were the most +wonderful thing God ever made. You lay there in your little white crib +and stared at me with your round, blue eyes, and then you smiled and +thrust out the tiniest scrap of a hand. I didn't dare breathe. And +everything around you was so perfect—white enamel, blue and yellow and +pink birds and squirrels and dogs and things painted on your walls, the +last word in baby furniture and toilet things. That very day a friend of +mine asked me to help drive the orphans of the city on their annual +outing. I was glad to do something for someone—you see, having a new +niece made me feel as though I was walking on air. They loaded up my car +with kids of all sizes and then the last moment someone snuggled a bit +of humanity into the front seat between two older youngsters—a poor +little mite with big, round, blue eyes like yours and the lower part of +her face all twisted with a great scar where she'd been burned. I +couldn't see anything on the whole ride but that little face—and +always, back in my mind were your two blue eyes and your dimpled smile. +I wanted to get through with the whole trip and hurry back to your +nursery to see if you were all right. But I stopped long enough at the +orphanage to ask about the poor baby. She'd been found in a filthy +cellar where she'd been abandoned—that's all they knew. How's <i>that</i> +for a heritage? Stripped of everything—except the soul of her—to fight +through life with, and horribly disfigured in the bargain. I asked what +they did for such children and they told me that they'd keep her until +she was fourteen—then they'd have taught her some sort of +work—probably domestic—and she could make her own way. God help +her—fourteen, a little younger than our Gyp! I went back to your +mother's. She was out and I rushed up to your nursery. Your very +professional nurse thought I was mad. I sent her out. I took you in my +arms. I had to hold you to feel that you were safe and sound and had all +the arms and legs you needed and your face not half scarred away. And +sitting there I sort of talked to God—I begged Him to let you keep the +blessings you had at that moment and to make you worthy of them. You're +a beautiful girl, Isobel, and you have every advantage that love and +thought and money can give you, but—so was Aunt Maria beautiful at your +age, before vanity and selfishness——"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Johnny, I've known for a long time—that you didn't love me! +That's why I've been so nasty to Jerry. You love her——"</p> + +<p>"Bonnie!" Uncle Johnny's arm was around her now. He half shook her. +"Foolish girl! I love you now just the way I loved that mite of a baby. +I've always been fonder of you than any of the others and I'm mighty +fond of them. But you were the first—the most wonderful one."</p> + +<p>"But you'd like to have me—like Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, very decidedly. "I'd like to have you—that kind of +a girl, who walks straight with her head up—and sees big visions—and +grows toward them."</p> + +<p>"I hate goody-goody girls," sighed poor Isobel.</p> + +<p>"So do I!" laughed Uncle Johnny. "But you couldn't hate a girl who would +rather make someone else happy than win in a swimming match?"</p> + +<p>"N-no, and I wouldn't blame Jerry if she'd just enjoy seeing me +miserable—I've been so nasty to her. And she <i>isn't</i> goody-goody, +either! She's just——"</p> + +<p>"A very normal, unspoiled, happy girl who's always been so busy thinking +of everything else that she's never had a moment to think of herself. +Now to show that you forgive my two-a-penny lectures, will you let me +eat dinner with you off your tray? And what are you doing with these +books? And did you know Dr. Bowerman's going to let you try crutches on +Sunday?"</p> + +<p>Two hours later, when Jerry, a little shyly, tiptoed into Isobel's room +to say good-night, Isobel impulsively pulled her head down to the level +of her own and kissed her. She wanted to tell Jerry what Uncle Johnny +had made her feel and see but she could not find the right words, and +Jerry wanted to tell her that she wouldn't for the world trade the jolly +afternoon they had had together for any swimming match, but <i>she</i> +couldn't find the right words, so each just kissed the other, wondering +why she was so happy!</p> + +<p>"I'm going to walk on crutches Sunday, Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Oh, great! It will only be a little while before you're back in school, +Isobel."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Isobel!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE THIRD VIOLINIST</h3> + + +<p>"Hello! Is that you, Gyp? I want Centre 2115, please. Is this Mr. +Westley's house? Is that <i>you</i>, Gyp?.... This is Pat Everett. +<i>Listen</i>——" came excitedly over the wire, though Gyp was listening as +hard as she could. "Peg and I've found <i>the black-and-white man</i>!"</p> + +<p>Gyp declared, afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to +her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating +Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and +together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening—the air +was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery +green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the +steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering +honeysuckle brushed their shoulders. A more perfect setting could not +have been found for the finish of their conspiracy.</p> + +<p>Pat plunged straight into her story.</p> + +<p>"Peg and I were coming back from Dalton's book store and we ran bang +into the man—he'd taken his hat off 'cause it was so warm and was +fanning himself with it. We both saw it at exactly the same moment and +we just turned and clutched each other and <i>almost</i> yelled."</p> + +<p>"And then, what? Why didn't you grab him?"</p> + +<p>"As if we could lay our hands on a perfect stranger! Anyway, we've got +to be tactful. But I'm <i>sure</i> it's the one—there was a white streak +that ran right back from the front of his face. And he was very +handsome, too—at least we decided he would be if we were as old as Miss +Gray. <i>I</i> thought he was a little—oh, biggish."</p> + +<p>"And to think how we've hunted for him and he was right here——" Then +Gyp realized that Pat did <i>not</i> have the gentleman in her pocket.</p> + +<p>"But how will we find him again?"</p> + +<p>"We followed him—and he went into the Morse Building and got into the +elevator and we were going right in after him when who pops out but Dr. +Caton, and he looked so surprised to see us that we hesitated, and the +old elevator boy shut the door in our faces. But we asked a man who was +standing there in a uniform, like a head janitor or something, if that +gentleman in a black coat and hat and lavender tie had an office in the +building, and he said, "Yes, seventh floor, 796." He leered at us, but +we looked real dignified, and Peg wrote it down on a piece of paper and +we walked away. So now all we've got to do is to just go and see him," +and Pat hugged her slim knees in an ecstasy of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The girls stared meditatively at a fat robin pecking into the grass in +search of a late dinner. To "just go and see him" was not as simple to +the conspirators as it sounded, slipping from Pat's lips.</p> + +<p>"Who'll go?" Gyp put the question that was in each mind.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be too many if all four of us went—so let's draw lots +which two——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>!" cried Jerry, aghast.</p> + +<p>The others laughed. "It'd be fairest to leave Jerry out of the draw."</p> + +<p>"I'll go," cried Gyp grandly, "if Pat or Peggy will go with me and do +the talking."</p> + +<p>"What'll we say?" Now that the Ravens faced the fulfillment of their +plans they felt a little nervous.</p> + +<p>"I know——" Gyp's puzzled frown cleared magically. "Mother has five +tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony to-morrow night—I'll ask her to +let us go and invite Miss Gray to chaperone us. Then we'll write a note +and tell this man that if he'll go to the concert and look at the third +box on the left side he'll see the lady of his heart who has been +faithful to him for years in spite of her many other suitors—we'll put +that in to make him appreciate what he's getting. It'll be much easier +writing it than saying it."</p> + +<p>"Gyp—you're a wonder," cried the others, inspired to action. "Let's go +in and write the note now."</p> + +<p>The Ravens, who met now at Pat Everett's house, had neglected Miss Gray +of late. Carnations had succeeded the violets, then a single rose. Pat +had even experimented with a nosegay of everlastings which she had found +in one of the department stores. It had been weeks since they had sent +anything. For that reason a little feeling of remorse added enthusiasm +now to their plotting.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley was delighted at Gyp's desire to hear the concert and to +include Miss Gray in the party. And Miss Gray's face had flushed with +genuine pleasure when Gyp invited her.</p> + +<p>"Everything's all ready," Gyp tapped across to Pat Everett, and Pat, +nodding mysteriously, pulled from her pocket the corner of a pale blue +envelope.</p> + +<p>Directly after the close of school Gyp and Pat, with Jerry and Peggy Lee +close at their heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown +to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action +crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled—for +the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this +stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that +their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little +Miss Gray!</p> + +<p>To avoid the leering elevator man the two girls climbed the six flights +to the seventh floor. Pat carried the letter. Gyp agreed to go in first.</p> + +<p>"746—748——" read Pat.</p> + +<p>"It's the other corridor." They retraced their steps to the other side +of the building. "784-788-792——" Gyp repeated the office numbers +aloud. "7-9-6! <i>Wilbur Stratman, Undertaker!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Pat Everett!</i>" Gyp clutched her chum's arm. "<i>A—undertaker!</i> I +<i>won't</i> go in—for all the Miss Grays in the world!"</p> + +<p>Pat was seized with such a fit of giggling that she had difficulty in +speaking, even in a whisper. "Isn't that <i>funny</i>? We've <i>got</i> to go in. +The girls are waiting—we'd never hear the <i>last</i> of it! He can't bury +us alive. Oh, d-dear——" She wadded her handkerchief to her lips and +leaned against the wall.</p> + +<p>"If Miss Gray wants an undertaker she can <i>have</i> him! For my part <i>I</i> +should think she'd rather have a policeman or—or the iceman! Come +on——" Gyp's face was comical in its disgust. She turned the knob of +the door.</p> + +<p>A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office. +She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them +through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of +the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair +pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and +reached for a coat that lay across another chair.</p> + +<p>"Is—is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not +cling to the roof of her mouth.</p> + +<p>He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual +customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with +them. He watched warily.</p> + +<p>"Our errand is—is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was +beyond the power of speech. "It's—it's personal. We've come, in fact, +of—our own accord—she doesn't know a thing about it——"</p> + +<p>"She? Who?"</p> + +<p>"Miss—Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a +dreadful mess of it! Why <i>didn't</i> Pat produce the letter instead of +standing there like a wooden image?</p> + +<p>Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he +never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray—of course," he nodded. Encouraged, +Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with.</p> + +<p>"She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years +and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and +wouldn't marry anyone else and——"</p> + +<p>With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged +ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were +stark mad!</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry for Miss Gray but—what can I do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>can't</i> you marry her <i>now</i>? She's still very pretty——" Gyp was +trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there—she had to make the +leap!</p> + +<p>The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare—then he +laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's +face.</p> + +<p>"Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! <i>Ha! ha!</i> My +business is <i>burying</i> and not <i>marrying</i>! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! <i>I</i> don't +know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife +and six children at home!"</p> + +<p>Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold +stream of water ran down Gyp's spine.</p> + +<p>"I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but +you're in the wrong pew. <i>I</i> never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember +and I guess somebody's been kidding you."</p> + +<p>Pat suddenly found her tongue—in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis +of fright had finished poor Gyp.</p> + +<p>"We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have +bothered you. We are in search of a certain—party that—that has—a +white streak—in his hair."</p> + +<p>"O-ho," the undertaker clapped his hand to his head. "So <i>that's</i> the +ticket, hey? Well, I've always said I couldn't get away from much with +that thing always there to identify me—but I never calculated it'd +expose me to any proposals!" He laughed again—doubling up in what Pat +thought a disgustingly ungraceful way. She held her head high and pushed +Gyp toward the door. "We will say good-by," she concluded haughtily.</p> + +<p>"Say, kids, who are you, anyway?" His tone was quite unprofessional.</p> + +<p>"It is not necessary to divulge our identity," and with Gyp's arm firmly +in her grasp Pat beat a hasty retreat. Safe outside in the corridor they +fell into one another's arms, torn between tears and laughter.</p> + +<p>With mingled disgust and disappointment the Ravens decided then and +there to let love follow its own blind, mistaken course.</p> + +<p>"Miss Gray can die an old maid before I'll ever face another creature +like that!" vowed Gyp, and Pat echoed her words.</p> + +<p>"No one ever gets any thanks for meddling in other people's affairs, +anyway," Peggy Lee offered.</p> + +<p>"Nice time to tell us <i>that</i>," was Gyp's irritable retort.</p> + +<p>That evening Miss Gray, charming in a soft lavender georgette dress, +which her clever fingers had made and remade, wondered why her four +young charges were so glum. There was nothing in the world <i>she</i> loved +so much as a symphony orchestra. She sat back in her chair, close to the +edge of the box, with a happy sigh, and studied her program. Everything +that she liked best, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and Wagner—Siegfried's Death. +Gyp, eyeing her chaperon's happy anticipation, indulged in a whispered +regret.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't she look pretty to-night? If that horrible creature only hadn't +been——" The setting would have been so perfect for the dénouement. She +sprawled back, resignedly, in her chair, smothering a yawn. A flutter of +applause marked the coming in of the orchestra. There was the usual +scraping of chairs and whining of strings. Then suddenly Miss Gray +leaned out over the box-rail, exclaiming incoherently, her hands +clasping and unclasping in a wild, helpless way.</p> + +<p>An opening crash of the cymbals covered her confusion. The four girls +were staring at her, round-eyed. They had not believed Miss Gray capable +of such agitation! What <i>ever</i> had happened——</p> + +<p>"An old friend," she whispered, her face alternately paling and +flushing. "A very dear—old—friend! The—the third—violin——" She +leaned weakly against the box-rail. The girls looked down at the +orchestra. There—under the leader's arm—sat the third violinist—and a +white streak ran from his forehead straight back through his coal black +hair!</p> + +<p>As though an electric shock flashed through them the four girls +straightened and stiffened. A glance, charged with meaning, passed from +one to another. Gyp, remembering the moment of confidence between her +and Miss Gray, slipped her hand into Miss Gray's and squeezed it +encouragingly.</p> + +<p>Not one of them heard a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying +herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very +near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost pushed Miss +Gray toward it.</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i> you're going to see him! <i>Hurry.</i> You look so nice——" Gyp +was so excited that she did not know quite what she was saying. +"Oh—<i>hurry!</i> You may never see him again."</p> + +<p>Then they, precipitously and on tiptoe, followed little Miss Gray. +Though it did not happen as each in her romantic soul had planned, it +was none the less satisfying! In a chilly, bare anteroom off the stage, +at a queer sound behind him resembling in a small way his name, the +third violinist turned from the job of putting his violin into its box.</p> + +<p>"<i>Milly</i>," he cried, his face flaming red with a pleased surprise.</p> + +<p>"George——" Miss Gray held back, twisting her fingers in a helpless +flutter. "I—I thought—when you sent—the—flowers—and the +verses—that maybe, you—you still cared!"</p> + +<p>Just for a moment a puzzled look clouded the man's face—then a vision +in the doorway of four wildly-warning hands made him exclaim quickly:</p> + +<p>"Care—didn't I tell you, Milly, that I'd never care for anyone else?"</p> + +<p>"He took her right in his arms," four tongues explained at once, when, +the next day, the self-appointed committee on romance reported back to +the other Ravens. "Of course, he didn't know we were peeking. He isn't +exactly the type <i>I'd</i> go crazy over, but he's so much better than that +undertaker! And going home Miss Gray told us all about it. It would +make the grandest movie! She had to support her mother and he didn't +earn enough to take care of them both, and she wouldn't let him +wait all that time; she told him to find someone else. But you see +he didn't. Isn't love funny? And then when her mother finally died +she was too proud to send him word, and I guess she didn't know +where he was, anyway, or maybe she thought he <i>had</i> gone and done +what she told him to do and married some one else. And she believed +all the time that he sent her those flowers—I s'pose by that +say-it-with-flowers-by-telegraph-from-any-part-of-the-country method. +Oh, I <i>hope</i> she'll wear a veil and let us be bridesmaids!"</p> + +<p>But little Miss Gray did not; some weeks later, in a spick-and-span blue +serge traveling suit, with a little bunch of pink roses fastened in her +belt, she slipped away from her dreary boarding house and met her third +violinist in the shabby, unromantic front parlor of an out-of-the-way +parsonage; the parson's stout wife was her bridesmaid—so much for +gratitude!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>PLANS</h3> + + +<p>"Oh, dear—how dreadfully fast time passes. It seems only a little while +ago we were planning for the winter and now here comes Mrs. Hicks about +new summer covers for the furniture, and Joe Laney wants to know if +there's going to be any painting done and I haven't thought of any +summer clothes—and with those two great growing girls! I suppose if +we're going to the seashore we ought to make some reservations, too——" +and Mrs. Westley concluded her plaint with a sigh that came from her +very toes.</p> + +<p>John Westley, from the depths of the great armed chair where he +stretched, laughed at her serious face. But the expression of his own +reflected the truth of what she had said.</p> + +<p>"It's the rush we live in, Mary. Why don't you cut out the seashore and +find a quiet place—out of this torrent? Something—like Kettle." The +mention of Kettle brought him suddenly to a thought of Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Well, my Jerry-girl's year of school is almost up. What next?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley laid down her knitting. "Yes—what next?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Somehow, I can't picture Jerry going back to Miller's Notch +and—staying there——"</p> + +<p>"That's it—I've thought of it often. Have we been doing the girl a +kindness? After all, John, contentment is the greatest thing in this +world, and perhaps we've hurt the dear child by bringing her here and +letting her have a taste of—this sort of thing."</p> + +<p>John Westley regarded his sister-in-law's plump, kindly face with +amusement. She had the best heart in the world and the biggest, but she +had not the discernment to know that there were treasures even in +Miller's Notch and Sunnyside, and, anyway——</p> + +<p>"Isn't contentment, Mary, a thing that depends on something inside of +us, rather than our surroundings?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, speculatively.</p> + +<p>"And I rather think my girl from Kettle will be contented anywhere. +She's gone ahead fast here. I was talking to Dr. Caton about her. He +says she is amazingly intense in her work. I suppose that has come from +her way of living there at Sunnyside. But what can the school there at +Miller's Notch give her now?</p> + +<p>"And what is there for a girl, living in a small place like that, after +school? Contentment <i>does</i> depend upon our state of mind, I grant, but +one's surroundings affect that state of mind—so there you are! How is a +girl going to be happy if she knows that she is far superior mentally to +everything that makes up her life? Jerry will grow to womanhood in her +little mountain village—marry some native and——"</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny ignored the picture.</p> + +<p>"We can trip ourselves up at almost every turn, Mary. Aren't places +really big or small as we ticket them in our own minds? If you think of +Miller's Notch and Kettle by figures of the census, they <i>are</i> +small—but, maybe, reckoning them from real angles they're big—very +big, and it's our cities that are small. To go back to Jerry—when I +think of her I always think of something I said to Barbara Lee—that +nothing on earth could chain a spirit like that anywhere—she was one of +the world's crusaders. Oh—youth! If nothing spoils my Jerry, she'll +always go forward with her head up! But <i>that's</i> what has made me worry, +more than once, during my "experiment." <i>Have</i> we risked the girl to the +danger of being spoiled? Will our little superficialities, so ingrained +that we don't realize them, taint her splendid unaffectedness? I don't +know—I can't tell until I see her back at Kettle—in that environment +the like of which I've never found anywhere else. If she isn't the same +shining-eyed Jerry plus considerable wisdom gleaned from her books and +her school friends, I'll have it on my conscience—if she's the same, +well, the winter's been worth a great deal to all of us! When I see her +and watch her back there—I'll know. And that leads me to what I really +came here to tell you." John Westley drew a letter from his pocket. "I +had word from Trimmer—the Boston attorney. He's found traces of a Craig +Winton who was a graduate of Boston Tech. He lived in obscure lodgings +in a poorer part of Boston and yet he seemed to have quite a circle of +friends of an intellectual sort. Some of them have given enough facts to +be pieced together so as to prove, I think conclusively, that this chap +is the one we're looking for. He was an inventor and of a very brilliant +turn of mind, but unpractical—the old story—and desperately poor. He +married the only daughter of a chemist who lived in Cambridge. His +health broke down and he took his wife and went off to the country +somewhere—his Boston friends lost track of him after that. Later one +received a letter telling of the birth of a son."</p> + +<p>"How interesting! Robert will be home in two weeks and then we can make +the settlement."</p> + +<p>"But, Mary—the search hasn't ended. He left Boston for the +'country'—that is very vague. And I don't like the tone of Trimmer's +communication. He advises dropping the whole matter. He says that +sufficient effort has been made to meet the spirit of the letter left by +the late Peter Westley——"</p> + +<p>"You will <i>not</i> drop it, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed not. I wired him to put all the men he could find on the case. +And I am going to do some work on my own account."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—I have a clue all of my own." He laughed, folding the letter and +putting it away.</p> + +<p>"Really, John?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—a foolish sort of a clue—I can scarcely tell it to a man like +Trimmer. It's only a pair of eyes——"</p> + +<p>"I suppose if you're like all other sleuths you will not tell <i>me</i> +anything more," said Mrs. Westley, wondering if he was really in +earnest. "When and where will your personal search begin?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to start this moment, but I happened to think I could drive +Jerry home, and then I can make the test of my experiment."</p> + +<p>"Drive Jerry home——" his words reached the ears of the young people, +coming into the hall. It was Friday evening and they had been at the +moving-pictures.</p> + +<p>"<i>Who's</i> going to drive Jerry home? You, Uncle Johnny? Can't I go, too? +Oh, please, <i>please</i>——" Gyp fell upon him, pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish the girls <i>could</i> go," added Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Uncle Johnny turned to Mrs. Westley. "Then you wouldn't have +to worry your head over clothes and hotel space at the seashore! And +Mrs. Allan's up there across at Cobble with a house big enough for a +dozen——"</p> + +<p>"But they must stay at Sunnyside," protested Jerry, her face glowing.</p> + +<p>Always, now, at the back of her head, were persistent thoughts of home. +She had counted the days off on her little calendar; she saw, in the +bright loveliness with which the springtime had dressed the city, only a +proud vision of what her beloved Kettle must be like; she hunted violets +on the slopes of Highacres and dreamed of the blossoming hepaticas in +the Witches' Glade and the dear sun-shadowed corners where the bloodroot +grew and the soft budding beauty of the birches that lined the trail up +Kettle. She longed with a longing that hurt for her little garden—for +the smell of the freshly-turned soil, for the first strawberries, for +the fragrance of the lilacs that grew under her small window, for the +clean, cool, grass-scented valley wind. And yet her heart was torn +with the thought that those very days she had counted on her calendar +marked the coming separation from Gyp and the schoolmates at +Highacres—Highacres itself. She must go away from them all and all that +they were doing and they would in time forget her, because they would +know nothing of Sunnyside. And now, quite suddenly, a new and wonderful +possibility unfolded—to have Gyp at home with mother and Little-Dad, +sleeping in the tiny room under the gable, climbing the trails with her, +working in the garden, playing with Bigboy, sharing all the precious +joys of Kettle, meant a link; after that, there could be no real +separation.</p> + +<p>And she wanted Isobel, too. Between the two girls had sprung a wonderful +understanding. Isobel was grateful that Jerry had not humiliated her by +mentioning the debate, or the many other little meannesses of which she +had been guilty; Jerry was glad that Isobel had not raked them up—it +was so much nicer to just know that Isobel liked her now. Isobel was a +very different girl since her accident—perhaps Uncle Johnny, alone, +knew why. She had decided very suddenly that she <i>did</i> want to go to +college. The week before she had "squeezed through" the college entrance +exams—luck she did not deserve, she had declared with surprising +frankness. And after college she planned to study interior decorating.</p> + +<p>Everyone wondered why they had not thought before of such wonderful +summer plans. Mrs. Westley would go with Tibby to Cousin Marcia's at +Ocean Point in Maine—"quiet enough there"; Graham was going to a boys' +camp in Vermont, and Isobel and Gyp could divide their time between +Sunnyside and Cobble.</p> + +<p>"We are not consulting Mrs. Travis," laughed Mrs. Westley.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'd <i>love</i> them to be there," cried Jerry with conviction.</p> + +<p>"And anyway, if she frowns, we'll move on to Wayside, and <i>we</i> know the +trail in between, don't we, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"Say, Jerry," Graham thought it the psychological moment to spring a +request he had been entertaining in his heart for some time. "Will you +let me take Pepper to camp? Lots of the boys have dogs but none of them +are as smart as Pep."</p> + +<p>Jerry could not answer for a moment. In her picture of her homegoing, +Pepper had had his part; but—it would be another link——</p> + +<p>"Of course you may take him. He'll love—being with you." Long ago she +had reconciled herself to sharing Pepper's devotion with Graham.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think that's the wonderfulest plan ever made," exclaimed Gyp +rapturously—Gyp, who with her mother had visited some of the most +fashionable summer and winter resorts. "I want to sleep up on—where is +it, Jerry—and see the sunrise. How will we <i>ever</i> exist until school's +over!"</p> + +<p>"Examinations will help us do that," laughed Isobel.</p> + +<p>"And Class-day and Commencement. And who's going to win the Lincoln +Award?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE LINCOLN AWARD</h3> + + +<p>"Who's going to win the Lincoln Award?"</p> + +<p>That question was on every tongue at Highacres. That interest rivaled +even the excitement of Class-day and its honors; of the Senior +reception, Commencement itself. It shadowed the accustomed interval of +alarm that always followed examinations. Everyone knew that the contest +was close; no one could conjecture as to whom the honor would fall, for, +though one student be a wizard in trigonometry, he might have failed +dismally in the simple requirement of setting-up exercises or drinking +milk.</p> + +<p>"I've eaten spinach until I feel just like a cow out at pasture," +declared Pat Everett disgustedly, "and what good has it done! For I was +only <i>eighty-five</i> in English!"</p> + +<p>"But think of all the iron in your system," comforted Peggy Lee. "I hope +Jerry wins the prize, but I'm afraid it is going to Ginny Cox. She was +<i>ninety-nine</i> in Cicero. I wish <i>I</i> had her brains——"</p> + +<p>"And her luck! Ginny says herself that it is luck—half the time."</p> + +<p>"Look how she got out of that scrape last winter——" spoke up another +girl.</p> + +<p>The Ravens, who were in the group, suddenly looked at one another.</p> + +<p>"It won't be <i>fair</i> if Ginny wins the Award," was the thought they +flashed.</p> + +<p>The records for the contest were posted the day before Class-day—the +last day of the examinations. A large group of boys and girls, eagerly +awaiting them, pressed and elbowed about the bulletin board in the +corridor while Barbara Lee nailed them to the wall. Gyp's inquisitive +nose was fairly against the white sheet.</p> + +<p>"<i>Vir-gin-i-a Cox!</i>" she read shrilly. "Jerauld Travis <i>only two points +behind</i>! And Dana King third——"</p> + +<p>An uncontrollable lump rose in Jerry's throat. She had hoped—she had +dared think that she was going to win! She was glad of the babble under +which she could cover her moment's confusion; she struggled bravely to +keep the disappointment from her face as she turned with the others to +congratulate Ginny.</p> + +<p>The plaudits of the boys and girls were warm and whole-hearted. If any +surprise was felt that it had been Ginny Cox and not Jerry Travis who +had won the Award it was carefully concealed.</p> + +<p>"We might have known no one could beat you, Coxie."</p> + +<p>"It was that ninety-nine in old Cicero."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for Ginny!"</p> + +<p>Dana King trooped up a yell. "Lincoln—Cox! Lincoln—Cox!"</p> + +<p>Through it all Ginny Cox stood very still, a flush on her face but a +distressed look in her eyes. The Ginny Cox whom her schoolmates had +known for years would have accepted the hearty congratulations with a +laughing, careless, why-are-you-surprised manner; the Ginny Cox whom +Jerry had glimpsed that winter afternoon preceding the basketball game +was honestly embarrassed by the turn of events. She had not dreamed she +could win—it <i>had</i> been that ninety-nine in Cicero.</p> + +<p>"Ginny Cox, you don't look a <i>bit</i> glad," accused one clear-sighted +schoolmate.</p> + +<p>Alas, Ginny was not brave enough to clean her troubled soul with +confession then and there; she tried to silence the small voice of her +conscience; she made a desperate effort to be her own old self, evoking +the homage of her schoolmates as she had done time and time again. She +answered, uneasily, with a smile that took in Jerry and Dana King:</p> + +<p>"I hate to beat anyone like Jerry and Dana. It's so close——"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the excited young people yelled again for "Travis" and again +for "King." The crowd gradually dispersed; little groups, arm-in-arm, +excitedly talking, passed out through the big door into the spring +sunshine. A buoyance in the very air proclaimed that school days were +over.</p> + +<p>In one of these groups were Ginny Cox, Gyp, Jerry, Pat Everett, Peggy +Lee and Isobel. Among them had fallen a constraint. Isobel broke it.</p> + +<p>"Ginny Cox, you haven't any more right to that Award than I have! You +<i>know</i> you built the snowman and Jerry took the blame so's you could +play basketball. <i>She's</i> the winner!"</p> + +<p>Each turned, surprised, at Isobel's defence of Jerry's right, marveling +at the earnestness in her face.</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>don't</i>," implored Jerry. "I'm <i>glad</i> Ginny won it."</p> + +<p>Ginny stamped her foot. "<i>I'm</i> not—I wish I hadn't. I never dreamed I +would—honest. What a mess! I wish I'd just turned and told them all +about it, but I didn't have the nerve! I'm just yellow." That—from +Ginny Cox, the invincible forward! Breathless, the girls paused where +they were on the grassy slope near the entrance of Highacres. A great +elm spread over them and through its shimmering green a sunbeam shot +across Ginny Cox's face, adding to the fire of its sternness.</p> + +<p>"Girls——" she spread out her hands commandingly, "I don't know what +<i>you</i> think—but <i>I</i> think Jerry Travis is the best ever at Lincoln! +She's made me show up like a bad old copper penny 'longside of her. A +year ago I could have taken this old Award without a flicker of my +littlest eyelash, but just <i>knowing</i> her makes it—impossible! Now—what +shall we do?"</p> + +<p>Jerry's remonstrance—a little quivery, because she was deeply moved by +Ginny's unexpected tribute—was drowned out in a general assent and a +clamorous approval of Ginny's words.</p> + +<p>"I know——" declared Isobel, feeling that, because she was a Senior, +she must straighten out this tangle. "Let's tell Uncle Johnny all about +it." Uncle Johnny—to whom had been carried every hurt, every problem +since baby days.</p> + +<p>The others agreed—"He's a trustee, anyway," Gyp explained—though just +how much a trustee had to do with these complicated questions of school +honor none of them knew.</p> + +<p>And, as though Uncle Johnny always sprang up from the earth at the very +instant his girls needed him, he came up the winding drive in his red +roadster. They hailed him. He brought the car to a quick stop.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Johnny, we want you to decide something for us! Please get out +and come over here."</p> + +<p>He stared at the serious faces. What tragedy had shadowed the customary +gladness of the last day of school? He let them lead him to the old elm.</p> + +<p>"If you'll please sit down and—and pretend you're <i>not</i>—our uncle but +sort of a—a judge—and listen, we'll tell you."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," Uncle Johnny murmured weakly, sitting down on the slope. +"This is bad for rheumatism and gray trousers but—I'll listen."</p> + +<p>Isobel began the story with the building of the snowman; Gyp took it up. +Dramatically, with an eloquence reminiscent of that meeting of the +Ravens when the ill-fated lot had fallen to Jerry, she explained how +"for the honor of the school" Jerry had shouldered Ginny's punishment. +Peggy Lee interrupted to say that she thought Miss Gray had made an +awful fuss about nothing, but Ginny hushed her quickly. Then the story +came to the winning of the Award.</p> + +<p>"Two points—Jerry only needed two points. And she lost ten as a +punishment about the snowman. Don't you see—she's really the winner?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny had listened to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he +was tortured with the desire to laugh. But he could not affront these +girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they +called honor. "Oh, youth—youth!" he thought, loving them the more for +their precious earnestness.</p> + +<p>"And—it's <i>such</i> a mix-up, we don't know what to do. If I knew who had +given the prize I'd go straight to him," exclaimed Ginny bravely.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny straightened his immaculately gray-trousered legs and laid +his straw hat down on the grass.</p> + +<p>"If that'll help things any—I'm he," he explained with a little +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"You? You? Really—Uncle Johnny?" came in an excited chorus.</p> + +<p>"Yes, me," with a fine scorn for grammar. "I'm the one who's to blame +for all the carrots," pinching Gyp's cheek. "But you <i>have</i> sort of +mixed things up."</p> + +<p>"But we <i>had</i> to win that basketball game," cried Gyp, "and we couldn't +unless Ginny played."</p> + +<p>"Yes—you had to win the basketball game," he nodded with a judicious +appreciation.</p> + +<p>"You see, Lincoln got the cup for the series."</p> + +<p>"And Jerry paid the price—yes."</p> + +<p>"For the honor of the school!"</p> + +<p>"Then—I'm afraid this is the last payment. You see, girlies, everything +we do—no matter what it is—is fraught with consequences. If I were to +go over to yonder lake and throw in a pebble—what would we see? Little +ripples circling wider and wider—further and further. That's like +life—our everyday actions are so many pebbles—we have to accept the +ripples. It's sometimes hard—but I guess Jerry sees the truth."</p> + +<p>There was no doubt from the expression of Jerry's face but that she saw +the truth—Uncle Johnny's homely simile had made it very clear.</p> + +<p>"But <i>I</i> won't take it—that wouldn't be fair." It was the new Ginny who +spoke. "So it'll go to Dana King."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it will go to Dana King." Uncle Johnny was serious now. "Ginny +should not have accepted Jerry's sacrifice. Girls, there's a simple +little thing called 'right' that we find in our hearts if we search +that's finer than even the precious honor of your school—and Gyp, you +speak very truly when you say that <i>that</i> is something you must +valiantly always uphold. Now if you'll let me tell this story of yours +to the committee I think it can all be straightened out—and we'll feel +better all around."</p> + +<p>"And I'm glad it's Dana King," exclaimed Peggy Lee. "Garrett said he had +had to give up his plans to go to college next fall and he was terribly +disappointed and now maybe he won't have to——"</p> + +<p>Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind +Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled—in youth the sun is always so +happily close behind all the little clouds—the girls' spirits went +forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, +the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior +bouquets—the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of +girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school +life—graduates.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny watched his girls join others and troop away, with light +step, heads high. He chuckled, though behind it was a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"Doc, my boy, you were right—it <i>has</i> made me ten years younger to mix +up with these youngsters."</p> + +<p>As he turned to go into the building he met Barbara Lee coming out. He +suddenly remembered that the business of the Award had to do with +Barbara Lee—somehow, he almost always had, nowadays, to consult her +about something! Very sweetly she went back with him to her office. He +told her what the girls had told him. She listened with triumph in her +face.</p> + +<p>"I <i>knew</i> Jerry Travis did not do that. But, oh, aren't they funny?" +However, her tone said that these "funny" girls were very dear to her. +"It will take something very real out of my life when I leave Lincoln."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" John Westley's voice rang abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Of course—you haven't heard. I have had a wonderful offer from a big +export house in San Francisco. It's the same firm to which I expected to +go last summer—before I came here. You see the road I chose to climb to +the stars wasn't entirely along—physical training. My last year in +college I specialized in export work. There was a fascination in it to +me—it's such a <i>growing</i> thing, such a challenging work, and it carries +one into new and untried fields. There's an element of adventure in +it——" her eyes glistened. "I shall spend a year at the main office, +then they're going to send me into China—because I can speak the +Chinese language."</p> + +<p>John Westley stared at her—she seemed like such a slip of a girl.</p> + +<p>"And mother is so much better now that there is no reason why I cannot +go."</p> + +<p>Though they had yet to straighten out the matter of the Award she quite +involuntarily held out her hand as she spoke, and John Westley took it +in both of his.</p> + +<p>"I hope this—<i>is</i> the road to the stars." That did not sound properly +congratulatory, so he added, lamely: "I'm glad—if you want to go. But +what will we do without you here?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>COMMENCEMENT</h3> + + +<p>"Commencements——" declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like +weddings—all sort of weepy."</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> know of weddings, little one?" from Graham.</p> + +<p>"I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always +crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried +herself!"</p> + +<p>"Did you cry, mother?" asked Tibby curiously.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did—really. And I cried at my Commencement. +There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's +Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really <i>was</i> the +end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over—then, I +remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress—we wore +organdie then, too, girls—with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm +and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a +rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back. +So I cried—for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else +to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid—to +look ahead into life——"</p> + +<p>"But there was father—you knew him then, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes—there was father. I +said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was +married—and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy—but I knew +I was going away forever from my girlhood."</p> + +<p>"Mother——" protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I +wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day +exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had +given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be +worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to +be <i>married</i>——"</p> + +<p>"Darling"—and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers—"we leave our +childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always +there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying +there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth +we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears—tears that sweeten and +strengthen the spirit, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad <i>I</i> have two more years at Highacres," cried Gyp, +looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face.</p> + +<p>"And <i>I'm</i> glad," Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to +college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't +be Amy Mathers for <i>anything</i>. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of +all she's going to do next winter—such <i>empty</i> things!" Isobel, in her +scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do +just what Amy Mathers was planning to do!</p> + +<p>"Well,"—Graham stretched his arms—"school's all right but <i>I'm</i> mighty +glad vacation has come."</p> + +<p>Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day +exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All +through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness +the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not +thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn, +until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the +school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school. +A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates. +Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award—to Dana King. A murmur had +swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records, +the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis. +Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's +hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd +do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and +had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant +a lot to him—for it made college possible."</p> + +<p>It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining +hill from which paths diverged—attractive paths that beckoned; that +precious word college—Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along +that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's +had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than +the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow, +little path, and led straight away from Highacres—but it led to +Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought +that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in +a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart—and Gyp and Isobel +would be with her.</p> + +<p>The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class +was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls +in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the +lapels of their coats.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew," she cried in +the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you +all—but it would muss you dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any <i>dirt</i> on me," exclaimed +Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing.</p> + +<p>"Am <i>I</i> all right, mother?" begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy +white.</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a +flower in <i>his</i> buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give +the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket.</p> + +<p>"A little graduating gift for my Bonnie." It was a circlet pin +of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of +her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things +eternal—everlasting—never ending. That's like my faith in you." He +lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on, +now—everybody ready?"</p> + +<p>If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have +noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's +manner—a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has +girded one's self for a great deed.</p> + +<p>He <i>had</i> made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had +been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had +haunted him—thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in +her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened +his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really +meant, "What will <i>I</i> do without you?"</p> + +<p>Absurd—he tried to reason the whole thing calmly—absurd that this slip +of a girl, who knew <i>Chinese</i>, had become necessary to his happiness! +How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that—and he +was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away—and he could not +<i>let</i> her go away.</p> + +<p>So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John +Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was +asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me—if I tell +her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears +with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought +that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth +it seemed like ninety.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell her—just the same," was his final determination; she was on +her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with +a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years.</p> + +<p>From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces—and +saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness +and a beauty of thought that was inspired—not by the detached group of +graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with +a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the +others and bring them very close.</p> + +<p>"Loyalty" was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest +ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen."</p> + +<p>After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a +gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, +soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring +gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which +decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the +June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth. +More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with +reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the +promise of their day, stood at the start——</p> + +<p>Then the school sang their Alma Mater—the undergraduates singing the +first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar +notes rang with a truer, braver cadence—one voice, clearer than the +others, broke suddenly with feeling.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it all perfectly <i>beautiful</i>?" cried Gyp as the audience moved +slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't <i>tell</i> which was best +of the program and it <i>was</i> sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny +<i>splendid</i>? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was +just sick over her dress—it was so plain—and she looked as lovely as +<i>any</i> of the others. Oh, goodness, <i>think</i> how you'd feel if we were +graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's +Barbara Lee, let's <i>hug</i> her—think how <i>dreadful</i> to have her go away. +And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry——" Gyp ended her outburst +by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders.</p> + +<p>John Westley advanced upon them—with the strange new look still in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Gyp—you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness." He tried to make his tone +light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a +book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little, +Barbara Lee walked away with him.</p> + +<p>"Well, I never——" declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of +saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and +Barbara Lee.</p> + +<p>John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing +in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he +told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart. +There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that +brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips.</p> + +<p>"I wanted you to know," he finished, simply. "I don't suppose—what I +can offer—can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid +dreams—but, I wanted you to know that you have——"</p> + +<p>"There's more than <i>one</i> way to the stars——" she interrupted, lifting +glowing eyes to his.</p> + +<p>Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she +remembered Uncle Johnny.</p> + +<p>"Do you s'pose they're in the library <i>yet</i>?"</p> + +<p>She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To +their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing +looking out of the window—with their hands clasped.</p> + +<p>Gyp coughed—a cough that was really a funny sputter.</p> + +<p>"Did—did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny turned—without a blush.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hello</i>, Gyp!" (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find +the book—because I wasn't really after a book. But I <i>did</i> find what I +wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your +Barbara Lee is <i>not</i> going away?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>CRAIG WINTON</h3> + + +<p>"Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a" echoed through the wooded slopes of Kettle. Startled, +birds winged away from the treetops, little wild creatures skurried +through the undergrowth, yet in the care-free, silvery tinkle of those +merry voices there was no note to alarm.</p> + +<p>Jerry was leading Isobel and Gyp down the trail from Rocky Top. Baskets, +swinging from their shoulders, told of the jolly day's outing. Isobel +and Gyp were dressed in khaki middies and short skirts; Isobel's hair +was drawn back simply from her face and bound with a bright red ribbon; +Gyp's cheeks were tanned a ruddy brown, against which her lips shone +scarlet. Jerry wore the boyish outfit in which John Westley had found +her. Three happier, merrier girls could not have been found the world +over.</p> + +<p>A week—a week of hourly wonders, had passed since the girls had arrived +at Sunnyside with Uncle Johnny. To Jerry the homecoming was even sweeter +than she had dreamed. And to find her precious mother "exactly" the +same, she whispered in the privacy of a close hug, dispelled a little +fear that had tormented her.</p> + +<p>"Why, darling, did you think <i>I'd</i> be different?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know——" Jerry had colored, but tightened the clasp of her +arms. "It's been so dreadfully long! I thought maybe—I'd forgotten——"</p> + +<p>And Little-Dad had not changed a bit, nor the house, nor the garden, nor +Bigboy—not a thing, Jerry had found on an excited round. The old lilac +bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still +daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves +marked a row of onions just where her onions had always +grown—Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown +bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room, +softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere. +Her own little room was just as she had left it. Oh, the wonder, the joy +of coming back! How different it would have been if there <i>had</i> been any +change. What if Sweetheart—she rushed headlong to hug her mother again.</p> + +<p>Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were +genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle +caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from +his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the +trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries, +lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together +these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before. +To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant +summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist.</p> + +<p>And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all +through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her +mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother +alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to +know—concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked +to think it all over again, herself—those first days of school, the +classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that +never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two +"real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden +pipes—only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had +discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school, +school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big +girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying, +rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there lingered a +furtive questioning. Jerry, reveling in her own happiness, did not +realize that her mother was watching her every expression with the +anguishing fear that her Jerry might have changed. And she <i>had</i> +changed; she had grown, though she was still as straight as one of +Kettle's young fir trees; her winter's experience had left its mark on +her sunny face in a new firmness of the lips, a thoughtfulness behind +the shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"Will these new friends, Jerry, these fine times you have had make you +love Sunnyside less—or be discontented here?" Her mother had +interrupted her flood of confidences to say.</p> + +<p>Jerry stared in such astonishment that her mother laughed, a shaky +laugh, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear, remember you are only Jerauld Travis of Kettle +Mountain, and your life must lie just here. Oh, my precious, I thank God +I have you back!" she added with an intensity of emotion that startled +and puzzled Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, honest truly there's never been a moment when I wasn't +glad I was only Jerauld Travis, and I wouldn't trade places with a soul, +only——" and Jerry could not finish, for she did not know just what she +wanted to say. She was oddly disturbed. Did her mother begrudge her +those happy weeks at Highacres? Had she been afraid of something? And +<i>was</i> she the same Jerry who had wished on the Wishing-rock to just +<i>see</i> the world which lay beyond her mountain? Didn't she want to go +away again—sometime, to college? And what would her mother say if she +told her that?</p> + +<p>Jerry managed to lock away these tormenting thoughts while she and the +girls were roaming Kettle. Certainly there was not a shadow in the face +she lifted now to the caress of the mountain breeze nor in the voice +that caroled its "Ka-a-a-a-a" and laughed as the echoes answered.</p> + +<p>From the Witches' Glade where the trail sloped down between white +birches, the girls ran fleetly, leaped the little gate through the +fringe of fir trees and, laughing and panting, tumbled upon the veranda +of the bungalow straight into Uncle Johnny's arms!</p> + +<p>Uncle Johnny had only stopped at Kettle long enough to unload his girls +and their baggage, then he had hurried on to Boston to consult the +lawyers who were tracing Craig Winton. He had not expected to return for +three or four weeks. "Not until I have this thing off my mind," he had +explained to Isobel and Gyp.</p> + +<p>Isobel, though she now looked at it from another angle, still thought it +very foolish to pursue the search for this Craig Winton. The Boston men +had reported that their search had led them to a blank wall and that +there was little use spending more money on it. But in spite of this, +Uncle Johnny had persisted in going ahead on some clue of his own and +wasting precious time away from Barbara Lee. Both Isobel and Gyp, from +thinking that no woman in the world was good enough for Uncle Johnny, +had now veered around to the happy conviction that heaven had patterned +Barbara Lee especially for Uncle Johnny's pleasure. They beamed upon the +engagement with such approval that even Uncle Johnny, head over heels in +love as he was, grew a little embarrassed by their enthusiasm. Gyp also +became reconciled to the school library as a setting for the proposal +and declared that, thereafter, the library at Highacres would be +enshrined in her heart as something other than a room to "make one's +head ache." But both girls were disgusted that Uncle Johnny could +cheerfully leave the lady of his choice and go off on a search that +appeared so useless! It was contrary to all their rules of romance.</p> + +<p>Something in Uncle Johnny's face and his unexpected appearance drew an +exclamation from each of the girls. Almost in the same voice, with no +more greeting than to vigorously grasp him by shoulder and arm, they +cried: "Did you find her? Have you come to stay?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated just a moment and glanced questioningly at Mrs. Travis. +Then for the first time the girls noticed that Mrs. Travis was very +pale, that her eyes burned dark against the whiteness of her skin as +though she had been racked by a great agitation and her hands clasped +tightly the back of a chair. She nodded to John Westley.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my search is ended. You see I had the right clue—though it was +only the mention of a pair of eyes. Do you remember in Uncle Peter's +letter about Craig Winton's eyes? 'They were glowing like they were +lighted within.' Well, have you ever seen a pair of eyes like that? I +have—only where Craig Winton's were sad with disappointment, these +others glow from the pure joy of being alive——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Jerry?</i>" interrupted Gyp, in a queer, tangled voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Jerauld."</p> + +<p>"<i>Oh-h!</i>"</p> + +<p>The girls stared at Jerry and Jerry stared at John Westley. Was he just +joking? How <i>could</i> it be? She turned to her mother. Her mother nodded +again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, you are Jerauld Winton. But—we gave you your stepfather's +name—he was so good to us!"</p> + +<p>In that moment of unutterable surprise Jerry's loyal little heart went +out quickly to Little-Dad.</p> + +<p>"Oh, even if he <i>is</i> a stepfather I love him just the same!" she +exclaimed, wishing he was there that she might hug him.</p> + +<p>"You see, beginning at this end made my search quicker. It was hindered +a little, though, because the county courthouse at Waytown, where the +records of Jerry's birth and Craig Winton's death were filed, burned a +few years ago with everything in it. But I stumbled on an old codger who +used to be postmaster at Waytown and he told me more in a few moments +than all the Boston detectives had found in months. I went on to Boston +to interview those old friends the lawyers there had found and then came +back."</p> + +<p>There was a puzzled look on each face. Hesitatingly, Jerry put the +question that was in each mind.</p> + +<p>"But, mother, why didn't you ever tell? Were you—ashamed?"</p> + +<p>Her mother's face flared with color. She stepped forward and laid an +entreating hand on Jerry's. "Oh, no—<i>no</i>!" she cried. "You must not +think that—no one must. He—your father—was the finest man that ever +lived. But he made me promise, when you were a wee, wee baby, that I +would try to protect you from the bitterness of the world that +had—broken his heart. Oh, he died of a broken heart, a broken spirit. +He lived in his dreams, his inventions were a part of him—like his +right arm! When they failed he suffered cruelly. Then he had one that he +knew was good. But——" she stopped abruptly, remembering that these +people were Westleys. "But he could never have been happy. He was not +practical or—or sensible. His brain wore out his body—it was always, +always working along one line. And before he—died, he seemed to have +the fear that you might grow up to be like him—'a puppet for the +thieves to fleece and feed upon,' he used to say. After he—died, we +stayed on in Dr. Travis' cabin, where he had sheltered and cared for +your father. He moved down into the village but, oh, he was so good to +us! When, two years later I married him and we built this home, I vowed +that I would keep only the blessed peace of Sunnyside for you. So I +never told you of your own father and those dreadful years of poverty. +But I was not <i>ashamed</i>!"</p> + +<p>Jerry, not knowing exactly why, put one arm around her mother's shoulder +in a protecting manner. "Poor, brave Sweetheart," she whispered, laying +her cheek against her mother's arm.</p> + +<p>Isobel and Gyp were held silent by a disturbing sense of embarrassment. +That it should have been Jerry's father whom their Uncle Peter had +"fleeced"—the horrible word which had slipped reminiscently from Mrs. +Travis' lips burned in their ears! But a sudden delight finally broke +loose Gyp's tongue.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Jerry</i>, isn't it <i>exciting</i> to think we've been hunting everywhere +and all the time it's <i>you</i>! I'm glad—'cause it sort of makes you a +relation." And her logic was so extremely stretched that everyone +laughed.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you got the money than anyone in the world," added Isobel.</p> + +<p>The money—Jerry had not thought of that! Her face flushed scarlet, then +paled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want it," she cried. "You've done so much for me."</p> + +<p>"My dear," Uncle Johnny's voice was very business-like. "It is something +you have not the right to decline, because it was given by a dying man +to purchase a peace of mind for his last moment on earth. And now let me +look you over, Jerry-girl." He tilted her chin and studied her face. +Then he glanced approvingly down her slim length, smiling at her boyish +garments. "I guess my experiment hasn't hurt you," he said, though no +one there knew what he meant.</p> + +<p>The evening was very exciting—why would it not be when Jerry had found +the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right in her very own lap? +Uncle Johnny stayed on overnight; some repairs to a tire were necessary +before he started homeward.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember what you said once, Jerry, when I asked you what you +would do if you had a lot of money?" Gyp had asked as they sat out on +the veranda watching the stars. "And you said you'd go to school as long +as ever you could and then——"</p> + +<p>Jerry had raised suddenly to an upright position from the step where she +was curled.</p> + +<p>"Oh"—she cried, her voice deep with delight—"now I can go back to +Highacres——"</p> + +<p>Then, at the very moment of her ecstasy, she was strangely disturbed by +the quick touch of her mother's hand laid on her shoulder.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>HER MOTHER'S STORY</h3> + + +<p>Sometime after she had gone to sleep, Jerry wakened suddenly with the +disturbing conviction that someone needed her. At the same moment her +ear caught a sound that made her slip her bare feet quickly to the floor +and stand, listening. It had been a soft step beneath her window—a +little sigh.</p> + +<p>In a flash Jerry sped down the narrow stairway, past the open door of +the room where Little-Dad lay snoring, and out across the veranda. In +the dim light of the moon that hung low in the arc of the blue-black +sky, Jerry made out the figure of her mother, standing near the rough +bench that overlooked the valley.</p> + +<p>"Mother!"</p> + +<p>"Jerry, child, and in your bare feet!"</p> + +<p>"I heard you out here. Isn't it dreadfully late? Can't you sleep? +Mother, look at me," for Mrs. Westley had kept her face averted. +"Mother, darling, why do you look so—sort of—sad?" Jerry's voice was +reproachful. "We're so happy now that we are together, aren't we? And it +<i>will</i> be nice to have lots of things and Little-Dad won't ever have to +worry and——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Travis lifted her hand suddenly and laid it across Jerry's lips. +"Child, I am not sad. I have been out here fighting away forever the +foolish fears that have stalked by my side since you were a very little +girl. Some day, when you're a mother, you'll know how I've felt—how +I've dreaded facing this moment! How often I've sat with you and watched +the baby robins make their first flight from the nest and have laughed +at the fussy mother robin scolding and worrying up in a nearby +branch——"</p> + +<p>"But, mamsey, you've always told me how the mother robin <i>pushes</i> the +little ones out of the nest to make them <i>know</i> that they can fly!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Travis accepted the rebuke in silence. Jerry slipped her hand into +her mother's. Her mother held it close.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, dear, I've never told you much about myself because I could not +do that without telling you of your own father. I was a very lonely +little girl; I had no brothers or sisters—no near relatives. My mother +died when I was eight years old, and a housekeeper—good soul—brought +me up. My father was a professor of chemistry in Harvard, as you know, +and he was a queer man and his friends were peculiar, too—not the sort +that was much company for a young girl. But I was very fond of my father +and I was very content with my simple life until I met Craig Winton. He +was so different from anyone else who had ever crossed our threshold +that I fell in love with him at once. My father died suddenly and Craig +Winton asked me to marry him. It was the maddest folly—he had nothing +except his inventive genius and he should never have tied himself to +domestic responsibilities; they were always—such as they were—like a +dreadful yoke to his spirit. But we were happy, oh, we were <i>happy</i> in a +wonderful, unreal way. Sometimes we didn't have enough to eat, but he +always had so much faith in what he was going to do that <i>that</i> somehow, +kept us going. But when his faith began to die—it was dreadful. It was +as though some hidden poison was killing him, right before my eyes."</p> + +<p>"What made his faith die?" asked Jerry, curiously.</p> + +<p>"Because he grew to distrust his fellowmen. That second visit to Peter +Westley——" Mrs. Travis spoke quickly to hide her bitterness. "He was +so sure that what he had made was good—an inventor has always, my dear, +an irrational love for the thing he has created—and to have it +<i>spurned</i>! He was supersensitive, super—everything. Then my own health +went to pieces. I suppose I simply was not getting enough to eat to give +me the strength to meet the mental strain under which I had to live—and +you were coming. From his last visit to Peter Westley he returned with a +little money, but he was as a crushed, broken man—his bitterness had +unbalanced his mind. He said that it was for my health that he came away +with me, but I knew that it was to get away from the world that he +hated—and to hide his failure! Your Little-Dad took us in. He knew at +once that your father was a very sick man and he brought him to his +cabin here on Kettle. But even here your father suffered, and after you +were born he feared for you. He was obsessed with the thought that <i>you</i> +had all life to face——"</p> + +<p>"How dreadfully sorry you must have felt for him," whispered Jerry, +shyly, trying to make it all seem true.</p> + +<p>"I felt sorry for him, child, not that he had been so disappointed but +because he had not the strength to rally from it. I don't believe God +made him that way; I think he sacrificed too much of himself to his +genius. This world we live in demands so much of us—such <i>different</i> +things, that, if we are to meet everything squarely, we cannot develop +one side of our minds and let the other side go. I am telling you all +this, Jerry, that you may understand how I have felt—about you. The +months after your father died were sort of a blank to me—I lived on +here because I had nowhere else to go. Gradually my gratitude to John +Travis turned to real affection—not like what I had given your father, +but something quite as deep. And the years I have lived with him here +have been very happy—as though my poor little ship had found the still +waters of an inland stream after having been tossed on a stormy sea. And +I've tried to make myself think that in these still waters I could keep +<i>you</i> always, that you would grow up here and—perhaps—marry +someone——" she laughed. "Mothers always dream way ahead, darling. +But as you grew older I could see that that was not going to be easy. +You've so quickly outgrown everything I can give you—or that +anyone—here—can; you have grown so curious, your mind is always +reaching out. What is here, what is there, what is this, where is +that—questions like these always on your tongue! And you <i>are</i> like +your father—very."</p> + +<p>Jerry shivered the least little bit, perhaps from the night air, warm as +it was, perhaps from the thought that she was like poor, poor Craig +Winton, who did not seem at all like a real father.</p> + +<p>In a moment her mother had wrapped her in the soft shawl she carried. +Something in the loving touch of her hands broke the spell of unreality +that had held Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, mamsey," she whispered, cuddling close, "if you +felt like—<i>that</i>—and worried, why did you let me go away?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my child," there was something triumphant in her mother's +voice, "some inner sense made me believe that though you look like your +father and act like him in many ways, you have a nature and a character +quite of your own. I tried to put away the fears I had had which I told +myself were foolish and morbid. John Westley's arguments helped me. I +knew immediately that he was related to the Peter Westley who had +crushed your father, but I felt certain he knew nothing of it—and I was +glad; to bury the past entirely was the only way to bury forever the +bitterness that had killed your father. And when John Westley made the +offer to give you a year of school, I thought it was only justice! I had +known school life in a big city where I had many schoolmates and I lived +for several years in the shadow of a great university, though the life +in it only touched me indirectly, and when the opportunity opened, I +wanted you to have the same experience; I felt it might solve the +problem that confronted me. And I told myself that I was <i>sure</i> of you +that you could go away to school, go anywhere, and come back again and +be my same girl! Jerry, these people have been very, very good to you; +out of pure generosity they have given you a great deal, do you now—now +that you know the truth—feel any bitterness toward them?"</p> + +<p>Never had Jerry associated Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley, nor the +younger Westleys, nor the charming, hospitable home, with the Peter +Westley she had pictured from Gyp's vivid descriptions. And, too, +remembering the pathetic loneliness of the old man's last days, she felt +nothing but pity.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she answered, softly, decidedly. "Anyway, he made up for +everything he'd done when he gave beautiful Highacres to Lincoln +School," she added, loyally.</p> + +<p>Then Jerry fell silent. "I was sure of you," her mother's words echoed. +Had she not glimpsed more, in those months at Highacres, than her mother +dreamed? A promise of what college might hold for her—new worlds to +conquer?</p> + +<p>"Mother, am—am I the—same girl?" She put the question slowly.</p> + +<p>"No, Jerry—and that's what I've been fighting out here—all by myself. +For I realize that it was only selfishness made me dread finding a +change! A mother's selfishness! That you should grow and go on and +forward, even though you leave me behind, darling, I know must be my +dearest wish. But oh, my dear, I understand how the poor mother robin +feels just before she shoves her babies out of the nest! For don't you +think <i>she</i> hates an empty nest as much as any human mother? Do you +remember the little story I used to tell you when you were small enough +to cuddle your whole self on my lap? How yours and my love was a +beautiful, sunny garden where you dwelt and that the garden had a very +high wall around it?"</p> + +<p>"I love that story, mamsey. I told it once to Mrs. Westley and she loved +it, too. And you used to say that there was a gate in the wall with a +latch but the latch was quite high so that when I was little I could not +find it!"</p> + +<p>"And then you grew bigger and your fingers could reach the latch—you +wanted to open it to go out and see what was outside. I had made the +little garden as beautiful as I knew how and it was very sunny and the +wall was so high that it shut out all trouble—but you wanted so much to +open the gate that I knew I must let you!"</p> + +<p>"And then I went away to Highacres——" put in Jerry, loving the story +as much as ever.</p> + +<p>"And I was alone in the garden our love had built, but I was not +lonely—I <i>will</i> not be lonely, for—wherever you go—you are my girl +and I love you and you love me! <i>Nothing</i> can change that. And I shall +leave the gate open—it will always be open!" She said it slowly; her +story was finished.</p> + +<p>Jerry's face was transfigured. "You mean—you <i>mean</i>"—she spoke +softly—"that—if I want to go—back to Highacres—you'll <i>let me</i>? I +can <i>go to college</i>? Oh, mamsey, you're wonderful! Mothers <i>are</i> the +grandest things. And the gate will always be open so's I can always come +back? And you won't be lonely for I'll always love you most in the world +of anybody or anything. And when I'm very grown-up and can't go to +school any more we'll travel, won't we? You and me and Little-Dad—won't +we, mamsey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear." But the mother's eyes smiled in the darkness—she was +thinking of the empty nest.</p> + +<p>Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in +it, like my—father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that +he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall <i>never</i> be like +that! And it's dreadful"—she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit +valley—"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to +school. Why, I'm the very, very richest girl in the world!" Then she +blushed. "I don't mean <i>that</i> money, mamsey, I mean having you +and—Sunnyside and Kettle and just knowing about—our garden!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>THE WISHING-ROCK</h3> + + +<p>Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its +mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a +momentous day—momentous because so many things had been decided and +such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with +Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, +then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was +going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett, +Renée La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee +was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed +upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile.</p> + +<p>"You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and +then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and——"</p> + +<p>Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a +chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed +an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little +tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted +it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he +yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately—he knew +just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a +sewing-machine.</p> + +<p>But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry +should go back to Highacres——</p> + +<p>"<i>Pinch</i> me, Gypsy Editha Westley—pinch me <i>hard</i>!" she cried as she +sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And <i>really, truly</i> +going back to Highacres! I <i>can't</i> be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to +sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver +ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them +because <i>they</i> could go and <i>I</i> couldn't. But it used to be fun +pretending I knew just what the world was like."</p> + +<p>Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been +anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being +places and seeing things yourself."</p> + +<p>Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the +great rock.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose it really <i>is</i> a 'wishing-rock'?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I +pretended there were fairies—fern fairies and grass fairies and tree +fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for +things that weren't—here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did +not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it +seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock. +Sometimes the wishes came true—when they were just little things."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's funny if it wasn't <i>some</i> sort of magic that made Uncle +Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you +were wishing! And your wish came <i>true</i>. And if he hadn't—why, you'd +never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that +secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known +that you were <i>really</i> Jerauld Winton. Oh, it <i>has</i> magic!"</p> + +<p>Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile—after all, more +than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the +little things which shape our living!</p> + +<p>"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish! +It's so still you could 'most believe there <i>were</i> fairies hiding +'round. I'll wish first."</p> + +<p>Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of +the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial +fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral +note.</p> + +<p>"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball +team—I wish <i>that</i> dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the +college entrance exams.—I don't care how much. I wish to get through +college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly +spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a +tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has +asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry him and have six children and +I'll bring them to the mountains to live. Then"—she paused for +breath—"if I'm not asking too much I wish that my hair'll get curly."</p> + +<p>"Did I remember everything?" she asked anxiously, jumping down from the +rock. "Who's next?"</p> + +<p>Jerry politely waved Isobel to the top.</p> + +<p>Isobel laughed in her effort to frame all that she wanted to wish.</p> + +<p>"I just want to be the most famous decorator in the country. I want to +have women coming to me from all over, begging me to do their houses. +And if the women are cross and ugly I'll make everything pink to cheer +them up and if they're smug and conceited I'll make their houses dull +gray, and if they are too frivolous I'll make things a spiritual blue. +Oh, it will be <i>fun</i>! And I want to go to Paris to study just as soon as +I get through college, and I don't want to get married for a long, long +time, maybe never."</p> + +<p>It was Jerry's turn. Isobel and Gyp stood aside. Jerry's eyes were +shining—it <i>was</i> fun to pretend that, maybe, a shadowy, spectral Fate +waited there in the valley to hear what they were saying!</p> + +<p>"I wish—oh, it seems as though just going back to Highacres is all +anyone <i>could</i> wish! I want to go to school as long as ever I can and +then I want to go all around the world, and then I want to study to be a +doctor like Little-Dad and take care of sick people and make them well, +so they can enjoy things. And I want to marry a man who's jolly and +always young-acting and loves dogs and has light brown hair and a very +straight nose and——"</p> + +<p>"Jerry Travis, that's just like Dana King," cried Gyp, accusingly.</p> + +<p>Jerry flushed scarlet. "It isn't anything of the sort! I mean—can't +there be lots of men with light brown hair and straight noses—hundreds +of them? And anyway," loyalty blazed, "Dana King <i>is</i> the nicest boy +I've ever known!"</p> + +<p>"And he thinks <i>you're</i> the nicest girl," Gyp laughed back. "I know +it—he told Garrett Lee and Garrett told Peggy. So there——"</p> + +<p>"You've interrupted my wish and I don't know where I left off," Jerry +rebuked. "Oh, I wish most of all that I can always, no matter where I +am, come back to Sunnyside and Sweetheart and Little-Dad and—my garden! +There, I've wished everything!"</p> + +<p>The distant tinkle of a cowbell sounded faintly; a thrush sang; the sun, +dropping low toward the wooded crest of the opposite mountain, cast a +golden glow over valley and slope. The air was filled with the drowsy +hum and stirring of tiny unseen creatures, the birches that fringed the +glade leaned and whispered. The three girls sat silent, staring down +into the valley, each visioning a golden future of her own. But a +thoughtfulness shadowed the radiance of Jerry's face. Yesterday she had +been just Jerry Travis of Kettle, now she was another Jerry; on a page +far back in her life's book, opened to her, she had glimpsed the tragedy +of disappointment, of blighted hope, of defeat—her own young, undaunted +spirit cried out that none of this must come into <i>her</i> life! Or, if it +did, she must be strong to meet it——</p> + +<p>Gyp roused. For her the golden spell was broken. She yawned and +stretched.</p> + +<p>"Isn't school funny? You think you hate it and then when vacation comes +you keep thinking about going back. And you bury geometry and Cæsar +forever and try to forget them and then first thing you're thinking +about what you're going to take next year and whom you'll get and what +new girls will come and what sort of a team we'll have! We've just <i>got</i> +to train a forward who'll be as good as Ginny when she graduates and I +believe, Jerry Travis, you're <i>it</i>."</p> + +<p>Jerry and Isobel turned promptly from their dreaming.</p> + +<p>"I wonder who'll take Miss Gray's place—and Barbara Lee's——"</p> + +<p>"And, oh," Jerry hugged them both. "I'll be <i>there</i>! I'll be <i>there</i>! I +hated to <i>think</i> of your all going on without me. It would have broken +my heart! Dear old Highacres!"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"To thy golden founts of wisdom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alma Mater, guide our step——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>caroled the young voices, softly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_JANE_ABBOTT" id="BY_JANE_ABBOTT"></a>BY JANE ABBOTT</h2> + +<h3>HAPPY HOUSE</h3> + +<h3>A NOVEL</h3> + +<p>"There is something of Louisa May Alcott in the way Mrs. Abbott unfolds +her narrative and develops her ideals of womanhood; something refreshing +and heartening for readers surfeited with novels that are mainly devoted +to uncovering cesspools."—<i>Boston Herald.</i></p> + + +<h3>STORIES FOR GIRLS</h3> + +<h3>KEINETH</h3> + +<p>"'Keineth' is a life creation—within its covers the actual spirit of +youth. The book is of special interest to girls, but when a grown-up +gets hold of it there follows a one-session under the reading lamp with +'finis' at the end."—<i>Buffalo Times.</i></p> + +<h3>LARKSPUR</h3> + +<p>"Mrs. Abbott takes her story writing seriously and the standards she +sets up in the actions of her characters must help to shape the judgment +and ideals of those who read her books."—<i>Christian Endeavor World.</i></p> + + +<h3>HIGHACRES</h3> + +<p>"Saturated with the spirit of youth, and written in the happy vein +characteristic of Mrs. Abbott's previous stories and which is endearing +the author with her growing army of youthful readers."—<i>Brooklyn +Standard Union.</i></p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 29865-h.txt or 29865-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/8/6/29865">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/6/29865</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Highacres + + +Author: Jane Abbott + + + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [eBook #29865] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES*** + + +E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Mary Meehan, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 29865-h.htm or 29865-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29865/29865-h/29865-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29865/29865-h.zip) + + + + + +HIGHACRES + +by + +JANE D. ABBOTT + +Author of "Keineth," "Larkspur" and "Happy House" + +With Illustrations by Harriet Roosevelt Richards + + + + + + + +Philadelphia and London J. B. Lippincott Company + +Copyright, 1920, by J. B. Lippincott Company + +Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company +At the Washington Square Press +Philadelphia, U. S. A. + + + + + TO + THOSE DEAR CHUMS + + "WRITE A STORY ABOUT SCHOOL," YOU ASKED + ME. "WRITE A STORY IN WHICH THE HEROINE + HAS A MOTHER AND A FATHER--WE'RE SO + TIRED OF POOR ORPHANS," YOU BEGGED. I + HAVE TRIED TO DO IT, ASKING YOUR FORGIVENESS + FOR ONE LITTLE STEP-FATHER. TO + YOU I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY + + + + +[Illustration: AMID THE UNFORGETTABLE SHOUTS OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS SHE +SLID EASILY ON DOWN THE TRAIL] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. KETTLE MOUNTAIN + + II. SUNNYSIDE + + III. ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE + + IV. THE WESTLEYS + + V. JERRY'S WISH COMES TRUE + + VI. NEW FACES + + VII. HIGHACRES + + VIII. SCHOOL + + IX. THE SECRET DOOR + + X. THE DEBATE + + XI. AUNT MARIA + + XII. THE PARTY + + XIII. HASKIN'S HILL + + XIV. THE PRIZE + + XV. CUPID AND COMPANY + + XVI. FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL + + XVII. DISGRACE + + XVIII. THE RAVENS CLEAN THE TOWER + + XIX. THE LETTER + + XX. THE FAMILY COUNCILS + + XXI. POOR ISOBEL + + XXII. JERRY WINS HER WAY + + XXIII. THE THIRD VIOLINIST + + XXIV. PLANS + + XXV. THE LINCOLN AWARD + + XXVI. COMMENCEMENT + + XXVII. CRAIG WINTON + + XXVIII. HER MOTHER'S STORY + + XXIX. THE WISHING-ROCK + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Amid the unforgettable shouts of the boys and girls she slid easily on +down the trail + +She pointed down to the winding road + +One by one, quite breathless with excitement, they climbed to the tower +room + +Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal + + + + +HIGHACRES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +KETTLE MOUNTAIN + + +If John Westley had not deliberately run away from his guide that August +morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain, he would never have found +the Wishing-rock, nor the Witches' Glade, nor Miss Jerauld Travis. + +Even a man whose hair has begun to grow a little gray over his ears can +have moments of wildest rebellion against authority. John Westley had +had such; he had wakened very early that morning, had watched the sun +slant warmly across his very pleasant room at the Wayside Hotel and had +fiercely hated the doctor, back in the city, who had printed on a slip +of office paper definite rules for him, John Westley, aged thirty-five, +to follow; hated the milk and eggs that he knew awaited him in the +dining-room and hated, more than anything else, the smiling guide who +had been spending the evening before, just as he had spent every +evening, thinking out nice easy climbs that wouldn't tire a fellow who +was recuperating from a very long siege of typhoid fever! + +It had been so easy that it was a little disappointing to slip out of +the door opening from the big sun room at the back of the hotel while +the guide waited for him at the imposing front entrance. There was a +little path that ran across the hotel golf links on around the lake, +shining like a bright gem in the morning sun, and off toward Kettle +Mountain; feeling very much like a truant schoolboy, John Westley had +followed this path. A sense of adventure stimulated him, a pleasant +little breeze whipping his face urged him on. He stopped at a cottage +nestled in a grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to +wrap him a lunch to take with him up the trail. The good woman had +packed many a lunch for her husband, who was a guide (and a close friend +of the man who was cooling his heels at the hotel entrance), and she +knew just what a person wanted who was going to climb Kettle Mountain. +Three hours after, John Westley, very tired from his climb but not in +the least repentant of his disobedience, enjoyed immensely a long rest +with Mother Tilly's good things spread out on a rock at his elbow. + +At three o'clock John Westley realized that the trail he had chosen was +not taking him back to the village; at four he admitted he was lost. All +his boyish exhilaration had quite left him; he would have hugged his +despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of +the trail; he ached in every bone and could not get the thought out of +his head that a man could die on Kettle Mountain and no one would know +it for months! + +He chose the trails that went _down_ simply because his weary legs could +not _climb_ one foot more! And he had gone down such steep inclines that +he was positive he had descended twice the height of the mountain and +must surely come into some valley or other--then suddenly his foot +slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one +does on the ice--only much more softly--and slid on, down and down, +deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead +log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps, neatly +built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy +terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding +mountains and closed in on the other by leaning, whispering birches. + +It was not the amazing view off over the valley, nor the impact against +the old log that made his breath catch in his throat with a little +surprised sound--it was the sudden apparition of a slim creature +standing very straight on a huge rock! His first joyful thought was that +it was a boy--a boy who could lead him back to the Wayside Hotel, for +the youth wore soft leather breeches and a blouse, loosely belted at the +waist, woolen golf stockings and soft elkskin shoes, but when the head +turned, like a startled deer's, toward the unexpected sound, he saw, +with more interest than disappointment, that the boy was a girl! + +"How do you do?" he said, because her eyes told him very plainly that he +was intruding upon some pleasant occupation. "I'm very glad to see you +because, I must admit, I'm lost." + +The girl jumped down from her rock. She had an exceptionally pretty face +that seemed to smile all over. + +"Won't you come down?" she said graciously, as though she was the +mistress of Kettle Mountain and all its glades. + +Then John Westley did what in all his thirty-five years he had never +done before--he fainted. He made one little effort to rise and walk down +the rocky steps but instead he rolled in an unconscious heap right to +the girl's feet. + +He wakened, some moments later, to a consciousness of cool water in his +face and a pair of anxious brown eyes close to his own. He felt very +much ashamed--and really better for having given way! + +"Are you all right now?" + +"Yes--or I will be in a moment. Just give me a hand." + +He marveled at the dexterity with which she lifted him against her slim +shoulder. + +"Little-Dad's gone over to Rocky Point, but I knew what to do," she said +proudly. "I s'pose you're from Wayside?" + +He looked around. "Where _is_ Wayside?" + +She laughed, showing two rows of strong, white teeth. "Well, the way +Little-Dad travels it's hours away so that Silverheels has to rest +between going and coming, and Mr. Toby Chubb gets there in an hour with +his new automobile when it'll _go_, but if you follow the Sunrise trail +and then turn by the Indian Head and turn again at the Kettle's Handle +you'll come into the Sleepy Hollow and the Devil's Pass and----" + +John Westley clapped his hands to his head. + +"Good gracious, no wonder I got lost! And just where am I now?" + +"You're right on the other side of the mountain. Little-Dad says that if +a person could just bore right through Kettle you'd come out on the +sixth hole of the Wayside Golf course--only it'd be an awfully _long_ +bore." + +John Westley laughed hilariously. He had suddenly thought how carefully +his guide always planned _easy_ hikes for him. + +The girl went on. "But it's just a little way down this trail to +Sunnyside--that's where I live. Little-Dad's my father," she explained. + +"I'd rather believe that you're a woodland nymph and live in yonder +birch grove, but I suppose--your garments look so very man-made--that +you have a regular given-to-you-in-baptism name?" + +"I should say I had!" the girl cried in undisguised disgust. "_Jerauld +Clay Travis._ I _hate_ it. Nearly every girl I know is named something +nice--Rose and Lily and Clementina. It was cruel to name any child +J-e-r-a-u-l-d." + +"I think it's--nice! It's so--different." John Westley wanted to add +that it suited her because _she_ was different, but he hesitated; little +Miss Jerauld might misunderstand him. He thought, as he watched from the +corner of his eye, every movement of the slim, strong, boyish form, that +she was unlike any girl he had ever known, and, because he had three +nieces and they had ever so many friends, he really knew quite a bit +about girls. + +"Yes, it's--different," she sighed, unconscious of the thoughts that +were running through the man's head. Then she brightened, for even the +discomfiture of having to bear the name Jerauld could not long shadow +her spirit, "only no one ever calls me Jerauld--I'm always just Jerry." + +"Well, Miss Jerry, you can't ever know how glad I am that I met you! If +I hadn't, well, I guess I'd have perished on the face of Kettle +Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over at Wayside, and I can +swear I never before did anything so silly as to faint, only I've just +had a rather tough siege of typhoid." + +"Oh, you shouldn't have _tried_ to climb so far," she cried. "As soon as +you're rested you must go home with me. And you'll have to stay all +night 'cause Mr. Chubb's not back yet from Deertown and he won't drive +after dark." + +If John Westley had not been so utterly fascinated by his surroundings +and his companion, he might have tried immediately to pull himself +together enough to go on to Sunnyside; he was quite content, however, to +lean against a huge rock and "rest." + +"I'm trying to guess how old you are. And I thought you were a boy, too. +I'm glad you're not." + +"I'm 'most fourteen." Miss Jerry squared her shoulders proudly. "I guess +I do look like a boy. I wear this sort of clothes most of the time, +'cept when I dress up or go to school. You see I've always gone with +Little-Dad on Silverheels when he went to see sick people until I grew +too heavy and--and Silverheels got too old." She said it with deep +regret. "But I live--like this!" + +"And do you wander alone all over the mountain?" + +"Oh, no--just on this side of Kettle. Once a guide and a man from the +Wayside disappeared there beyond Sleepy Hollow and that's why they call +it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made me promise never to go beyond the turn +from Sunrise trail. I'd like to, too. But there are lots of jolly tramps +this side. This"--waving her hand--"is the Witches' Glade and +that"--nodding at the rock against which the man leaned--"is the +Wishing-rock." + +John Westley, who back home manufactured cement-mixers, suddenly felt +that he had wakened into a world of make-believe. + +He turned and looked at the rock--it was very much like a great many +other rocks all over the mountainside and yet--there _was_ something +different! + +Jerry giggled and clasped her very brown hands around her leather-clad +knees. + +"I name everything on this side--no one from Wayside ever comes +this way, you see. I've played here since I was ever so little. I've +always pretended that fairies lived in the mountains." She leveled +serious eyes upon him. "They _must_! You know it's _magic_ the way +things--_are_--here!" + +John Westley nodded. "I understand--you climb and you think you're on +top and then there's lots higher up and you slide down and you think +you're in the valley and you come out on a spot--like this--with all the +world below you still." + +"Mustn't it have been _fun_ to make it all?" Jerry's eyes gleamed. "And +such beautiful things grow everywhere and the colors are _so_ different! +And the woodsy glens and ravines--they're so mysterious. I've heard the +trees talk! And the brooks--why, they _can't_ be just nothing but +brooks, they're so--so--_alive_!" + +"Oh, yes," John Westley was plainly convinced. "Fairies _must_ live in +the mountains!" + +"Of course I know now--I'm fourteen--that there are no such things as +fairies but it's fun to pretend. But I still call this my Wishing-rock +and I come here and stand on it and wish--only there aren't so awfully +many things to wish for that you don't just ask Little-Dad for--big +things, you know." + +"Miss Jerry, you were wishing when I--arrived!" + +She colored. "I was. Little-Dad says I ought to be a very happy girl and +I am, but I guess everybody always has something real _big_ that they +think they want more than anything else." + +John Westley inclined his head gravely. "I guess everybody does, Jerry. +I think that's what keeps us going on in the race. Does it spoil your +wish--to tell about it?" + +"Oh, my, yes!" Then she laughed. "Only I suppose it couldn't because +there aren't really fairies." + +"What _were_ you wishing?" He asked it coaxingly, in his eyes a deep +interest. + +She hesitated, her dark eyes dreaming. "That I could just go on +along that shining white road--down there--around and around to--the +other side of the mountain!" She rose up on her knees and stretched +a bare arm down toward the valley. "I've always wished it since +the days when Little-Dad used to ride that way and leave me home +because it was too far. I know that everything that's the other +side of the mountain is--oh, lots _different_ from Miller's Notch +and--school--and--Sunnyside--and Kettle." Her voice was plaintively +wistful, her eyes shining. "I _know_ it's different. From up here I can +watch the automobiles come along and they always turn off and go around +the mountain and never come to Miller's Notch unless they get lost. And +the trains all go that way and--and it _must_ be different! It's like +the books I read. It's the _world_----" She sank back on her knees. +"Once I tried to walk and once I rode Silverheels, but I never seemed to +get to the real turn, it was so far and I was afraid. At sunset I look +at the colors and the little clouds in the sky and they look like +castles and I think it's the reflection of what's on the other side. +_That's_ what I was wishing." She turned serious eyes toward Westley. +"Is it dreadfully wicked? Little-Dad said I was discontented and +Sweetheart--that's mother--cried and hugged me as though she was +frightened. But some day I've just _got_ to go along that road." + +[Illustration: SHE POINTED DOWN TO THE WINDING ROAD] + +For some reason that was beyond even the analytical power of his trained +mind, John Westley was deeply stirred. Little Jerry, child of the +woods--he felt as her mother must have felt! There was a mystery about +the girl that held his curiosity; she could be no child of simple +mountain people. He rose from his position against the rock with +surprising agility. + +"If you'll give me a hand I'll stand on your rock and wish that your +wish may come true, if you want it so very much! But, maybe, child, +you'll find that what you have right here is far better than anything on +the other side of the mountain. Now, suppose you lead the way to +Sunnyside." + +Jerry sprang ahead eagerly. "And then you'll meet Sweetheart and +Little-Dad and Bigboy and Pepperpot!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SUNNYSIDE + + +Jerry had led her new friend only a little way down the +sharply-descending trail when suddenly the trees, which had crowded +thickly on either side, opened on a clearing where roses and hollyhocks, +phlox, sweet-william, petunias and great purple-hearted asters bloomed +in riotous confusion along with gold-tasseled corn, squash, beets and +beans. A vine-covered gateway led from this into the grassy stretch that +surrounded the low-gabled house. + +"_Hey-o!_ Sweetheart!" called Jerry in a clear voice. + +In answer came a chorus of joyful yelping. Around the corner dashed a +Llewellyn setter and a wiry-haired terrier, tumbling over one another in +their eagerness to reach their mistress; at the same moment a door +leading from the house to the garden opened and a slender woman came +out. + +John Westley knew at a glance that she was Jerry's mother, for she had +the same expression of sunniness on her lips; her hair, like Jerry's, +looked as though it had been burnished by the sun though, unlike Jerry's +clipped locks, it was softly coiled on the top of her finely-shaped +head. + +"This is my mother," announced Jerry in a tone that really said: "This +is the wisest, kindest, most beautiful lady in the whole wide world!" + +Though the dress that Mrs. Travis wore was faded and worn and of no +particular style, John Westley felt instinctively that she was an +unusual woman; in the graciousness of her greeting there was no +embarrassment. Only once, when John Westley introduced himself, was +there an almost imperceptible hesitation in her manner, then, just for +an instant, a startled look darkened her eyes. + +While Jerry, with affectionate admonishing, silenced her dogs, Mrs. +Travis led their guest toward the little house. She was deeply concerned +at his plight; he must not dream of attempting to return to Wayside +until he had rested--he must spend the night at Sunnyside and then in +the morning Toby Chubb could drive him over. Dr. Travis would soon be +back and he would be delighted to find that she and Jerry had kept him. + +"We do not meet many new people on this side of the mountain," she said, +smilingly. "You will be giving us a treat!" + +So deeply interested was John Westley in the Travis family and their +unusual home, tucked away on the side of the mountain, to all +appearances miles away from anyone or anything (though Jerry had pointed +out to him the trail down the hillside that led to Miller's Notch and +the school and the little church and was a mile shorter than going by +the road), that he forgot completely the alarm that must be upsetting +the entire management of the Wayside Hotel over the disappearance of a +distinguished guest. Indeed, at the very moment that he stepped across +the threshold into the sunlit living room of the Travis cottage, a +worried hotel manager was summoning by telegraph some of the most expert +guides of the state for a thorough search of the neighborhood, and, at +the same time, a New York newspaperman, at the Wayside for a vacation, +was clicking off to his city editor, from the town telegraph station, +the most lurid details of the tragedy. + +Sunnyside, John Westley knew at once, was a "hand-made" house; each foot +of it had been planned lovingly. Windows had been cut by no rule of +architecture but where the loveliest view could be had; doors seemed to +open just where one would want to go. The beams of the low ceiling and +the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a +piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside +had crept into and clung to the little house. A great fireplace crowned +the room. Before it now stretched a huge Maltese cat. And most +surprising of all--there were books everywhere, on shelves built in +every conceivable nook and corner, on the big table, on the arm of the +great chair drawn close to the west window. + +All of this John Westley took in, with increasing wonder, while Mrs. +Travis brought to him a glass of home-made wine. He drank it gratefully, +then settled back in his chair with a little contented laugh. + +"I'm beginning to feel--like Jerry--that Kettle Mountain is inhabited by +fairies and that I am in their stronghold!" + +But there was little suggestive of the fairy in Jerry as she tumbled +through the door at that moment, Pepperpot held high in her arms and +Bigboy leaping at her side. They rudely disturbed the Maltese--Dormouse, +Jerry called her--and then occupied in sprawling fashion the strip of +rug before the hearth. + +"Be _still_, Pepper! Shake hands with the gentleman, Bigboy. They're as +offended as can _be_ because I ran away without them," she explained to +John Westley. "Do you feel better now?" she asked, a little proprietary +note in her voice. + +"I do, indeed, and I'm glad, too, very glad, that I got lost." + +"And here comes Little-Dad up the trail! I'll tell him you're here. +Anyway, he'll want me to put up Silverheels." She was off in a flash, +the dogs leaping behind her. + +After having met Jerry and Jerry's mother, John Westley was not at all +surprised to find Dr. Travis a most unordinary man, also. He was small, +his clothes, country-cut, hung loosely on his spare frame, his hair +fringed over his collar in an untidy way, yet there was a kindliness, a +gentleness in his face that was winning on the instant; one did not need +to see his dusty, worn medicine case to know that his life was spent in +caring for others. + +Widely traveled as John Westley was, never in his whole life had he met +with such an interesting experience as his night at Sunnyside. Most +amazing was the hospitality of these people who seemed not to care at +all who he might be--it was enough for them that chance had brought him, +in a moment's need, to their door. Everything seemed to prove that Mrs. +Travis, at least, was a woman educated beyond the ordinary, yet nothing +in their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they +had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything +about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned +chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And +most mystifying of all was Miss Jerry herself, who had appeared at the +supper table in a much faded but spotless gingham dress, black shoes and +cotton stockings replacing the elkskins and woolen socks, very much a +spirited little girl, with a fearlessness of expression that amused John +Westley while at the same time he wondered if it could possibly be the +training of the school at Miller's Notch. + +He felt that Mrs. Travis must read in his face the curiosity that +consumed him. He did not know that deep in her heart was a poignant +regret that Jerry should have, in such friendly fashion, adopted this +stranger--Jerry, who was usually a little shy! Of course she could not +know that it was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found +something in Kettle that approached the magic--that he had stood on the +Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had +known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! +After Jerry, with Pepper, had gone off to bed and Dr. Travis with Bigboy +had slipped out to the little barn, John Westley said involuntarily, as +though the words tumbled out in spite of anything he could do: "Of +course, you know that I'm completely amazed to find a spot like +this--off here on the mountain." + +Mrs. Travis smiled, as though there were lots of things in her head that +she was not going to say. + +"Does Sunnyside seem attractive? We haven't any wealth--as the world +reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and we've made our little +corner in the world rich with them." + +"And you have Jerry." + +"Yes!" The mother's smile flashed, though there was a wistful look in +her eyes. "But Jerry's growing into a big girl." + +"You must have an unusually excellent school here." John Westley blushed +under the embarrassment of--as he plainly put it--"pumping" Jerry's +mother. + +Her explanation was simple. "It's as good as mountain schools are. When +the snow is so deep that she cannot go over the trail I have taught her +at home. You see I have not always lived at Miller's Notch--I came +here--just before Jerry was born." + +"Has she many playmates?" He remembered Jerry chattering about some Rose +and Clementina and a Jimmy Chubbs. + +"A few--but there are only a few of her own age. And she is outgrowing +her school." A little frown wrinkled Mrs. Travis' pretty brow. "That is +the first real problem that has come to Sunnyside for--a very long time. +Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and +the doctor's practice, though it isn't large, keeps us clothed, +but--Jerry's beginning to want something more than the school down +there--and these few chums and--even I--can give her!" + +John Westley recalled Jerry's face when she told her wish: "I want to go +along that shining road--down there--around and around--to the other +side of the mountain." He nodded now as though he understood exactly +what Mrs. Travis meant by "her problem." He understood, too, though he +had no child of his own, just why her voice trembled ever so slightly. + +"We can't keep little Jerry from growing into big Jerry nor from wanting +to stretch her wings a bit and yet--oh, the world's such a big, hard +place--there's so much cruelty and selfishness in it, so much +unhappiness! If I could only keep her here always, contented----" she +stopped abruptly, a little ashamed of her outburst. + +John Westley knew, just as though she had told him in detail all about +herself, that life, sometime and somewhere away from the quiet of +Sunnyside, had hurt this little woman. + +"Dr. Travis and I find company in our books," Mrs. Travis went on, "and +our neighbors, though we're quite far apart, are pleasant, +simple-hearted people. Jerry does all the things that young people like +to do; she swims down in Miller's Lake, and skates and skis and she +roams the year round all over the side of Kettle; she can call the birds +and wild squirrels to her as though she was a little wild creature +herself. She takes care of her own little garden. And I do everything +with her. Yet she is always talking as though some day she'd run away! +Of course I know she wouldn't do exactly _that_, but I sometimes wonder +if I have the right to try to hold her back. I haven't forgotten my own +dreams." She laughed. "I certainly never dreamed of _this_"--sweeping +her hand toward the shadowy room--"and yet this is better, I've found, +than the rosy picture my young fancy used to paint!" + +John Westley wished that he had read more and worked less hard at making +cement-mixers; so much had been printed in books about this reaching out +of youth that he might repeat now, if he knew it all, to the little +mother. Instead he found himself telling her of his own three nieces. +Then quite casually Mrs. Travis remarked: + +"Some very pleasant people have opened Cobble House over on Cobble +Mountain--Mr. and Mrs. Will Allan. I met her at church. She's--well, I +knew in an instant that I was going to like her and that she'd help me +about Jerry. I----" + +"Allan--Will Allan? Why, bless my soul, that's Penelope Everett, the +finest woman I ever knew! They come from my town." He sprang to his feet +in delight. "I never dreamed I was anywhere near them! I'll get Mr. +Chubb to take me there to-morrow. Of _course_ you'll like her. +She's--well, she's just like _you_!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE + + +The next day Mr. Toby Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one +automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain +roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at +Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught +manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; +for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at +Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly +painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house which the Allans +had been remodeling, he coaxed Mrs. Allan to drive back to Sunnyside +that she might, before the day passed, get better acquainted with Jerry +and Jerry's mother. + +"I couldn't feel more excited if I'd found a gold mine there on the side +of Kettle!" John Westley had told his friends. Mrs. Allan, an attractive +young woman, who was accustomed to many congenial friends about her, had +been wondering, deep in her heart, if she was not going to find Cobble +just the least little bit lonely at times, so she listened with deep +interest to John Westley's account of Jerry and Sunnyside. + +"I can't just describe why the girl seems so different--it's that she's +so confoundedly natural! There's a freshness about her that's like one +of these clean, cool mountain winds whipping through you." + +Mrs. Allan laughed at his awkward attempt to explain Jerry. She was used +to girls--she loved them, she understood just what he was trying to say. +He went on: "And here she is growing up, tucked away on the side of that +mountain with a mother who's more like a sister, I guess--says she +skates and skis and does everything with the child. And the most curious +father--don't believe he's been further away from Kettle than Waytown +more'n three or four times in his life; sits there with his books when +he isn't jogging off on his horse to see some sick mountaineer, and the +kindest, gentlest soul that ever breathed. There's an atmosphere in that +house that _is_ different, upon my word--makes one think of the old +stories of kings and queens who disguised themselves as peasants--simple +meal, everything sort of shabby but you couldn't give all that a +thought, there was such a feeling of peace and happiness everywhere." +John Westley actually had to stop for breath. But he was too eager and +too much in earnest to mind the glint of amusement in Mrs. Allan's eyes. +"When I went to bed didn't that big, amber-eyed cat of Jerry's follow me +upstairs and into the room and stretch herself across my bed just as +though that was what I'd expect! I never in my life before slept with a +cat in the room, but I felt as though it would be the height of rudeness +to chuck her off the bed! And I haven't slept as soundly, since I've +been sick, as I did in that little room. I think it was the piney smell +about everything. Miss Jerry wakened me at an unearthly hour by throwing +a rose through my window. It hit me square in the nose. The little +rascal was standing down there in the sunshine, in her absurd trousers, +with a basket of berries in her hand--she'd been off up the trail after +them." + +Although John Westley's glowing account had prepared her for what she +would find at Sunnyside, ten minutes after Penelope Allan had crossed +the threshold she could not resist nodding to him, as much as to say: +"You were quite right." In such places as Sunnyside little conventional +restraints were unknown and in a very few moments the two women were +chatting like old friends while Dr. Travis was explaining in his +drawling voice the advantages of certain theories of planting, to which +Will Allan listened intently, because he was planning a garden at +Cobble, while John Westley, only understanding a word now and then, +wished he hadn't devoted so much of his time to cement and knew more +about spinach. + +Afterwards, as they drove down the rough trail back to Cobble, John +Westley demanded: "Honestly, Pen Allan, doesn't it strike you that there +_is_ a mystery about these Travis people?" + +She hesitated a moment before answering, then laughed lightly as she +spoke. "You funny man--the magic of these mountains is getting in your +blood! Of course not--they are just a very happy family who know a +little more than most of us about what's really worth while in this +world. Now tell me about your own nieces--Isobel, and that madcap Gyp, +and little Tib." She knew well how fond John Westley was of these three +girls and to talk of them brought to her a breath of what she had known +at home before she had married Will Allan, the spring before. + +"Oh, they're as bad as ever," he said in a tone that implied exactly the +opposite. "Isobel's growing more vain each day and Gyp more heedless, +and Tibby's going to spoil her digestion if her mother doesn't make her +eat less candy and more oatmeal. I haven't seen much of the youngsters +since I was sick." + +"And Graham--poor boy, stuck in among those girls! He must be in long +trousers now." + +"Graham can take care of himself," laughed the uncle. "Wish I had the +four of them here with me! I wanted to bring them along but Dr. Hewitt +said it'd be the surest way to the undertaker. They are a good sort +but--sometimes, I wonder----" + +"You are an extraordinary uncle, to take the responsibility of your +nieces and nephew the way you do." + +"I can't help it; I've lived with them since they were babies and it's +just as though they were my own. And their father's away so much that I +think their mother sort of depends on me. Sometimes I get a little +bothered--they're having the very best schooling and all the things +money can give young people and yet--there's a sort of shallowness +possessing them that makes them--well, not value the opportunities +they're having----" + +"You talk like a veritable schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. Allan, teasingly. + +"Have you forgotten that when Uncle Peter Westley left Highacres to the +Lincoln School it made me trustee of the school? That's almost as bad as +being the principal. And this year I'm going to take an active interest +in the school, too. The doctor says I must have a 'diversity' of +interests to offset the strain of making cement-mixers and I think to +rub up against two hundred boys and girls will fill the bill, don't you? +They've remodeled the building at Highacres this summer and completed +one addition. There are twenty acres of ground, too, for outdoor +athletics." + +"What a wonderful gift," mused Mrs. Allan, recalling the pile of stone +and marble old Peter Westley had built in the outskirts of his city that +could never have been of any possible use to himself because he had been +a crusty old bachelor who hated to have anyone near him. Gossip had said +that he had built it just because he wanted his house to cost more than +any other house in the city; unworthy as his motive in building it might +have been, he had forever ennobled the place when he had bequeathed it +to the boys and girls of his city. + +"There'll be a chance, with the school out there, of offsetting just +what's threatening Isobel and Gyp--a sort of grownupness they're putting +on--like a masquerade costume!" + +"I love your very manlike way of describing things," laughed Mrs. Allan, +recalling certain experiences of her own when, for six months, she had +undertaken the care of her own niece, Patricia Everett. "It's +so--_vivid_! A masquerade make-up, too big and too long, and then when +you peep under the 'grown-up' costume, there's the little girl +still--really loving to frolic around in the delightful sports that +belong to youth and youth only." + +John Westley rode on for a few moments in deep silence, his mind on the +young people he loved--then suddenly it veered to the little girl he had +found on the Wishing-rock, her eyes staring longingly out into a +dream-world that lay beyond valley and mountain top. + +"I've an idea--a--_corker_!" he exclaimed, just as the Fly-by-day +bounced into the grass-grown drive of Cobble House. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WESTLEYS + + +"Gyp Westley, get right down off from that chair! You _know_ mother +doesn't want you to stand on it!" + +Miss Gyp, startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell +promptly from her perch on the dainty chintz-cushioned chair. + +"I was only tacking up my new banner," she answered crossly. "Here, Tib, +put the hammer away. What are you going to do, Isobel?" Gyp's tone +asked, rather: "What in the world have you _found_ to do?" + +Because Mrs. Hicks' mother had been so inconsiderate as to have a stroke +of apoplexy, much misery of spirit had fallen upon the young Westleys. +Mrs. Hicks was the Westley housekeeper and Mrs. Robert Westley, who, +with her four youngsters, was spending the month of August at Cape Cod, +had declared that she must return home at once, for Mrs. Hicks' going +would leave the house entirely alone with the two housemaids who were +very new and very inexperienced. There had been of course a great deal +of rebellion but Mrs. Westley, for once hardhearted, had turned deaf +ears upon her aggrieved children. + +"Not a bit of silver packed away or anything, with that yellow-haired +Lizzie! And anyway, it'll only be two or three weeks before school +opens." Which was, of course, scant comfort! + +"Oh, I thought I'd walk over and see if Ginny's home yet." + +"Of course she isn't. Camp Fairview doesn't close until September +second. I wish _I'd_ gone there! Where's Graham?" + +Isobel stretched her daintily-clad self in the chintz-cushioned chair +that Gyp had vacated. + +"He went out to Highacres to see the changes. Won't it seem funny to go +to school in old Uncle Peter's house?" + +For the moment Gyp and Tibby forgot to feel bored. + +"It'll be like going to a new school. I know I shall be possessed to +slide down the banisters. I wish I'd known Graham was going out, I'd +have gone, too." + +"Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel +further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the +basketball team and the hockey team at college." + +"Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very +straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year +about doing things to build up the school spirit?" + +Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss +Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do +everything for that. This is my last year--I'm going to just see that +Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!" + +Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that +poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be--her face had the pink +and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples +and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes; +she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have +made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the +whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the +chaperoned escort of older boys. + +"Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail +him. + +Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen +years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an +unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite +a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell +before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face. + +His sisters deluged him now with questions. + +"Why don't you go out there and look at it yourselves?" But he was too +enthusiastic about the new school to withhold his information. The +living room and the old library had been built into one big room for a +reference library; the classrooms were no end jolly; the billiard room +had been enlarged and was to be an assembly room. A wing had been added +for an indoor gymnasium. He and Stuart King had climbed way to the +tower, but the tower room was locked. + +"I remember--mother and Uncle Johnny said that Uncle Peter's papers and +books had been put up there. Mother wouldn't have them here." + +"Isn't it funny," mused Gyp as she balanced on the footboard of her bed. +"Everybody hated old Uncle Peter, he was such a cross old thing, and +nobody ever wanted to go to Highacres, and then he turns it into a +school and we'll all just love it and make songs about it----" + +"And celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday with an entertainment or +something," broke in Graham. "Maybe they'll even give us a holiday--to +show respect to his memory. Hurrah for old Bones!" + +"Graham--you're _dreadful_," giggled Gyp. + +"I don't care. It's Uncle Peter's own fault. It's anyone's fault if +nobody in the world likes 'em--it's because they don't like anybody +else!" + +Isobel ignored his philosophy. "You want to remember, Graham Westley, +that being Uncle Peter's grandnieces and nephew and having his money +gives us a certain----" she floundered, her mind frantically searching +for the word. + +"Prestige," cried Gyp grandly. "I heard mother say that. And I looked it +up--it means authority and influence and power. But I don't see how just +happening to be Uncle Peter's nieces----" + +At times Gyp's tendency to get at the very root of things annoyed her +older sister. + +"I don't care about dictionaries. Now that the school's going to be at +Highacres we four want to always be very careful how we speak of Uncle +Peter and act sort of dignified out there----" + +"_Rats!_" cut in Graham, with scorn. "I say, Gyp--that's _my_ banner!" +Thereupon ensued a lively squabble, in which Tibby, who adored Graham, +sided with him, and Isobel, in spite of Gyp's tearful pleading, refused +to take part, so that the banner came down from the wall and went into +Graham's pocket just as Mrs. Westley walked into the room. + +"Why, my dears, all of you in the house this glorious afternoon?" + +Mrs. Westley was a plump, bright-eyed woman who adored her four +children, and enjoyed them, with happy serenity, except at infrequent +intervals, when she worried herself "distracted" over them. At such +times she always turned to "Uncle Johnny." + +Isobel and Gyp had almost managed to answer: "There's no place to go," +when the mother's next words cut short their complaint. + +"I have the most astonishing news from Uncle Johnny," and she held up a +fat envelope. + +"Oh, when's he coming back?" cried Tibby. + +"Very soon. But what do you think he wants to do--bring back with him a +little girl he found up there in the mountains--or rather, _she_ found +_him_--when he got lost on a wrong trail. Listen: + +"'...She is a most unusual child. And she has outgrown the school +here. I'd like, as a sort of scholarship, to send her for a year or two +to Lincoln School. But there is the difficulty of finding a suitable +place for her to live--she's too young to put in a boarding house. Could +not you and the girls stretch your hearts and your rooms enough to let +in the youngster? I haven't said anything to her mother yet--I won't +until I hear from you. But I want to make this experiment and it will +help me immensely if you'll write and say my little girl can go straight +to you. I had a long talk with John Randolph, just before I came up +here--we feel that Lincoln School has grown a little away from the real +democratic spirit of fellowship that every American school should +maintain; he suggested certain scholarships and that's what came to my +mind when I found this girl. Isobel and Gyp and all their friends can +give my wild mountain lassie a good deal--and she can give Miss Gyp and +Isobel something, too----'" + +"Humph," came a suspicion of a snort from Isobel and Gyp. + +"Wish he'd found a boy," added Graham. + +From the moment she had read the letter, Mrs. Westley's mind had been +working on ways and means of helping John Westley. She always liked to +do anything anyone wanted her to do--and especially Uncle Johnny. + +"If Gyp would go back with Tibby or----" + +"_Mother!_" Gyp's distress was sincere--the spring before she had +acquired this room of her own and she loved it dearly. + +"And Gyp's things muss my room so," cried Tibby, plaintively. + +"Then perhaps you'll all help me fix the nursery for her." Everyone in +the household, although the baby Tibby was twelve years old, still +called the pleasant room on the second floor at the back of the house, +the "nursery." Mrs. Westley liked to take her sewing or her reading +there--for her it had precious memories; the old bookcase was still +filled with toys and baby books; Tibby's dolls had a corner of their +own; Isobel's drawing tools were arranged on a table in the bay window +and, on some open shelves, were displayed Graham's precious "specimens," +all neatly labeled and mixed with a collection of war trophies. To "fix +the nursery" would mean changes such as the Westley home had never +known! Each face was very serious. + +"It wouldn't be much to do for Uncle Johnny!" + +Isobel, Gyp, Graham and Tibby, each in her and his own way, adored Uncle +Johnny. Because their own father was away six months of every year, +Uncle Johnny often stood in the double role of paternal counsellor and +indulgent uncle. + +"And he's been so sick," added Tibby. + +"I can keep my stuff in my own room." Graham rather liked the idea. + +"I suppose I can do my drawing in father's study--even if the light +isn't nearly as good." Isobel, who underneath all her little +affectations had an honest soul, knew in her heart that hers was not +much of a sacrifice, because she had not touched her drawing pencils for +weeks and weeks, but she purposely made her tone complaining. + +"I s'pose we can play in there just the same?" asked Gyp. + +"Of course we can," declared her mother. "We'll put up that little old +bed that's in the storeroom." + +"What's her name?" Gyp's forehead was wrinkled in a scowl. + +Mrs. Westley referred to the letter. + +"Jerauld Travis. What a pretty name! And she's just your age, Gyp!" + +But Gyp refused to be delighted at this fact. + +Then Mrs. Westley, relieved that the children had consented, even though +ungraciously, to the change in their household, slipped the letter back +into its envelope. "I'll write to Uncle Johnny right away," and she +hurried from the room, a little fearful, perhaps, of the cloud that was +noticeably darkening Isobel's face. + +"I think it's _horrid_," Isobel cried when she knew her mother was out +of hearing. + +"What _you_ got to kick about? How'd you like it if you was _me_ with +another girl around?" + +"If you was _I_," corrected Gyp, loftily. "I think maybe it'll be nice." + +"You won't when she's here! And probably Uncle Johnny'll like her better +than any of us." Which added much to the flame of poor Isobel's +jealousy. + +"Well, I shall just pay no more attention to her than's if she was a--a +_boarder_!" Isobel had a very vague idea as to how boarders were usually +treated. "And it's silly to think that Uncle Johnny will like her better +than us--she's just a poor child he feels sorry for." + +"Do you suppose mountain people dress differently from us?" asked Tibby. + +Graham promptly answered: "Yes, silly--she'll wear goatskin--and she'll +yodel." + +"Anyway," Isobel rose languidly, "we don't want to forget about Uncle +Peter----" + +"And our prestige," interrupted Gyp, tormentingly. "And we can't act +horrid to her 'cause _that'd_ hurt Uncle Johnny's feelings----" + +Tibby suddenly saw a bright side of the cloud. + +"Say, it'll be fun seeing how she can't do things!" + +And, strangely enough, such is human nature in its early teens, little +Tibby's suggestion brought satisfying comfort to the three others. Gyp's +face cleared and she tossed her head as much as to say that _she_ was +not going to worry any more about it! + +"Come on, Isobel, I'll treat down at Wood's." + +"Let me go, too," implored Tibby. + +Gyp hesitated. "I only have thirty cents----" + +"You owe me ten, anyway," urged Tibby. + +Graham, in a sudden burst of generosity, relieved the tension of their +high finance. "Oh, let's all go--I'll stand for the three of you!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +JERRY'S WISH COMES TRUE + + +Jerry would, of course, never know how very hard Mr. John had had to +work to make her "wish" come true. Ever afterwards she preferred to +think that it was just standing on the Wishing-rock and wishing and +wishing! + +She had noticed, however, and had been a little curious, that every time +Mr. John had come to Sunnyside he and her mother had talked and talked +together in low tones so that, even when she was near them, she could +not hear one word of what they were saying, and that, after these talks, +her mother had been very pale and had, again and again, for no +particular reason, hugged her very close and kissed her with what Jerry +called a "sad" kiss. + +Then one afternoon Mrs. Allan had come with John Westley, and her +mother, to her disgust, had sent her down to the Notch with a message +for old Mrs. Teed that had not seemed a _bit_ important. After her +return John Westley had invited her to take him and Bigboy and Pepperpot +to the Witches' Glade because, he said, he "had something to tell her!" + +It was a glorious afternoon. August was painting with her vivid coloring +the mountain slopes and valleys; over everything was a soft glow. It was +reflected on Jerry's eager face. + +John Westley pointed down into the valley where Jerry's "shining" road +ran off out of sight. They could see an automobile, like a speck, moving +swiftly along it. + +"Your road, down there, goes off the other side of the mountain and on +and on and after a very long way--takes me back home. I'm going on +Thursday." + +Jerry turned a disappointed face. Each day of John Westley's two weeks +near Miller's Notch had brought immeasurable pleasure and excitement +into her life. + +"Mrs. Allan is going to drive back with me--she lived in my town, you +know. She hasn't been home for months and I shall enjoy her company." + +Jerry was staring at the distant road. After awhile the specks that were +automobiles and that she liked to watch would become fewer and fewer; +the days would grow colder, school would begin, the snow would come and +choke the trails and she and Sweetheart and Little-Dad would be shut in +at Sunnyside for weeks and weeks. Her face clouded. + +"And now listen very carefully, Jerry, and hold on to my arm so that you +won't fall off from the mountain! _You_ are going with us!" + +Jerry _did_ hold on to his arm with a grip that hurt. She stared, with +round, wondering eyes. + +He laughed at her unbelief. "Your wish is coming true! You're going to +ride along that road yonder, in my automobile, which ought to get here +to-morrow, straight around to the other side of the mountain, and on and +on--then you're going to stay all winter with my own nieces and go to +school with them----" + +Jerry's breath came in an excited gasp. + +"Oh, it _can't_--be--true! Mother'd _never_ let me." + +"It _is_ true! Mothers are always willing to do the things that are +going to be best for their girls. Mrs. Allan and I have persuaded +her----" + +But Jerry, with a "whoop," was racing down the trail, Bigboy and +Pepperpot at her heels. She vaulted the little gate leading into the +garden and swept like a small whirlwind upon her mother, sitting in the +willow rocker on the porch. With a violent hug she tried to express the +madness of her joy and so completely was her face hidden on her mother's +shoulder that she did not see the quick tears that blinded her mother's +eyes. + +That was on Monday--there were only three days to get her small wardrobe +ready and packed and to ask the thousand questions concerning the +Westley girls (Graham was utterly forgotten) and the school. Then there +were wonderful, long talks with mother, sitting close by her side, one +hand tight in hers--solemn talks that were to linger in Jerry's heart +all her life. + +"I don't ever want to do anything, Mumsey Sweetheart, that'd make you +the least little, _little_ bit unhappy!" Jerry had said after one of +these talks, suddenly pressing her mother's hand close to her cheek. + +On Wednesday afternoon she declared to Mr. John, when he drove over from +Cobble, that she was "ready." She said it a little breathlessly--no +Crusader of old, starting forth upon his holy way, felt any more +exaltation of spirit than did Jerry! + +"I've packed and I've mended my coat and I've finished mother's comfy +jacket that I began winter before last and I've said good-by to Rose and +poor old Jimmy Chubb, who's awfully envious, 'cause he wanted to go to +Troy to work in his uncle's store and he says it makes him mad to have a +girl see the world 'fore he does, but I told him he ought to keep on at +school, even if it was only Miller's Notch. And I've cleaned +Little-Dad's pipes. And I've promised Bigboy and Pepperpot and Dormouse +that they may all sleep on my bed to-night. I'm afraid Pepperpot--he's +so sensitive--is going to miss me dreadfully!" Jerry tried to frown away +the thought; she did not want it to intrude upon her joy. + +That last evening she sat quietly on the porch with one hand in her +mother's and the other in Little-Dad's. Not one of them seemed to want +to talk; Jerry was too excited and her mother knew that she could not +keep a tremble from her voice. At nine o'clock Jerry declared that she'd +just _have_ to go to bed so that the morning would come quicker. She +kissed them both, kissed her mother again and again, then marched off +with her pets at her heels. + +Far into the night her mother sat alone on the edge of the porch, +staring at the stars through a mist of tears and praying--first that the +Heavenly Father would protect her little Jerry always and always, and +then that He would give her strength to let the child go on the morrow. + +When the parting came everyone tried to be very busy and very merry, to +cover the heartache that was under it all; John Westley fussed with the +covers and the cushions in the big car and had his chauffeur pack and +repack the bags. Mrs. Allan and Mrs. Travis discussed the lunch that had +been stowed away in the tonneau, as though the whole thing was only a +day's picnic. Jerry, a funny little figure in her coat that was too +small and a fall hat that Mrs. Chubb had made over from one of her +mother's, was, with careful impartiality, bestowing final caresses upon +Bigboy, Pepperpot, Silverheels, and her father and mother alike. Then, +at the last moment, she almost strangled her mother with a sweep of her +strong young arms. + +"Mumsey Sweetheart, if you want me _dreadfully_--you'll send for me," +she whispered, stricken for a moment by the realization that the parting +was for a very long time. + +Then, though her heart was almost breaking within her, Mrs. Travis +managed to laugh lightly. + +"Need you--of course we won't need you! Climb in, darling," and she +almost lifted the girl into the tonneau, where Mrs. Allan was already +comfortably fixed. + +But at this moment Bigboy tried to leap into the car. When Dr. Travis +gripped his collar he let out a long, protesting howl. + +"Oh, Bigboy--he _knows_! Let me say good-by again," cried Jerry, jumping +out and, to everyone's amusement, embracing the dog. + +"You must be a good dog and take very good care of my Sweetheart and +Little-Dad," she whispered. Then, standing, she looked around. + +"Where's Pepperpot?" she asked anxiously. The little dog had +disappeared. + +"He'll think that I love Bigboy more than I do him," she explained, as +she climbed back in. + +The car started down the rough road. Jerry turned to wave; as long as +she could see her mother and father she kept her little white +handkerchief fluttering. Then she faced resolutely forward. + +"You know," she explained to John Westley, with shining eyes, "when +you've been wishing and wishing for something, you must enjoy it as hard +as you can." + +Even the familiar buildings of the Notch seemed different now to Jerry, +as she flew past them, and she kept finding new things all along the +way. Then, as they turned from the rough country road into her "shining" +road, which was, of course, the macadam highway, she looked back and up +toward Kettle to see if she could catch a glimpse of Sunnyside or the +Witches' Glade and the Wishing-rock. They were lost in a blaze of green +and purple and brown. + +"Isn't it _funny_? If I was up there watching I'd see you moving like a +speck! And in a moment you'd disappear around the corner. And now _I'm_ +the speck and--I don't know when we reach the corner. But I'm--_going_, +anyway!" + +Then upon her happy meditations came a sudden, startling interruption in +the shape of a small dog that leaped out from the dense undergrowth at +the side of the road and hailed the automobile with a sharp bark. + +"_Pepperpot!_" cried Jerry, springing to her feet. + +The chauffeur had brought the car to a sudden stop to avoid hitting the +dog. At the sound of Jerry's voice the little animal made a joyous leap +into the car. + +"He came on _ahead_--through the Divide! _Oh_--the darling," and Jerry +hugged her pet proudly. + +John Westley looked at Penelope Allan and she looked at him and the +chauffeur looked at them both--all with the same question. In Jerry's +mind, however, there was no doubt. + +"He'll _have_ to go with us, Mr. John, because I know he'd just die of a +broken heart if I--took him back!" + +Then, startled by John Westley's hesitation, she added convincingly, +"He's awfully good and never bothers anyone and keeps as still as can be +when I tell him to and I'll--I'll----" + +No one could have resisted the appeal in her voice. + +"Very well, Jerry--Pepperpot shall go, too." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +NEW FACES + + +"Ten miles more... three miles more ... five blocks more," Mr. John had +been saying at intervals as the big car rolled along, carrying Jerry +nearer and nearer to her new home. + +For the two days of the trip Jerry had scarcely spoken; indeed, more +than once her breath had caught in her throat. Each moment brought +something new, more wonderful than anything her fancy had ever pictured. +She liked best the cities through which they passed, their life, the +bustle and confusion, the hurrying throngs, the rushing automobiles, the +gleaming railroad tracks like taut bands of silver, the smoke-screened +factories with their belching stacks, the rows upon rows of houses, +snuggling in friendly fashion close to one another. + +John Westley had found himself fascinated in watching the eager +alertness of her observation. He longed to know just what was passing +back of those bright eyes; he tried to draw out some expression, but +Jerry had turned to him an appealing look that said more plainly than +words that she simply couldn't tell how wonderful everything seemed to +her, so he had to content himself with watching the rapture reflected in +her face and manner. + +But when, after leaving Mrs. Allan at her brother's, Mr. John had said +"five blocks more," Jerry had clutched the side of the car in an ecstasy +of anticipation. From the deep store of her vivid imagination she had +drawn a mental picture of what the Westley home and Isobel, Gyp, Graham +and Tibby would be like. The house, in her fancy, resembled pictures of +turreted castles; however, when she saw that it was really square and +brick, with a little iron grille enclosing the tiniest scrap of a lawn, +she was too excited to be disappointed. + +Two small carved stone lions guarded each side of the flight of steps +that led to the big front door; their stony, stoic stare drew a sharp +bark of challenge from Pepperpot, snuggled in Jerry's arms. + +"Hush, Pepper," admonished Jerry. "You mustn't forget your manners." + +As John Westley opened the door of the tonneau his eyes swept the front +of the house in a disappointed way. He had expected that great door to +open and his precious nieces and nephew to come tumbling out to welcome +him. + +He could not know--because his glance could not penetrate the crisp +curtains at a certain window of the second floor--that from behind it +Gyp, Graham and Tibby had been watching the street for a half hour. +Isobel had resolutely affected utter indifference and had sat reading a +book, though more than once she had peeped covertly over Gyp's shoulder +down the broad avenue. + +"_There_ they are!" Tibby had been the first to spy the big car. + +"Isobel"--Gyp screamed--"_look_ at her hat!" + +"I wish she was a boy," groaned Graham again. "Doesn't Uncle Johnny look +great? I say--come on, let's go down!" + +It had been a prearranged pact among the young Westleys not to greet the +little stranger with any show of eagerness. + +Tibby welcomed the suggestion. "Oh--_let's_!" she cried. + +It was at that moment that Pepperpot had barked his disapproval of the +weather-worn lions. Graham and Gyp gave a shout of delight. + +"Look! _Look_--a dog! Hurray!" + +"Maybe now mother will have to let us keep him," Graham added. "Come on, +girls," he raced toward the stairs. + +Their voices roused Mrs. Westley. She had not expected Uncle Johnny for +another hour. She flew with the children; there was nothing wanting in +_her_ welcome. + +"John Westley--you look like a new man! And this is our little girl? +Welcome to our home, my dear. Did you have a nice trip? Did you leave +Pen Allan at the Everetts? How is she?" As she chattered away, with one +hand through John Westley's arm and the other holding Jerry's, she drew +them into the big hall and to the living-room beyond. Jerry's round, +shining eyes took in, with a lightning glance, the rich mahogany +woodwork, the soft rugs like dark pools on the shiny floor, the long +living-room with its amber-toned hangings, and the three curious faces +staring at her over Mr. John's shoulder. + +"Gyp, my dear," John Westley untangled long arms from around his neck, +"here's a twin for you. Jerry, this boy is my nephew Graham--he's not +nearly as grown-up as he looks. And this is Tibby!" + +Jerry flashed a smile. They seemed to her--this awkward, thin, +dark-skinned girl whom Uncle Johnny had called Gyp, the tall, +roguish-faced boy, and little Tibby, whose straight braids were black +like Gyp's and whose eyes were violet-blue--more wonderful than anything +she had seen along the way; they were, indeed, the "best of all." + +"Oh," she stammered, in a laughing, excited way, "it's just wonderful +to--really--be--be here." Before her glowing enthusiasm the children's +prejudice melted in a twinkling. Gyp held out her hand with a friendly +gesture and Pepperpot, as though he understood everything that was +happening, stuck his head out from the shelter of Jerry's arm and thrust +his paw into Gyp's welcoming clasp. + +Everyone laughed--Graham and Tibby uproariously. + +"Goodness _me_--a _dog_!" Mrs. Westley cried, with a startled glance +toward John Westley. + +"Let him down," commanded Graham, as though he and Jerry were old +friends. Jerry put Pepperpot down and the four children leaned over him. +Promptly Pepperpot stood on his hind legs and executed a merry dance. + +"He cut through the woods and headed us off, miles away from the +Notch--we couldn't do anything else but bring him along," Uncle Johnny +whispered to Mrs. Westley under cover of the children's laughter. "For +Heaven's sake, Mary, let him stay." + +There had been for years a very fixed rule in the Westley household that +dogs were "not allowed." "They bring their dirty feet and their greasy +bones and things on the rugs and the chairs," was the standing +complaint, though Mrs. Westley had never minded telltale marks from +muddy little shoes nor the imprint of sticky fingers on satin +upholstery; nor had she ever allowed painters to gloss over the initials +that Graham had carved with his first jackknife on one of the broad +window-sills of the library. "When he's a grown man and away from the +nest--I'll have _that_," she had explained. + +"I don't know what Mrs. Hicks will say," she answered rather helplessly, +knowing, as she watched the young people, that she would not have the +heart to bar Pepper from their midst. + +"I say, Jerry,"--Graham had Pepper's nose in his hand--"can I have him +for my dog? Nearly all the fellows have dogs, but mother----" he glanced +quickly in her direction. + +Graham might just as well have asked Jerry to cut out a part of her +heart and hand it over; however, his face was so wistful that she +answered, impulsively: "He can belong to all of us!" + +"Where's Isobel?" cried Uncle Johnny, looking around. + +Isobel had been listening from the turn of the stairway. She had really +wanted, more than anything else, to race down the stairs and throw +herself in Uncle Johnny's arms. (He was certain to have some pretty gift +for her concealed in one of his pockets.) But she must show the others +that _she_ would stick to her word. So, in answer to his call, she +walked slowly down the stairway, with a smile that carefully included +only Uncle Johnny. + +Jerry thought that she had never in her whole life seen anyone quite as +pretty as Isobel! She stared, fascinated. To Uncle Johnny's introduction +she answered awkwardly, uncomfortably conscious that Isobel's eyes were +unfriendly. She wished, with all her heart, that Isobel would say +something nice, but Isobel, after a little nod, turned back to her +uncle. + +"Gyp, take Jerry to her room. Graham, carry her bags up," directed Mrs. +Westley. + +"Pepper, too?" cried Tibby. + +But Pepper had dashed up the stairs, and had turned at the landing and, +standing again on his hind legs, had barked. Even Mrs. Westley laughed. +"Pepper's answering that question himself," she replied. She turned to +Uncle Johnny. "If it comes to a choice between Mrs. Hicks and that dog I +plainly see Mrs. Hicks will have to go." + +John Westley declared he had not known how "good" it would feel to get +"home" again. Though he really lived in an apartment a few blocks away, +he had always looked upon his brother's house as home and spent the +greater part of his leisure time there. Mrs. Westley ordered tea. Uncle +Johnny slipped Isobel's hand through his arm and followed Mrs. Westley +into the cheery library. + +Above, Jerry was declaring that her room was just "wonderful." She ran +from one window to another to gaze rapturously out over the neighboring +housetops. The brick, wall-enclosed court below, with its iron gate +letting into an alleyway, was to her an enchanted battlement! + +Graham's trophies, Tibby's dolls, Isobel's drawing tools had +disappeared; a little old-fashioned white wooden bed had been put up in +one corner; its snowy linen cover, with woven pink roses in orderly +clusters, gave it an inviting look; there was a pink pillow in the deep +chair in the bay-window; a round table stood near the chair; on it were +some of Gyp's books and a little work-basket. And the toys had been left +in the old bookcase, so that, Mrs. Westley had decided, the room would +look as if a little girl could really live in it! Little wonder that +Jerry thought it all "wonderful." + +When Gyp heard the rattle of tea-cups below, they all tore downstairs +again, Pepper at their heels. They gathered around Uncle Johnny and +drank iced tea and ate little frosted cakes and demanded to be told how +he had felt when he knew he was lost on that "big mountain." They were +all so nice and jolly, Jerry thought, and, though Isobel ignored her, +she must be as nice as the others, because Uncle Johnny kept her next to +him and held her hand. The late afternoon sun slanted through the long +windows with a pleasant glow; the rows and rows of books on the open +shelves made Jerry feel at home; the great, deep-seated chairs gave her +a delicious sense of refuge. + +It was Uncle Johnny who, after dinner, sent Jerry off to bed early; +though she declared she was not one little bit tired, he had noticed +that the brightness had gone from her face. Gyp and Tibby went upstairs +with her; Graham disappeared with Pepperpot. + +"What do you think of my girl?" John Westley asked his sister-in-law. +They had gone back to the library. Isobel sat on a stool close to Uncle +Johnny's chair. + +"She seems like an unusually nice, jolly child. But----" Mrs. Westley +looked a little distressed. "May she not be homesick here, John--so far +from her folks?" She hated to think of such a possibility. + +"I thought of that," John Westley chuckled. "I said something about it +to her. What do you think she said? She waited a moment before she +answered me--as though she was carefully considering it. 'Well,' she +said, 'anyway, one wouldn't be homesick for very long, would one?' As +though it'd be like measles--or mumps. This is an Adventure to her; +she's been dreaming about it all her life!" He told, then, about the +Wishing-rock. + +"I tell you, Mary, there's some sort of spirit about the girl that's +unusual! It must come from some fire of genius further back than her +hermit-parents. I'm as certain as anything that there's a mystery about +the child. I've knocked about among all sorts of people, but I never +found such a curious family before--in such a place. Dr. Travis is one +of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the +clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her +eyes as though she was always afraid of something--just behind. And then +Jerry--like them both and not a bit like 'em--her head in the clouds, +all right--a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in +everything--a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story +about her." + +As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's +enthusiasm. + +"She's probably just a healthy girl who has been brought up in a simple +way by very sensible parents." Her matter-of-fact tone made John Westley +feel a little foolish. "She's a dear, sunny child and I hope she will be +happy here." + +"What got me was her utter lack of self-consciousness and her faith in +herself. Not an affectation about her--that's why I wanted her at +Lincoln school." + +"No one'll _look_ at her there--she's so dowdy!" burst out Isobel. + +Her uncle turned quickly, surprised and a little hurt at the pettishness +of her tone. + +"Isobel, dear--" protested her mother. + +Then Uncle Johnny laughed. "I rather guess, from my observation of the +vagaries of you young people, that sometimes one little thing can make +even a 'dowdy' girl popular--then, if she has the right stuff in her, +she can be a leader. What is it starts you all wearing these little +black belts round your waists, or this mousetrap," poking the puffs of +pretty silk hair that hid her ears; "it's a psychology that's beyond +most of us! Maybe my Jerry will set a new style in Lincoln." + +Isobel blazed in her scorn. + +"Well, I'd _die_ before _I'd_ look like her!" she cried. "I'm going to +bed." She felt very cross. She had wanted Uncle Johnny to tell her that +she looked well; she had on a new dress and her hair was combed in a +very new way; she had grown, too, in the summer. Instead he had talked +of nothing but Jerry, Jerry--and such silly talk about her eyes shining +as though they reflected golden visions within! She stalked away with a +bare good-night. + +Uncle Johnny might have said something if Isobel's mother had not given +a long sigh. + +"I can't--always--understand Isobel now," she said. "She has grown so +self-centered. I'll be glad when school begins." Mrs. Westley, like many +another perplexed parent, looked upon school as a cure for all evils. + +Jerry and Gyp had been busily unpacking Jerry's belongings and putting +them away in the little white bureau. + +"Where's Pepper?" asked Jerry, in sudden alarm. The children had been +warned to keep the little dog from "under Mrs. Hicks' feet." In a flash +Jerry had a horrible vision of some cruel fate befalling her pet. + +"I'll just bet Graham has him," declared Gyp, indignantly. + +They tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to Graham's door. Graham +lay in bed, sound asleep; beside him lay Pepper, carefully tucked under +the bedclothes. One of Graham's arms was flung out over the dog. + +Some instinct told Jerry that a long-felt yearning in this boy's heart +had at last been satisfied. And Pepper must have felt it, too, for, +though at the sight of his little mistress a distressed quiver shot +through him, he bravely pretended to be soundly sleeping. + +"Let him have him," whispered Jerry. + +But, for a long time, Jerry, under the pink and white cover, blinked at +the little circle of brightness reflected from the electric light +outside, trying hard not to wish she had Pepperpot with her "to keep +away the lonesomes." The night sounds of the city hummed in eerie +cadences in her ears. She resolutely counted one-two-three to one +hundred and back again to one to keep the thoughts of mother and +Sunnyside out of her head; then, just as she felt a great choking sob +rise in her throat, she heard a little scratch-scratch at her door. + +"Oh, _Pepper_--I'm so _glad_ you came!" She caught the shaggy little +form to her. She could not let him lie on the pink-and-whiteness, so she +carefully spread it over the footboard and folded her own coat for him +to sleep on. + +How magically everything changed--when a shaggy terrier snuggled against +her feet. The haunting shadows fled, the sob gave way to a contented +little sigh and Jerry fell asleep with the memory of Gyp's dark, roguish +face in her thoughts and a consuming eagerness to have the morning come +quickly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HIGHACRES + + +Old Peter Westley had made up his mind, so gossip said, to build +Highacres when he heard that Thomas Knowles, a business rival, had +bought a palatial home on the most beautiful avenue of the city. +"Pouf"--that was Uncle Peter's favorite expression and he had a way of +blowing it through his scraggly mustache that made it most impressive. +"Pouf! _I'll_ show him!" The next morning he drove around to a real +estate office, bundled the startled real estate broker into his car and +carried him off to the outskirts of the city, where lay a beautiful +tract of land advertised as "Highacre Terrace," and held (with an eye to +the growth of the city) at a startling figure. In the real estate office +it had been divided into building lots with "restrictions," which meant +that only separate houses could be built on the lots. Peter Westley +struck the ground with his heavy cane and said he'd take the whole +piece. The real estate man gasped. Uncle Peter said "pouf" again and the +deal was settled. + +Then he summoned architects from all over the country who, to his +delight, spent hours in the office of the Westley Cement-Mixer +Manufacturing Company trying to outdo one another in finesse and +suavity. Fortunately he decided upon a man who had genius as well as +tact, who, without his knowing it, could quietly bend old Peter Westley +to his way of thinking. Under this man's planning the new home grew +until it stood in its finished perfection, a mass of stone and marble +surrounded by great trees and sloping lawns. Gossip said further that +Highacres so far surpassed the remodeled home of Thomas Knowles that +that poor gentleman had resigned from the Meadow Brook Country Club so +that he would not have to drive past it! + +What sentiment had led Peter Westley to leave Highacres to the Lincoln +School no one would ever know; perhaps deep in his queer old heart was +an affection for his nephew Robert's children, who came dutifully to see +him once or twice a year, but made no effort to conceal the fact that +they thought it a dreadful bore. + +"I think," Isobel said seriously to her family, as they were gathered +around the breakfast table, a few days after Jerry's arrival, "that it'd +be nice if Gyp and I put on black----" + +"_Black_----" cried Gyp, spilling her cocoa in her astonishment. + +"Yes, black. We should have worn it when Uncle Peter died and now, going +to school out there, it would show the others that we respected----" + +Mrs. Westley laughed, then when she saw the color deepen on Isobel's +cheeks she added soothingly: "Your thought's all right, Isobel dear, but +it will be hardly necessary for you and Gyp to put on black now to show +your respect. I think every pupil of Lincoln can best do it by building +up a reputation for scholarship that will make Lincoln known all over +the country." + +"Isobel just wants everybody to remember she's Uncle Peter's----" + +"Hush, Graham." Mrs. Westley had a way of saying "hush" that cleared a +threatening atmosphere at once. + +"Oh, isn't it going to be _fun_?" cried Gyp. "Mother, can't we take +Jerry out there this morning?" + +"But I have to use the car----" + +"If you girls were fellows, we could walk," broke in Graham. + +"We can--we can! It's only two miles and a half. Simpson watched on the +speedometer the last time we drove out." + +Graham looked questioningly at Jerry and Jerry, suddenly recalling the +miles of mountain trail over which she had climbed, laughed back her +answer. + +Because a new world, that surpassed any fairy tale, had opened to Jerry +in these last few days, it seemed only fitting to go to school in a +building that was like a palace. She thrilled at the thought of the new +school life, the girls and boys who would be her classmates, the new +teachers, the new studies. For years and years, back at the Notch she +had always sat in front of Rose Smith and back of Jimmy Chubb; she had +progressed from fractions to measurements and then on to algebra and +from spelling to Latin with the outline of Jimmy's winglike ears so +fixed a part of her vision that she wondered if now she might not find +that she could not study without them. And there had always been, as far +back as she could remember, only little Miss Masten to teach +multiplication and geography and algebra alike; she and the other +children who made up the "advanced grade" of the school at Miller's +Notch always called her "Miss Sarah." Would there be anyone like Miss +Sarah at Lincoln? + +As they walked along, Gyp bravely measuring her step to Jerry's freer +stride, Gyp explained to Jerry "all about" Uncle Peter. + +"He's father's uncle. Father's father--that's my grandfather--was his +youngest brother. He died when he was just a young man and Uncle Peter +never got over it. Mother says my grandfather was the only person Uncle +Peter ever really liked. He always lived in the same funny little old +house even after he made lots of money, until he built Highacres. He was +terribly queer. I used to be dreadfully afraid of him because he always +carried a big cane and had the awfullest way of looking at you! His eyes +sort of bored holes right through you, so that you turned cold all over +and couldn't even cry. I'm glad he's dead. He was awfully old, +anyway--or at least he looked old. We used to just hate to have to go to +see him. The old stingy wouldn't ever even give us a stick of candy." + +"The poor old man," Jerry said so feelingly that Gyp stared at her. "My +mother always said that such people are so unhappy that they punish +themselves. Maybe he really wanted to be nice and just didn't know how! +Anyway, he's given his home to the school." + +If Peter Westley, looking down from another world, was reading that +thought in a hundred young hearts he must surely be finding his reward. + +"There it is!" cried Graham, who was walking ahead. + +School could not really seem a bit like school, Jerry thought, as she +followed the others through the spacious grounds into the building, when +one studied in such beautiful rooms where the sun, streaming through +long windows framed in richly-toned walnut, danced in slanting golden +bars across parqueted floors. Gyp's enthusiasm, though, made it all very +real. + +"Here, Jerry, here's where the third form study room will be. Look, +here's the geom. classroom! Oh, I _hope_ we'll be put in the same class. +Let's go down to the Gym. Oh--look at the French room--isn't it +darling?" The trees outside were casting a shimmer of green through the +sunshine in the room. "Mademoiselle will say: 'Young ladies, it ees +beau-ti-ful!' Aren't these halls jolly, Jerry? Oh, I can't _wait_ for +school to begin." + +On their way to the gymnasium, which was in the new wing of the +building, the girls met another group. One of these disentangled herself +from the arms that encircled her waist and threw herself into Gyp's +embrace. The extravagance of her demonstration startled Jerry, but when +Gyp introduced her, in an off-hand way: "This is Ginny Cox, Jerry," +Jerry found herself fascinated by the dash and "_camaraderie_" in the +girl's manner. + +There were other introductions and excited greetings; each tried to tell +how "scrumptious" and "gorgeous" and "spliffy" she thought the new +school. Like Gyp, none of them could wait until school opened. Then the +group passed on and Jerry, breathless at her first encounter with her +schoolmates-to-be, remembered only Ginny Cox. + +"She's the funniest girl--she's a perfect circus," Gyp explained in +answer to Jerry's query. "Everybody likes her and she's the best forward +we ever had in Lincoln." All of which was strange tribute to Jerry's +ears, for, back at the Notch, poor Si Robie had always been dubbed the +"funniest" child in the school and _he_ had been "simple." Jerry did not +know exactly how valuable a good "forward" was to any school but, she +told herself, she knew she was going to like Ginny Cox. + +In the gymnasium the girls found Graham with a group of boys. Gyp +greeted them boisterously. Jerry, watching shyly, thought them all very +jolly-looking boys. + +"Do you see that tall boy down there?" Gyp nodded toward another group. +"That's Dana King. Isobel's got an awful crush on him. She won't admit +it but I _know_ it, and the other girls say so, too. He's a senior." + +The boy turned at that moment. His pleasant face was aglow with +enthusiasm. + +"Come on, fellows," he cried to the other boys, "let's give a yell for +old Peter Westley." And the yell was given with a will! + + "L-I-N-C-O-L-N! L-I-N-C-O-L-N! + Lincoln! Lincoln! + Rah! Rah! Rah! + Peter Westley! Pe-ter! West-ley!" + +Jerry tingled to her finger-tips. Gyp had yelled with the others, so had +Ginny Cox, who had come back into the room. What fun it was all going to +be. Dana King was leading the boys in a serpentine march through the +building; out in the hall the line broke to force in a laughing, +remonstrating carpenter. Jerry heard their boyish voices gradually die +away. + +"Before we go back let's climb up to the tower room." That was the name +the children had always given to the largest of the turrets that crowned +Highacres' many-gabled roof. A stairway led directly to it from the +third floor. But the door of the room was locked. + +"How tiresome," exclaimed Gyp, shaking the knob. Not that she did not +know just what the tower room was like, but she hated locked doors--they +always made her so curious. + +"It's the nicest room--you can see way off over the city from its +windows." She gave the offending door a little kick. "They put all of +Uncle Peter's old books and papers and things up here--mother wouldn't +have them brought to our house, you see. I remember she told Graham the +key was down in the safety-deposit box at the bank. Well----" +disappointed, Gyp turned down the stairs. "I've always loved tower +rooms, don't you, Jerry? They're so romantic. Can't you just see the +poor princess who won't marry the lover her father has commanded her to +marry, languishing up there? Even chained to the wall!" + +Jerry shuddered but loved the picture. She added to it: "She's got long +golden, hair hanging down over her shoulders and she's tearing it in her +wretchedness." + +"And beating her breast and vowing over and over that she will _not_ +marry the horrible wicked prince----" + +"And refusing to eat the dry bread that the ugly old keeper of the +drawbridge slips through the door----" + +At this point in the heartrending story the two laughing girls reached +the outer door. Gyp slipped an affectionate hand through Jerry's arm. +She forgot the languishing princess she had consigned to the prison +above in her joy of the bright sunshine, the inviting slopes of +Highacres, velvety green, and the new friend at her side. + +"I'm so _glad_ Uncle Johnny found you!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SCHOOL + + +In the Westley home each school day had always begun with a rite that +would some day be a sacred memory to Mrs. Westley, because it belonged +to the precious childhood of her girls and boy. Graham called it +"inspection." It had begun when the youngsters had first started school, +Isobel and Graham proudly in the "grades," Gyp in kindergarten. The +mother had, each morning, laughingly stood them in a row and looked them +over. More than once poor Graham had declared that it was because his +ears were so big that mother could always find dirt somewhere; sometimes +it was Isobel who was sent back to smooth her hair or Gyp to wash her +teeth or Tibby for her rubbers. But after the inspection there was +always a "good-luck" kiss for each and a carol of "good-by, mother" from +happy young throats. + +So on this day that was to mark the opening of the Lincoln School at +Highacres, Jerry stood in line with the others and, though each young +person was faultlessly ready for this first day of school, Mrs. Westley +laughingly pulled Graham's ears, smiled reminiscently at Isobel's +primness, smoothed with a loving hand Gyp's rebellious black locks and +thought, as she looked at Jerry, of what Uncle Johnny had said about her +eyes reflecting golden dreams from within. And when she called Tibby +"littlest one" none of them could know that, as she looked at them and +realized that another year was beginning, it stirred a little heartache +deep within her. + +"Aren't mothers funny?" reflected Gyp as she and Jerry swung down the +street. They had preferred to walk. + +"Oh----" Jerry had to control her voice. "_I_ think they're grand!" + +"I mean--they're so _fussy_. When I have children I'm just going to +leave them plumb alone. I don't care what they'll look like." + +"You will, though," laughed Jerry. "Because you'll love them. If our +mothers didn't love us so much I suppose they'd leave us alone. That +would be dreadful!" + +Jerry had slept very little the night before for anticipation. And now +that the great moment was approaching close she was obsessed by the fear +that she "wouldn't know what to do." The fear grew very acute when she +was swept by Gyp into a crowd of noisy girls, all rushing for space in +the dressing-rooms. Then, at the ringing of a bell, she was hurried with +the others up the wide stairway. She caught a glimpse of Gyp ahead, +surrounded by chums, all trying to exchange in a brief moment the entire +summer's experiences. She looked wildly around for a familiar face. She +caught one little glimpse of Ginny Cox, who smiled at her across a dozen +heads, then rushed away with the others. + +In the Assembly room a spirit of gaiety prevailed. The eager faces of +the boys and girls smiled at the faculty, sitting in prim rows on the +stage; the faculty smiled back. There was stirring music until the last +pupil had found her place. Then, just as Dr. Caton, the dignified +principal, rose to his feet, a boy whom Jerry from her corner recognized +as Dana King, leaped to the front, threw both arms wildly in the air +with a gesture that plainly commanded: "Come on, fellows," and the +beamed ceiling rang with a lusty cheer. + +Dr. Caton greeted the students with a few pleasant words. There were +more cheers, then everyone sang. Jerry thought it all very jolly. She +wondered if "assembly" was always like this. She recalled suddenly how +agitated poor Miss Sarah always became if there was the slightest noise +in that stuffy schoolroom, back at the Notch. + +"Look--there's the new gym. teacher--on the end--Barbara Lee," whispered +Jerry's neighbor, excitedly. + +Jerry looked with interest. In the entire faculty she had not found +anyone who resembled, even ever so slightly, poor Miss Sarah. Miller's +Notch, of course, had no gymnasium, therefore it had not needed any +gymnasium assistant. Jerry had imagined that a gym. teacher must, +necessarily, be a sort of young Amazon, with a strong, hard face. Miss +Lee was slender and looked like one of the schoolgirls. + +It had always been the custom at Lincoln School, on the opening day, to +assign the new pupils to the care of the Seniors. These assignments were +posted on the bulletin boards. Jerry did not know this: she did not know +that Isobel Westley had been appointed her "guardian." Before assembly, +Isobel had read her name on the lists and had promptly declared: "I just +_won't_! Let her get along the best way she can." So, when assembly was +over, Jerry found herself drifting helplessly, forlornly elbowed here +and there, too shy to ask questions, valiantly trying to beat down the +desire to run away. She envied the assurance with which the others, even +the new girls, seemed to know just where they ought to go. She had not +laid eyes on Gyp after that one fleeting glimpse on the stairs. + +Suddenly a hand touched her arm and, turning, she found Barbara Lee +beside her. The kind smile on Miss Lee's face brought a little +involuntary quiver to her lips. + +"Lost, my dear?" + +"I--I don't know--where----" + +"You are a new girl? What is your name?" + +"Jerauld Travis." + +"Oh--yes. Where is your guardian?" As she spoke Miss Lee stepped to the +bulletin board that hung in the corridor. She read Isobel's name. + +"You were assigned to Isobel Westley. It is strange that she has left +you alone. Come to the library with me, Jerauld." + +Jerry realized now why it had been so easy for all the other "new girls" +to find their places--_they_ had had guardians. She tried to smother a +little feeling of hurt because Isobel had deserted her. + +The library, gloriously sunlit on this golden morning, was empty. Miss +Lee pulled two chairs toward a long table. + +"Sit here, Jerauld. Now tell me all about your other school--so we can +place you." And she patted Jerry's hand in a jolly encouraging way. + +It was very easy for Jerry to talk to Miss Lee. She told of the work she +had covered back at the Notch. Miss Lee listened with interest and, +knowing nothing of Jerry's home life and Jerry's mother, some amazement. + +"I believe you could go straight into the Junior class though +you're----" + +"Oh, _can't_ I be in Gyp's room?" cried Jerry in dismay. "Gyp Westley, I +mean. You see she's the only girl I know real well." + +Barbara Lee, for all that she was trying to look very grown-up and +dignified, as a teacher should, could remember well how much it meant in +school life to be near one's "chum." So she laughed, a laugh that warmed +Jerry's heart. + +"I think--perhaps--that can be arranged," she said in a tone that +indicated that she would help. "We will go to see Dr. Caton." + +Even after the long consultation with Dr. Caton, Miss Lee did not desert +Jerry. As they walked away from the office, she whispered assuringly to +Jerry: "Dr. Caton thinks you had better go into the Third Form room--for +a term, at least." Accordingly she led her into one of the smaller study +rooms. And there was Gyp smiling and beckoning her to an empty desk +beside her. But Miss Lee took Jerry to her classrooms; she introduced +her to Miss Briggs, the geometry teacher, then to Miss Gray of the +English department, and on to the French room and to the Ancient History +classroom. Bewildered, Jerry answered countless questions and registered +her name over and over. + +"There, my dear, you're settled for this term, at least," declared Miss +Lee as they left the last classroom, "Now go back to your study-room and +take that desk that Gyp Westley's saving for you." + +Assigned to classes and with a desk of her own--and with Gyp close at +hand--Jerry felt like a real Lincolnite and her unhappy shyness vanished +as though by magic. During the long recess that followed, the bad +half-hour forgotten, with a budding confidence born of her sense of +"belonging," she sought the other "new" girls. Among them was Patricia +Everett, who came directly to Jerry. + +"I know you're Jerry Travis. I'm Aunt Pen Everett Allan's niece. I'm +crazy to go and visit Cobble Mountain. That's very near your home, isn't +it?" So sincere was her interest that Jerry felt as though she was +suddenly surrounded by a wealth of friendship. Patricia seemed to know +everyone else--they were nearly all Girl Scouts in her troop; she +introduced Jerry to so many girls that poor Jerry could not remember a +single name. + +Ginny Cox, spying Jerry from across the room, bolted to her. + +"You're going to sign up for basketball, aren't you? Of course you are. +Wait right here--I'll call Mary Starr." She rushed away and before Jerry +could catch her breath she returned with a tall, pleasant-faced girl who +carried a small leather-bound notebook in her hand. + +She wrote Jerry's name in it and went away. + +"Miss Travis, will you sign up for hockey?" Jerry, on familiar ground, +eagerly assented to this. Her name went into another book. Another girl +waylaid her. She signed for swimming. She noticed that the others around +her were doing the same thing. Patricia brought a girl to her whom she +introduced as Peggy Lee. Peggy carried a notebook, too. + +"Will you sign up for the debating club, Miss Travis?" she asked with a +dignity that was belied by her roguish eyes. + +Jerry was quite breathless; she had never debated in her life--but then +she had never played basketball either. + +"Oh, do sign. We're all joining and it's awfully exciting," pleaded +Patricia. So Jerry signed for the debates. + +"When_ever_ will I find time to study Latin and geometry? I know I'm +going to be dumb in that," cried Jerry, that evening, to the Westley +family. She spoke with such real conviction that everyone laughed. + +Uncle Johnny had "dropped in." He was as eager as though he was a +schoolboy, himself, to hear the children's experiences of the day. +Though they all talked at once, he managed to understand nearly all that +they were telling. + +"And you, Jerry-girl, what did you think of it all?" + +Because she had felt like one little drop in a very big puddle, Jerry +simply couldn't tell. But her eyes were shining. Gyp broke in. "Jerry +could be a Junior if she wanted to, but she's going to stay in my +study-room for awhile. And they've signed her up for _every single +thing_!" + +Jerry, ignorant of Lincoln traditions, did not know that this was a +tribute. + +Then she had wondered when, with everything else, she would find time +for her Cicero and geometry. + +"Who you got? Speck-eyes?" + +"Graham----" cried Mrs. Westley. "I will _not_ have you speaking in that +way of your teachers!" + +Graham colored; he knew that this was a point upon which his mother had +always been very firm. + +"Oh, Miss Briggs is all _right_--I like her, but all the fellows call +her that." + +"Do you suppose they'll nickname Miss Lee?" + +To Jerry it seemed that _that_ would be sacrilege--she was too dear! +Uncle John had, then, to hear all about her. He was much interested, he +had not realized that she was grown-up enough to teach. + +"But she really doesn't seem a bit so," Gyp explained. + +Then quite suddenly Graham asked Jerry: "Say, Jerry, who was your +guardian?" + +Jerry's face turned very red. She caught a defiant look from Isobel. She +did not want to answer; even the ethics of the little school at Miller's +Notch had had no tolerance for a telltale. + +"A--a Senior. She couldn't find me." + +Poor Jerry--Graham's careless inquiry had dimmed her enthusiasm. Why +hadn't Isobel found her? With the friendliness of spirit that was such a +part of the very atmosphere of Lincoln, why had Isobel, alone, stood +aloof? She looked at Isobel--she was so pretty now as she talked, with +animation, to Uncle Johnny. Jerry thought, as she watched her, that +she'd rather have Isobel love her than any of those other nice girls she +had met at Highacres--Patricia Everett, Ginny Cox, Peggy Lee, Keineth +Randolph---- + +"I'll just _make_ her," she vowed, gathering up her shiny new +school-books. And that solemn vow was to help Jerry over many a rough +spot in the schooldays to come. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SECRET DOOR + + +The routine of Jerry's new life shaped into pleasant ways. She felt more +like Jerry Travis and less like a dream-creature living in a golden +world she had brought around her by wishing on a wishing-rock. She could +not have found a moment in which to be homesick; twice a week she wrote +back to Sweetheart and Little-Dad long scrawly letters that would have +disgraced her in the eyes of Miss Gray of the English department, but +expressed such utter happiness and contentment that Mrs. Travis, with a +little regret, dismissed the fear that Jerry would be lonely away from +her and Sunnyside. + +After the first week of school the girls and boys settled down to what +Graham called "digging." Geometry looked less formidable to Jerry, +Cicero was like a beautiful old friend, Gyp was with her in English and +history, Ginny Cox was in one of her classes, too, and Jerry liked her +better each day. Patricia Everett was teaching her to play tennis until +basketball practice began. + +There were the pleasant walks to and from school through the city +streets, whose teeming life never failed to fascinate Jerry; the jolly +recess, breaking the school session, when the girls gathered around the +long tables and ate their lunch; and then the afternoon's play on the +athletic field at Highacres. + +Had old Peter Westley ever pictured, as he sat alone in his great empty +house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled +over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps, +to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices; +perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the +threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women +would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy or girl. + +One afternoon Gyp and Jerry lingered in the school building to prepare a +history lesson from references they had to find in the library. Gyp +hated to study; the drowsy stillness of the room was broken by the +pleasant shouting from the playground outside. She threw down her pencil +and stretched her long arms. + +"Oh, goodness, Jerry--let's stop. We can ask mother all these things." + +Jerry was quite willing to be tempted. She, too, had found it hard to +hold her attention to the Thirty-one Dynasties. + +Gyp leaned toward her. "I'll tell you--let's go exploring. There are all +the rooms in the back we've never seen." + +During the past six months workmen had been rebuilding the rear wing of +Highacres into laboratories. The changes had not been completed. Gyp and +Jerry climbed over materials and tools and little piles of rubbish, +poking inquisitive noses into every corner. Now and then Gyp stopped to +ask a workman a few questions. They stumbled around in the basement +where in a few weeks there would be a very complete machine-shop and +carpentry room. Then they found a stairway that led to the upper floors +and scampered up it. + +"Oh, Jerry Travis, I _wish_ you could see yourself," laughed Gyp as they +paused on the third floor. + +"Your face is dirty, too," Jerry retorted. + +"Isn't this fun? It doesn't seem a bit like school, does it? I wonder if +they're ever going to use these rooms. Let's play hide-and-seek. I'll +blind and count twenty and you hide and we mustn't make a _sound_!" +which, you know, is a very hard thing to do when one is playing +hide-and-seek. + +Gyp's charm--and there was much charm in this lanky girl--lay in her +irrepressible spirits. Gyp was certain--and every boy and girl of her +acquaintance knew it--to find an opportunity for "fun" in the most +unpromising circumstances. No one but Gyp could have known what fun it +would be to play hide-and-seek in the halls and rooms of the third floor +of Highacres--especially when one had to step very softly and bite one's +lips to keep back any sound! + +It was Jerry's turn to blind. She leaned her arm against the narrow +frame of a panel painting of George Washington that was set in the wall +at a turn in the corridor. As she rested her face against her arm she +felt the picture move ever so slightly under her pressure. Startled, she +stepped back. Slowly, as though pushed by an invisible hand, the panel +swung out into the corridor. + +"_Gyp_----" cried Jerry so sharply that Gyp appeared from her +hiding-place in a twinkling. "Look--what I did!" Jerry felt as though +the entire building might slowly and sedately collapse around her. + +"For goodness' sake," cried Gyp, staring. She swung the panel out. "It's +a _door_! Jerry Travis, _it's a secret door_!" She put her head through +the narrow opening. "Jerry----" she reached back an eager hand. +"Look--it's a stairway--a secret stairway!" + +Jerry put her head in. Enough light filtered through a crack above so +that the girls could make out the narrow winding steps. They were very +steep and only broad enough for one person to squeeze through. + +"Come on, Jerry, let's----" + +"Gyp, you don't know where it'll take you----" Jerry suddenly remembered +their poor princess in her dungeon. + +"Silly--nothing could hurt us! Come on. Close the panel--there, like +that. I'll go first." She led the way, Jerry tiptoeing gingerly behind +her. + +The door at the top gave under Gyp's push and to their amazement the +girls found themselves in the tower room. + +It was a square room with a sloping ceiling and narrow windows; there +was nothing in the least unusual about it. Gyp and Jerry looked about +them, vaguely disappointed. It might have been, with its litter of old +furniture, chests of books, piles of magazines and papers, an attic room +in any house. The October sunshine filtered in thin bars through the +dust-stained windows, cobwebs festooned themselves fantastically +overhead. The opening that led to the secret stairway appeared, on the +inside of the room, to be a built-in bookcase on the shelves of which +were now piled an assortment of hideous bric-a-brac which Mrs. Robert +Westley had refused to take into her own home. + +"Well, it's fun, anyway, just having the secret stairway," decided Gyp, +scowling at what she mentally called the "junk" about her. "_Why_ do you +suppose Uncle Peter had it built in?" + +Jerry could offer no explanation. + +"Hadn't we ought to tell someone?" + +Gyp scorned the thought--part with their precious secret--let everybody +know that that imposing portrait of George Washington hid a _secret +door_? Why, even mother and Uncle Johnny couldn't know it--it was their +very own secret! + +"I should say _not_. At least----" she added, "not for awhile. I guess +I'm a Westley and I have a right to come up here." Which argument +sounded very convincing to Jerry. + +"Oh, I have the grandest idea," Gyp dragged Jerry to the faded +window-seat and plumped down upon it so hard that it sent a little cloud +of dust about them. "Let's get up a secret society--like the horrid old +Sphinxes." + +Fraternities and sororities were not allowed in Lincoln School, but from +time to time there had sprung up secret bands of boys and girls, that +held together by irrevealable ties for a little while, then passed into +school history. One of these was the Sphinxes. They were annoyingly +mysterious and dark rumors were current that their antics, if known, +would not meet, in the least, the approval of the Lincoln faculty. +Isobel was a Sphinx, most faithful to her vows, so that all the teasing +and bribing that Graham's and Gyp's fertile brains could contrive, +failed to drag one tiny truth from her. + +Of course Jerry had been at Lincoln long enough to know all about the +Sphinxes. And she knew, too, that Gyp meant to suggest a society that +would be like the Sphinxes only in that it was secret. She could not be +one of that Third Form study-room without sharing the general scorn of +the Sophomores for the Senior Sphinxes. + +"We can meet up here, you see--once a week. And let's have it a secret +society that'll stand ready to serve Lincoln with their very lives--like +those secret bands of men in the South--after the Civil War." + +Jerry declared, of course, that Gyp's suggestion was "wonderful." + +"We'll have a real initiation when we'll all swear our allegiance to +Lincoln School forever and ever and we'll have spreads and it'll be such +fun making every one wonder where we meet. And we'll have terribly funny +signs." + +"What'll we call it?" asked Jerry, ashamed that she could offer nothing +to the plan. + +"Let's call it the Ravens and Serpents--that sounds so awful and we +won't be at all. And a crawly snake is such a dreadful symbol and it's +easy to draw." Gyp's brain worked at lightning pace in its initiative. + +"What girls shall we ask?" + +Gyp rattled off a number of names. They were all girls who were in the +Third Form study-room. + +"Can't we ask Ginny Cox?" + +Gyp considered. "No," she answered decidedly. "She'd be fun but she's +too chummy with Mary Starr and Mary Starr's a Sphinx. We can't ask her." + +Gyp was right, of course, Jerry thought, but she wished Ginny Cox might +be invited to join. + +"Let's go down now. Oh, won't it be fun? Swear, Jerauld Travis, that +burning irons won't drag our secret from you!" + +"Nothing will make me tell," promised Jerry. They stole down the +stairway, moved George Washington carefully back into place, tiptoed to +the main floor and out into the sunshine. + +Thus did the secret order of the "Ravens and Serpents" have its birth. +Gyp assembled various symbols, impressive in their terribleness, that, +during the study hours of the next day, conveyed, with the help of +whispered explanations and a violent exchange of notes, invitations to +six other girls to join the new order. And after the close of school +eight pupils elected to remain indoors, ostensibly to study; eight heads +bent diligently over the long oak table in the library until a safe +passage into the deserted halls above was assured. Then Gyp and Jerry +led the new Ravens to the secret door where, in a sepulchral whisper, +Gyp extracted a solemn promise from each that she would not divulge the +secret of the hidden stairway. One by one, quite breathless with +excitement, they climbed to the tower room where Gyp with ridiculous +solemnity called "to order" the first assembly of the Ravens and +Serpents of Lincoln School. + +[Illustration: ONE BY ONE, QUITE BREATHLESS WITH EXCITEMENT, THEY +CLIMBED TO THE TOWER ROOM] + +All the Ravens agreed with Gyp that their secret society must pledge +itself to protect and serve the spirit of Lincoln; then, having disposed +of that they fell, eagerly, to discussing plans for "spreads." + +"Let's take turns bringing eats." + +"How often shall we meet?" + +"Let's meet every Wednesday. Melodia always makes tarts on Tuesday and +maybe I can coax her to make some extra ones," offered Patricia Everett. + +"And the dancing class is in the gym. then and no one will notice us." + +"We ought to have knives and forks and things like a regular club!" + +"And a president and a secretary." + +"I ought to be president." Gyp's tone was final. + +The other Ravens assented amicably. "Of course you ought to be. And +Jerry can be secretary because she helped find this spliffy room." + +"Girls, at the next meeting let's each bring a knife, fork, spoon, plate +and cup." + +"Oh, _won't_ it be fun?" A Raven pirouetted on her toes in a most +unparliamentary and unbird-like fashion. + +"Pat and I'll bring the eats next Wednesday," declared Peggy. "Some one +has to start." + +"If we've decided everything we have to decide this meeting's +adjourned," and without further formal procedure Gyp summarily brought +to an end the first meeting of the Ravens. After a merry half-hour they +tiptoed down the secret stairway, George Washington went back into his +place on the wall and the eight girls scattered, each to her own home, +with hearts that were fairly bursting with excitement. + +That evening at the dinner table Gyp, very obviously, made a secret sign +to Jerry. She brought one hand, with a little downward, spiral movement, +to rest upon the other hand, the first two fingers of each interlocked. + +"Oh! Oh! That's a secret sign you made," cried Tibby. + +"Well, maybe it is," answered Gyp, putting her spoon in her soup with +assumed indifference. + +"Some silly girls' society, I'll bet," put in Graham with a tormenting +grin. + +Gyp had passed beyond the age when Graham's teasing could disturb her. +She smiled to show how little she minded his words. + +"You'll know, my dear brother, _sometime_, whether we're silly or not," +she answered with beautiful dignity. "_We're_ not a society that's +organized just for _fun_!" Which was, of course, a slap at the Sphinxes. +Isobel roused suddenly to an active interest in the discussion. + +"You're just copy-cats," she declared, with a withering scorn that +brought Graham to Gyp's defence. + +No wonder Jerry never found a moment in the Westley home dull! + +"_You_ needn't think," he shot across the table at Isobel, "that 'cause +you have waves in your hair you're the whole ocean!" + +"Funny little boy," Isobel retorted, trying hard to hold back her anger. +"Mother, I should think you'd make Graham stop using his horrid slang!" + +"That's not slang--that's _idiotmatic_ English," added Graham, smiling +mischievously at his mother. He chuckled. "You should have heard Don +Blacke in geom. class to-day. He got up and said: 'Two triangles are +equal if two sides and the included angle of one are equal +_respectfully_ to two sides,' and when we all laughed he got sore as a +cat!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DEBATE + + +"Gyp--_what_ do you think has happened?" Jerry frantically clutched +Gyp's arm as they met outside of the study-room door. Jerry did not wait +for Gyp to "think." "My name's been drawn for the debate--this Friday +night! Miss Gray just told me. I'm taking Susan Martin's place." + +"What _fun_----" + +Jerry had wanted sympathy. "Not fun at all! I am scared to death." + +A bell rang and Gyp scampered off to her classroom, leaving Jerry to go +to her desk, sit down and contemplate with a heavy heart the task that +lay before her. She had never so much as spoken a "piece" in her life; +since coming to Highacres she had listened, with fascination, to the +weekly discussion of current topics, envying the ease with which the +boys and girls of the room contributed to it. She had wondered whether +she could ever grow so accustomed to large groups of people as to be +able to talk before them. Now Miss Gray, waving in her face the little +pink slip that had done all the damage, was driving her to the test. + +However, there had been a great deal in Jerry's simple childhood, spent +on the trails of Kettle Mountain, that had given to her an indomitable +courage for any challenge. Real fear--that horrible funk that turns the +staunchest heart cowardly, Jerry had never known--what she had sometimes +called fear had been only the little heartquake of expectation. + +Once, when she was twelve years old, she had ventured to climb Rocky +Point, alone, in search of the first arbutus of the year. Spring had +come to the lower slopes of the mountain but its soft hand was just +breaking the upper crusts of ice and snow. As she climbed up the trail a +deep rumble warned her that a snowslide was approaching. She had only +the briefest moment to decide what to do--if she retraced her steps she +must surely be overtaken! Near her was a tall crag of rock that jutted +out from the wooded slope of the trail; on this she might be safe. With +desperate haste she climbed it and, as she clung to its rough surface, +tons of ice and snow thundered past her, shaking her stronghold, +uprooting the smaller trees, piling in fantastic shapes against the +sturdier. As Jerry watched it had been fascination, not terror, that had +caught the breath in her throat; she had not recognized the threat of +Death; she had glimpsed only the picture of her beloved Kettle angrily +shaking old Winter from his mighty shoulders. + +So, as Jerry sat there in the study-room, her frowning eyes focussed on +a spot straight ahead of her, her spirit slowly rose to meet the +challenge of the debate. These others had all had to live through their +"first," ease had come to them only with practice, she reminded herself. + +It was pleasantly exciting, too, to be surrounded, after school, by a +group of interested schoolmates, each with a suggestion. + +"Just keep your hands tight behind your back," offered one. + +"I 'most choked to death in one debate," recalled Peggy Lee, laughing. +"I had a cough-drop in my mouth to make my voice smooth and when it came +my turn I was so scared I couldn't swallow it and there I had to talk +with that thing in my cheek, and every minute or two it'd get out and +'most strangle me! Oh, it was dreadful. I don't believe that story about +Demosthenes and the pebble." + +"I'd get some famous orator's speeches and practice 'em. It makes what +you say sound grand!" + +"Don't _look_ at anybody--just keep your eyes way up," declared Pat +Everett, whose experience went no farther than reciting four French +verses before a room full of fond parents, at Miss Prindle's +boarding-school. + +All of this advice Jerry took solemnly to heart. Gyp volunteered to help +her. Gyp was far more concerned that she should practice the arts of +oratory than that she should build up convincing arguments for her side +of the question. From the Westley library Gyp dug out a volume of +"Famous Speeches by Famous Men." Curled in the deep rocker in Jerry's +room she searched its pages. + +"Listen, Jerry--isn't this grand? 'Let us pause, friends, let us feel +the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear the +order to advance, let us behold the wild charge, the glistening +bayonets, the rushing horses, the blinding----'" + +"But, Gyp, that's nothing about the Philippine Islands!" + +"Of course not--at least all that about the horses and the bayonets--but +you could say, 'Let us pause----' and wave your hand--like this! Here, +he's used it again," her finger traced another line, "it sounds +splendid; so--so sort of--calm." + +Jerry pounced upon anything that might sound "calm." So, after she had +compiled arguments that must convince her listeners that the Philippine +Islands should be given their independence, she tried them out behind +carefully-closed doors, with Gyp as a stern and relentless critic. + +"Wave your hand _out_ when you say: 'Let us pause and consider----' Oh, +that's splendid! Try it again Jerry--slower. You're going to be +_great_!" Gyp's loyal enthusiasm strengthened Jerry's confidence. + +There was for her, too, an added inspiration in the fact that Uncle +Johnny was to be one of the judges. She wanted to do her "very best" for +him. As the school weeks had flown by, each full of joys that Jerry +could realize more than any of the other girls and boys, her gratitude +toward John Westley had grown to such proportions that she ached for +some splendid opportunity to serve him. She had told Gyp, one day, that +she wished she might save his life in some way (preferably, of course, +with the sacrifice of her own), but as Uncle Johnny seemed +extraordinarily careful in front of automobiles and street cars, as the +Westley home was too fireproof to admit of any great fire and there +could not be, in November, any likelihood of a flood, poor Jerry pined +vainly for her great opportunity. Once, when she had tried to tell Uncle +Johnny, shyly, something of how she felt, he had drawn her +affectionately to him. + +"Jerry-girl, you're doing enough right here for my girls to pay me back +for anything I have done." Which Jerry could not understand at all. She +could not know that only the evening before Mrs. Westley had told Uncle +Johnny how Gyp and Tibby had both moved their desks into Jerry's room, +and had added: + +"Gyp and Tibby never quarrel since Jerry came. She has a way of +smoothing everything over--it's her sunniness, I think. Gyp is less +hasty and headstrong and Tibby isn't the cry-baby she was." + +The day before the debate Isobel asked Jerry to show her the arguments +she had prepared. + +"Perhaps I can add some notes that will help you," she explained +condescendingly. + +Poor Jerry went into a flutter of joy over Isobel's apparent interest. +She ran to her room and took from her desk the sheets of paper upon +which were neatly written each step of her argument. She hoped Isobel +would think them good. + +"May I look over them in school?" Isobel asked as she took them. + +Jerry would have consented to anything! All through that day her heart +warmed at the thought of Isobel's friendliness. Like a small cloud +across the happiness of her life at the Westleys had been the +consciousness that Isobel disliked her; Gyp was her shadow, Tibby her +adoring slave, between her and Graham was the knowledge that they two +shared Pepper's loyalty, Mrs. Westley gave her exactly the same +mothering she gave her own girls, but Isobel, through all the weeks, had +maintained a covert indifference and coldness that hurt more than sharp +words. Now--Jerry told herself--Isobel must like her a little bit! + +Jerry discovered, when Friday night came, that the Lincoln debates were +popular events in the school life. Every girl and boy of Lincoln +attended; on the platform the faculty made an imposing background for +the three judges. Six empty chairs were placed, three on each side, for +the debaters who were to come up upon the stage at the finish of the +violin solo that opened the program. + +In the back of the room Cora Stanton, a Senior, stood with Jerry and the +boy who made up the affirmative side of the debate. Cora was prettily +dressed in blue taffeta, with a yellow rose carelessly fastened in her +belt. Her hair had been crimped and Jerry caught a whiff of perfume. +Then she glimpsed a trim little foot thrust out the better to show a +patent leather pump and a blue silk stocking. For the first time since +she had come to Highacres, Jerry grew conscious of her own appearance. +Over her, in a hot wave of mortification, swept the realization of what +a ridiculous figure she would present, walking up before everybody in +her brown poplin that she knew now was different from any other dress +she had seen at school. And Jerry could not get that shiny pump out of +her mind! Her own feet, in their sturdy black, square-toed shoes, +commenced to assume such elephantine proportions that, when the signal +came for the debaters to go forward, she could scarcely drag them along! + +How much more weighty could her arguments be if she only had on a pretty +dress--like Cora Stanton's; if she could only sit there in her chair +smiling--like Cora Stanton--down at the girls she knew instead of +crossing and uncrossing her dreadful feet! + +After an interval that seemed endless to Jerry, Cora Stanton rose and +made a graceful little bow, first to the judges, then to the audience. +The speakers had agreed among themselves how much ground in the argument +each should cover; Cora Stanton was to outline the conditions in the +Philippine Islands before the United States had taken them over, Jerry +was to show what the United States had done and how qualified the +Islands were, now, to govern themselves, and Stephen Curtiss was to +conclude the argument for the affirmative by proving that, in order to +maintain a safe balance of power among the eastern nations of the world +it was necessary that the Philippine Islands should be self-governing. + +A hush followed the burst of applause that greeted Cora. Jerry settled +back in her chair with something like relief--the thing had begun. She +caught a little smile from Uncle Johnny that gave her courage. She must +listen carefully to what Cora said. + +But as Cora, prettily at ease, began speaking, in a clear voice, Jerry +grew rigid, paralyzed by the storm of amazement, unbelief and anger that +surged over her. For Cora Stanton was presenting, word for word, the +arguments _she had prepared and written on those sheets of paper_! + +And in the very front row sat Isobel, with Amy Mathers, their +handkerchiefs wadded to their lips to keep back their laughter. + +It was very easy for poor Jerry to recognize the treachery. She was too +angry to feel hurt. And, more than anything, she was too confused--for, +when it came her turn, what was _she_ going to say? + +Wildly she searched her mind for something clear and coherent on the +hideous subject and all that would come was Gyp's "let us pause--let us +feel the fluttering of the heart that preceded the battle, let us hear +the order to advance--the wild charge----" + +She did not hear one word that the first speaker on the negative side +uttered, but the clapping that followed brought her to a pitiful +consciousness. + +She rose to her feet, somehow--those feet of hers still twice their +size--and stepped out toward the edge of the platform. A thousand spots +of black and white that were eyes and noses and hats danced before her; +she heard a suppressed titter from the front row. Then, out of it all +came Gyp's strained face. Gyp was leaning a little forward, anxiously. + +Jerry gulped convulsively. From somewhere a voice, not in the least like +her own, began: "You have been shown what the United States has done--" +(no, no--Cora Stanton had said _that_!) "I mean we must go back (that +was quite new) to--I mean--the ideals of America have been transplanted +to----" (oh, Cora Stanton had said _that_)! Jerry choked. Out of the +horror strained Gyp's agonized face. She lifted her chin, she must say +_something_---- + +"Let us pause (ah, familiar ground at last)--let us pause----" There was +a dreadful silence. "Let us pause and--and--let us pause----" + +With the last word all power of speech died in Jerry's throat! With a +convulsive movement she rushed back to her seat. If they'd only +laugh--that crowd out there in the room. But that silence---- + +Then, before anyone could stir, Dana King, the second speaker on the +negative side, leaped to his feet with a burst of oratory that was +obviously for the sole purpose of distracting attention from poor Jerry. +And something in the good nature of his act, in his reckless wandering +from the subject of the debate to gain his end, won everyone's +admiration. As one wakes from a consuming nightmare so poor Jerry roused +from her stupor of ignominy; she forgot Isobel, in the front row, and +clapped with the others when Dana King finished. + +Then came a determination to redeem herself in the rebuttal! She had +caught something of the fire of Dana King's tone. She was conscious, +now, of only two persons in the room, Gyp and Uncle Johnny. She turned, +as she rose again to speak, so that she might look squarely at Uncle +Johnny. Now she had no clamor of words jingling in her brain; very +simply she set against the arguments of her opponent the full weight of +those she had herself prepared--Cora Stanton, who had learned them at +the last moment, parrot-fashion, had found herself, in rebuttal, left +floundering quite helplessly. + +Dana King, speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis +had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only +one premise to fall back upon"--and Jerry had decided then, with +something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy she had ever, +ever known. + +There was tumultuous applause when the judges announced that the +affirmative had won. And there was a little grumbling that Dana King had +"sold" his side. + +Jerry, wanting to hide her ignominy, contrived to get away without +seeing Uncle Johnny. She could not, of course, escape Gyp, who declared +valiantly and defiantly that she had been "splendid." + +Gyp had not closely followed Cora Stanton's address, so she had not +guessed the truth, and Jerry could not tell her--Jerry could not tell +anyone. For, if she did, it must be traced to Isobel, and Isobel was +Uncle Johnny's niece. At that very moment Uncle Johnny was talking, down +in the front of the Assembly room, to Isobel and Amy Mathers, and he +stood with one arm thrown over Isobel's shoulder. + +But, alone in her own room, the pent-up passion that had been searing +poor Jerry's soul burst; with furious fingers she tore off the brown +poplin dress and threw it into a corner. + +"Ugly--horrid--hideous--old--thing! I _hate_ it!" It was not, of course, +the brown poplin alone she hated! The offending shoes followed the brown +dress. "I hate _everything_ about me! I wish--I wish--to-morrow would +never come! I wish----" Jerry threw herself face downward upon her bed. +"I wish I--was--home!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AUNT MARIA + + +"A letter from Aunt Maria," announced Graham, appearing at the door of +his mother's little sitting room, a large, square lavender envelope in +his hand. He carried it gingerly between a thumb and finger, and as far +as he could from his upturned nose, "I'd suggest, mother, that you put +on my gas-mask before you open it!" + +Gyp and Tibby laughed uproariously at his wit. Mrs. Westley reached for +the envelope. + +"Poor Aunt Maria, she must be so glad that the war is over and she can +get her favorite French sachet." + +Isobel perched herself upon the arm of her mother's chair. + +"Hurry, read it, mother." + +"I'll bet she's coming to visit us," groaned Gyp. + +"Don't expect us to throw away money, sis! She never writes 'cept when +she _is_ coming. Break the news, mum; is it to be a little stay of a +year or more?" + +Mrs. Westley lifted laughing eyes from the open letter. + +"She says she will come next Wednesday to spend a few days with us. She +is very sorry that that must be all--she is on her way to New York to +consult a famous nerve specialist. She sends love to 'the beautiful +children.'" + +Jerry was very curious--no one had ever mentioned an Aunt Maria! So Gyp +and Graham hastened to explain that Aunt Maria wasn't a _real_ aunt but +was "only" Isobel's godmother and something of a nuisance--to the +younger Westleys. + +"She doesn't give us presents," Graham concluded. + +"She's forgotten all the things she 'did promise and vow' when Isobel +was baptized. She had a fad, then, for godchildren; she used to go +around picking out the girl babies who had blue eyes. She was a friend +of Grandmother Duncan's and mother couldn't refuse her. She has nine +altogether and always gives them the same things." + +"And every time you see her she has a new fad," added Graham. "Once she +was a suffragist but she switched because the suffs didn't serve tea at +their meetings and the antis did. One time she was building a home for +Friendless Females and another time she was organizing the poor +underpaid shop girls, and the next----" + +"Mother, listen," broke in Isobel. She had taken the letter from her +mother and had been re-reading it. "She says she's going to France next +spring and she's thinking about taking one of her godchildren with her. +She's studying French and she wants us to talk French to her while she +is here----" + +"Well, I guess _not_! _I'll_ eat in the kitchen," vowed Graham. + +Gyp commenced to chuckle. "Let's say a whole lot of funny things in +French--like when Sue Perkins translated 'the false teeth of the young +man' and Mademoiselle sent her out of class." + +"Mother!" Isobel's brain was working rapidly. "_I_ ought to be the +goddaughter she picks out." She did not consider it necessary to explain +to her family the process of reasoning by which the other eight were +eliminated. "Wouldn't it be wonderful?" But her beautiful vision was +threatened by the mischief written in every line of Gyp's and Graham's +faces. "Mother, _won't_ you make the children promise to behave?" + +"_Children_----" snorted Graham. + +"----if they act dreadful the way they always do when Aunt Maria's here, +they'll spoil all my chances!" Isobel was sincerely distressed. + +"My dear," her mother laughed. "Don't build your castles in Spain--or +France--quite so fast. I am not sure I would _let_ you go over with Aunt +Maria. But Gyp and Graham must promise to be very nice to Aunt Maria +because she is an old lady----" + +"But, mother, she's not exactly old; she's just--funny!" + +"Anyway, Gyp, she will be our guest." + +"_Make_ them promise, mother----" + +"Oh, you're just thinking of yourself----" declared Graham. + +"Children, let's not spoil this Saturday by worrying over Aunt Maria. +Even though, sometimes, she is very trying, I know each one of you will +help make her visit pleasant and we'll overlook her little oddities. Who +wants to drive down to the market with me?" + +Gyp and Jerry begged eagerly to go; Tibby had to take a swimming lesson; +Graham was going out to Highacres to practice football; Isobel said she +preferred to stay home; "one of the girls" had promised to call up, she +explained, a little evasively. + +Mrs. Westley smothered the tiniest of sighs behind a smile; Isobel was +living so apart from the rest of the family, she never seemed, now, to +want to share the activities of the others. Her mother had always +enjoyed, so much, taking her biggest girl everywhere with her; she had +not believed that the time could come when Isobel would refuse to go. + +Driving through the city with Jerry and Gyp beside her, Mrs. Westley, +still thinking of Isobel, turned suddenly to Jerry. + +"_How_ your mother must miss _you_, dear," she said. Jerry was startled. + +"Oh, do you think so?" she answered, anxiously. + +"I mean--I was just thinking--mother love is such a _hungry_ love, +dear." + +"Well----" Jerry, very thoughtful, tried to recall the exact words her +mother had once used. "When I was little, mother used to tell me a +story. She said that her heart was a little garden with a very high wall +built of love and that I lived there, as happy as could be, for the sun +was always shining and everything was bright and the wall kept away all +the horrid things. But there was a gate in the wall with a latch-way +high up; I had to grow big before I could lift the latch and go through +the wall--and she made lovely flowers grow over the little gate, too, so +that perhaps I might not find it! I always liked the story, but once I +asked mother what she'd do if I found the gate and went out of the +garden for just a little while and she answered me that the garden would +be very quiet, but the sun would go on shining because our love was +there. Now I'm older I think I understand the story, and maybe coming +here was like going through the gate. But if it _is_ like the story, +then mother knows how much I love her, so she won't be _dreadfully_ +lonely--only a little bit, maybe." + +"What a beautiful story," Mrs. Westley's eyes glistened. "I would like +to hear her tell it! Some day I want to know your mother, Jerry." + +That was such a pleasant thought--her dear mother meeting Mrs. Westley, +who was almost as nice as her mother--that Jerry's face grew bright +again. She answered the pressure of Mrs. Westley's fingers with an +affectionate squeeze. + +Except for the first dreadful ordeal of facing her schoolmates and the +hurt of Isobel's unkindness, Jerry had suffered little from the ignominy +of the debate. And she had found that the girls, instead of laughing at +her, envied her because Dana King had so gallantly come to her rescue! + +"You should have seen Isobel Westley's face--she was _furious_," Ginny +Cox had confided to her. And Jerry would not have been human if she had +not felt a momentary thrill of satisfied revenge. + +The attention of the younger Westleys was centered, during the +intervening days, on Aunt Maria's approaching visit. Isobel was much +disturbed over the dire hints which Gyp and Graham dropped at different +times. One of Graham's friends had a pet snake and Graham had asked to +borrow it "just over Wednesday." + +"It'll strengthen her nerves better'n any old doctor," Graham declared, +loftily. + +"Mother, _do_ you hear them----" appealed Isobel, almost in tears. + +Isobel had been building for herself a rosy dream; she had even, +casually, told a few of the girls at school that "in June I'm going +abroad with my godmother, Mrs. Cornelius Drinkwater--you know her mother +was a second cousin to the Marquis of Balencourt and the family has a +beautiful chateau near Nice. Of course we'll stay there part of the +time----" A very little fib like that, Isobel had decided, could hurt no +one! She had lain awake at night, staring into the half-darkness of her +room, picturing herself sauntering beside Aunt Maria through long hotel +corridors, to the Opera, to the little French shops, driving beside Aunt +Maria through the Bois de Boulogne and walking on the Champs Elysees, +admired everywhere, envied, too. And perhaps, through Aunt Maria's +relatives (it was very easy in the dark to pretend that there _was_ a +Marquis of Balencourt) she might meet a handsome, dashing young +Frenchman who would go quite crazy about her, and it would be such fun +writing home to the girls---- + +"Graham," and Mrs. Westley made her voice very stern. "You must not play +a single trick on Aunt Maria!" + +"But, mother, she may stay on and on----" + +"If you'll be very good," Mrs. Westley blushed a little, for she knew +she was "buying" her children, "while Aunt Maria's here I'll take you +all to see 'The Land o'Dreams.'" + +"We promise! We promise!" came in an eager assent. + +"I'll tell Joe I don't want his snake," said Graham. + +"I won't laugh all the while she's here," declared Gyp. + +"We'll be angelic, mother," they chorused, and they really meant it. + +Aunt Maria's arrival, an hour before dinner, was nothing short of +majestic. The taxi-driver (by a slight effort of the imagination easily +transformed into a uniformed lackey) unloaded a half-dozen bags and +boxes; next there alighted from the taxi a trim little maid in black +with a rug over her arm, a hamper in one hand, a square leather box, +books and magazines in the other. Then, by degrees, Aunt Maria emerged, +first a purple hat, covered with nodding purple plumes, then a very red +face, turned haughtily away from the driver, whom she was calling +"robber"; yards and yards of purple velvet hung and swished about her, +while a wide ermine mantle, set about her shoulders, added the royal +touch without which the picture would have been spoiled! + +"Isn't she _gor-ge-ous_?" whispered Gyp to Jerry as they peeped over +Mrs. Westley's shoulder. + +Jerry thought Aunt Maria very grand--she was like the picture of the +Duchess in her old Alice in Wonderland, only much more regal. It seemed +to her that the entire Westley family should bow their heads to the +floor--instead Mrs. Westley was embracing the purple and ermine in the +most informal sort of a way! + +"----_such_ a train--a _disgrace_ to the government, but then the +government is going _all_ to pieces, I believe! And that miserable +_robber_ of a taxi man! _Mon Dieu!_" She suddenly remembered her French, +"Ma chere amie Beaux Infants!" She sputtered her newly-acquired phrases +with little guttural accents. She beamed upon them all, graciousness (as +became a duchess) in every nod of the purple plumes. With the tips of +her fat, jeweled fingers she touched Isobel's cheek. "Plus jolie que +jamais, ma chere!" + +"Nous sommes si heureux de vous avoir ici, chere Aunt Maria," answered +Isobel, falteringly. + +"Aunt _Marie_, my dear. I have forsaken the good name that was given to +me in baptism. One _must_ keep apace with the times, and though Maria +might be good enough for my greatgrandmother, my parents did not foresee +that it was scarcely suitable for _me_!" The purple folds swelled +visibly. "Peregrine, carry my bags upstairs." + +That was plainly more than one Peregrine could do. It was the welcome +signal for a general movement--none too soon; one glance at Gyp and +Graham told that a moment more must have broken their pretty manner! + +Peregrine took one bag, Graham seized two, Gyp and Jerry tugged one +between them. The procession marched up the stairway to the guest-room. +Gyp and Jerry heard Aunt Maria, behind them, explaining that Peregrine's +name was really Sarah! + +"I changed it--Peregrine is so much more 'chic.' I'm teaching her French +myself; in a little while she'll pass as a French maid and she will have +all the plain common-sense of her Hoosier bringing-up which those +fly-by-night French maids don't. A _very_ good arrangement--_I_ think." + +Thereafter, Peregrine, to the girls, was always Peregrine-Sarah. + +Mrs. Westley, at dinner, looking down the table at the prim, sober faces +of her youngsters, had an irresistible desire to laugh. Graham's solemn +eyes were glued to his plate, Gyp, spotlessly groomed, spoke only in +hoarse whispers, Jerry looked a little frightened--what would she do if +the Duchess should speak to _her_. (Not that there was much danger; Aunt +Maria, except for a "from the wilds of our mountains, how interesting," +had scarcely noticed her.) Isobel sat next to Aunt Maria and was +nervously attentive. + +Aunt Maria was more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels +shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her +head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to +see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in +the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as +even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so +was very easy, for everyone agreed with everything she said, remarked +Isobel with pathetic enthusiasm. Behind her smile Mrs. Westley was +thinking that Maria Drinkwater was a very silly woman! + +Aunt Maria spent most of her time berating the "government." That was +why, she explained, she was going to France. The officials in Washington +were just sitting there letting everything go to the dogs! "_Look_ at +the prices! We're being _robbed_ by Labor--actually robbed, every moment +of our lives!" She clasped her hands and rolled her eyes tragically +upward. "A crepe de chine chemise--hardly good enough for +Peregrine--_fifteen dollars_! And Congress just talking about the League +of Nations! Ah, mon Dieu!" + +Graham, catching a fleeting glint of laughter in his mother's eyes, +slowly and solemnly winked, then dropped his glance back to his plate. + +"Let's say we have to study," whispered Gyp to Jerry, when the family +moved toward the library. Even Graham welcomed the suggestion. As they +approached Aunt Maria to say good-night, she poked each in the cheek. + +"Not going to wait to have coffee with us? _So_ sensible--it hurts the +complexion! _Nice_ children! Bon soir, Editha. Bon soir, Elizabeth. +What's _your_ name, child? Jerauld? A _nice_ name. Bon soir, Graham!" + +"She's the only creature in the whole world that calls me Editha and +Tibby Elizabeth," cried Gyp disgustedly. "_That's_ why I just can't +endure her!" + +Safe in Jerry's room, Gyp cast off her "company" manner by a series of +somersaults on the pink-and-white bed. + +"Hurray, Jerry, we needn't see her again until to-morrow night! That +Peregrine-Sarah will take her breakfast up on a tray. Wasn't Isobel +funny, trying to be a nice little goddaughter? For goodness' sake, +what's _that_?" + +For there was a wild rush through the hall, then sharp shrieks from the +library! + +Out of consideration for Aunt Maria, Pepperpot had been shut on the +third floor. He would have found the separation from his beloved master +and mistress most irksome if he had not discovered, on Graham's table, +the box of white mice which Graham had brought from the garage during +the afternoon. To pass the time Pepper amused himself by tormenting the +imprisoned mice. When Graham startled him at his pleasant occupation he +jumped so hurriedly from the table that he sent the box tumbling to the +floor. The fall broke the box; the poor mice, mad to escape from their +persecutor, went scampering down the stairs and through the hall, Pepper +in pursuit and Graham frantically trying to catch them all. Of course +the chase led straight to the library! + +Aunt Maria, at the startling interruption, dropped a precious vase she +had been examining to the floor, where it lay in a hundred pieces. With +a shriek and an amazing agility she climbed to the safety of the +davenport. The mice circled the room and fled through another door, +Pepper and Graham after them. In the pantry Graham caught Pepper; Mrs. +Hicks, aided by her broom, succeeded in capturing two of the mice, but +the third escaped. Gyp and Jerry listening from the banisters, their +hands clapped over their mouths to suppress their laughter, heard Isobel +and Mrs. Westley in the library, trying to quiet poor Aunt Maria! + +"We didn't promise we'd make _Pep_ behave," grumbled Graham as they shut +Pepperpot, for punishment--and protection--in Jerry's clothes closet. + +An hour later Jerry heard Isobel, outside of the guest-room door, +bidding Aunt Maria good-night. Jerry thought that she did not blame +Isobel for wanting to go abroad with Aunt Maria; it would be very +wonderful to travel with such a fine lady and with Peregrine! She hoped +Pepper had not spoiled everything! + +Quiet settled over the Westley home. A door opened and shut and +uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it +must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to +the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the +quiet pierced the wildest shrieking--a shrieking that brought back a +frightened Peregrine-Sarah, Graham, leaping in two bounds down the +stairway, Isobel, Mrs. Westley, Gyp and Jerry to the guest-room door! + +In the middle of the room, her hands clasped tragically over her heart, +her mouth open for another shriek, stood Aunt Maria, trembling. Stripped +of her regal trappings she made an abject picture; the snowy puff lay on +her bureau and from under a nightcap, now sadly awry, straggled wisps of +yellow-gray hair. Her round body was warmly clad in a humble flannelette +nightdress, high-necked and long-sleeved. And, strangest of all, her +face was covered with squares and strips of courtplaster! + +"Sarah!" (It was not Peregrine now.) "_Stupid_--standing there like an +_idiot_--my smelling salts! Won't _anyone_ call a doctor? My heart----" +She shrieked again. "This _miserable_ place! These--_brats_!" + +"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has +happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted +shoulders. + +"_Happened_----" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not _enough_ to have my +digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but--oh, my poor heart, to +find a _mouse_ under my pillow----" + +If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque +face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third +little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed! + +Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering +vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed, +bag and baggage. + +Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care, +they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes. + +"_Who_ spoiled it--who did anything?" laughed Graham. + +"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment. + +Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any +interruption; her story was Gyp-like. + +"_You_ say, Uncle Johnny, _did_ we break our promise just 'cause a poor +little mouse hid under her pillow?" + +"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog----" Isobel saw an opportunity +for sweet revenge. "Mother, why don't you send it away? You made Graham +give back that Airedale puppy Mr. Saunders sent him; I don't think it's +fair to keep this horrid old mongrel!" + +Jerry's face darkened. Graham came hotly to Pepper's rescue. + +"He's _not_ a mongrel--he's better'n _any_ old Airedale! He's got more +sense in his _tail_ than Aunt Maria's got in her whole body! If he goes +I'll--I'll--go, too!" + +"Children," protested Mrs. Westley, giving way to the laughter that had +been consuming her from the first moment of Aunt Maria's arrival. "Let's +all feel grateful to Pepper. She's a poor, silly, selfish, vain old +woman, and if she ever comes here again I'm afraid that _I_ won't +promise to be good myself! Isobel Westley, dry your eyes--do you think +I'd let any girl of mine go to France with her? She can take her eight +other goddaughters, if they want to stand her quarreling with every +single person in authority--I won't let her have _my_ girl. Why," she +turned to John Westley and her face was very earnest, "she's such a +_waste_--of human energy, of brains--of just breath! How terrible to +grow old and be like--that." + +Gyp was furtively feeling of her firm cheeks. "I'd rather be ugly, +mother, than wear those funny things. _Look_, mummy," she ran to her +mother's chair and touched her cheek. "_You've_ got a wrinkle! But--I +love it." With passionate tenderness she kissed the spot. + +"I'll take you to France myself some day," laughed Uncle Johnny, patting +Isobel's hand. + +"And can we go to see the 'Land o' Dreams'?" asked Graham, anxiously. + +"Indeed we will--as a celebration," assented his mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PARTY + + +The Christmas holidays brought a welcome respite from the steady grind +of school work. And there was every indication, in the Westley home, +that they were going to be very merry! Mrs. Westley had one fixed rule +for her youngsters: "Work while you work and play while you play." So +she and Uncle Johnny, behind carefully closed doors, planned all sorts +of jolly surprises for the holiday week. + +But Jerry had a little secret, too, all of her own. She had written to +her mother begging to be allowed to go home "just for Christmas." She +had had to write two letters; the first, with its burst of longing, had +sounded so ungrateful that she had torn it up and had written another. +Then she waited eagerly, hopefully, for the answer. + +It came a few days before Christmas, and with it a huge pasteboard box. +Something told Jerry, before she opened the envelope, what her mother +had written. Her lips quivered. + +"...It will be hard for us both, dear child, not to be together on +Christmas, but it seems unwise for you to go to the trouble and expense +of coming home for such a short stay. We are snowed in and you would not +have the relaxation that you need after your long weeks of study. Then, +darling, it would be all the harder to let you go again. I want you to +have the jolliest sort of a holiday and I shall be happy thinking each +day what my little girl is doing. I have had such nice letters from Mrs. +Westley and Mr. John telling all about you--they have been a great +comfort to me. We are sending the box with a breath of Kettle in it. The +bitter-sweet we have been saving for you since last fall...." + +When Jerry opened the box the room filled with the fragrant odor of +pine. In an ecstasy she leaned her face close to the branches and +sniffed delightedly; she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh--it was +as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her +disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet +to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. +Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house +was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a +bit of her pine and a gay cluster of the bitter-sweet. + +The postman's ring brought Gyp's practice, with one awful discord, to an +abrupt finish. In a moment she came bounding up the stairs, two little +white envelopes in her hand. + +"Jerry--we're invited to a real party--Pat Everett's." She tossed one of +the small squares into Jerry's lap. "Hope to die invitations, just like +Isobel gets!" + +Jerry stared at the bit of pasteboard. Gyp's delight was principally +because it was the first "real" evening party to which she had been +invited; it was a milestone in her life--it meant that she was very +grown-up. + +"Jerauld Travis--you don't act a _bit_ excited! It will be heaps of fun +for Pat's father and mother are the jolliest people--and there'll be +dancing and boys--and spliffy eats." + +"I never went to a party--like _that_." Jerry, with something like awe, +lifted the card. + +"Oh, a party's a party, anywhere," declared Gyp loftily, speaking from +the wisdom of her newly-acquired dignity. + +"And--I haven't anything to wear," added Jerry, putting the card down on +her desk with the tiniest sigh. + +Gyp's face clouded; that was too true to be disputed. Her own clothes +would not fit Jerry but Isobel's---- + +"We'll ask Isobel to let you----" + +"No--_no_!" cried Jerry vehemently. Her face flushed. "Don't you +_dare_!" + +Gyp looked aggrieved. "I don't see why not, but if you feel like +that--only, it'll spoil the whole party. Oh----" she suddenly sniffed. +"_What's_ that woodsy smell? Where did you get it?" + +And the pine and the berries made Gyp and Jerry forget, for the moment, +the Everett party. + +The holiday frolics began with the appropriate ceremony of consigning +all the school books to the depths of a great, carved chest in the +library, turning the curious old key in the lock and handing it over to +Mrs. Westley. Jerry had demurred, but she recognized, behind all the +fun, a real firmness. "Every book, my dear! Not one of you children must +peep inside of the cover of even a--story, until I give back the key." +Mrs. Westley pinched Jerry's cheek. "I want to see red rosies again, my +dear girl." + +Christmas eve brought a glad surprise to the family in the unexpected +arrival of Robert Westley. Jerry had wondered a little about Gyp's +father; it was very nice to find him so much like Uncle Johnny that one +liked him at the very first moment. He had, it seemed, resorted to all +sorts of expedients to get from Valparaiso to his own fireside in time +for Christmas, but everyone's delight had made it very worth while. + +"That's one thing that makes up for father being away so much," +explained Gyp. "He 'most always just walks in and surprises us and +brings the jolliest things from queer places." + +On Christmas morning Jerry opened sleepy eyes to find soft flurries of +snow beating against her windows, a piney odor in her nostrils and Gyp +in a red dressing-gown by the side of her bed. + +"Merry Christmas!" In her arms Gyp carried some of the contents of her +own Christmas stocking. "Wake up and see what Santa has brought you!" + +On the bedpost hung a bulging stocking; queer-shaped packages, tied with +red ribbon, were piled close to it, and across the foot of Jerry's bed +lay a huge box. + +"Open this first. What _is_ it? I don't know." Gyp was as excited as +though the box was for her. Jerry untied the cord and lifted the cover. +Within, beneath the folds of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a +blue serge school dress and a fluffy, shimmery party frock; beneath them +a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been +written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus." + +Jerry did not know that ever since the eventful debate there had been +much secret planning between Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley over her +wardrobe. He had realized that night, for the first time, that Jerry, in +her queer, country-made clothes, was at a disadvantage among the city +girls and boys. It was all very well to argue that fine feathers did not +make fine birds--Uncle Johnny knew the heart of a girl well enough to +realize how much a pretty ribbon or a neat new dress could help one hold +one's own! He had wanted to buy out almost an entire store, but Mrs. +Westley had held him in restraint. "You may offend her and spoil your +gift if you make it seem too much," she had warned him. + +Jerry knew too little of the price of the materials that made up her +precious dresses to be distressed with the gift. In rapture she kissed +the shimmering blue folds. And Gyp executed a mad dance in the middle of +the room. + +"_Now_ you've just got to go to the Everett party." + +On Christmas afternoon Mrs. Allan walked into the Westley home. She and +her husband had come to the Everetts for the holidays. She brought a +little gift to Jerry from her mother. It was a daintily embroidered set +of collar and cuffs. Jerry pictured her mother in the lamplight of the +dear living-room at Sunnyside, working the shining needle in and out and +loving every stitch! Oh, it was _much_ nicer than the grandest gift the +stores could offer. + +Christmas past, Gyp and Jerry thought of nothing but the Everett party. +Isobel, flitting here and there like a pretty butterfly, divided her +enthusiasm. She indulged in a patronizing attitude--she would go, of +course, to the Everetts', though it was a kids' party and _she'd_ +probably be bored to death. + +But within a few hours of the Great Event a horrible realization +overtook Gyp's and Jerry's golden anticipation. Santa Claus had +forgotten to put any dancing shoes in the Christmas box! + +The two girls shook their heads dolefully over Jerry's three pairs of +square-toed shoes. + +"I just can't wear _one_ of them," cried Jerry. + +Gyp would not be disappointed. "Then you'll _have_ to squeeze your feet +into my last summer's pumps. They won't hurt very much, and anyway, when +the party begins you'll forget them!" + +Jerry wanted so much to wear the new blue dress that she was persuaded. +Gyp helped her get them on and Jerry stumped about in them--"to get used +to them!" + +"Now, _do_ they hurt awfully?" Gyp asked, in a tone that said, "Of +course they don't," and Jerry, fascinated by the strange girl she saw in +the mirror, answered absently: "Oh, they just feel queer!" + +Anyway, going to a "real" party _was_ too exciting to permit of thinking +of one's feet. Jerry moved as though in a dream. Like Gyp, she felt +delightfully grown-up. The spacious, old-fashioned Everett home was gay +with holiday greens, in one corner an orchestra played, Patricia with +her mother and her older sister greeted each guest in such a jolly way +that one felt in a moment that one was going to have the best sort of a +time. + +For awhile, very happily, Jerry trailed Gyp among the young people, +exchanging merry greetings. Then suddenly dreadful pains began to cut +sharply through her feet; they climbed higher and higher until they +quivered up and down her spine. Poor Jerry found it hard to keep the +tears from her eyes. She limped to a half-hidden corner near the +orchestra, and slipped off the offending pumps. + +Isobel spied her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the +pumps--she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful +smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, +when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not +told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such +moments, she had hardened her heart all the more toward Jerry. She was +savagely jealous, too, over Uncle Johnny's Christmas box to Jerry; she +had figured that the dresses had cost a great deal more than the +bracelet he had given her! So into her head flashed a plan that should +have found no place there, for Isobel was indisputably the prettiest +girl in the room and the most-sought-for dancing partner. + +She beckoned gaily to Dana King. She would kill two birds with one +stone, she thought--though not in just those words; she would have the +pleasant satisfaction of seeing Jerry make a ridiculous figure of +herself trying to dance (for Jerry had told her she only knew the +"old-fashioned" dances) and she would see Dana King embarrassed before +all the others! Isobel had never forgiven him for championing Jerry the +night of the debate. + +"Will you do me a favor, Dana?" she asked sweetly. "Dance with that poor +Jerry Travis over there. She's _perfectly_ miserable." + +Dana hastened, politely, to do what Isobel asked. He had never exchanged +a word with Jerry; however, after the debate, no introduction seemed +necessary. When Jerry saw him approach a flood of color dyed her +cheeks--not from shyness, but because she did not know what to do with +her unshod feet! + +"Will you dance this, Miss Travis?" + +Jerry lifted eyes dark with laughter. She did not look in the least +"perfectly miserable." "I--I--can't!" She put out the tips of her +unstockinged toes. Then she told him how she had had to wear Gyp's +pumps. "And they hurt so dreadfully that I slipped them off and now +_nothing'll_ get them back on. I guess I've got to stay here the rest of +my life." + +There was something so refreshing in Jerry's frankness and +unaffectedness that Dana King sat down eagerly beside her. + +"Let me sit here and talk, then. Say, what on earth was the matter with +you the night of the debate? Was it your shoes--_then_? You _could_ have +talked--I know!" + +He spoke with such conviction that Jerry's eyes shone. + +"No, it wasn't--entirely--my shoes. Something _did_ happen--but I can't +tell. Isn't this the jolliest party? I never went to one before--like +this. There aren't this many people in all Miller's Notch." + +Isobel, watching Jerry's corner, grew very angry when she saw that Dana +King lingered with Jerry. She wondered what on earth Jerry could be +saying that made him laugh so heartily; they were acting as though they +had known one another all their lives. + +Just as Dana King was asking Jerry what she would do if the midnight +hour struck and found her slipperless, Mrs. Allan discovered them. _She_ +had to hear about the pumps, too. + +"You blessed child, I'll get a pair of Pat's--they'd fit anything!" She +returned in a few moments, two shiny, patent-leather toes protruding +from the folds of her spangled scarf. Pat's pumps slipped easily over +Jerry's poor swollen feet. + +"There, now, Cinderella, let's go and get some ice cream." And Dana King +led Jerry through the dancers, past Isobel and a fat boy whose curly red +head only reached to her shoulder, to the dining-room where, around +small tables, boys and girls were devouring all sorts of goodies. + +The party was spoiled for Isobel; not so for Gyp who, besides having had +the jolliest sort of a time herself, was bursting with satisfaction +because Jerry had "captured" the most popular boy in the room. + +"He sat out _six_ dances with you--I counted! He took you to _supper_ I +heard him ask you, Jerry Travis, if you were going out to the school +Frolic. And why did he call you Cinderella?" asked Gyp as the young +people rode homeward. + +Jerry had no intention of telling Isobel of the ignominy of the pumps, +so she answered evasively: "Because it was my first party, I guess," +then, with a long, happy sigh, she cuddled back against Gyp's shoulder +and watched the street lamps flash past. Oh, surely the Wishing-rock had +opened a wonderful new world to little Jerry! + +"Did you tell him it _was_ your first party?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +"Oh--nothing. _I_ wouldn't have been honest 'nough to--I'd have +pretended I'd gone to lots." + +"_I'm_ not going to the Frolic," Isobel broke in. "I'm too old for such +things." + +Gyp straightened indignantly. + +"Too old to coast? Well, I hope _I_ never grow as old as _that_!" she +cried. + +"_You_ never _will_!" was Isobel's withering answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HASKIN'S HILL + + +"Jerry--it's _perfect_! Come and look." Gyp, shivering in her pajamas, +was standing with her small nose flattened against Jerry's cold window. +Downstairs a clock had just chimed seven. + +Jerry sprang from her bed with one bound. She peeped over Gyp's +shoulder. A thaw the day before had made the girls very anxious, but now +a sparkling crust covered the snow and the early sun struck coldly +across the housetops. + +This was the day of the Lincoln Midwinter Frolic. + +"Bring your clothes into my room and we'll dress in front of the fire. +Uh-h-h, isn't it cold? But won't it be _fun_? Don't you wish it was ten +o'clock now? It's going to be the very best part of the whole holiday!" + +Jerry thought so, too, when, a few hours later, she and Gyp joined a +large group of the Lincoln girls and boys at the trolley station. A +special car, attached to the regular interurban trolley, was to take +them and their sleds and skis--and lunch--out to Haskin's Hill where the +Midwinter School Frolic was always held. + +Jerry had not caught a glimpse of the country since arriving with Uncle +Johnny at the Westley home. As the car sped along she sat quiet amid the +merry uproar of her companions, but her eyes were very bright; these +wide, open stretches of fields, with the little clusters of buildings +and the hills just beyond, made her think of home. + +The founders of Lincoln School had wanted to thoroughly establish the +principle of co-education. "These young people," one of them had said, +"will have to live and work and play in a world made up of both men and +women; let them learn, now, to work and play together." The records of +the school showed that they worked well together and one had only to +give the briefest glance at the merry horde that swarmed over Haskin's +Hill on that holiday morning to know that they played well together, +too. + +"It's most like Kettle," cried Jerry, excitedly, for at Haskin's +station, where the picnickers left the trolley, the hills pressed about +so close that they, indeed, seemed to Jerry like her beloved mountains. +"But how horrid to call a lovely place like this Haskin's!" + +"It's named after a funny little hermit who lived for years and +years--they say he was 'most one hundred and fifty when he died--in the +little cabin at the foot of the hill where we coast. He used to write +poetry about the wind and the trees and he'd wander around and sit in +his door playing a violin and singing the verses he'd written." + +"Then his name could be any old thing," declared Jerry, delighted at the +picture Gyp had drawn, "if he did such lovely things! Let's _us_ call it +the Singing Hill." + +The scent of pine on the frosty air and the knowledge that her new +sweater and tam-o'shanter were quite as pretty as the prettiest there, +transformed Jerry into a new Jerry. She felt, too, that out here in the +open she was in her element; a familiarity with these sports that had +been her winter pastime since she was a tiny youngster gave her an +assurance that added to her gay spirits. + +Thanks to long hours of play with Jimmy Chubb she could steer the +bob-sled with a steadier hand than any of the others; Barbara Lee, +looking more like a schoolgirl than ever in a jaunty red scarf and cap, +declared she'd trust her precious bones to no one but Jerry! + +The morning passed on swift wings; only the pangs of hunger persuaded +the girls and boys to leave their fun. They gathered in front of the +picturesque old cabin about a great bonfire over which two of the older +boys were grilling beefsteak for sandwiches. And from a huge steaming +kettle came a delicious odor of soup. + +"Imagine Isobel saying she's too _old_ for all this fun," exclaimed Gyp +as she stood in the "chow line" with her mess tin ready in her hand. +"Why, a lot of these girls and boys are older than she is! The trouble +with Isobel is"--and her voice was edged with scornful pity--"she's +afraid of mussing her hair!" + +Skiing was a comparatively new sport among the Lincoln boys and girls. +Only a few of the boys had become even fairly skillful at it, yet there +had been much talk of forming a team to defeat Lincoln's arch-enemy--the +South High. While the young people ate their lunch their conversation +turned to this. + +"We haven't anyone that can touch Eric Hansen, though--he learned how to +ski, I guess, in the cradle," declared Dana King, frowning thoughtfully +at the long hill that stretched upward from where they were grouped. + +During the morning Ginny Cox had borrowed Graham Westley's skis and had, +after many tumbles, succeeded in one thrilling descent. She declared now +to the others, between huge mouthfuls of sandwich, that it was the most +exciting thing she'd ever done--and Ginny, they all knew, had done many! +Jerry, next to her, had agreed, quietly, that skiing _was_--very +exciting. Ginny's head was a bit turned by that one moment of victory +when she had stood flushed--and upright--at the foot of the hill, trying +to appear indifferent as the boys showered laughing congratulations upon +her for her feat, so, now, she turned amused eyes upon Jerry. + +"Can _you_ ski?" There was a ring of derision in her voice. Jerry +nodded. "Then I _dare_ you to try it from the _very top_!" + +The face of Haskin's Hill was divided by a road that wound across it. +Because of the steep descent of the upper part and because the level +stretch of the road made a jump too high for anyone's liking, only one +or two of the boys had attempted to ski from the very top, and they had +met with humiliating disaster. + +Jerry looked up to the top of the hill. Ginny's tone fired her. She was +conscious, too, that Ginny's dare had been followed by a hush--the +others were waiting for her answer. + +"If someone will lend me their skis----" She tried to make her tone +careless. + +"Jerry Travis, you never would!" + +"Take Dana King's skis. They're the best." + +"The _very_ top----" commanded Ginny. + +"May I use your skis, Dana?" + +"Let her use your skis, King." + +"Jerry, _don't_----" implored Gyp. + +Jerry put down her plate and cup. Miss Lee was in the little cabin, so +she did not know what was happening. The girls and boys pressed about +Jerry, watching her with laughing eyes. Not one of them believed that +she had the nerve to accept Ginny Cox's "dare." + +But when, very calmly, she shouldered Dana King's skis and started off +up the hill alone, their amusement changed to wonder and again to alarm. +Jerry looked very small as she climbed on past the level made by the +road. + +"Oh, she'll fall before she even _gets_ to the jump--that part's awfully +steep," consoled one boy, speaking the fear that was in each heart. + +"If she kills herself you'll be her murderer," cried Gyp passionately to +Ginny Cox. + +Ginny was wishing very much that she hadn't made that silly, boastful +dare--trying to make someone else do what she was afraid to try herself! +She was very fond of Jerry. The red faded from her face; she clenched +her hands tightly together. + +Tibby commenced to cry hysterically. One of the older girls declared +they ought to call Jerry back. The boys shouted, but Jerry, catching the +sound faintly, only waved her hand in answer. + +At the top of the hill Jerry turned and looked down the long stretch. +She had skied over many of the trails of Kettle, but none of them had +had "jumps" as difficult as this. Quite undaunted, however, she told +herself that she needed only to "keep her head." She adjusted her skis, +then tried the weight of her pole, carefully, to learn its balance. She +began to move forward slowly, her eyes fixed on the narrow tracks before +her, her knees bent ever so little, her slim body tilted forward. Only +for one fleeting moment did she see the group below, standing immovable, +transfixed by their concern--then their faces blurred. The sharp wind +against her face, the lightning speed sent a thrill through every fibre +of Jerry's being; her mind was intensely alert to only one thing--that +moment when she must make the jump! It came--instinctively she balanced +herself for the leap, her back straightened, her arms lifted, her head +went up--as though she was a bird in flight she curved twenty feet +through the air ... her skis struck the snow-crusted tracks, her body +doubled, tilted forward ... then, amid the unforgettable shouts of the +boys and girls she slid easily, gracefully, on down the trail. + +Ginny Cox was the first to reach her. She threw her arms about her and +almost strangled her in a passionate hug. + +"You _wonder_! Oh, if anything had happened to you----" + +The boys were loud and generous in their praise. + +"Now we've found someone that can put it all over Hansen," shouted one +of them. "Let's challenge South High right off!" + +"Who'd ever believe a little _kid_ like you could do it," exclaimed Dana +King with laughable frankness, but he stared at Jerry with such open +admiration that any sting was quite taken from his words. + +Jerry could not know, of course, that, all in a moment, she had become a +"person" in Lincoln School. Uncle Johnny, that afternoon in the Westley +library, had said very truly that it was usually some unexpected little +thing that set a style or made a leader. He had not, of course, foreseen +this episode of Haskin's Hill, but he had known that Jerry had +determination with her sunniness and a faith in herself that could never +be daunted. + +"Come on, fellows, let's _us_ try it. We can't let little Miss Travis +beat us," challenged one of the boys. + +There was general assent to this. Half a dozen picked up their skis. But +Jerry lifted an authoritative hand--Jerry, who, until this moment, had +been like a little mouse among them all! + +"Oh, boys, _don't_ try it. Unless you can ski _very_ well, a jump like +that's awfully dangerous. I've skied all my life and I've jumped, too, +but never any jump as high as that and--and _I_ was a little +scared--too!" And, because Jerry was a "person" now, they listened. She +had spoken with appealing modesty, too, not at all with the arrogance +that comes often with success and can never be tolerated by +fellow-students. + +"Miss Travis is right, fellows," broke in Dana King. "Let's learn to ski +a little better before we try that jump. This very minute we'll begin +practice for the everlasting defeat of South High! You can use my skis, +Jerry. Come on, Ginny--the All-Lincoln Ski Team!" He led the way up the +hill followed by a number of the boys and Ginny Cox and Jerry--Jerry +with a glow on her cheeks that did not come entirely from the wintry +air; she "belonged" now, she was not just a humble student, struggling +along the obscure paths--she was one of those elected ones, like Ginny +and Dana King, to whom is given the precious privilege of guarding the +laurels of the school at Highacres! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE PRIZE + + +"Good-morning, Mr. Westley!" + +Barbara Lee's demure voice halted John Westley in a headlong rush +through the school corridor. + +"Oh--good-morning, Miss Lee." If a stray sunbeam had not slanted at just +that moment across Miss Lee's upturned face, turning the curly ends of +her fair hair to threads of sheen, John Westley might have passed right +on. Instead, he stopped abruptly and stared at Miss Lee. + +"I declare--it's hard to believe you're grown-up! And a teacher! Why, I +could almost chuck you under the chin--the way I used to do. I suppose +I'd get into no end of trouble if I ever tried it----" + +"Well," her face dimpled roguishly, "I don't think it's ever been done +to anyone in the faculty. I don't know what the punishment is. Anyway, +I'm trying so hard to always remember that I _am_ very much grown-up +that it is unkind of you to even hint that I am failing at +it--dismally." + +"I think--from what my girls say--that you're succeeding rather +tremendously, here at Highacres." + +"That is nice in you--and them! I wonder if I can live up to what they +think I am." Miss Lee's face was very serious; she was really grown-up +now. + +"Miss Lee, can you give me half an hour? I was on my way to Dr. Caton's +office when----" + +"You nearly knocked me over!" + +"Yes--thinking you were one of the school children----" + +"We can go into my library or--down in my office." + +"Your office, by all means." John Westley was immensely curious to see +Miss Lee's "office." + +It was as business-like in its appearance as his own. A flat-topped +desk, rows of files, a bookcase filled with books bearing formidable +titles, and three straight-backed chairs against the wall gave an +impression of severity. Two redeeming things caught John Westley's +eye--a bowl of blooming narcissi and a painting of Sir Galahad. + +"I brought that from Paris," explained Barbara Lee. "I stood for hours +in the Louvre watching a shabby young artist paint it and--I _had_ to +have it. It seemed as if he'd put something more into it than was even +in the original--a sort of light in the eyes." + +"Strange----" John Westley was staring reflectively at the picture. +"Those eyes are like--Jerry Travis!" + +"Yes--yes! I had never noticed why, but something familiar in that +child's expression _has_ haunted me." + +Though John Westley had come to Highacres that morning with an important +matter on his mind and had, on a sudden impulse, begged Miss Lee to give +him a half-hour that he might talk it over with her, he had to tell her, +now, of Jerry and how he had found her standing on the Wishing-rock, +visioning a wonderful world of promise that lay beyond her mountain. + +"Her mother had made an iron-clad vow that she'd always keep the girl +there on Kettle. Why, nothing on earth could chain that spirit anywhere. +She's one of the world's crusaders." + +Barbara Lee had not gone, herself, very far along life's pathway, yet +her tone was wistful. + +"No, you can't hold that sort of a person back. They must always go on, +seeking all that life can give. But the stars are so very far off! +Sometimes even the bravest spirits get discouraged and are satisfied +with a nearer goal." + +John Westley, sitting on the edge of the flat-topped desk, leaned +suddenly forward and gently tilted Miss Lee's face upward. There was +nothing in the impulsive movement to offend; his face was very serious. + +"Child, have _you_ been discouraged? Have you started climbing to the +stars--and had to halt--on the way?" + +The girl laughed a little shamefacedly. "Oh, I had very big dreams--I +have them still. And I had a wonderful opportunity and had to give it +up; mother wanted me at home. She isn't well--so I took this position." +She made her little story brief, but her eyes told more than her words +of the disappointment and self-sacrifice. + +"Well, mothers always come first. And maybe there's a _different_ way to +the stars, Barbara." + +There was a moment's silence between them. John Westley was the first to +break it. + +"I want your advice, Miss Lee. I believe you're closer to the hearts of +these youngsters out here than anyone else. I've something in my mind +but I can't just shape it up. I want to build some sort of a scholarship +for Lincoln that isn't founded on books. + +"The trouble is," he went on, "that every school turns out some real +scholars--boys and girls with their minds splendidly exercised and +stored--and what else? Generally always--broken bodies, physiques that +have been neglected and sacrificed in the struggle for learning. Of what +use to the world are their minds--then? I've found--and a good many men +and women come under my observation--that the well-trained mind is of no +earthly value to its owner or to the rest of the world unless it has a +well-trained body along with it." + +"That's my present business," laughed Miss Lee. "I must agree with you." + +"So I want to found some sort of a yearly award out here at Highacres +for the pupil who shows the best record in work--_and_ play." + +"That will be splendid!" cried Miss Lee, enthusiastically. + +"Will you help me?" John Westley asked with the diffidence of a +schoolboy. "Will you tell me if some of my notions are ridiculous--or +impossible?" He picked up one of the sharpened pencils from the desk and +drew up a chair. "Now, listen----" and he proceeded to outline the plan +he had had in mind for a long time. + +One week later the Lincoln Award was announced to the pupils of the +school. So amazing and unusual was the competition that the school +literally buzzed with comments upon it; work for the day was abandoned. +Because the award was a substantial sum of money to be spent in an +educational way, most of the pupils considered it very seriously. + +"Ginny Cox has the best chance 'cause she always has the highest marks +and she's on all the teams." + +"It isn't just being on _teams_," contradicted another girl, studying +one of the slips of paper which had been distributed and upon which had +been printed the rules covering the competition. "It's the number of +hours spent in the gym, or in out-of-door exercise. And you get a point +for setting-up exercises and for walking a mile each day. And for +sleeping with your window open! _Easy!_" + +"And for drinking five glasses of water a day," laughed another. + +"And for eating a vegetable every day. And for drinking a glass of +milk." + +"That lets _me_ out. I just loathe milk." + +"Of course--so do I. But wouldn't you drink it for an award like +_that_?" + +"Look, girls, you can't drink tea or coffee," chimed in another. + +"And you get a point for nine hours' sleep each school night! That'll +catch Selma Rogers--she says she studies until half-past eleven every +night." + +"I suppose that's why it's put in." + +"And a point for personal appearance--and personal conduct in and out of +school! Say, I think the person who thought up _this_ award had +something against us all----" + +Patricia Everett indignantly opposed this. "Not at all! Miss Lee, and +she's the chairman of the Award Committee, said that the purpose of the +award is to build up a Lincoln type of a pupil whose physical +development has kept pace with the mental development. _I_ think it will +be fun to try for it, though eating vegetables will be lots worse than +the bridge chapter in Caesar!" + +Jerry Travis, too, had made up her mind to work for the award. She had +read the rules of the competition with deep interest; here would be an +opportunity to make her mother and Little-Dad proud of their girl. And +it ought not to be very hard, either--if she could only bring up her +monthly mark in geometry! She had, much to her own surprise, lived +through the dreaded midwinter examinations, though in geometry only by +the "skin of her teeth," as Graham cheerfully described his own +scholastic achievements. + +Jerry found that Gyp had been carefully studying the rules--Gyp who had +never dreamed of trying for any sort of an honor! But poor Gyp found +them a little terrifying; like Pat Everett she hated vegetables and she +despised milk; there was always something awry in her dress, a shoelace +dangling, a torn hem, a missing button. But if one could win a point for +correcting these little failings just the same as in chemistry or higher +math., was it not worth trying? + +"Who_ever_ do you s'pose thought of it all?" Gyp asked Jerry and Graham. +The name of the Lincoln "friend" who was giving the award had been +carefully guarded. + +Not one of the younger Westleys suspected Uncle Johnny who sat with them +and listened unblushingly and with considerable amusement to their +varied comments. + +"Well, I'll _try_ for it," conceded Graham. "Who wouldn't? Even Fat +Sloane says he's goin' to and he just hates to move when he doesn't have +to! But _five hundred dollars_ for washing your teeth and walking a +mile----" + +"And standing well in Cicero," added Uncle Johnny, mischievously. + +"Do you s'pose Cora Stanton will be marked off in personal appearance +'cause she rouges and uses a lipstick?" asked Gyp, with a sly glance +toward Isobel, who turned fiery red. "I _know_ she does, 'cause Molly +Hastings went up and deliberately kissed her cheek and she said she +could taste it--awfully!" + +"Cora's a very silly girl. Anyway, if she lives up to the rules of the +competition she won't need any artificial color--she'll have a bloom +that money couldn't buy!" + +"Well, _I'm_ not going to bother about the silly award," declared +Isobel. "Grind myself to death--no, indeed! I don't even want to go to +college. If you're rich it's silly to bother with four whole years at a +deadly institution--some of the girls say you have to study awfully +hard. Amy Mathers is going to come out next year and I want to, too." +Isobel talked fast and defiantly, as she caught the sudden sternness +that flashed across Uncle Johnny's face. + +Mrs. Westley started to speak, but Uncle Johnny made the slightest +gesture with his hand. + +Into his mind had come the memory of that half-hour with Barbara Lee and +something she had said--"the stars are very far off!" _Her_ face had +been illumined by a yearning; he was startled now at the realization +that, in contrast, Isobel's showed only a self-centered, petty +vanity--his Isobel, who had been so pretty and promising, for whom he +had thought only the very noblest things possible. + +But although he saw the dreams he had built for Isobel dangerously +threatened, he clung staunchly to his faith in the good he believed was +in the girl; that was why he lifted his hand to stay the impulsive words +that trembled on the mother's lips and made his own tone tolerant. + +"Making plans without a word to mother--or Uncle Johnny? But you'll come +to us, my dear, and be grateful for our advice. I don't believe just a +lot of dances will satisfy my girl--even if they do Amy Mathers. And +after they're over--what then? Will you really be a bit different from +the other girl because you've 'come out'? What do you say to taking up +your drawing again and after a few years going over to Paris to study?" + +The defiant gleam in Isobel's eyes changed slowly to incredulous +delight. Uncle Johnny went on: + +"And even an interior decorator needs a college training." + +"John Westley, you're a wonder," declared Mrs. Westley after the young +people had gone upstairs. "You ought to have a half-dozen youngsters of +your own!" + +He stared into the fire, seeing visions, perhaps, in the dancing flames. +"I wish I did. I think they're the greatest thing in the world! To make +a good, useful man or woman out of a boy or girl is the best work given +us to do on this earth!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CUPID AND COMPANY + + + "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, + The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea----" + +scanned Gyp in a singsong voice. Then she stopped abruptly; she realized +that Miss Gray was not hearing a word that she was saying! + +Miss Gray had asked Gyp to come to her after school. It was a glorious +winter day and Gyp's friends were playing hockey on the little lake. Gyp +had faced Miss Gray resentfully. + +"Please scan three pages, Miss Westley," Miss Gray had said, putting a +book into Gyp's hands. And now, in the middle of them, Miss Gray was +staring out across the snowy slopes of the school grounds, not hearing +one word, and blinking real tears from her pale-blue eyes! + +Little Miss Gray, for years, had come and gone from Lincoln in such a +mouse-like fashion that no one ever paid much attention to her; upon her +changing classes, as an individual, she left scarcely any impression; as +a teacher she was never cross, never exacting, gave little praise and +less censure; she worked more like a noiseless, perfect machine than a +human being. + +Gyp had never noticed, until that moment, that she had blue eyes--very +pretty blue eyes, fringed with long, dark lashes. No one could see them +because she was nearsighted and wore big, round, shell-rimmed glasses, +but now she had removed these in order to wipe her tears away. Gyp, +fascinated by her discoveries, stared openly. + +Gyp's heart never failed to go out to the downtrodden or oppressed, +beast or human. Now she suddenly saw Millicent Gray, erstwhile teacher +in Second-year English, as an appealing figure, very shabby, a pinched +look on her oval-shaped face that gave the impression of hunger. Her +hair would really be very pretty if she did not twist it back quite so +tight. She was not nearly as old as Gyp had thought she was. And her +tears were very pathetic; she was sniffing and searching in a pocket for +the handkerchief that was probably in her knitting bag. + +"T-that will d-do, Miss Westley," she managed to say, still searching +and sniffing. + +But Gyp stood rooted. + +"I'm sorry you feel bad, Miss Gray. Will you take my handkerchief? It's +clean," and Gyp, from the pocket of her middy blouse, proudly produced a +folded square of linen. + +"You wouldn't believe that just _that_ could open the flood-gates of a +broken heart," she exclaimed later to Jerry and Pat Everett, feeling +very important over her astonishing revelation. + +"Who'd ever dream that Miss Gray could squeeze out the littlest tear," +laughed Pat, at which Gyp shook her head rebukingly. + +"Teachers are human and have hearts, Pat Everett, even if they _are_ +teachers. And romance comes to them, too. Miss Gray is very pretty if +you look at her real close and she's quiet because her bosom carries a +broken heart." + +Sympathetic Jerry thought Gyp's description very wonderful. Pat was less +moved. + +"What did she tell you, Gyp?" + +Gyp hesitated, in a maddening way. "Well, I suppose it was giving her +the handkerchief made her break down and I don't believe she thought I'd +come straight out here and tell you girls. And I'm _only_ telling you +because I think maybe we can help her. After she'd taken the +handkerchief and wiped her nose she took hold of my hand and pressed it +hard and told me she hoped I'd never know what loneliness was. And then +I asked her if she didn't have anyone and she said no--not a soul in the +whole wide world cared whether she lived or died. Isn't that dreadful? +And she said she didn't have a home anywhere, just lived in a horrid old +boarding house. Well, she was beginning to act more cheerful and I was +afraid she was recovering enough to tell me to go on with the scanning, +so I got up my nerve and I asked her point-blank if she'd ever had a +lover----" + +"_Gyp Westley_----" screamed Pat. + +"Well, there wasn't any use beating 'round the bush and I knew we'd want +to know and I read once that men were the cause of most heartaches, so I +asked her----" + +"What _did_ she say? Wasn't she furious?" + +"No--I think she was glad I did. Maybe, if you didn't have any family +and lived in a great big boarding house where you couldn't talk to +anyone except 'bout the weather and the stew and things, you'd even like +to confide in me. She just blushed and looked downright pretty, but +dreadfully sad. She said she'd had a very, very dear friend--you could +tell she meant a lover--but that it was all past and he had forgotten +her. I suppose I should have said to her that it's 'better to have loved +and lost than never to have loved at all,' but I just asked her if he +was handsome, which was foolish, because she'd think he was if he was as +homely as anything." + +"And was he?" + +"She said he was distinguished--a straight nose and a firm chin and +black hair with a white streak running straight down through the middle, +like Lee's black-and-white setter dog, I guess. Girls, mustn't it be +_dreadful_ to have to go on day after day with your heart like a cold +stone inside of you and no one to love you and to teach school?" + +Each girl, with her own life full to brimming with love, looked as +though they felt very sorry, indeed, for poor little Miss Gray. + +"Let's do something to make her happy," suggested Pat. + +"Do you suppose we could find the man? They must have quarreled and +maybe, if he knew----" + +"There can't be many men with white streaks in their hair and if we get +the other girls to help us, perhaps by watching real closely, we can +find him." + +"And I thought, too, we might send her some flowers after a few days +without any name or any sign on them where they came from. She'll be +dreadfully excited and curious and then in a week or so we can send some +more----" + +"Aren't flowers very expensive?" put in Jerry. Gyp understood her +concern; Jerry had very little spending money. + +"I know--Pat and I'll buy the flowers and maybe some of the others will +help, and you write some verses to go with them, Jerry." + +Though to write verses would, ordinarily, to Jerry be a most alarming +task, she was glad of anything that she could do to help Miss Gray and +assented eagerly. + +Peggy Lee was enlisted in the cause, and the next day the conspirators +made a trip to the florist's shop. They were dismayed but not +discouraged by the exorbitant price of flowers; they scornfully +dismissed the florist's suggestion of a "neat" little primrose +plant--they were equally disdainful of carnations. Patricia favored +roses, and when the florist offered them a bargain in some rather wilted +Lady Ursulas, she wanted to buy them and put them in salt and water +overnight, to revive them. Finally they decided upon a bunch of violets, +which sadly depleted their several allowances. And Jerry attached her +verses, painstakingly printed on a sheet of azure-blue notepaper in red +ink. "Blue's for the spirit, you know, and the red ink is heart's blood. +Listen, girls, isn't this too beautiful for words?" Gyp read in a tragic +voice: + + "Only to love thee, I seek nothing more, + No greater boon do I ask, + Only to serve thee o'er and o'er, + And in thy smile to bask. + + "Only to hear thy sweet voice in my ear, + Though thy words be not spoken for me, + Only to see the lovelight in thy eyes, + The love of eternity. + +"They're _wonderful_, Jerry! And so sad, too." + +"Do they sound like a lover?" asked Jerry anxiously. + +"_Exactly_," declared Pat, solemnly. "Oh, _won't_ it be fun to see her +open it? And she'll think, of course, that it comes from the +black-and-white man." + +"And we must each one of us pledge to keep our eyes open for the +creature." + +"Think of it, girls--if we could make Miss Gray happy again it would be +something we could remember when we're old ladies. Mother told me once +that things we do for other people to make them happy come back to us +with interest." + +In the English class, on the following day, four girls sat very demurely +in the back row, their eyes riveted on their books. When presently there +was a knock at the door (Gyp had timed carefully the arrival of the +messenger), Pat Everett exclaimed, "my goodness" aloud, and Jerry +dropped her book to the floor. But their agitation passed unnoticed; +Miss Gray's attention was fixed upon the little square box that was +brought to her. + +Jerry had a moment of panic. She scribbled on the top of a page in her +text-book: "What if she's angry?" To which Gyp replied: "If _your_ life +was empty, wouldn't you jump at a crumb?" + +Only for a moment was the machinelike precision of the English class +broken. Miss Gray untied the cord, and peeped under the cover. The +girls, watching from the back row, saw a pink flush sweep from her small +nose to the roots of her hair, then fade, leaving her very white. Then: + +"Please continue, Miss Chase." + +When the class was dismissed even Gyp had not the courage to linger and +watch Miss Gray open the box. "She might suspect you," Patricia had +warned. But at recess she rushed to the girls, her eyes shining. + +"_Jerry! Pat!_ She's _crazy_ about 'em! I went in after the third hour +and pretended I was hunting for my book. The violets were sitting up on +her desk and she had a few of them fastened in her old cameo pin--and +she looked _different_--already! Let's keep up our good work! Let's +swear that we'll leave no stone unturned to find the black-and-white +man!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL + + +"Oh, I'm _sick_ of winter! I wish I was a cannibal living on a tropical +island eating cocoanuts." + +"----Missionaries, you mean," laughed Isobel. + +Virginia Cox threw her skates over her shoulder; Isobel, Dorrie Carr and +herself were the last to leave the lake. The school grounds were +deserted. + +"Oh, look at the snowman someone's started," cried Ginny, as they walked +through the grounds. "Say, this is spliffy snow to pack! Let's finish up +the work of art." In her enthusiasm over her suggestion her ennui was +forgotten. "I know, let's make him into a snowlady." + +Ginny's fingers were clever. Her caricatures, almost always drawn in +ridicule of the faculty or her fellow-classmates, were famous. If, in +her make-up, she had had a kindlier spirit and a truer sense of the +beautiful, she might have become a great artist or sculptor. + +Now she worked feverishly, shaping a lifelike figure from the huge cakes +of snow that the others brought to her. As she stood back to view her +handiwork a naughty thought flashed into her mind. + +"Girls--it's going to be Miss Gray! And mother's got a funny old +lavender crocheted shawl like that thing Miss Gray wears when it's cold, +that the moths won't even eat. And I can fix a hat like the dreadful +chapeau of hers that came out of the ark. And glasses, too----" + +Isobel and Dorrie laughed delightedly. + +"How can you get them out here?" + +"Oh, _I'll_ find a way!" Ginny always could! "Do you think that nose is +pug enough?" She deftly packed it down on each side with a finger, then +gave it a quick, upward touch. "Isn't that better?" + +Her companions declared the likeness perfect--as far as snow could make +it. + +"And I can hunt up two blue glass allies for eyes." There was, plainly, +no end to Ginny's resourcefulness. "You just wait and see what you'll +see in the morning." + +During the night King Winter maliciously abetted Ginny in her work, for +a turn in his temper laid a sparkling crust over everything--and +especially the little snowlady who waited, immovable, on a little rise +of ground near the main entrance of the school. + +The pupils, arriving at Highacres the next morning, rubbed their eyes in +their amazement. Not one failed to recognize the English teacher in the +funny, shawl-draped figure, with enormous glasses framing round blue +eyes, shadowed by a hat that was almost an exact counterpart of the +shabby one Miss Gray had hung each morning for the past three winters on +her peg in the dressing-room. But there was something about the rakish +tilt of the hat that was in such strange contrast to the severe +spectacles and the thin, frosty nose, that it gave the snowlady the +appearance of staggering and made her very funny. + +All through the school session groups of pupils gathered at the windows, +laughing. There was much speculating as to who had built the snowlady; +the three little sub-freshmen who had begun the work Ginny had finished +were vehement in their assertions that they had not. Gradually it was +whispered about that Ginny Cox had done it. + +"We might have known that," several laughed, thinking Ginny very clever. + +Then, over those invisible currents of communication which convey news +through a school faster than a flame can spread, came the rumor that +trouble was brewing. One of the monitors had told Dorrie Carr that Miss +Gray had had hysterics in the office; that, in the midst of them, she +had written out her resignation and that, after the first period, not an +English class had been held! + +Another added the information that Barbara Lee had quieted Miss Gray +with spirits of ammonia and that Dr. Caton had refused to accept her +resignation and had been overheard to say that the culprit would be +punished severely. + +Ginny's prank began to assume serious proportions. Ginny was more +thoughtless than unkind; it had not crossed her mind that she might +offend little Miss Gray. But she was not brave, either--she had not the +courage to go straight to Miss Gray and apologize for her careless, +thoughtless act. + +There had been, for a number of years, one well-established punishment +at Lincoln; "privileges" were taken away from offenders, the term of the +sentences depending upon the enormity of the offence. And "privileges" +included many things--sitting in the study-room, mingling with the other +pupils in the lunch rooms at recess, sharing the school athletics. This +system had all the good points of suspension with the added sting of +having constantly to parade one's disgrace before the eyes of the whole +school. + +"If Ginny Cox is found out, she can't play in the game against the South +High," was on more than one tongue. + +Gyp, deeply impressed by the criticalness of the situation, summoned a +meeting of the Ravens. Her face was very tragic. + +"Girls--it's the chance for the Ravens to do something for the Lincoln +School! We've had nothing but spreads and good times and now the +opportunity has come to test our loyalty." + +Not one of the unsuspecting Ravens guessed what Gyp had in mind! + +"Ginny Cox did build that snowlady--Isobel saw her. But if she gives +herself up she'll be sent to Siberia!" + +"Well, it'll serve her right. She needn't have picked out poor little +Miss Gray to make fun of." + +Gyp frowned at the interruption. "Of course not. _We_ know all about +Miss Gray and feel sorry for her, but Ginny doesn't. And, anyway, that +isn't the point. I was talking about loyalty to Lincoln." Gyp made her +tone very solemn. "Disgrace--everlasting, eternal, black disgrace +threatens the very foundations of our dear school!" She paused, +eloquently. + +"Next week, Tuesday, our All-Lincoln girls' basketball team plays our +deadly enemy, South High. And what will happen without Ginny Cox? Who +_else_ can make the baskets she can? Defeat--ignominious defeat will be +our sad lot----" Her voice trailed off in a wail that found its echo in +every Raven's heart. + +"I'd forgotten the game! _What_ a shame!" + +"Why _couldn't_ Ginny have thought of that?" + +"Maybe Doc. Caton will just let her play that once." + +"Not he--he's like iron. Didn't he send Bob Morely down for three whole +days just before the Thanksgiving game 'cause he got up in Caesar class +and translated 'bout the 'Garlic Wars'?" + +Gyp sensed the psychological moment to strike. + +"Never before in the history of our secret order has such an opportunity +to serve our school been given to us----" + +"What can we do?" + +"One of us can offer ourself on the altar of loyalty----" + +Her meaning, stripped of its eloquent verbage, slowly dawned upon six +minds! A murmur of protest threatened to become a roar. Gyp hastily +dropped her fine oratory and pleaded humbly: + +"It's so _little_ for one of us to do compared to what it means, and if +we _didn't_ do it and South High beat us, why, we'd suffer lots more +with remorse than we would just taking Ginny's punishment for her. +Anyway, what did the promise we solemnly made _mean_? Nothing? We're a +nice bunch! _I'm_ perfectly willing to take Ginny Cox's place, but I +think each Raven ought to have the chance and we should draw lots----" + +"Yes, that would be the fairest way," agreed Pat Everett in a tone that +suggested someone had died just the moment before. + +"I always draw the unlucky number in everything," shivered Peggy Lee. + +"There'll have to be two this time, then, for I always do, too," groaned +a sister Raven. + +"Shall we do it, girls? Shall we prove to the world that we Ravens can +make any sacrifice for our school?" + +"Yes--yes," came thickly from paralyzed throats. + +In a dead silence Gyp and Pat prepared seven slips of paper. Six were +blank; upon the seventh Pat drew a long snake with head uplifted, ready +to strike. The slips were carefully folded and shaken in Jerry's hat. +Gyp put the hat in the middle of the room. + +"Let's each one go up with her eyes shut tight and draw a slip. Then +don't open it until the last one has been drawn." They all agreed--if +they had to do it they might as well make the ceremony as much of a +torture as possible! + +So horrible was the suspense that a creaking board made the Ravens jump; +a shutter slamming somewhere in another part of the building almost +precipitated a panic. After an interval that seemed hours each Raven sat +with a white slip in her nervous fingers. + +"Now, one--two--three--_open_!" cried Gyp. + +Another moment of silence, a sharp intake of breath, a rattle of paper, +then: "Oh--_I have it_!" cried Jerry in a small, frightened voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DISGRACE + + +"Will the young gentleman or lady who built the snow-woman that stood on +the school grounds yesterday morning go at once to my office?" + +Dr. Caton's tone was very even; he might have been asking the owner of +some lost article to step up and claim it, but each word cut like a +sharp-edged knife deep into poor Jerry Travis' heart. + +She sat in the sixth row; that meant that, to reach that distant door, +she must face almost the entire school! Her eyes were downcast and her +lips were pressed together in a thin, bluish line. She heard a low +murmur from every side. Above it her steps seemed to fall in a heavy, +echoing thud. + +Not one of the Ravens dared look at poor Jerry; each wondered at her +courage, each felt in her own heart that had the unlucky slip fallen to +_her_ lot she could never have done as well as Jerry had---- + +Then, instinctively, curious eyes sought for Ginny Cox--Ginny, who had +been unjustly accused by her schoolmates. But Ginny at that moment was +huddled in her bed under warm blankets with a hot-water-bag at her feet +and an ice-bag on her head, her worried mother fluttering over her with +a clinical thermometer in one hand and a castor-oil bottle in the other, +wishing she could diagnose Ginny's queer symptoms and wondering if she +had not ought to call in the doctor! + +Jerry had had a bad night, too. At home, in her room, Gyp's eloquent +arguments had seemed to lose some of their force. Jerry persisted in +seeing complications in the course that had fallen to her lot. + +"It's acting a lie," she protested. + +"The cause justifies _that_," cried Gyp, sweepingly. "Anyway, I don't +believe Dr. Caton will be half as hard on you as he would have been on +Ginny Cox. It's your first offence and you can act real sorry." + +"How can I act real sorry when I haven't _done_ anything?" wailed Jerry. + +"You'll _have_ to--you must pretend. The harder it is the nobler your +sacrifice will be. And some day everyone will know what you did for the +honor of the school and future generations will----" + +"And I was trying so hard for the Lincoln Award!" Real tears sprang to +Jerry's eyes. + +"Oh, you can work harder than ever and win it in spite of this," +comforted Gyp, who truly believed Jerry could do anything. + +"And I can't play on the hockey team in the inter-class match this +week!" + +"Of _course_ it's hard, Jerry." Gyp did not want to listen to much +more--her own conviction might weaken. "But nothing matters except the +match with South High. _That's_ why you're doing it! Now if you want to +just back out and bring shame upon the Ravens as well as dishonor to the +school--all right! Only--I've told Ginny." + +"I'll do it," answered Jerry, falteringly. But long after Gyp had gone +off into dreamless slumber she lay, wide-eyed, trying to picture this +sudden and unpleasant experience that confronted her. Her whole life up +to that moment when, in Mr. John's automobile, she had whirled around +her mountain, bound for a world of dreams, had been so simple, so +entirely free from any tangles that could not be straightened out, in a +moment, by "Sweetheart" that her bewilderment, now, made her lonely and +homesick for Sunnyside and her mother's counsel. The glamour of her new +life, happy though it was, lifted as a curtain might lift, and revealed, +in the eerie darkness of the night, startling contrasts--the rush and +thronging of the city life against the peaceful quiet of Jerry's +mountain. It was so easy, back there, Jerry thought, to just know at +_once_, what was right and what was wrong; there were no uncertain +demands upon one's loyalty to the little old school in the Notch--one +had only to learn one's lesson and that was all; even in her play back +there there had not been any of the fierce joy of competition she had +learned at Highacres! + +And mother, with wonderful wisdom, had brought her so close to God and +had taught her to understand His Love and His Anger. Jerry dug her face +deep into her pillow. Wouldn't God forgive a lie that was for the honor +of the school? Wouldn't He know how Ginny was needed as forward on the +Lincoln team? It was a perplexing thought. Jerry told herself, with a +sense of shame, that she had really not thought much about God since she +had come to the Westleys. She had gone each Sunday with the others to +the great, dim, vaulted church, but she had thought about the artists +who had designed the beautiful colored saints in the windows and about +the pealing music of the organ and not about God or what the minister +was saying. Back home she had always, in church, sat between her mother +and the little window where through the giant pines she could see a +stretch of blue sky broken by a misty mountain-top; when one could see +that and smell the pine and hear, above the drone of the preacher's +voice, the clear note of a bird, one could feel very close to the God +who had made this wonderful, beautiful world and had put that sweet note +in the throat of a little winging creature. + +Then Gyp's words taunted her. "You can back out--if you want to!" Oh, +no--she would not do that--now; she would not be a coward, she would see +it through; she would measure up to the challenge, let it cost what it +might she would hold the honor of the school--_her_ school (she said it +softly) above all else! + +Jerry had never been severely punished in her life; as she sat very +quietly in Dr. Caton's office waiting for assembly to end she wondered, +with a quickening curiosity, what it would seem like. Anyway, _nothing_ +could be worse than having to walk out of the room before all those +staring boys and girls. + +But Jerry found that something _was_! Barbara Lee came into the room, +looking surprised, disappointed and unhappy. + +"Jerry," she exclaimed, "I can't believe it." + +Jerry wanted to cry out the truth--it wasn't fair. Miss Lee sat down +next to her. + +"If you had to make fun of someone, why _didn't_ you pick out me--anyone +but poor little Miss Gray! I think that if you knew how unhappy and--and +_drab_ poor Miss Gray's life has been, how for years she had to pinch +and save and deny herself all the little pleasures of life in order to +care for her mother who was a helpless invalid, you'd be sorry you had +in the smallest measure added any to her unhappiness." + +"I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world," burst out Jerry. Did she +not know more about poor little Miss Gray than did even Barbara Lee? + +"Then _why_----" But at this dangerous moment Dr. Caton walked into the +room. + +Jerry's sentence was very simple. She listened with downcast eyes. She +was to lose all school privileges for a week; during that time she must +occupy a desk in the office, she must eat her lunch alone at this desk, +she must not share in any of the school activities until the end of +suspension. She must apologize to Miss Gray. + +In Jerry's punishment there was an element of novelty that softened its +sting. It was very easy to apologize to Miss Gray, partly because she +was really innocent and partly because a fresh bunch of violets adorned +Miss Gray's desk toward which Jerry had contributed thirty-four cents. +Then a message from the Ravens was spirited to her. + + You're _wonderful_! We're proud of you. Keep up your nerve. Blessed + is the lot of the martyr when for honor he has suffered. + + The Ravens. + + P. S. Coming out of history I heard Dana King say to another boy + that he didn't believe you did it at _all_--that you are shielding + SOME ONE else! + + Your Adoring Gyp. + +Too, Jerry found the office a most interesting place. No one glanced +toward her corner and she could quietly watch everything that happened. +And on the second day Uncle Johnny "happened"--in a breezy fashion, +coming over and pinching her cheek. Uncle Johnny did not know of her +disgrace; by tacit agreement not a word of it had been breathed at home. +Dr. Caton, annoyed and disapproving, crisply intimated why Jerry was +there. Uncle Johnny tried to make his lips look serious but his eyes +danced. Over Dr. Caton's bald head he winked at Jerry. + +Uncle Johnny had come to Highacres to talk over some plans for an +enclosed hockey rink. For various reasons, of which he was utterly +unconscious, he was enjoying "mixing" school interests with the demands +of his business. He lingered for half an hour in the office, talking, +while Jerry watched the back of his brown head and broad shoulders. +Before leaving he walked over to her corner. + +"My dear child," he began in a severe tone. He leaned over Jerry so that +Dr. Caton could not hear what he said. A trustee had privileges! + +"I wouldn't give a cent for a colt that never kicked over the traces!" +Which, if Jerry had really been guilty of any offence, would have been +very demoralizing. But she was not and she watched Uncle Johnny go out +of the room with a look of adoration in her eyes. + +A sense of reward came to Jerry, too, when Ginny Cox returned to school. +Having fully recovered from the funk that had laid her, shivering and +feverish, in bed, that first day she came back in gayer spirits than +ever, declaring to many that she thought Miss Gray a "pill" to make such +a fuss over just a little joke and, to a few, that it was fine in Jerry +to shoulder the blame so that she might play in the game against South +High. But her gaiety covered the first real embarrassment she had ever +suffered, for Ginny, who had always, because of her peculiar charm, +coming from a sense of humor, a hail-fellow spirit, an invariable +geniality and an amazing facility in all athletics, exacted a slavish +devotion from her schoolmates, and was accustomed to dispense favors +among them, hated now to accept, even from Jerry, a very, very great +one! And Jerry sensed the humility that this embarrassment called into +being. + +Ginny waylaid Jerry going home from school. Jerry was carefully living +up to the terms of her "sentence"; each day, directly after the close of +school, she walked home alone. + +"Jerry, I--I haven't had a chance to tell you--oh, what a _peach_ you +are," Ginny's words came awkwardly; she knew that they did not in any +way express what she ought to be saying. + +Jerry did not want Ginny's gratitude. She answered honestly: "I didn't +want to do it. I _had_ to--I drew the unlucky slip, you see. And you +were needed on the team." + +"It's all so mixed up and not a bit right. Can I walk along with you? +Who'd ever have thought that just building that silly snow-woman would +have made all this fuss!" + +"Dr. Caton says thoughtlessness always breeds inconsiderateness and +inconsiderateness develops selfishness, selfishness undermines good +fellowship and good fellowship is the foundation of the spirit of +Lincoln," quoted Jerry in a voice so exactly like Dr. Caton's that both +girls laughed. + +"He's dead right," answered Ginny, with her characteristic bluntness. "I +just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever +and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the +way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there isn't +anything I wouldn't do for you, Jerry Travis. If I don't play better +basketball Friday night than I ever have in my life, well, you can walk +all over me like dirt." There was a humble ring in Ginny's voice that +had surely never sounded there before! + +But the hard part of Jerry's punishment came when the others, without +her, trooped off to the game against South High, the blue and gold +colors of Lincoln tied on their arms. It promised to be the most +exciting game of the season; if Lincoln could defeat South High it would +win the Interschool cup. + +There had, alas, to be practiced a little more deception to explain why +Jerry remained at home. Gyp had announced that Jerry had a headache and +Mrs. Westley had been much concerned--Jerry, who never had an ache or a +pain! She had gone to Jerry's room, had tucked her in bed and had sat by +the side of the bed gently smoothing Jerry's guilty forehead. + +"When I get through this I'll never, never tell a lie for anybody or +anything," vowed Jerry in her heart, as she writhed under the loving +touch. + +Two hours later Gyp tiptoed to her door, opened it softly and peeped in. +Jerry, expecting her, sat bolt upright. Gyp bounded to the exact centre +of the bed. + +"We _won_! We _won_! But, oh, _Jerry_, it was a squeak! Honest to +goodness, my heart isn't beating right _yet_. _Tied_, Jerry--at the +half. Then Muff Bowling on the South High made two spliffy baskets--they +were _great_, even if she made 'em! Our girls acted as though they were +just dummies, but didn't they wake up? You should have seen their +passing _then_. Why, honest, Midge Fielding was _everywhere_! Caught a +high ball and passed it _under_--before you could _wink_! And, oh, +Ginny--_she_ was _possessed_. She could make that basket _anywhere_. +And, _listen_, Jerry, with _only two minutes more to play_ if they +didn't make _another_ and then Ginny _fell_--_flat_, Jerry, with the +South High guard _right on her chest_ and her wrist doubled under +her--and she got up like a _flash_ and her face was as white as that +sheet--and _she made a basket_! _And we won!_" And Gyp, drawing a long, +exultant breath, dropped her chin on her knees. + +"Did--did they all cheer, then, for Ginny?" + +"I should _say_ so." With a long yawn Gyp uncurled her legs. "I'm dead. +I'm going to bed." She turned toward the door. "Oh, say, I most forgot. +Ginny told me to tell you that the reason she played the way she did +to-night was 'cause she kept thinking of you and what you'd done for her +and she wanted to prove that she was worth it. Ginny _is_ a good sort, +isn't she?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE RAVENS CLEAN THE TOWER + + +The Ravens, now enjoying a pleasant distinction among the Lincoln +students because of Jerry's suffering, the truth of which had become +known after a few weeks to nearly everyone in the school, except, of +course, the faculty, decided to admit more members to their circle. This +necessitated an elaborate ceremony of initiation, and an especially +elaborate spread. + +"Let's us clean the tower room," suggested Gyp one afternoon, with this +in mind. "I don't mean sweep or scrub or anything like that--'cause the +dust and the cobwebs make it lots more romantic. I mean just shove +things further back. We'll need more room." + +Jerry agreed. So the two pushed George Washington aside and climbed the +little stairway. A sharp wind howled around the tower room, making +weird, wailing sounds. + +"Isn't it spooky up here this afternoon?" whispered Gyp. "Let's hurry. +Here, I'll hand you these books and you pile them over there in that +corner." + +Gyp tossed the books about as though they were bricks. Jerry handled +them more carefully. From her infancy she had been brought up to respect +any kind of a book; those at home had seemed almost a part of her dear +mother and Little-Dad; these had belonged to Peter Westley. He must have +spent a great deal of his time reading, she thought, the volumes were +worn about their edges, the pages thumbed. She peeped into one or two. +Peter Westley, who had shunned the companionship of his fellow-mortals, +had made these his friends. + +Gyp divined what was passing in Jerry's thoughts. + +"These books look all dried up and dreary--just like Uncle Peter was," +she exclaimed, throwing one over. + +Jerry opened it at random. + +"Oh, _this_ isn't! Listen, isn't it beautiful? + + "Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime, + Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl---- + +"It makes me think of a sunrise from Rocky Point. Often Little-Dad takes +me up there and we sleep all night rolled in blankets." + +"I wish I could do things like that," sighed Gyp longingly. "I hate just +doing the regular sort of things that everyone else is doing." + +Jerry regarded her in astonishment; that Gyp might, perhaps, envy her +the childhood she had had on Kettle had never occurred to her! + +"Perhaps sometime you can visit me in Sunnyside." Her eyes shone at the +thought. "Don't you love poetry?" She read again: + + "If 'chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet + Extend his ev'ning beam, the fields revive, + The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds + Attest their joy, that hill and valley ring---- + +"It's like that--at sunset--in the Witches' Glade," Jerry said slowly. +She closed the book. "I think Peter Westley must have had something nice +in him to like this. There used to be an old, old lady who lived in a +funny little house in the Notch; I always pretended she was old Mother +Hubbard who lived in the cupboard. Jimmy Chubb used to throw apples at +her roof to make her run out and chase him. But her garden was the +loveliest anywhere around--mother used to beg seeds from her. And she'd +talk to her flowers--sometimes when we'd hide behind the hedge next door +to her house we'd hear her. And mother said that there must be something +lovely in her soul if she cared so much for flowers. Perhaps that's the +way it was with your Uncle Peter and his books." + +Gyp frowned as though she was trying very hard to think this possible. +She lifted a huge Bible and dusted it thoughtfully with her +handkerchief. + +"I don't know--I heard Uncle Johnny say once to my father that Uncle +Peter was as hard as rocks when it came to driving a bargain and he'd +never give a cent to anyone. Mother said that riches that came like that +only brought unhappiness and she was sorry we had any of it, though----" +Gyp laughed. "Money's funny. It wouldn't matter how much of an allowance +father gave Graham or me we'd never have any and I don't know where it +goes. And Isobel always has a lot. Maybe she's going to be like Uncle +Peter----" There was horror in Gyp's voice. + +Jerry sat on the table, the huge Bible on her knees. Her eyes stared out +through the dusty window-glass. + +"She wouldn't be _like_ him because _she_ won't have to work hard to get +the money the way he did! Mother says----" Jerry had a way of saying +"mother says" as though it was precious, indisputable wisdom. "Mother +says that sometimes when a person sets his heart on just one thing in +this world and thinks about it all the time, he kills everything else in +him. Doesn't that seem dreadful? Not to enjoy all the beautiful, jolly +things in the world?" + +Jerry's philosophy was beyond Gyp's practical mind. "What would you do +if you had lots and lots of money, Jerry?" + +This was a stupendous question and one Jerry had often liked to ask of +herself. Her answer was prompt. + +"I'd keep going to school just as long as ever I could. And then I'd go +all over the world--to Japan and Singapore and India and to the Nile and +Venice and Switzerland and Gibraltar----" her tongue stumbled in its +effort to circle the globe. "Oh--_everywhere_. I'd want to see +everything." + +How many young hearts have dreamed of such adventure! + +"And yet," Jerry went on, "if I had all the gold in the world right in +my hand I don't believe I could make myself go so far away from +Sweetheart and Little-Dad and the dogs and--and Sunnyside!" + +"Oh," Gyp quickly settled such an obstacle. "If you had all the gold in +the world you could take 'em with you." + +At that moment they were startled by a loud thud in the hall beneath +them. The Bible crashed to the floor. Each girl instinctively clapped +her hand to her mouth to smother a cry. Then they laughed. + +"What _ever_ do you suppose it was? Hark--I hear footsteps." Gyp spoke +in sepulchral tones. + +"They're going away," whispered Jerry, relieved. "Goodness, how it +frightened me!" Jerry leaned over to lift the poor Bible. From its pages +had dropped a long envelope. It lay, white and smooth, the address side +upward, on the dusty floor. + +"Look, Gyp--a _letter_! It must have been in this Bible." + +Gyp took the envelope gingerly. + +"It's addressed to father! It's never been opened. It looks as though it +had _just_ been written! Jerry--_that's Uncle Peter's handwriting_!" + +Jerry stared at the envelope--except that the letter had been pressed +very flat, it did indeed look as though it had just been written. + +"Isn't it _creepy_?" Gyp shivered. "Do you believe in ghosts? _Could_ +Uncle Peter Westley have come here and written that--just--maybe, _last +night_?" + +It was a horrible thought--Jerry tried not to entertain it. But the +wailing wind made it seem possible! + +"What'll we do with it?" Gyp had laid it on the table. + +"Let's put it back in the Bible"--that seemed a safe place--"and take it +home. Maybe there is an important message in it that someone ought to +see! But I wish we'd never come here this afternoon." + +"And see how dark it is--it's getting late. Let's let these other things +go." Jerry's voice, betraying her eagerness to quit the tower room, made +Gyp feel creepier than ever. + +Each took a corner of the ghostly envelope and slipped it between the +pages of the Bible. + +"There--it's safe enough now. We can take turns carrying it." The girls +hurriedly donned their outer wraps. Then, without one backward glance, +they tiptoed down the narrow stair. But, to their amazement, the panel +at the foot of the stair would not budge. Vainly they shoved, and +pressed their shoulders against the solid oak. Breathless, Gyp sat down +on the Bible. + +"_What'll_ we do?" + +"We'll have to shout and bring someone--'cause we can't open the other +door." + +"Then Old Crow will know our secret," wailed Gyp. + +"But we don't want to stay here all _night_!" + +Gyp gave one swift, backward glance up the secret stairway to the +haunted tower room. + +"No--no! Well, let's shout together." + +They shouted and shouted, with all the strength of their young lungs. +But Old Crow, who really was Mr. Albert Crowe, for many years janitor of +Lincoln School, had gone, ten minutes earlier, in his Sunday best, to +attend the annual banquet of the Janitors' Association and his assistant +had made his last rounds of the School, so that the shouts of the girls +echoed and re-echoed vainly through the deserted halls of Highacres. + +Jerry leaned, exhausted, against the wall. + +"I don't believe it's a bit of use--not a soul can hear us." + +"What'll we do?" asked Gyp again--Gyp, who was usually so resourceful. +"If we only hadn't found that old letter we never'd have _thought_ of +ghosts and we wouldn't have minded a bit being shut in the tower room." + +Jerry commenced to laugh nervously. "Gyp, maybe you don't _know_ you're +sitting on the Bible!" Gyp sprang up. + +"I don't think it's anything to laugh about! Not me, I mean, but--but +having to stay all night--up _there_!" + +Jerry started back up the stairway. + +"Come on," she encouraged. "_I'm_ not afraid. If there _are_ ghosts I +want to see one." Gyp followed with the Bible. The tower room was +shadowy in the fast-falling twilight. The girls tried to open each of +the small windows; though they rattled busily enough they would not +budge. + +Gyp sat down resignedly on the window-seat. "We'll just sit here until +we're rescued. Only--no one will _guess_ where we are." + +"I think it's a grand adventure," declared Jerry valiantly. + +"If we only hadn't begun to _think_ about ghosts! You never can see +them, anyway--you just feel them. Is that the wind? Sit close to me, +Jerry." + +Jerry sat very close to her chum and they gripped hands; it was easier, +that way, to endure the dreadful silence. + +"I'm hungry," whispered Gyp, after awhile. Then, a moment later, "Did +you hear something, Jerry--like a long, long sigh?" + +Jerry nodded and Gyp drew closer to her, shivering. + +"Of course," she murmured in a voice lowered to the etiquette of a +haunted room. "_You're_ not frightened because you didn't _know_ Uncle +Peter. If I was afraid of him when he was _alive_ what----" + +"Sh-h-h!" commanded Jerry. Uncle Peter's ghost might be hovering very +close to them and might hear! Gyp's words did not sound exactly +respectful. + +Jerry tried to talk of everyday things but it was of no use--what +mattered the color of Sue Knox's new sweater when the very air tingled +with spirits? + +"_Oh-h!_" Gyp clutched Jerry in a spasm of fright. "_Something_ grabbed +my elbow----" her voice was scarcely audible. "Jerry--_true_ as I +live--cross my heart! Long--bony--fingers--just like Uncle Peter's used +to feel--_Oh-h_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE LETTER + + +"I don't understand----" Mrs. Westley lifted anxious eyes from her +soup-plate. "Gyp _always_ telephones! And _both_ of them----" + +"I saw Peggy Lee and Pat Everett coming home from the dressmaker's and +she wasn't with them," offered Isobel. "But she's all right, mother." + +"Such dreadful things happen----" + +"I'd like to see anyone try to kidnap _Gyp_," laughed Graham. Then he +added, in an off-hand way: "The ice broke on the lake out at Highacres +to-day. Guess the skating's over." + +"Graham!" cried Mrs. Westley, springing to her feet so precipitously +that her chair fell backward with a crash. Her face was deathly white. + +Graham, frightened by his careless remark, went to her quickly. + +"Mother--I didn't mean to frighten you! Why there's only one chance in a +hundred the girls were on the ice. If they'd been skating _some_ of us +would have seen them!" + +"Where _are_ they?" groaned the mother. "They might have gone on the +lake--afterwards--and not known--and broken through--and--no one +would--know----" She shuddered; only by a great effort could she keep +back the tears. + +"Mother, please don't worry," begged Isobel. "Let's call up every one of +the girls and then we'll surely find them." + +Not one of them wanted any more dinner. They went to the library and +Graham began telephoning to Gyp's schoolmates--a tedious and +discouraging process, for each reported that she had not seen either Gyp +or Jerry since the close of school. + +"I can't _bear_ it! We must do something----" Mrs. Westley sprang to her +feet. "Graham, call Uncle Johnny and tell him to come _at once_." + +Something of the mother's alarm affected Isobel and Graham. Graham's +voice was very serious as he begged Uncle Johnny, whom he found at his +club, to come over "at once." Then he slipped his arm around his mother +as though he wanted her to know that he would do anything on earth for +her. + +Uncle Johnny listened to the story of Gyp's and Jerry's disappearance +with a very grave face. He made Graham tell twice how the ice had broken +that afternoon on the lake, frightening the skaters away. + +"What time was that?" + +"Oh--early. About three o'clock. There were only four or five of us on +the lake. You see, hockey practice is over." + +"But I remember Gyp saying this morning that she was going to have one +more skate!" cried Isobel suddenly. + +"Before we report this to the police, Mary, we'll go out to Highacres," +Uncle Johnny said. And the thought of what he might find there made Mrs. +Westley grip the back of a chair for support. "Come with me, Graham. +Isobel--stay with your mother." + +Graham went off to the garage to give such directions as Uncle Johnny +had whispered to him. Just then Barbara Lee, whom Isobel had reached on +the telephone, came in, hurriedly. + +"I talked to the girls for a moment after the close of school. They were +standing near the library door. They had on their coats and hats." Her +report was disquieting. + +"May I go with you?" she asked John Westley. He turned to her--something +in her face, in her steady eyes, made him feel that if out at Highacres +he found what he prayed he might _not_ find--he would need her. + +"Yes--I want you," he answered simply, wondering a little why, at this +distressed moment, he should feel such an absurd sense of comfort in +having her with him. + +They drove away, two long poles and a coil of rope in the tonneau. In +the library Isobel sat holding her mother's hand, wishing she could say +something that would drive that white look from her mother's face. But +her distress left room for the little jealous thought that Uncle Johnny +had told _her_ to stay at home and then had taken Barbara Lee! And she +wondered, too, if it were _she_ who was lost, and not Gyp, would mother +care as much? + +At that moment Mrs. Westley threw her arms about her and held her very +close. + +"I just must feel _you_, dear, safe here with me--or I couldn't--stand +it--waiting." + + * * * * * + +"Jerry! Look! That flash--it comes--and goes!" Gyp's voice, scarcely a +whisper, breathed in Jerry's ear. + +The two girls were huddled in the little window of the tower room. Gyp +was almost hysterical; Jerry had had all she wanted of ghosts. Gyp had +felt thin fingers grip her elbow, her shoulder--even her ankle. Someone +had breathed in her ear. Jerry, too, had admitted that she had heard +sounds of irregular breathing from a corner of the room near the secret +door. And there had been a constant tap-tapping! And something had +laughed--a horrible, thin, ghost laugh, though Jerry said afterwards +that it _might_ have been the wind. + +Gyp had seen white figures floating about outside, too. Uncle Peter had +brought spirit-cronies with him! And now the ghostly flash of light---- + +"Gyp----" Jerry suddenly spoke aloud. "It's a--_flashlight_! See, +someone is swinging it as they walk. _Oh_----" Inspired to action, Jerry +seized a huge book and sent it crashing through the window. "_Help! +Help!_" she screamed, through the broken glass. + +Startled, Uncle Johnny, Graham, Barbara Lee and the assistant janitor, +whom they had aroused, halted. Graham, dropping the coil of rope, +pointed excitedly to the tower. + +"Look--they're in the tower room! _Well, I never_----" That the tower +room and its mysteries should remain under lock and key had been a +grievance to Graham. + +Uncle Johnny shouted to the girls; a great relief, surging through him, +made his voice vibrate with joy. And in the light of the electric flash +he saw that Barbara Lee's eyes were glistening with something +suspiciously like tears. + +"Now, to rescue the imprisoned maidens," he laughed, turning to the +engineer. + +It took but a few moments for the little party to reach the third floor. +Then from above came a plaintive voice. + +"If you'll just touch George Washington on the left-hand side of +the--the frame--he'll move--and----" + +For a moment, John Westley, staring at the panel, wondered if _he_ were +crazy or if Gyp and Jerry---- + +"We got in--that way," the voice explained. "You can't open the other +door! And _please_ hurry--it's _dreadfully_ dark and----" + +The truth flashed over Graham. "Of all _things_! A secret door!" he +shouted. He put his shoulder to the huge box of books that had been +shoved close to the picture, until it could be unpacked. "Give a hand +here!" he commanded excitedly. + +They all obeyed him--even Barbara Lee, next to Uncle Johnny, shoved with +all the strength of her muscular arms. And Uncle Johnny commenced to +chuckle softly. + +"The imps," he muttered. "Trapped in their lair." + +The box well out of the way, Graham pressed the left-hand side of the +panel picture and it swung out under his amazed eyes, revealing a +white-faced Gyp standing in the narrow aperture, and Jerry close behind. +Their big, frightened eyes blinked in the flashlight. + +Uncle Johnny managed to embrace both at once. He wisely asked no +explanations, for he could see that tears were not far away. Barbara Lee +hugged them, too, and the assistant janitor, who had a girl of his own +and at the suggestion of dragging the lake, had been startled "out of a +year's growth" as he said afterwards (though he was six feet tall, +then), beamed on them as though _he_ would like to caress them, too. +Graham was excitedly swinging the panel back and forth and peering +longingly up the dark, narrow stairway. + +"How'd you find it? Does it open right into the tower room? Were you +scared?" he asked. + +"I'm hungry," declared Gyp. + +"Let's hear all about it on the way home," suggested Uncle Johnny. "And +we'll put George Washington back in place--there's no use letting the +entire school know about this." His words were directed to Graham and to +the janitor. "Now, my girlies--what in the world have you got?" For +Jerry had picked up the huge Bible. + +"It's a--a letter we found--in the Bible----" + +"So you brought the whole thing?" Uncle Johnny laughed. "Lead the way, +Miss Lee." + +In the automobile Gyp had to have an explanation of the poles and the +rope. When she heard of their fears her face grew troubled. + +"Oh--_how_ mumsey must have worried!" As the automobile drew up at the +curb she sprang from it and rushed into the house, straight into her +mother's arms--Mrs. Westley had heard the car stop and had walked with +faltering steps to the door. + +"Mother, I didn't _want_ you to be worried--not for the _world_! But we +couldn't help it." + +With the girls safe at home the horrible fears that had tortured them +all seemed very foolish. The entire family listened with deep interest +while Gyp told of that first afternoon when she and Jerry had discovered +the secret stairway and of the subsequent meetings of the Ravens in the +tower room. + +"Please, Uncle Johnny, make Isobel and Graham promise they won't tell +_anybody_! It ought to be ours 'cause we found it and we're Westleys," +begged Gyp. + +"Whatever in the world possessed Peter Westley to build a secret +stairway in his house?" Mrs. Westley asked John Westley. "Who ever heard +of such a thing in this day and age?" + +"It's not at all surprising when one recalls how persistently he always +avoided people. He planned that as a way of escaping from anyone--even +the servants. Can't you picture him grinning down from those windows +upon departing callers? Doubtless many a time I've walked away myself, +after that man of his told me he couldn't be found." + +"I think it's deliciously romantic," exclaimed Isobel, "and I have just +as much right to use it as Gyp has." + +"My girls--I am afraid the whole matter will have to go to the board of +trustees. Remember--Uncle Peter gave Highacres to Lincoln School--we +have nothing to say about it." + +"Wasn't it _dark_ up there?" asked Graham. + +Gyp looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Gyp. By some process of mental +communication they agreed to say nothing about Uncle Peter's ghost. Back +here in the softly-lighted, warm living-room, those weird voices and +clammy fingers seemed unreal. However, there was the letter--Gyp reached +for the Bible. + +"We were looking through some books--and we found this." Holding the +envelope gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, she handed it to +Uncle Johnny. + +He read the address, turned the envelope over and over in his hand. + +"How strange--it has never been opened. It's addressed to Robert. I'll +give it to you." He handed it to Mrs. Westley. + +She took it with some of Gyp's reluctance. "It's Uncle Peter's +handwriting--but how fresh it looks. It's dated two days before he died, +John! I suppose he put it in that Bible and it was never found." She +tore the envelope open and spread out the sheets. "It's to both you and +Robert--read it." + + My Dear Nephews: + + It won't be long before I go over the river, and I'm glad--for I am + an old man and I've lived my life and I can't do much more, and I'd + better be through with it. But I wish I could live long enough to + right a few things that are wrong. I mean things that I've done, + especially one thing. Lately there isn't much peace of mind for me. + I've tried to find it in the Bible, but though there's a lot about + forgiveness I can't figure out what a man ought to do when he's + waited almost a lifetime to get it. I've always been hard as rock; + I thought a man had to be to make money, but now it all don't seem + worth while, for what good is your money when you're old if your + conscience is going to torment you? + + Right now I'd give half I possessed if I could make up to a young + fellow for a contemptible wrong I did him. So I'm writing this to + ask you to do it for me, and then I guess I'll rest + easier--wherever I am. + + Neither of you knew, I suppose, just what made the Westley Cement + Mixer a success; it came near not being one. Back there when we + were just starting it up, Craig Winton, a young, smart-looking + chap, came to me with a mechanical device he'd invented that he + believed we needed in our cement-mixing machine. We did--I knew + right off that that invention was what we had to have to make our + business a success; without it every cent the other stockholders + and myself had put into the thing would be lost. I offered the + young fellow a paltry amount, and when he wouldn't accept it, I let + him go away. Our engineers worked hard to get his idea, but they + couldn't. After a few months he came back. He looked ill and he was + shabby and low-spirited. I told him we wouldn't give him a cent + more, that I didn't think his invention would help us much, and I + let him go away again. The directors were all for paying him any + amount, but I told them that if we'd wait he'd come back and as + good as give the thing to us or I couldn't read signs, for I'd seen + something mighty like desperation in the chap's eyes. Even though + the directors talked a lot about failure, I thought the gamble was + worth a try, and I made them wait. I was right--young Winton came + back, looking more like a wreck than ever, and he took just what I + offered him, which was a little less than my first price. And I + made him sign a paper waiving all future claims on the patents or + the stockholders of the firm. That little invention made all our + money. But lately I can't get the fellow's eyes out of my + mind--they were queer eyes, glowing like they were lighted, and + that last time they had a look in them as though something was + dead. + + I'm too old to face this thing before the world, but I want you to + find Craig Winton and give him or his heirs a hundred thousand + dollars, which I've figured would be something like his percentage + of the profits if I had drawn an honorable contract with him. The + time he came to me he lived in Boston. I've always laughed at men + that talked about honor in business, but now that I'm looking back + from the end of the trail I guess maybe they're right and I've been + wrong.... + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FAMILY COUNCILS + + +Uncle Johnny laid Peter Westley's letter down. A silence held them all; +it was as though a voice from some other world had been speaking to +them. Mrs. Westley shivered. + +"How I hate money," she cried impulsively. Then, the very comfort and +luxury of the room reproaching her, she added: "I mean, I hate to think +that wherever big fortunes are made so many are ground down in the +process." + +Graham was frowning at the letter. + +"Of course you're going to hunt up this fellow?" he asked, anxiously, a +dull red flushing his cheeks. "Wasn't that as bad as stealing?" + +"Maybe he's dead now and it's too late," cried Gyp, who thought the +whole thing full of intensely interesting possibilities. + +"Uncle Peter cannot defend himself, now, Graham, so let us not pass +judgment upon what he has done. And I don't suppose I can act on this +matter until your father comes home." + +"Oh, John, I know he will want to carry out his Uncle Peter's wish! You +need not wait; too much time has been lost already," urged Mrs. Westley. + +Graham was standing in front of the fire, his back to the blaze. It +struck Uncle Johnny and his mother both that there was a new manliness +in the slim, straight figure. + +"_I_ want to help find him. It's when you know about such tricks and +cheating and--and injustice that you hate this trying to make money. I +think things ought to be divided up in this world and every fellow given +an equal chance." + +John Westley laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Real justice is the +hardest thing to find in this world, sonny. But keep the thought of it +always in your mind--and look out for the rights of the other fellow, +then you'll never make the mistakes Uncle Peter did." + +"Poor old man, all he cared about in the world was making money, and +then in his old age it gave him no joy--only torment. And he'd killed +everything else in him that might have brought him a little happiness! +I'm glad you and Robert aren't like him," Mrs. Westley added. + +"I am, too," cried Gyp, so fervently that everyone laughed. + +"How do you find people?" put in Tibby, who was trying very hard to +understand what it was all about. + +"It _will_ be somewhat like the needle in the hay-stack. Boston is a big +place--and a lot can happen in--let me see, that must have been fifteen +years ago." + +"Will you hire detectives?" Gyp was quivering with the desire to help +hunt down the mysterious Craig Winton. + +"I don't want to; I've always had a sort of distrust of detectives and +yet we may have to. We have so little to start on. I'll get Stevens and +Murray together to-morrow--perhaps they can tell me more about the +buying of the patent. And I'll have Watkins recommend some reliable +Boston attorney." Uncle John's voice sounded as though he meant +business. + +Isobel had said nothing during the little family council. She suddenly +lifted her head, her eyes dark with disapproval. + +"Won't giving this person all that money make _us_ poor?" + +Something in her tone sent a little shock through the others. + +"My dear----" protested her mother. + +"Oh, _you'd_ go on cheating him--just like Uncle Peter! That's like +you--just think about yourself," accused Graham, disgustedly. + +"Do you _want_ tainted money?" cried Gyp grandly. + +Isobel's face flamed. "You're hateful, Graham Westley. I don't like +money a bit better than you do--_you'd_ be squealing if you couldn't get +that new motorcycle and go to camp and spend all the money you do. And I +think it's _silly_ to hunt him up after all this time. He's probably +invented a lot of things since and doesn't need any money, and if he +hasn't--well, inventors are always poor, anyway." Isobel tried to make +her logic sound as reasonable to the others as it did to her. + +"Bonnie, dear----" That was the name Uncle Johnny had given to her in +nursery days; he had not used it for a long time. "There are two reasons +why we must carry out the wish Uncle Peter has expressed in this letter. +One is, because he _has_ asked it. He thought he would have time to give +the letter to us himself--perhaps tell us more about it; he did not +dream that it would lie for two years in that Bible. The other reason is +that it is the honorable thing to do--and it not only involves the honor +of Uncle Peter's name but your father's honor and mine--your mother's, +yours, Graham's--even little Tibby's. We would do it if it took our last +cent. But it won't----" + +"Oh, Uncle Johnny, you're great----" Graham suddenly turned his face to +the fire to hide his feeling. "When I'm a man I want to be just like +you--and father." + +Isobel would not let herself be persuaded to accept her family's point +of view. In her heart there still rankled the thought that Uncle Johnny +had taken Barbara Lee with him to Highacres and had made _her_ stay at +home. And it had been silly for them all to get so excited and make such +a fuss over Gyp and Jerry--they might have known that they'd turn up all +right. When she had seen Uncle Johnny pull Jerry down to a seat beside +him on the davenport she had hated her! + +Mrs. Westley followed John Westley to the little room that was always +called "father's study." + +"Won't it be exciting hunting up this Craig Winton?" Gyp asked the +others. "Isn't it an interesting name? Maybe he'll have a lot of +children. I hope there'll be some girls." Gyp hugged her knees in an +ecstasy of anticipation. "If they're dreadfully poor it'll be like their +finding a fairy godmother. Think of all they can have with that money!" + +"All _I_ hope"--Isobel's voice rang cruelly clear--"is that Uncle Johnny +won't want to bring any more _charity_ girls here!" She rose, then, and +without looking at any of them, walked from the room. + +Gyp opened her lips to speak, then closed them quickly. Whatever she +might say, she knew, instinctively, would only add to the hurt Isobel +had inflicted. She could not even throw her arms around Jerry's neck and +hug her the way she wanted to do, because the expression of Jerry's face +forbade it. It was a very terrible expression, Gyp thought, a little +frightened--Jerry's eyes glowed with such a fierce pride and yet were so +hurt! + +After a moment Jerry said slowly, "I--I am going to bed." Gyp wished +that Graham would say something and Graham wished Gyp would say +something, and both sat tongue-tied while Jerry walked out of the room. + +"Do you think we ought to tell mother?" Gyp asked, in a hushed voice. + +"N-no," Graham hated the thought of tale-bearing. "But Isobel's an awful +snob. It's her going around with Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers." To think +this gave some comfort to Graham and Gyp. + +"Well--I don't know what Jerry will _do_," sighed Gyp forlornly. + +The door of Jerry's room was shut and Gyp had not the courage to open +it. She listened for a moment outside it--there was not a sound from +within. She went into her own room and undressed slowly, with a vague +uneasiness that something was going to happen. + +There had been no sound in Jerry's room because she had been standing +rigid in the window, staring with burning, angry eyes out into the +darkness. Her beautiful, happy world, that she had thought so full of +kindness and good-fellowship, had turned suddenly upside down! "Charity +girl----" She did not know just what it meant, but it made her think of +homeless, nameless, unloved waifs--motherless, fatherless, dependent +upon the world's generosity. Her hand went to her throat--_charity +girl_--was not her beloved Sunnyside, with Sweetheart and Little-Dad, +richer and more beautiful than anything on earth? And hadn't she always +had----Like a flash, though, she saw herself in the queerly-fashioned +brown dress that had seemed very nice back at Miller's Notch, but very +funny when contrasted with the pretty, simple serge dresses that the +other girls at Highacres wore. Perhaps they had all thought she _was_ a +"charity girl," a waif brought here by Uncle Johnny. To be sure, her +schoolmates had welcomed her into all their activities, but perhaps they +had felt sorry for her and, anyway, it _had_ been after Uncle Johnny had +given her the Christmas box---- + +She looked down at the dress she wore--it was the school dress that had +been in the box. Perhaps she should not have taken it--taking it may +have made her a charity girl. She should never have come here. It was +costing someone money to send her to Highacres and to feed her; and +often Mrs. Westley gave little things to her--and none of this could she +repay! + +With furious fingers Jerry unfastened and tore off the Christmas dress. +From its hook in her clothes closet she took down the despised brown +garment. Her only thought, then, was to sort out her very own +possessions, but, as she collected the few things, the plan to go +away--anywhere--took shape in her mind. She would go to Barbara Lee +until her mother could send for her! + +Then her door opened slowly. On the threshold stood Gyp in her red +dressing-gown. It was not so dark but that Gyp could see that Jerry wore +her old brown dress and that she held her hat in her hand. With one +bound she was at her friend's side, holding her arm tightly. + +"Jerry, you're _not_ going away! You're _not_----" + +"I've--got--to. I _won't_ be----" + +"You're _not_ a--whatever Isobel said! She's horrid--she's jealous of +you because Dana King and--and _everybody_ thinks you're the most +popular girl at Lincoln. Peggy Lee said she heard a crowd of girls +saying so--that it was 'cause you're always nice to everybody and 'cause +you like to do everything--I won't _let_ you go!" There was something +very stubborn in Gyp's dark face; Jerry wished she had not come in. Just +before it had seemed so easy to slip away to Barbara Lee's and now---- + +"I never should have come here. I never should have let you all----" + +Gyp gave her chum a little shake. + +"Jerry Travis, Uncle Johnny brought you 'cause he said he knew you could +give Lincoln School and Isobel and me a lot--oh, of something--mother +read it in his letter--I remember. He said it was like a sort of +scholarship. And I heard mother tell him the day I was teasing her to +let me cut my hair short like yours, that she'd be willing to let me do +anything if I could learn to be as sunny as you are--I heard her, 'cause +I was listening to see if she was going to let me. So you've _more_ than +paid for everything. There's something more than just _money_! _You're_ +too proud; you're prouder than Isobel herself----" + +Jerry dropped her hat on the bed. Gyp took it as a promising sign and +she closed her arms tight around Jerry's shoulders. + +"If you go away it will break my heart," she declared. "I love you +more'n any chum I ever had--more than _anybody_--except my family, of +course, and I love them differently, so it doesn't count. And mother +loves you, too, and so does Tibby, and so does Uncle Johnny. And if you +don't tell me right off that you won't go away I'll go straight to +mother and then we'll have to tell her how nasty Isobel was, and that'll +make _her_ unhappy. And I mean it." There was no doubt of that. + +Gyp's concluding argument broke down Jerry's determination to go. No, +she could not; as Gyp had said, if she went away Mrs. Westley and Uncle +Johnny must know why. She could not do a single thing that would make +either of them the least unhappy. That would be poor gratitude. Perhaps +Gyp was right, too--that _she_ was too proud! Surely her mother would +never have let her come if it was going to bring the least humiliation +to her. + +Gyp with quick fingers began to unbutton the brown dress. "Let's just +show Isobel that we don't care what she says. I think it's that horrid +Cora Stanton and Amy Mathers that makes her act so, anyway. They're +horrid! Amy Mathers puts peroxide on her hair and Cora Stanton cheated +in the geometry exam--everyone says so--I know what let's do, Jerry, +there were some cup cakes left; I saw them in the pantry--let's go down +ever so quietly and get them--and we'll have a spliffy spread." As she +spoke she caught up Jerry's warm eiderdown wrapper and threw it around +her. + +Gyp's devotion was very soothing to poor distraught Jerry--so, too, was +the suggestion of the cup cakes. But half-way down the stairs Jerry +stopped short and whispered tragically in Gyp's ear: + +"Gyp--_we can't eat them_! Our school record--no sweets between meals!" +And at the thought of school Jerry's world suddenly righted again. + +"Oh, well----" Gyp would have liked to suggest missing a point. "We can +eat crackers and peanut butter--instead." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +POOR ISOBEL + + +The rawness of March gave way to a half-hearted April, days of pelting +rain with a few hours now and then of warm sunshine. Patches of grass +showed green against the dirty snowbanks lingering stubbornly in +sheltered corners; here and there a tiny purple or yellow crocus put up +its bright head; a few brave robins started their nest-keeping and, +perched shivering on bare boughs, valiantly sung the promise of spring. + +There were other signs to mark the changing of the seasons--an +organ-grinder trundled his wagon down the street, rag-pickers chanted, +small, scurrying figures darted in and out on roller-skates, marbles +rattled in ragged pockets, and the Lincoln boys and girls at Highacres +turned their attention from basketball and hockey to swimming and the +school dramatics. + +Isobel Westley had been chosen to play the part of Hermia in "A +Midsummer Night's Dream." Her family shared her pleasure--they felt that +a great distinction had come to them. Gyp and Jerry, particularly, were +immensely excited. Jerry, who had only been to the theatre twice in her +life, thought Isobel far more wonderful than the greatest actress who +ever lived. Both girls sat by the hour and listened admiringly while +Isobel rehearsed her lines before them. + +Mrs. Westley, who had never quite outgrown a love of amateur dramatics, +gave her approval to Isobel's plans for her costume. The other girls, +Isobel explained, were making theirs, but Hermia's should be especially +nice--so couldn't Madame Seelye design it? Madame Seelye did design +it--Isobel standing patiently before the long mirror in the fashionable +modiste's fitting-room while Madame, herself, on her knees, pinned and +unpinned and pinned again soft folds of pink satin which made Isobel's +face, above it, reflect the color of a rose. + +"You'd think the whole world revolved 'round your old play," exclaimed +Graham, not ill-humoredly. He had asked to be allowed to use the car to +take a "crowd of the fellows" out to see if any sap was running in the +woods and Mrs. Westley had explained that Isobel had to have her last +fitting, stop at the hair-dresser's to try on a wig, and then go on to +Alding's to match a pair of slippers. + +"It does," laughed Isobel back, her eyes shining. She was very happy, +and when she was happy she was a gay, good-natured Isobel and a very +beautiful Isobel. All through the school year her spirit had smarted +under the prominence attained by her schoolmates in the various school +activities--Ginny Cox was conspicuous in everything and on the honor +roll, besides; Peggy Lee played hockey and basketball, Dorrie was in the +Glee Club, Pat Everett was a lieutenant in her scout troop, Cora Stanton +was editor of the school paper, Sheila Quinn was the class +president--even Gyp was a sub on the all-school basketball team, and +Jerry--since that day she had skied down Haskin's Hill _she_ had pushed +her way into everything (that was the way Isobel thought of it); she +played on the hockey team and had "subbed" on the sophomore basketball +team and it was certain she would be picked on the swimming team. Though +Isobel scorned all these activities because they were not "any fun," +according to her creed, deep in her heart she had envied the girls who +could enjoy them. But now her vanity was soothed and satisfied; anyone +could play basketball or skate or swim, but no one could be the Hermia +that _she_ was going to be! Miss Gray had complimented her upon the +interpretation she gave the role and her eyes told her what she saw in +Madame Seelye's mirror. + +And Dana King was playing Lysander--a fine Athenian lad he made. Isobel +could afford now to forget the grudge she had nursed against him ever +since the Christmas party. He looked so really grown-up that it pleased +her to be a little shy with him, as though she had just met him--to +forget that they had been schoolmates since kindergarten days. She read +admiration in his eyes. What would he think, she said to herself, with a +little flutter, when he saw the rose-pink costume? + +"Isobel Westley, what _fun_ to have a rehearsal every afternoon," had +cried one of a group of girls which surrounded her. + +"Does Lysander walk home with Hermia every day?" asked another, with a +meaning laugh. + +"Tell us all about it," coaxed Amy Mathers. "It's too romantic for +anything." + +Isobel blushed and laughed and pushed them away. She knew that they all +envied her--she _wanted_ them to envy her. She knew that anyone of them +would gladly change places with her. Even Gyp and Jerry had sighed and +begged their mother to help them get up some sort of a play in which +they could take part. Gyp had asked Miss Gray to be allowed to help in +the make-up room, even if she did nothing more than pass the little jars +of cream and sticks of paint. And to Jerry had been assigned the +especial task of shoving Puck, who was sadly rattle-brained, upon the +stage, when the cues came. + +[Illustration: GYP, JERRY, TIBBY, EVEN GRAHAM, SUPERINTENDED ISOBEL'S +PREPARATIONS FOR THE DRESS REHEARSAL] + +The play was to be given on Saturday evening. On Friday evening a +full-dress rehearsal was called. Hermia's costume was finished and was +spread, in all its ravishing beauty, across the guest-room bed. On the +floor from beneath it peeped the slippers which had been made to order. + +"It'll make all the others look cheap," declared Isobel, thrilling at +the pretty sight. + +Mrs. Westley looked troubled. Certain doubts had been disturbing her +ever since that first moment of enthusiasm when she had yielded to +Isobel's coaxing. Isobel had said that the other girls were making their +own costumes--she knew that the faculty disliked any extravagance or +great expenditures of money in any of the school affairs--might it not +have been better to have helped Isobel fashion something simple and +pretty at home? Then when she watched Isobel's flushed, happy face, +radiantly pretty, she smothered her doubt. + +"Pride goeth before a fall, daughter mine. Take care that your costume +doesn't make you forget your part," she laughed. After all, Isobel was +so pretty that she would outshine the others, anyway--let her costume be +ever so dowdy! + +Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for +the dress rehearsal. Gyp sat back on her heels and declared that Hermia +was "good enough to eat." Jerry thought so, too, though she had not the +courage to say so. Graham straddled the footboard of the bed and passed +scathing remarks concerning girls' "duds," but his eyes were proudly +admiring and in his pocket he treasured a ticket for the first row that +he had bought from another fellow at an advanced price. Isobel ready, +they all squeezed merrily into the automobile, taking care not to crush +the rose-pink finery, and whirled off to Highacres. + +Isobel, who loved dramatic situations in real life quite as well as in +make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance +on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, +with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with +her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble +part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the +dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. Oliver, the coach, +giving sharp orders. There was some trouble with the curtain. She took a +quick step forward to see what it was; the high heel of her satin +slipper caught in a coil of rope from the staging and she fell forward +to her knees. With the one thought to save the satin gown, she jerked +her body quickly backward. + +"Oh, Isobel, are you hurt?" Jerry was at her side in a moment. + +"N-no, only----" Isobel managed to get to her feet, but she leaned +dizzily against the scene propping. "Whoever left that old rope here! +They ought to be reported!" She glared angrily at poor Jerry as though +the fault must be hers. "I've--I've ruined my dress," she sobbed. + +Jerry examined the satin skirt. "There isn't the tiniest spot, Isobel. +But are you sure you are not hurt? Please try to walk." + +That was exactly what Isobel did not want to do, for there was a +horrible aching pain around her knee. Then she heard Mr. Oliver's voice +again. The curtain had been fixed; in a moment---- + +"_Leave_ me alone! You'd just _like_ it if I couldn't go on----" + +"Isobel! Oh, here you are." Dana King stuck his head around the corner. +Isobel let her cape drop to the floor. The whiteness of her face only +added to the pleasing effect. "_Whew!_" Lysander whistled. "Some class! +Say, you're _great_! Come on--old Oliver's throwing a fit." + +With Jerry's anxious eyes and Dana King's admiring gaze upon her, it was +possible for Isobel to walk out upon the stage. Somehow or other she got +through her part--miserably, she knew, for again and again Mr. Oliver +made her repeat her lines and once, in despair, stopped everything to +ask her if she was ill, and did not wish to have Miss Lee take her part. +Isobel did not intend giving up her part to anyone; she gritted her +little white teeth and went on. + +Upon arriving home she declined the hot cocoa Mrs. Westley had waiting +for her and hurried to her room on the plea of being very tired. She sat +huddled in her dressing gown waiting, with a white, strained face, until +she heard the girls' steps on the stairs. Then she called Jerry. + +"Close the door," she whispered, without further greeting. "I want you +to promise not to tell mother or--or anyone that--I hurt myself. I +didn't hurt myself--_much_, and, anyway, I'm going to be in that play +_if I die_!" Isobel had hard work to keep back the tears. + +Jerry was all sympathy. "I won't tell anyone, Isobel, if you don't want +me to. And let me look at your knee--it is your knee, isn't it? I know a +lot about those things 'cause Little-Dad's a doctor, you see." Jerry +knelt by the side of Isobel's chair and gently drew aside the dressing +gown. "Oh, Isobel!" she cried softly. The knee was badly swollen and the +flesh had discolored. "That looks--maybe you ought----" + +Isobel jerked away from her. "If you're going to make a fuss you can go +to bed! But if you _know_ anything--oh, it hurts--terribly----" + +Without another word Jerry went after hot water and towels. Half through +the night she sat by Isobel's bed, her eyes heavy with sleep, patiently +administering pack after pack. Gradually the pain subsided and Isobel +dropped off into slumber. + +All the next day Isobel's secret weighed heavily on Jerry's conscience; +with it, too, was an uncertain admiration for Isobel's grit. But Jerry +wondered if she, even though she might be the Hermia that Isobel was and +wear the rose satin--could want it enough to endure the pain silently. + +Isobel had begged to be allowed to stay in bed all day and "rest" and +her mother had willingly acquiesced, carrying her meals to her room and +chatting with her, unsuspecting, while she nibbled at what was on the +tray. + +Jerry helped Isobel dress. The pain caused by the effort to stand on the +injured leg brought a deep flush to Isobel's cheeks and tiny purplish +shadows under her pretty eyes, so that she made even a lovelier Hermia +than on the evening before. That knowledge, the murmur of admiration +that swept through the crowded hall, the envy she read on the other +girls' faces, the shy, boyish wonder in Lysander's lingering glance, +helped her through the agony of it all until the very end when, quite +suddenly, she crumpled into Lysander's quickly-outstretched arms! The +last scene had a touch of reality not expected; no one had the presence +of mind to ring down the curtain; the girls and boys rushed pell-mell +upon the stage. + +Graham and Dana King carried Isobel to an empty classroom where she +quickly regained consciousness. Her first sensation was a deep +thankfulness that the play was over and that she could tell about her +injured knee. Jerry had already done so, a little conscience-smitten, +and Uncle Johnny had rushed away for a doctor. Isobel looked at her +crumpled rose-pink skirts with something akin to loathing and clung +tightly to her mother's hand. Graham, in a voice that sounded far off, +was assuring her that he could carry her out to the car without hurting +her the least bit! And Dana King was asking, at regular intervals, and +in an anxious voice, if she felt better. Oh, it was _nice_ to have them +all care--it made the pain easier---- + +...She liked the funny bright lights swimming all around her and the +quick steps and the hushed voices.... Mrs. Hicks' little round eyes +blinking at her ... the feel of the soft sheets and the doctor's cold +touch on her poor, swollen knee ... the swinging things before her eyes +and the far-off hum of voices that were really very close and the tiny +star of light over the blur in the other end of the room ... the million +stars ... the slippery taste of the medicine someone gave her ... and +always mother's fingers tight, tight about her own.... + +"This is very serious," came in a small voice that couldn't be the +doctor's because _he_ spoke with a deep boom ... then she went to +sleep.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +JERRY WINS HER WAY + + +Poor, pretty Hermia--trying days followed her little hour of triumph. +While the whole school buzzed over the gorgeousness of her costume, over +the satin and silver-heeled slippers, over her prettiness and how she +had really acted just as well as Ethel Barrymore, she lay very still on +her white bed and let one doctor after another "do things" to her poor +knee. There were consultations and X-ray photographs, and all through it +old Doctor Bowerman, who had dosed her through mumps and measles, kept +saying, at every opportunity, with a maddening wag of his bald head: "If +you only hadn't been such a little fool as to walk on it!" Finally, +after what seemed to Isobel a great deal of needless fuss, the verdict +was given--in an impressive now-you'll-do-as-I-tell-you manner; she had +torn the muscles and ligaments of her knee; some had stretched, little +nerves had been injured; she must lie very quietly in bed for a few +weeks and then--perhaps---- + +"I know what he means," Isobel had cried afterwards, in a passion of +fear; "he means he can tell then whether I will ever be able to--to +dance again or not!" The thought was so terrible that her mother had +difficulty soothing her. + +"If you do what he tells you now you'll be dancing again in less than no +time," reassured Uncle Johnny. "Dr. Bowerman wants to frighten you so +that you will be careful." + +The first week or so of the enforced quiet passed very pleasantly; +mother had engaged a cheery-faced nurse who proved to be excellent +company; every afternoon some of the girls ran in on their way home from +school with exciting bits of school gossip and the whispered inquiry--of +which Isobel never wearied--how had it felt to faint straight into Dana +King's arms? Uncle Johnny brought jolly gifts, flowers, books, puzzles; +Gyp tirelessly carried messages to Amy Mathers and Cora Stanton and back +again. + +But as the days passed these pleasant little excitements failed her, one +by one. Mother decided that the nurse was not needed--there was no +medicine to be given--and a tutor was engaged, instead, to come each +morning. Her school friends grew weary of the details of Isobel's +accident and the limitations of her pink-and-white room; other things at +school claimed their attention--a new riding club was starting, and the +Senior parties; they had not a minute, they begged Gyp to tell Isobel, +to play--they were "awfully" sorry and they'd run in when they could. +Gyp and Jerry, too, were swimming every afternoon in preparation for the +spring inter-school swimming meet. The long hours dragged for the little +shut-in; she nursed a not-unpleasant conviction that she was abused and +neglected. She consoled her wounded spirit with morbid pictures of how, +after a long, bedridden life, she would reap, at its end, a desperate +remorse from her selfish, inconsiderate family; she refused to be +cheered by the doctor's assertion that she was making a tremendously +"nice" recovery and would be as lively on her feet as she'd ever +been--though he never failed to add: "You don't deserve it!" + +One afternoon, three weeks after the accident, Isobel looked at her +small desk clock for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. A ceaseless +patter of rain against the window made the day unusually trying. Her +mother had gone, by the doctor's orders, to Atlantic City for a week's +rest, leaving her to the capable ministrations of Mrs. Hicks. That lady +had carried off her luncheon tray with the declaration that "a body +couldn't please Miss Isobel anyways and if Miss Isobel wanted anything +she could ring," and Isobel had mentally determined, making a little +face after the departing figure, that she'd die before she asked old +Hicks for anything! It was only half past two--it would be an hour +before even Tibby would come, or Gyp or Jerry. What day was it? + +When one spent every day in one small pink-and-white room it was not +easy to remember! Thursday--no, Wednesday, because Mrs. Hicks had said +the cook was out---- + +A door below opened and shut. Footsteps sounded from the hall; quick, +bounding, they passed her door. + +"Gyp!" Isobel called. There was no answer. Someone was moving in the +nursery; it was Jerry, then, not Gyp. + +"Jerry!" Still there was no answer. Jerry was too busy turning the +contents of her bureau drawer to hear. She found the bathing-cap for +which she was hunting and started down the hall. A sudden, pitiful, +choky sob halted her flight. + +When she peeped into Isobel's room Isobel was lying with her face buried +in her pillow. + +"Isobel----" Jerry advanced quickly to the side of the bed. "Is anything +wrong? What is the matter?" + +"I--I wish I--were dead!" + +"Oh--_Isobel_!" + +"So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a--a helpless +cripple and left all alone----" + +Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely +about it--and that patter of the rain---- + +"Isn't Mrs. Hicks----" + +"Oh--_Hicks_. She's just a crosspatch! You all leave me to servants +because I can't move. Nobody loves me the least little bit. I--I wish I +were dead." + +To Jerry there was something very dreadful in Isobel's words. What if +her wish came true, then and there? What if the breath suddenly +stopped--and it would be too late to take back the wish---- + +"Oh, _don't_ say that again, Isobel. Can't I stay with you?" + +Isobel turned such a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart +was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp _had_ +selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for +her, she would doubtless be better company than--no one. She slipped the +bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her coat and hat. + +"Do you mind staying?" Isobel asked in a very pleading voice. + +Jerry might reasonably have answered: "I do mind. I cannot stay; this is +the afternoon of the great inter-school swimming meet and I am late, +now, because I came home for my cap," but she was so thrilled by the +simple fact of Isobel's wanting her--_her_, that everything else was +forgotten. + +"Of course I don't. It's horrid and stupid for you to lie here all day +long. Shall I read?" + +"Oh, _no_--after that dreadful tutor goes I don't want to see a book!" + +"Let's think of something jolly--and different. Would you like to play +travel? It's a game my mother and Little-Dad and I made up. It's lots of +fun. We pick out a certain place and we say we're going there. We get +time-tables for trains and boats and we decide just what we'll pack--all +pretend, of course. Then we look up in the travel books all 'bout the +place and we have the grandest time--most as good as though we really +went. Last winter we traveled through Scotland. It made the long +evenings when we were shut in at Sunnyside pass like magic. Little-Dad +has a perfect passion for time-tables and he never really goes anywhere +in his life--except in the game." + +"What fun," cried Isobel, sitting up against her pillows. A few weeks +before Isobel would have scorned such a "babyish" suggestion from +anyone. "Where shall we go?" + +"I've always wanted to go to Venice. We got as far as Naples and then +'Liza Sloane's grandson got scarlet fever and Little-Dad went down and +stayed with him. I'd love to live in a palace and go everywhere in +little boats." + +"Then we'll go to Venice and we'll travel by way of Milan and Florence. +Jerry, down in father's desk there are a whole lot of time-tables and +folders he collected the spring he planned to go abroad. And you can get +one of Stoddart's books in the library--and a Baedeker, too. We ought to +have a whole lot of clothes--it's warm in Italy. Bring that catalogue +from Altman's that's on mother's sewing table and we'll pick out some +new dresses. What fun!" + +Jerry went eagerly after all they needed for their "game." She sat on +the other side of Isobel's bed and spread the books out around her. +First, they had to select from the colored catalogue suitable dresses +and warm wraps for shipboard; then they had to fuss over sailing dates +and cabin reservations. In the atlas Jerry traced from town to town +their route of travel, reading slowly from Baedeker just what they must +see in each town. She had a way of reading the guidebook, too, that made +Isobel see the things. It was delightful to linger in Florence; Jerry +had just suggested that they postpone going on to Venice for a few days, +and Isobel had decided to send back to America for that pale blue dotted +swiss, because it would blend so wonderfully with the Italian sky and +the pastel colors of the old, old Florentine buildings, when they were +interrupted by Gyp and Uncle Johnny. + +Gyp was a veritable whirlwind of fury, her eyes were blazing, her cheeks +glowed red under her dusky skin, every tangled black hair on her head +bristled. She confronted Jerry accusingly. + +"So _here's_ where you are!" Her words rang shrilly. "Here--fooling +'round with Isobel and you let the South High beat us by two points! You +_know_ you were the only girl we had who could beat Nina Sharpe in the +breast stroke. They put in Mary Reed and she was like a _rock_. And you +swam thirty-eight strokes under water the other day. I saw you--I +counted. And--and the South High girl only got up to _twenty_! _That's_ +all you cared." + +Jerry turned, a little frightened. She had hated missing the swimming +meet--contests were such new things in her life that they held a +wonderful fascination for her--but she had not dreamed that, through her +failure to appear, Lincoln might be beaten! She faced Gyp very humbly. + +"Isobel was alone----" + +Gyp turned on her sister. + +"You're the very selfishest girl that ever lived, Isobel Westley, and +you're getting worse and worse. You never think of anyone in this whole +world but yourself! You never would have hurt your knee so badly only +you wanted to save your precious old dress, and you wouldn't give in and +let Peggy Lee take your part! Maybe you _are_ lonely and get tired lying +here and everyone's sorry 'bout that, but that's not any reason for your +keeping Jerry here when we needed her so badly--and she missed all the +fun, too!" + +Isobel drew herself back into her pillows. She was no match for her +indignant sister. And she was aghast at the enormity of her selfish +thoughtlessness. + +"I didn't know--honestly, Gyp. I thought the match was on Thursday----" + +"It was. _This_ is Thursday," scornfully. + +"Oh, it's _Wednesday_. Isn't it Wednesday? Mrs. Hicks said cook was out +and----" + +"As if the calendar ran by the cook! Cook's sister's niece's sister was +married to-day and she changed her day out. If you'd think of someone +else----" + +Jerry took command of the situation. + +"It's my fault, Gyp. I could have told Isobel but--I didn't. I sort of +realized how I'd feel if I had to lie there in bed day after day when +everyone else was having such a good time and--well, the swimming match +didn't seem half as important as making Isobel happy and--I don't +believe it was!" There was triumphant conviction in Jerry's voice, born +of the grateful little smile Isobel flashed to her. + +Gyp turned disgustedly on her heel. From the doorway where Uncle Johnny +had been taking in the little scene came a chuckle. As Gyp walked +haughtily out of the room he came forward and laid his hand on Jerry's +shoulder. + +"Right-o, Jerry-girl. There's more than one kind of a victory, isn't +there? Now run along and make peace with Miss Gypsy and let me get +acquainted with my Bonnie--four whole days since I've seen you." There +was a suspicious crackling of tissue-paper in his pocket. One hand +slowly drew forth a small, blue velvet box which he laid in Isobel's +fingers. + +"Oh, Uncle Johnny!" For, within, lay a dainty bracelet set with small +turquoise. Quite unexpectedly Isobel's eyes filled with tears. + +"What is it, kitten?" + +"It's lovely only--only--everybody's too good to me for--I +guess--I'm--what Gyp said I was!" + +There was everything in Isobel's past experience to warrant her +expecting that Uncle Johnny would vehemently protest the truth of her +outburst and assure her that no one could do enough for her. She +_wanted_ him to do so. But, alas, she read in his face that he, too, +thought what Gyp had said was very true. + +"Isobel, dear--I think I ought to try and make you see something--for +your own good. Have you ever pictured the fight that's going on in the +human blood all the time--the tiny warriors struggling constantly, one +kind to kill and the other to keep alive? The same sort of fight's going +on in our natures, too. Every one of us is born with a whole lot of good +things; they're our heritage and it's our own fault when we don't keep +'em. I don't mean outward things, dear--like your golden hair and those +sky-blue eyes of yours--I mean the inside things, the things that grow +and make our lives. But they've got to fight to live. If vanity and +selfishness get the upper hand--where do they lead you? Well," he +laughed, "I can't make you understand any more clearly what I mean than +just to point to poor old Aunt Maria!" + +Isobel had turned her face away; he could not see how she was taking his +clumsy little lecture. + +"_She's_ just a pathetic waste of God's good clay--moulded once as He +wants His children, but what has she done? She's lived--no one knows how +many years--only to feed her own body and glorify her own nest; she's +grown _in_ instead of _out_; she's never given an honest thought to +making this world or anyone in it one bit better for her having lived in +it. She's stealing from God. And what's done it--vanity, that years ago +mastered all the good things in her. Poor old soul--she was once a +young, pretty girl, like you----" + +Isobel jerked her head petulantly. The blue velvet box lay neglected on +the counterpane. + +"I think you're horrid to lecture me, Uncle Johnny. Mother and +father----" + +Uncle Johnny smiled whimsically at the childish face. + +"Mothers and fathers sometimes don't see things as clearly as mere +uncles--because they're so close. And Bonnie, dear, it's because we all +want so much of you! Let me tell you something else--this isn't a +lecture, either. It's a little thing that happened when you were a baby +and I've never forgotten it. I didn't see you until you were a year +old--I was abroad, studying, when you were born. When I went up to your +nursery that first time, and looked at you, I thought you were the most +wonderful thing God ever made. You lay there in your little white crib +and stared at me with your round, blue eyes, and then you smiled and +thrust out the tiniest scrap of a hand. I didn't dare breathe. And +everything around you was so perfect--white enamel, blue and yellow and +pink birds and squirrels and dogs and things painted on your walls, the +last word in baby furniture and toilet things. That very day a friend of +mine asked me to help drive the orphans of the city on their annual +outing. I was glad to do something for someone--you see, having a new +niece made me feel as though I was walking on air. They loaded up my car +with kids of all sizes and then the last moment someone snuggled a bit +of humanity into the front seat between two older youngsters--a poor +little mite with big, round, blue eyes like yours and the lower part of +her face all twisted with a great scar where she'd been burned. I +couldn't see anything on the whole ride but that little face--and +always, back in my mind were your two blue eyes and your dimpled smile. +I wanted to get through with the whole trip and hurry back to your +nursery to see if you were all right. But I stopped long enough at the +orphanage to ask about the poor baby. She'd been found in a filthy +cellar where she'd been abandoned--that's all they knew. How's _that_ +for a heritage? Stripped of everything--except the soul of her--to fight +through life with, and horribly disfigured in the bargain. I asked what +they did for such children and they told me that they'd keep her until +she was fourteen--then they'd have taught her some sort of +work--probably domestic--and she could make her own way. God help +her--fourteen, a little younger than our Gyp! I went back to your +mother's. She was out and I rushed up to your nursery. Your very +professional nurse thought I was mad. I sent her out. I took you in my +arms. I had to hold you to feel that you were safe and sound and had all +the arms and legs you needed and your face not half scarred away. And +sitting there I sort of talked to God--I begged Him to let you keep the +blessings you had at that moment and to make you worthy of them. You're +a beautiful girl, Isobel, and you have every advantage that love and +thought and money can give you, but--so was Aunt Maria beautiful at your +age, before vanity and selfishness----" + +"Uncle Johnny, I've known for a long time--that you didn't love me! +That's why I've been so nasty to Jerry. You love her----" + +"Bonnie!" Uncle Johnny's arm was around her now. He half shook her. +"Foolish girl! I love you now just the way I loved that mite of a baby. +I've always been fonder of you than any of the others and I'm mighty +fond of them. But you were the first--the most wonderful one." + +"But you'd like to have me--like Jerry?" + +"Yes," he answered, very decidedly. "I'd like to have you--that kind of +a girl, who walks straight with her head up--and sees big visions--and +grows toward them." + +"I hate goody-goody girls," sighed poor Isobel. + +"So do I!" laughed Uncle Johnny. "But you couldn't hate a girl who would +rather make someone else happy than win in a swimming match?" + +"N-no, and I wouldn't blame Jerry if she'd just enjoy seeing me +miserable--I've been so nasty to her. And she _isn't_ goody-goody, +either! She's just----" + +"A very normal, unspoiled, happy girl who's always been so busy thinking +of everything else that she's never had a moment to think of herself. +Now to show that you forgive my two-a-penny lectures, will you let me +eat dinner with you off your tray? And what are you doing with these +books? And did you know Dr. Bowerman's going to let you try crutches on +Sunday?" + +Two hours later, when Jerry, a little shyly, tiptoed into Isobel's room +to say good-night, Isobel impulsively pulled her head down to the level +of her own and kissed her. She wanted to tell Jerry what Uncle Johnny +had made her feel and see but she could not find the right words, and +Jerry wanted to tell her that she wouldn't for the world trade the jolly +afternoon they had had together for any swimming match, but _she_ +couldn't find the right words, so each just kissed the other, wondering +why she was so happy! + +"I'm going to walk on crutches Sunday, Jerry." + +"Oh, great! It will only be a little while before you're back in school, +Isobel." + +"Good-night, Jerry." + +"Good-night, Isobel!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE THIRD VIOLINIST + + +"Hello! Is that you, Gyp? I want Centre 2115, please. Is this Mr. +Westley's house? Is that _you_, Gyp?.... This is Pat Everett. +_Listen_----" came excitedly over the wire, though Gyp was listening as +hard as she could. "Peg and I've found _the black-and-white man_!" + +Gyp declared, afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to +her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating +Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and +together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening--the air +was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery +green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the +steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering +honeysuckle brushed their shoulders. A more perfect setting could not +have been found for the finish of their conspiracy. + +Pat plunged straight into her story. + +"Peg and I were coming back from Dalton's book store and we ran bang +into the man--he'd taken his hat off 'cause it was so warm and was +fanning himself with it. We both saw it at exactly the same moment and +we just turned and clutched each other and _almost_ yelled." + +"And then, what? Why didn't you grab him?" + +"As if we could lay our hands on a perfect stranger! Anyway, we've got +to be tactful. But I'm _sure_ it's the one--there was a white streak +that ran right back from the front of his face. And he was very +handsome, too--at least we decided he would be if we were as old as Miss +Gray. _I_ thought he was a little--oh, biggish." + +"And to think how we've hunted for him and he was right here----" Then +Gyp realized that Pat did _not_ have the gentleman in her pocket. + +"But how will we find him again?" + +"We followed him--and he went into the Morse Building and got into the +elevator and we were going right in after him when who pops out but Dr. +Caton, and he looked so surprised to see us that we hesitated, and the +old elevator boy shut the door in our faces. But we asked a man who was +standing there in a uniform, like a head janitor or something, if that +gentleman in a black coat and hat and lavender tie had an office in the +building, and he said, "Yes, seventh floor, 796." He leered at us, but +we looked real dignified, and Peg wrote it down on a piece of paper and +we walked away. So now all we've got to do is to just go and see him," +and Pat hugged her slim knees in an ecstasy of satisfaction. + +The girls stared meditatively at a fat robin pecking into the grass in +search of a late dinner. To "just go and see him" was not as simple to +the conspirators as it sounded, slipping from Pat's lips. + +"Who'll go?" Gyp put the question that was in each mind. + +"Perhaps it would be too many if all four of us went--so let's draw lots +which two----" + +"Oh, _no_!" cried Jerry, aghast. + +The others laughed. "It'd be fairest to leave Jerry out of the draw." + +"I'll go," cried Gyp grandly, "if Pat or Peggy will go with me and do +the talking." + +"What'll we say?" Now that the Ravens faced the fulfillment of their +plans they felt a little nervous. + +"I know----" Gyp's puzzled frown cleared magically. "Mother has five +tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony to-morrow night--I'll ask her to +let us go and invite Miss Gray to chaperone us. Then we'll write a note +and tell this man that if he'll go to the concert and look at the third +box on the left side he'll see the lady of his heart who has been +faithful to him for years in spite of her many other suitors--we'll put +that in to make him appreciate what he's getting. It'll be much easier +writing it than saying it." + +"Gyp--you're a wonder," cried the others, inspired to action. "Let's go +in and write the note now." + +The Ravens, who met now at Pat Everett's house, had neglected Miss Gray +of late. Carnations had succeeded the violets, then a single rose. Pat +had even experimented with a nosegay of everlastings which she had found +in one of the department stores. It had been weeks since they had sent +anything. For that reason a little feeling of remorse added enthusiasm +now to their plotting. + +Mrs. Westley was delighted at Gyp's desire to hear the concert and to +include Miss Gray in the party. And Miss Gray's face had flushed with +genuine pleasure when Gyp invited her. + +"Everything's all ready," Gyp tapped across to Pat Everett, and Pat, +nodding mysteriously, pulled from her pocket the corner of a pale blue +envelope. + +Directly after the close of school Gyp and Pat, with Jerry and Peggy Lee +close at their heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown +to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action +crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled--for +the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this +stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that +their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little +Miss Gray! + +To avoid the leering elevator man the two girls climbed the six flights +to the seventh floor. Pat carried the letter. Gyp agreed to go in first. + +"746--748----" read Pat. + +"It's the other corridor." They retraced their steps to the other side +of the building. "784-788-792----" Gyp repeated the office numbers +aloud. "7-9-6! _Wilbur Stratman, Undertaker!_" + +"_Pat Everett!_" Gyp clutched her chum's arm. "_A--undertaker!_ I +_won't_ go in--for all the Miss Grays in the world!" + +Pat was seized with such a fit of giggling that she had difficulty in +speaking, even in a whisper. "Isn't that _funny_? We've _got_ to go in. +The girls are waiting--we'd never hear the _last_ of it! He can't bury +us alive. Oh, d-dear----" She wadded her handkerchief to her lips and +leaned against the wall. + +"If Miss Gray wants an undertaker she can _have_ him! For my part _I_ +should think she'd rather have a policeman or--or the iceman! Come +on----" Gyp's face was comical in its disgust. She turned the knob of +the door. + +A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office. +She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them +through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of +the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair +pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and +reached for a coat that lay across another chair. + +"Is--is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not +cling to the roof of her mouth. + +He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual +customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with +them. He watched warily. + +"Our errand is--is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was +beyond the power of speech. "It's--it's personal. We've come, in fact, +of--our own accord--she doesn't know a thing about it----" + +"She? Who?" + +"Miss--Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a +dreadful mess of it! Why _didn't_ Pat produce the letter instead of +standing there like a wooden image? + +Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he +never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray--of course," he nodded. Encouraged, +Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with. + +"She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years +and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and +wouldn't marry anyone else and----" + +With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged +ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were +stark mad! + +"I am very sorry for Miss Gray but--what can I do?" + +"Oh, _can't_ you marry her _now_? She's still very pretty----" Gyp was +trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there--she had to make the +leap! + +The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare--then he +laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's +face. + +"Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! _Ha! ha!_ My +business is _burying_ and not _marrying_! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! _I_ don't +know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife +and six children at home!" + +Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold +stream of water ran down Gyp's spine. + +"I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but +you're in the wrong pew. _I_ never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember +and I guess somebody's been kidding you." + +Pat suddenly found her tongue--in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis +of fright had finished poor Gyp. + +"We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have +bothered you. We are in search of a certain--party that--that has--a +white streak--in his hair." + +"O-ho," the undertaker clapped his hand to his head. "So _that's_ the +ticket, hey? Well, I've always said I couldn't get away from much with +that thing always there to identify me--but I never calculated it'd +expose me to any proposals!" He laughed again--doubling up in what Pat +thought a disgustingly ungraceful way. She held her head high and pushed +Gyp toward the door. "We will say good-by," she concluded haughtily. + +"Say, kids, who are you, anyway?" His tone was quite unprofessional. + +"It is not necessary to divulge our identity," and with Gyp's arm firmly +in her grasp Pat beat a hasty retreat. Safe outside in the corridor they +fell into one another's arms, torn between tears and laughter. + +With mingled disgust and disappointment the Ravens decided then and +there to let love follow its own blind, mistaken course. + +"Miss Gray can die an old maid before I'll ever face another creature +like that!" vowed Gyp, and Pat echoed her words. + +"No one ever gets any thanks for meddling in other people's affairs, +anyway," Peggy Lee offered. + +"Nice time to tell us _that_," was Gyp's irritable retort. + +That evening Miss Gray, charming in a soft lavender georgette dress, +which her clever fingers had made and remade, wondered why her four +young charges were so glum. There was nothing in the world _she_ loved +so much as a symphony orchestra. She sat back in her chair, close to the +edge of the box, with a happy sigh, and studied her program. Everything +that she liked best, Chopin, Saint-Saens, and Wagner--Siegfried's Death. +Gyp, eyeing her chaperon's happy anticipation, indulged in a whispered +regret. + +"Doesn't she look pretty to-night? If that horrible creature only hadn't +been----" The setting would have been so perfect for the denouement. She +sprawled back, resignedly, in her chair, smothering a yawn. A flutter of +applause marked the coming in of the orchestra. There was the usual +scraping of chairs and whining of strings. Then suddenly Miss Gray +leaned out over the box-rail, exclaiming incoherently, her hands +clasping and unclasping in a wild, helpless way. + +An opening crash of the cymbals covered her confusion. The four girls +were staring at her, round-eyed. They had not believed Miss Gray capable +of such agitation! What _ever_ had happened---- + +"An old friend," she whispered, her face alternately paling and +flushing. "A very dear--old--friend! The--the third--violin----" She +leaned weakly against the box-rail. The girls looked down at the +orchestra. There--under the leader's arm--sat the third violinist--and a +white streak ran from his forehead straight back through his coal black +hair! + +As though an electric shock flashed through them the four girls +straightened and stiffened. A glance, charged with meaning, passed from +one to another. Gyp, remembering the moment of confidence between her +and Miss Gray, slipped her hand into Miss Gray's and squeezed it +encouragingly. + +Not one of them heard a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying +herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very +near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost pushed Miss +Gray toward it. + +"Of _course_ you're going to see him! _Hurry._ You look so nice----" Gyp +was so excited that she did not know quite what she was saying. +"Oh--_hurry!_ You may never see him again." + +Then they, precipitously and on tiptoe, followed little Miss Gray. +Though it did not happen as each in her romantic soul had planned, it +was none the less satisfying! In a chilly, bare anteroom off the stage, +at a queer sound behind him resembling in a small way his name, the +third violinist turned from the job of putting his violin into its box. + +"_Milly_," he cried, his face flaming red with a pleased surprise. + +"George----" Miss Gray held back, twisting her fingers in a helpless +flutter. "I--I thought--when you sent--the--flowers--and the +verses--that maybe, you--you still cared!" + +Just for a moment a puzzled look clouded the man's face--then a vision +in the doorway of four wildly-warning hands made him exclaim quickly: + +"Care--didn't I tell you, Milly, that I'd never care for anyone else?" + +"He took her right in his arms," four tongues explained at once, when, +the next day, the self-appointed committee on romance reported back to +the other Ravens. "Of course, he didn't know we were peeking. He isn't +exactly the type _I'd_ go crazy over, but he's so much better than that +undertaker! And going home Miss Gray told us all about it. It would +make the grandest movie! She had to support her mother and he didn't +earn enough to take care of them both, and she wouldn't let him +wait all that time; she told him to find someone else. But you see +he didn't. Isn't love funny? And then when her mother finally died +she was too proud to send him word, and I guess she didn't know +where he was, anyway, or maybe she thought he _had_ gone and done +what she told him to do and married some one else. And she believed +all the time that he sent her those flowers--I s'pose by that +say-it-with-flowers-by-telegraph-from-any-part-of-the-country method. +Oh, I _hope_ she'll wear a veil and let us be bridesmaids!" + +But little Miss Gray did not; some weeks later, in a spick-and-span blue +serge traveling suit, with a little bunch of pink roses fastened in her +belt, she slipped away from her dreary boarding house and met her third +violinist in the shabby, unromantic front parlor of an out-of-the-way +parsonage; the parson's stout wife was her bridesmaid--so much for +gratitude! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +PLANS + + +"Oh, dear--how dreadfully fast time passes. It seems only a little while +ago we were planning for the winter and now here comes Mrs. Hicks about +new summer covers for the furniture, and Joe Laney wants to know if +there's going to be any painting done and I haven't thought of any +summer clothes--and with those two great growing girls! I suppose if +we're going to the seashore we ought to make some reservations, too----" +and Mrs. Westley concluded her plaint with a sigh that came from her +very toes. + +John Westley, from the depths of the great armed chair where he +stretched, laughed at her serious face. But the expression of his own +reflected the truth of what she had said. + +"It's the rush we live in, Mary. Why don't you cut out the seashore and +find a quiet place--out of this torrent? Something--like Kettle." The +mention of Kettle brought him suddenly to a thought of Jerry. + +"Well, my Jerry-girl's year of school is almost up. What next?" + +Mrs. Westley laid down her knitting. "Yes--what next?" she asked. + +"Somehow, I can't picture Jerry going back to Miller's Notch +and--staying there----" + +"That's it--I've thought of it often. Have we been doing the girl a +kindness? After all, John, contentment is the greatest thing in this +world, and perhaps we've hurt the dear child by bringing her here and +letting her have a taste of--this sort of thing." + +John Westley regarded his sister-in-law's plump, kindly face with +amusement. She had the best heart in the world and the biggest, but she +had not the discernment to know that there were treasures even in +Miller's Notch and Sunnyside, and, anyway---- + +"Isn't contentment, Mary, a thing that depends on something inside of +us, rather than our surroundings?" + +She nodded, speculatively. + +"And I rather think my girl from Kettle will be contented anywhere. +She's gone ahead fast here. I was talking to Dr. Caton about her. He +says she is amazingly intense in her work. I suppose that has come from +her way of living there at Sunnyside. But what can the school there at +Miller's Notch give her now? + +"And what is there for a girl, living in a small place like that, after +school? Contentment _does_ depend upon our state of mind, I grant, but +one's surroundings affect that state of mind--so there you are! How is a +girl going to be happy if she knows that she is far superior mentally to +everything that makes up her life? Jerry will grow to womanhood in her +little mountain village--marry some native and----" + +Uncle Johnny ignored the picture. + +"We can trip ourselves up at almost every turn, Mary. Aren't places +really big or small as we ticket them in our own minds? If you think of +Miller's Notch and Kettle by figures of the census, they _are_ +small--but, maybe, reckoning them from real angles they're big--very +big, and it's our cities that are small. To go back to Jerry--when I +think of her I always think of something I said to Barbara Lee--that +nothing on earth could chain a spirit like that anywhere--she was one of +the world's crusaders. Oh--youth! If nothing spoils my Jerry, she'll +always go forward with her head up! But _that's_ what has made me worry, +more than once, during my "experiment." _Have_ we risked the girl to the +danger of being spoiled? Will our little superficialities, so ingrained +that we don't realize them, taint her splendid unaffectedness? I don't +know--I can't tell until I see her back at Kettle--in that environment +the like of which I've never found anywhere else. If she isn't the same +shining-eyed Jerry plus considerable wisdom gleaned from her books and +her school friends, I'll have it on my conscience--if she's the same, +well, the winter's been worth a great deal to all of us! When I see her +and watch her back there--I'll know. And that leads me to what I really +came here to tell you." John Westley drew a letter from his pocket. "I +had word from Trimmer--the Boston attorney. He's found traces of a Craig +Winton who was a graduate of Boston Tech. He lived in obscure lodgings +in a poorer part of Boston and yet he seemed to have quite a circle of +friends of an intellectual sort. Some of them have given enough facts to +be pieced together so as to prove, I think conclusively, that this chap +is the one we're looking for. He was an inventor and of a very brilliant +turn of mind, but unpractical--the old story--and desperately poor. He +married the only daughter of a chemist who lived in Cambridge. His +health broke down and he took his wife and went off to the country +somewhere--his Boston friends lost track of him after that. Later one +received a letter telling of the birth of a son." + +"How interesting! Robert will be home in two weeks and then we can make +the settlement." + +"But, Mary--the search hasn't ended. He left Boston for the +'country'--that is very vague. And I don't like the tone of Trimmer's +communication. He advises dropping the whole matter. He says that +sufficient effort has been made to meet the spirit of the letter left by +the late Peter Westley----" + +"You will _not_ drop it, will you?" + +"Indeed not. I wired him to put all the men he could find on the case. +And I am going to do some work on my own account." + +"You?" + +"Yes--I have a clue all of my own." He laughed, folding the letter and +putting it away. + +"Really, John?" + +"Yes--a foolish sort of a clue--I can scarcely tell it to a man like +Trimmer. It's only a pair of eyes----" + +"I suppose if you're like all other sleuths you will not tell _me_ +anything more," said Mrs. Westley, wondering if he was really in +earnest. "When and where will your personal search begin?" + +"I'd like to start this moment, but I happened to think I could drive +Jerry home, and then I can make the test of my experiment." + +"Drive Jerry home----" his words reached the ears of the young people, +coming into the hall. It was Friday evening and they had been at the +moving-pictures. + +"_Who's_ going to drive Jerry home? You, Uncle Johnny? Can't I go, too? +Oh, please, _please_----" Gyp fell upon him, pleadingly. + +"Oh, I wish the girls _could_ go," added Jerry. + +"Why not?" Uncle Johnny turned to Mrs. Westley. "Then you wouldn't have +to worry your head over clothes and hotel space at the seashore! And +Mrs. Allan's up there across at Cobble with a house big enough for a +dozen----" + +"But they must stay at Sunnyside," protested Jerry, her face glowing. + +Always, now, at the back of her head, were persistent thoughts of home. +She had counted the days off on her little calendar; she saw, in the +bright loveliness with which the springtime had dressed the city, only a +proud vision of what her beloved Kettle must be like; she hunted violets +on the slopes of Highacres and dreamed of the blossoming hepaticas in +the Witches' Glade and the dear sun-shadowed corners where the bloodroot +grew and the soft budding beauty of the birches that lined the trail up +Kettle. She longed with a longing that hurt for her little garden--for +the smell of the freshly-turned soil, for the first strawberries, for +the fragrance of the lilacs that grew under her small window, for the +clean, cool, grass-scented valley wind. And yet her heart was torn +with the thought that those very days she had counted on her calendar +marked the coming separation from Gyp and the schoolmates at +Highacres--Highacres itself. She must go away from them all and all that +they were doing and they would in time forget her, because they would +know nothing of Sunnyside. And now, quite suddenly, a new and wonderful +possibility unfolded--to have Gyp at home with mother and Little-Dad, +sleeping in the tiny room under the gable, climbing the trails with her, +working in the garden, playing with Bigboy, sharing all the precious +joys of Kettle, meant a link; after that, there could be no real +separation. + +And she wanted Isobel, too. Between the two girls had sprung a wonderful +understanding. Isobel was grateful that Jerry had not humiliated her by +mentioning the debate, or the many other little meannesses of which she +had been guilty; Jerry was glad that Isobel had not raked them up--it +was so much nicer to just know that Isobel liked her now. Isobel was a +very different girl since her accident--perhaps Uncle Johnny, alone, +knew why. She had decided very suddenly that she _did_ want to go to +college. The week before she had "squeezed through" the college entrance +exams--luck she did not deserve, she had declared with surprising +frankness. And after college she planned to study interior decorating. + +Everyone wondered why they had not thought before of such wonderful +summer plans. Mrs. Westley would go with Tibby to Cousin Marcia's at +Ocean Point in Maine--"quiet enough there"; Graham was going to a boys' +camp in Vermont, and Isobel and Gyp could divide their time between +Sunnyside and Cobble. + +"We are not consulting Mrs. Travis," laughed Mrs. Westley. + +"Oh, she'd _love_ them to be there," cried Jerry with conviction. + +"And anyway, if she frowns, we'll move on to Wayside, and _we_ know the +trail in between, don't we, Jerry?" + +"Say, Jerry," Graham thought it the psychological moment to spring a +request he had been entertaining in his heart for some time. "Will you +let me take Pepper to camp? Lots of the boys have dogs but none of them +are as smart as Pep." + +Jerry could not answer for a moment. In her picture of her homegoing, +Pepper had had his part; but--it would be another link---- + +"Of course you may take him. He'll love--being with you." Long ago she +had reconciled herself to sharing Pepper's devotion with Graham. + +"Oh, I think that's the wonderfulest plan ever made," exclaimed Gyp +rapturously--Gyp, who with her mother had visited some of the most +fashionable summer and winter resorts. "I want to sleep up on--where is +it, Jerry--and see the sunrise. How will we _ever_ exist until school's +over!" + +"Examinations will help us do that," laughed Isobel. + +"And Class-day and Commencement. And who's going to win the Lincoln +Award?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LINCOLN AWARD + + +"Who's going to win the Lincoln Award?" + +That question was on every tongue at Highacres. That interest rivaled +even the excitement of Class-day and its honors; of the Senior +reception, Commencement itself. It shadowed the accustomed interval of +alarm that always followed examinations. Everyone knew that the contest +was close; no one could conjecture as to whom the honor would fall, for, +though one student be a wizard in trigonometry, he might have failed +dismally in the simple requirement of setting-up exercises or drinking +milk. + +"I've eaten spinach until I feel just like a cow out at pasture," +declared Pat Everett disgustedly, "and what good has it done! For I was +only _eighty-five_ in English!" + +"But think of all the iron in your system," comforted Peggy Lee. "I hope +Jerry wins the prize, but I'm afraid it is going to Ginny Cox. She was +_ninety-nine_ in Cicero. I wish _I_ had her brains----" + +"And her luck! Ginny says herself that it is luck--half the time." + +"Look how she got out of that scrape last winter----" spoke up another +girl. + +The Ravens, who were in the group, suddenly looked at one another. + +"It won't be _fair_ if Ginny wins the Award," was the thought they +flashed. + +The records for the contest were posted the day before Class-day--the +last day of the examinations. A large group of boys and girls, eagerly +awaiting them, pressed and elbowed about the bulletin board in the +corridor while Barbara Lee nailed them to the wall. Gyp's inquisitive +nose was fairly against the white sheet. + +"_Vir-gin-i-a Cox!_" she read shrilly. "Jerauld Travis _only two points +behind_! And Dana King third----" + +An uncontrollable lump rose in Jerry's throat. She had hoped--she had +dared think that she was going to win! She was glad of the babble under +which she could cover her moment's confusion; she struggled bravely to +keep the disappointment from her face as she turned with the others to +congratulate Ginny. + +The plaudits of the boys and girls were warm and whole-hearted. If any +surprise was felt that it had been Ginny Cox and not Jerry Travis who +had won the Award it was carefully concealed. + +"We might have known no one could beat you, Coxie." + +"It was that ninety-nine in old Cicero." + +"Hurrah for Ginny!" + +Dana King trooped up a yell. "Lincoln--Cox! Lincoln--Cox!" + +Through it all Ginny Cox stood very still, a flush on her face but a +distressed look in her eyes. The Ginny Cox whom her schoolmates had +known for years would have accepted the hearty congratulations with a +laughing, careless, why-are-you-surprised manner; the Ginny Cox whom +Jerry had glimpsed that winter afternoon preceding the basketball game +was honestly embarrassed by the turn of events. She had not dreamed she +could win--it _had_ been that ninety-nine in Cicero. + +"Ginny Cox, you don't look a _bit_ glad," accused one clear-sighted +schoolmate. + +Alas, Ginny was not brave enough to clean her troubled soul with +confession then and there; she tried to silence the small voice of her +conscience; she made a desperate effort to be her own old self, evoking +the homage of her schoolmates as she had done time and time again. She +answered, uneasily, with a smile that took in Jerry and Dana King: + +"I hate to beat anyone like Jerry and Dana. It's so close----" + +Whereupon the excited young people yelled again for "Travis" and again +for "King." The crowd gradually dispersed; little groups, arm-in-arm, +excitedly talking, passed out through the big door into the spring +sunshine. A buoyance in the very air proclaimed that school days were +over. + +In one of these groups were Ginny Cox, Gyp, Jerry, Pat Everett, Peggy +Lee and Isobel. Among them had fallen a constraint. Isobel broke it. + +"Ginny Cox, you haven't any more right to that Award than I have! You +_know_ you built the snowman and Jerry took the blame so's you could +play basketball. _She's_ the winner!" + +Each turned, surprised, at Isobel's defence of Jerry's right, marveling +at the earnestness in her face. + +"Oh--_don't_," implored Jerry. "I'm _glad_ Ginny won it." + +Ginny stamped her foot. "_I'm_ not--I wish I hadn't. I never dreamed I +would--honest. What a mess! I wish I'd just turned and told them all +about it, but I didn't have the nerve! I'm just yellow." That--from +Ginny Cox, the invincible forward! Breathless, the girls paused where +they were on the grassy slope near the entrance of Highacres. A great +elm spread over them and through its shimmering green a sunbeam shot +across Ginny Cox's face, adding to the fire of its sternness. + +"Girls----" she spread out her hands commandingly, "I don't know what +_you_ think--but _I_ think Jerry Travis is the best ever at Lincoln! +She's made me show up like a bad old copper penny 'longside of her. A +year ago I could have taken this old Award without a flicker of my +littlest eyelash, but just _knowing_ her makes it--impossible! Now--what +shall we do?" + +Jerry's remonstrance--a little quivery, because she was deeply moved by +Ginny's unexpected tribute--was drowned out in a general assent and a +clamorous approval of Ginny's words. + +"I know----" declared Isobel, feeling that, because she was a Senior, +she must straighten out this tangle. "Let's tell Uncle Johnny all about +it." Uncle Johnny--to whom had been carried every hurt, every problem +since baby days. + +The others agreed--"He's a trustee, anyway," Gyp explained--though just +how much a trustee had to do with these complicated questions of school +honor none of them knew. + +And, as though Uncle Johnny always sprang up from the earth at the very +instant his girls needed him, he came up the winding drive in his red +roadster. They hailed him. He brought the car to a quick stop. + +"Uncle Johnny, we want you to decide something for us! Please get out +and come over here." + +He stared at the serious faces. What tragedy had shadowed the customary +gladness of the last day of school? He let them lead him to the old elm. + +"If you'll please sit down and--and pretend you're _not_--our uncle but +sort of a--a judge--and listen, we'll tell you." + +"Dear me," Uncle Johnny murmured weakly, sitting down on the slope. +"This is bad for rheumatism and gray trousers but--I'll listen." + +Isobel began the story with the building of the snowman; Gyp took it up. +Dramatically, with an eloquence reminiscent of that meeting of the +Ravens when the ill-fated lot had fallen to Jerry, she explained how +"for the honor of the school" Jerry had shouldered Ginny's punishment. +Peggy Lee interrupted to say that she thought Miss Gray had made an +awful fuss about nothing, but Ginny hushed her quickly. Then the story +came to the winning of the Award. + +"Two points--Jerry only needed two points. And she lost ten as a +punishment about the snowman. Don't you see--she's really the winner?" + +Uncle Johnny had listened to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he +was tortured with the desire to laugh. But he could not affront these +girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they +called honor. "Oh, youth--youth!" he thought, loving them the more for +their precious earnestness. + +"And--it's _such_ a mix-up, we don't know what to do. If I knew who had +given the prize I'd go straight to him," exclaimed Ginny bravely. + +Uncle Johnny straightened his immaculately gray-trousered legs and laid +his straw hat down on the grass. + +"If that'll help things any--I'm he," he explained with a little +embarrassment. + +"You? You? Really--Uncle Johnny?" came in an excited chorus. + +"Yes, me," with a fine scorn for grammar. "I'm the one who's to blame +for all the carrots," pinching Gyp's cheek. "But you _have_ sort of +mixed things up." + +"But we _had_ to win that basketball game," cried Gyp, "and we couldn't +unless Ginny played." + +"Yes--you had to win the basketball game," he nodded with a judicious +appreciation. + +"You see, Lincoln got the cup for the series." + +"And Jerry paid the price--yes." + +"For the honor of the school!" + +"Then--I'm afraid this is the last payment. You see, girlies, everything +we do--no matter what it is--is fraught with consequences. If I were to +go over to yonder lake and throw in a pebble--what would we see? Little +ripples circling wider and wider--further and further. That's like +life--our everyday actions are so many pebbles--we have to accept the +ripples. It's sometimes hard--but I guess Jerry sees the truth." + +There was no doubt from the expression of Jerry's face but that she saw +the truth--Uncle Johnny's homely simile had made it very clear. + +"But _I_ won't take it--that wouldn't be fair." It was the new Ginny who +spoke. "So it'll go to Dana King." + +"Yes, it will go to Dana King." Uncle Johnny was serious now. "Ginny +should not have accepted Jerry's sacrifice. Girls, there's a simple +little thing called 'right' that we find in our hearts if we search +that's finer than even the precious honor of your school--and Gyp, you +speak very truly when you say that _that_ is something you must +valiantly always uphold. Now if you'll let me tell this story of yours +to the committee I think it can all be straightened out--and we'll feel +better all around." + +"And I'm glad it's Dana King," exclaimed Peggy Lee. "Garrett said he had +had to give up his plans to go to college next fall and he was terribly +disappointed and now maybe he won't have to----" + +Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind +Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled--in youth the sun is always so +happily close behind all the little clouds--the girls' spirits went +forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, +the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior +bouquets--the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of +girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school +life--graduates. + +Uncle Johnny watched his girls join others and troop away, with light +step, heads high. He chuckled, though behind it was a little sigh. + +"Doc, my boy, you were right--it _has_ made me ten years younger to mix +up with these youngsters." + +As he turned to go into the building he met Barbara Lee coming out. He +suddenly remembered that the business of the Award had to do with +Barbara Lee--somehow, he almost always had, nowadays, to consult her +about something! Very sweetly she went back with him to her office. He +told her what the girls had told him. She listened with triumph in her +face. + +"I _knew_ Jerry Travis did not do that. But, oh, aren't they funny?" +However, her tone said that these "funny" girls were very dear to her. +"It will take something very real out of my life when I leave Lincoln." + +"What do you mean?" John Westley's voice rang abruptly. + +"Of course--you haven't heard. I have had a wonderful offer from a big +export house in San Francisco. It's the same firm to which I expected to +go last summer--before I came here. You see the road I chose to climb to +the stars wasn't entirely along--physical training. My last year in +college I specialized in export work. There was a fascination in it to +me--it's such a _growing_ thing, such a challenging work, and it carries +one into new and untried fields. There's an element of adventure in +it----" her eyes glistened. "I shall spend a year at the main office, +then they're going to send me into China--because I can speak the +Chinese language." + +John Westley stared at her--she seemed like such a slip of a girl. + +"And mother is so much better now that there is no reason why I cannot +go." + +Though they had yet to straighten out the matter of the Award she quite +involuntarily held out her hand as she spoke, and John Westley took it +in both of his. + +"I hope this--_is_ the road to the stars." That did not sound properly +congratulatory, so he added, lamely: "I'm glad--if you want to go. But +what will we do without you here?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +COMMENCEMENT + + +"Commencements----" declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like +weddings--all sort of weepy." + +"What do _you_ know of weddings, little one?" from Graham. + +"I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always +crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried +herself!" + +"Did you cry, mother?" asked Tibby curiously. + +Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did--really. And I cried at my Commencement. +There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's +Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really _was_ the +end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over--then, I +remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress--we wore +organdie then, too, girls--with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm +and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a +rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back. +So I cried--for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else +to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid--to +look ahead into life----" + +"But there was father--you knew him then, didn't you?" + +A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes--there was father. I +said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was +married--and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy--but I knew +I was going away forever from my girlhood." + +"Mother----" protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I +wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day +exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had +given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be +worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to +be _married_----" + +"Darling"--and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers--"we leave our +childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always +there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying +there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth +we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears--tears that sweeten and +strengthen the spirit, too." + +"Well, I'm glad _I_ have two more years at Highacres," cried Gyp, +looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face. + +"And _I'm_ glad," Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to +college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't +be Amy Mathers for _anything_. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of +all she's going to do next winter--such _empty_ things!" Isobel, in her +scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do +just what Amy Mathers was planning to do! + +"Well,"--Graham stretched his arms--"school's all right but _I'm_ mighty +glad vacation has come." + +Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day +exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All +through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness +the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not +thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn, +until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the +school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school. +A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates. +Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award--to Dana King. A murmur had +swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records, +the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis. +Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's +hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd +do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and +had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant +a lot to him--for it made college possible." + +It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining +hill from which paths diverged--attractive paths that beckoned; that +precious word college--Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along +that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's +had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than +the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow, +little path, and led straight away from Highacres--but it led to +Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought +that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in +a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart--and Gyp and Isobel +would be with her. + +The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class +was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls +in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the +lapels of their coats. + +Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes. + +"You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew," she cried in +the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you +all--but it would muss you dreadfully." + +"Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any _dirt_ on me," exclaimed +Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing. + +"Am _I_ all right, mother?" begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy +white. + +Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a +flower in _his_ buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give +the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket. + +"A little graduating gift for my Bonnie." It was a circlet pin +of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of +her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things +eternal--everlasting--never ending. That's like my faith in you." He +lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on, +now--everybody ready?" + +If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have +noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's +manner--a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has +girded one's self for a great deed. + +He _had_ made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had +been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had +haunted him--thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in +her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened +his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really +meant, "What will _I_ do without you?" + +Absurd--he tried to reason the whole thing calmly--absurd that this slip +of a girl, who knew _Chinese_, had become necessary to his happiness! +How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that--and he +was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away--and he could not +_let_ her go away. + +So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John +Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was +asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me--if I tell +her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears +with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought +that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth +it seemed like ninety. + +"I'll tell her--just the same," was his final determination; she was on +her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with +a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years. + +From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces--and +saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness +and a beauty of thought that was inspired--not by the detached group of +graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with +a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the +others and bring them very close. + +"Loyalty" was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest +ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen." + +After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a +gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, +soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring +gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which +decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the +June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth. +More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with +reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the +promise of their day, stood at the start---- + +Then the school sang their Alma Mater--the undergraduates singing the +first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar +notes rang with a truer, braver cadence--one voice, clearer than the +others, broke suddenly with feeling. + +"Wasn't it all perfectly _beautiful_?" cried Gyp as the audience moved +slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't _tell_ which was best +of the program and it _was_ sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny +_splendid_? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was +just sick over her dress--it was so plain--and she looked as lovely as +_any_ of the others. Oh, goodness, _think_ how you'd feel if we were +graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's +Barbara Lee, let's _hug_ her--think how _dreadful_ to have her go away. +And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry----" Gyp ended her outburst +by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders. + +John Westley advanced upon them--with the strange new look still in his +eyes. + +"Gyp--you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness." He tried to make his tone +light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a +book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little, +Barbara Lee walked away with him. + +"Well, I never----" declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of +saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and +Barbara Lee. + +John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing +in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he +told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart. +There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that +brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips. + +"I wanted you to know," he finished, simply. "I don't suppose--what I +can offer--can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid +dreams--but, I wanted you to know that you have----" + +"There's more than _one_ way to the stars----" she interrupted, lifting +glowing eyes to his. + +Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she +remembered Uncle Johnny. + +"Do you s'pose they're in the library _yet_?" + +She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To +their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing +looking out of the window--with their hands clasped. + +Gyp coughed--a cough that was really a funny sputter. + +"Did--did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?" + +Uncle Johnny turned--without a blush. + +"_Hello_, Gyp!" (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find +the book--because I wasn't really after a book. But I _did_ find what I +wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your +Barbara Lee is _not_ going away?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CRAIG WINTON + + +"Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a" echoed through the wooded slopes of Kettle. Startled, +birds winged away from the treetops, little wild creatures skurried +through the undergrowth, yet in the care-free, silvery tinkle of those +merry voices there was no note to alarm. + +Jerry was leading Isobel and Gyp down the trail from Rocky Top. Baskets, +swinging from their shoulders, told of the jolly day's outing. Isobel +and Gyp were dressed in khaki middies and short skirts; Isobel's hair +was drawn back simply from her face and bound with a bright red ribbon; +Gyp's cheeks were tanned a ruddy brown, against which her lips shone +scarlet. Jerry wore the boyish outfit in which John Westley had found +her. Three happier, merrier girls could not have been found the world +over. + +A week--a week of hourly wonders, had passed since the girls had arrived +at Sunnyside with Uncle Johnny. To Jerry the homecoming was even sweeter +than she had dreamed. And to find her precious mother "exactly" the +same, she whispered in the privacy of a close hug, dispelled a little +fear that had tormented her. + +"Why, darling, did you think _I'd_ be different?" + +"I don't know----" Jerry had colored, but tightened the clasp of her +arms. "It's been so dreadfully long! I thought maybe--I'd forgotten----" + +And Little-Dad had not changed a bit, nor the house, nor the garden, nor +Bigboy--not a thing, Jerry had found on an excited round. The old lilac +bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still +daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves +marked a row of onions just where her onions had always +grown--Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown +bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room, +softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere. +Her own little room was just as she had left it. Oh, the wonder, the joy +of coming back! How different it would have been if there _had_ been any +change. What if Sweetheart--she rushed headlong to hug her mother again. + +Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were +genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle +caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from +his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the +trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries, +lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together +these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before. +To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant +summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist. + +And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all +through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her +mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother +alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to +know--concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked +to think it all over again, herself--those first days of school, the +classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that +never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two +"real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden +pipes--only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had +discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school, +school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big +girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying, +rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there lingered a +furtive questioning. Jerry, reveling in her own happiness, did not +realize that her mother was watching her every expression with the +anguishing fear that her Jerry might have changed. And she _had_ +changed; she had grown, though she was still as straight as one of +Kettle's young fir trees; her winter's experience had left its mark on +her sunny face in a new firmness of the lips, a thoughtfulness behind +the shining eyes. + +"Will these new friends, Jerry, these fine times you have had make you +love Sunnyside less--or be discontented here?" Her mother had +interrupted her flood of confidences to say. + +Jerry stared in such astonishment that her mother laughed, a shaky +laugh, and kissed her. + +"Because, my dear, remember you are only Jerauld Travis of Kettle +Mountain, and your life must lie just here. Oh, my precious, I thank God +I have you back!" she added with an intensity of emotion that startled +and puzzled Jerry. + +"Why, mother, honest truly there's never been a moment when I wasn't +glad I was only Jerauld Travis, and I wouldn't trade places with a soul, +only----" and Jerry could not finish, for she did not know just what she +wanted to say. She was oddly disturbed. Did her mother begrudge her +those happy weeks at Highacres? Had she been afraid of something? And +_was_ she the same Jerry who had wished on the Wishing-rock to just +_see_ the world which lay beyond her mountain? Didn't she want to go +away again--sometime, to college? And what would her mother say if she +told her that? + +Jerry managed to lock away these tormenting thoughts while she and the +girls were roaming Kettle. Certainly there was not a shadow in the face +she lifted now to the caress of the mountain breeze nor in the voice +that caroled its "Ka-a-a-a-a" and laughed as the echoes answered. + +From the Witches' Glade where the trail sloped down between white +birches, the girls ran fleetly, leaped the little gate through the +fringe of fir trees and, laughing and panting, tumbled upon the veranda +of the bungalow straight into Uncle Johnny's arms! + +Uncle Johnny had only stopped at Kettle long enough to unload his girls +and their baggage, then he had hurried on to Boston to consult the +lawyers who were tracing Craig Winton. He had not expected to return for +three or four weeks. "Not until I have this thing off my mind," he had +explained to Isobel and Gyp. + +Isobel, though she now looked at it from another angle, still thought it +very foolish to pursue the search for this Craig Winton. The Boston men +had reported that their search had led them to a blank wall and that +there was little use spending more money on it. But in spite of this, +Uncle Johnny had persisted in going ahead on some clue of his own and +wasting precious time away from Barbara Lee. Both Isobel and Gyp, from +thinking that no woman in the world was good enough for Uncle Johnny, +had now veered around to the happy conviction that heaven had patterned +Barbara Lee especially for Uncle Johnny's pleasure. They beamed upon the +engagement with such approval that even Uncle Johnny, head over heels in +love as he was, grew a little embarrassed by their enthusiasm. Gyp also +became reconciled to the school library as a setting for the proposal +and declared that, thereafter, the library at Highacres would be +enshrined in her heart as something other than a room to "make one's +head ache." But both girls were disgusted that Uncle Johnny could +cheerfully leave the lady of his choice and go off on a search that +appeared so useless! It was contrary to all their rules of romance. + +Something in Uncle Johnny's face and his unexpected appearance drew an +exclamation from each of the girls. Almost in the same voice, with no +more greeting than to vigorously grasp him by shoulder and arm, they +cried: "Did you find her? Have you come to stay?" + +He hesitated just a moment and glanced questioningly at Mrs. Travis. +Then for the first time the girls noticed that Mrs. Travis was very +pale, that her eyes burned dark against the whiteness of her skin as +though she had been racked by a great agitation and her hands clasped +tightly the back of a chair. She nodded to John Westley. + +"Yes, my search is ended. You see I had the right clue--though it was +only the mention of a pair of eyes. Do you remember in Uncle Peter's +letter about Craig Winton's eyes? 'They were glowing like they were +lighted within.' Well, have you ever seen a pair of eyes like that? I +have--only where Craig Winton's were sad with disappointment, these +others glow from the pure joy of being alive----" + +"_Jerry?_" interrupted Gyp, in a queer, tangled voice. + +"Yes--Jerauld." + +"_Oh-h!_" + +The girls stared at Jerry and Jerry stared at John Westley. Was he just +joking? How _could_ it be? She turned to her mother. Her mother nodded +again. + +"Yes, dear, you are Jerauld Winton. But--we gave you your stepfather's +name--he was so good to us!" + +In that moment of unutterable surprise Jerry's loyal little heart went +out quickly to Little-Dad. + +"Oh, even if he _is_ a stepfather I love him just the same!" she +exclaimed, wishing he was there that she might hug him. + +"You see, beginning at this end made my search quicker. It was hindered +a little, though, because the county courthouse at Waytown, where the +records of Jerry's birth and Craig Winton's death were filed, burned a +few years ago with everything in it. But I stumbled on an old codger who +used to be postmaster at Waytown and he told me more in a few moments +than all the Boston detectives had found in months. I went on to Boston +to interview those old friends the lawyers there had found and then came +back." + +There was a puzzled look on each face. Hesitatingly, Jerry put the +question that was in each mind. + +"But, mother, why didn't you ever tell? Were you--ashamed?" + +Her mother's face flared with color. She stepped forward and laid an +entreating hand on Jerry's. "Oh, no--_no_!" she cried. "You must not +think that--no one must. He--your father--was the finest man that ever +lived. But he made me promise, when you were a wee, wee baby, that I +would try to protect you from the bitterness of the world that +had--broken his heart. Oh, he died of a broken heart, a broken spirit. +He lived in his dreams, his inventions were a part of him--like his +right arm! When they failed he suffered cruelly. Then he had one that he +knew was good. But----" she stopped abruptly, remembering that these +people were Westleys. "But he could never have been happy. He was not +practical or--or sensible. His brain wore out his body--it was always, +always working along one line. And before he--died, he seemed to have +the fear that you might grow up to be like him--'a puppet for the +thieves to fleece and feed upon,' he used to say. After he--died, we +stayed on in Dr. Travis' cabin, where he had sheltered and cared for +your father. He moved down into the village but, oh, he was so good to +us! When, two years later I married him and we built this home, I vowed +that I would keep only the blessed peace of Sunnyside for you. So I +never told you of your own father and those dreadful years of poverty. +But I was not _ashamed_!" + +Jerry, not knowing exactly why, put one arm around her mother's shoulder +in a protecting manner. "Poor, brave Sweetheart," she whispered, laying +her cheek against her mother's arm. + +Isobel and Gyp were held silent by a disturbing sense of embarrassment. +That it should have been Jerry's father whom their Uncle Peter had +"fleeced"--the horrible word which had slipped reminiscently from Mrs. +Travis' lips burned in their ears! But a sudden delight finally broke +loose Gyp's tongue. + +"Oh, _Jerry_, isn't it _exciting_ to think we've been hunting everywhere +and all the time it's _you_! I'm glad--'cause it sort of makes you a +relation." And her logic was so extremely stretched that everyone +laughed. + +"I'd rather you got the money than anyone in the world," added Isobel. + +The money--Jerry had not thought of that! Her face flushed scarlet, then +paled. + +"Oh, I don't want it," she cried. "You've done so much for me." + +"My dear," Uncle Johnny's voice was very business-like. "It is something +you have not the right to decline, because it was given by a dying man +to purchase a peace of mind for his last moment on earth. And now let me +look you over, Jerry-girl." He tilted her chin and studied her face. +Then he glanced approvingly down her slim length, smiling at her boyish +garments. "I guess my experiment hasn't hurt you," he said, though no +one there knew what he meant. + +The evening was very exciting--why would it not be when Jerry had found +the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right in her very own lap? +Uncle Johnny stayed on overnight; some repairs to a tire were necessary +before he started homeward. + +"Do you remember what you said once, Jerry, when I asked you what you +would do if you had a lot of money?" Gyp had asked as they sat out on +the veranda watching the stars. "And you said you'd go to school as long +as ever you could and then----" + +Jerry had raised suddenly to an upright position from the step where she +was curled. + +"Oh"--she cried, her voice deep with delight--"now I can go back to +Highacres----" + +Then, at the very moment of her ecstasy, she was strangely disturbed by +the quick touch of her mother's hand laid on her shoulder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +HER MOTHER'S STORY + + +Sometime after she had gone to sleep, Jerry wakened suddenly with the +disturbing conviction that someone needed her. At the same moment her +ear caught a sound that made her slip her bare feet quickly to the floor +and stand, listening. It had been a soft step beneath her window--a +little sigh. + +In a flash Jerry sped down the narrow stairway, past the open door of +the room where Little-Dad lay snoring, and out across the veranda. In +the dim light of the moon that hung low in the arc of the blue-black +sky, Jerry made out the figure of her mother, standing near the rough +bench that overlooked the valley. + +"Mother!" + +"Jerry, child, and in your bare feet!" + +"I heard you out here. Isn't it dreadfully late? Can't you sleep? +Mother, look at me," for Mrs. Westley had kept her face averted. +"Mother, darling, why do you look so--sort of--sad?" Jerry's voice was +reproachful. "We're so happy now that we are together, aren't we? And it +_will_ be nice to have lots of things and Little-Dad won't ever have to +worry and----" + +Mrs. Travis lifted her hand suddenly and laid it across Jerry's lips. +"Child, I am not sad. I have been out here fighting away forever the +foolish fears that have stalked by my side since you were a very little +girl. Some day, when you're a mother, you'll know how I've felt--how +I've dreaded facing this moment! How often I've sat with you and watched +the baby robins make their first flight from the nest and have laughed +at the fussy mother robin scolding and worrying up in a nearby +branch----" + +"But, mamsey, you've always told me how the mother robin _pushes_ the +little ones out of the nest to make them _know_ that they can fly!" + +Mrs. Travis accepted the rebuke in silence. Jerry slipped her hand into +her mother's. Her mother held it close. + +"Jerry, dear, I've never told you much about myself because I could not +do that without telling you of your own father. I was a very lonely +little girl; I had no brothers or sisters--no near relatives. My mother +died when I was eight years old, and a housekeeper--good soul--brought +me up. My father was a professor of chemistry in Harvard, as you know, +and he was a queer man and his friends were peculiar, too--not the sort +that was much company for a young girl. But I was very fond of my father +and I was very content with my simple life until I met Craig Winton. He +was so different from anyone else who had ever crossed our threshold +that I fell in love with him at once. My father died suddenly and Craig +Winton asked me to marry him. It was the maddest folly--he had nothing +except his inventive genius and he should never have tied himself to +domestic responsibilities; they were always--such as they were--like a +dreadful yoke to his spirit. But we were happy, oh, we were _happy_ in a +wonderful, unreal way. Sometimes we didn't have enough to eat, but he +always had so much faith in what he was going to do that _that_ somehow, +kept us going. But when his faith began to die--it was dreadful. It was +as though some hidden poison was killing him, right before my eyes." + +"What made his faith die?" asked Jerry, curiously. + +"Because he grew to distrust his fellowmen. That second visit to Peter +Westley----" Mrs. Travis spoke quickly to hide her bitterness. "He was +so sure that what he had made was good--an inventor has always, my dear, +an irrational love for the thing he has created--and to have it +_spurned_! He was supersensitive, super--everything. Then my own health +went to pieces. I suppose I simply was not getting enough to eat to give +me the strength to meet the mental strain under which I had to live--and +you were coming. From his last visit to Peter Westley he returned with a +little money, but he was as a crushed, broken man--his bitterness had +unbalanced his mind. He said that it was for my health that he came away +with me, but I knew that it was to get away from the world that he +hated--and to hide his failure! Your Little-Dad took us in. He knew at +once that your father was a very sick man and he brought him to his +cabin here on Kettle. But even here your father suffered, and after you +were born he feared for you. He was obsessed with the thought that _you_ +had all life to face----" + +"How dreadfully sorry you must have felt for him," whispered Jerry, +shyly, trying to make it all seem true. + +"I felt sorry for him, child, not that he had been so disappointed but +because he had not the strength to rally from it. I don't believe God +made him that way; I think he sacrificed too much of himself to his +genius. This world we live in demands so much of us--such _different_ +things, that, if we are to meet everything squarely, we cannot develop +one side of our minds and let the other side go. I am telling you all +this, Jerry, that you may understand how I have felt--about you. The +months after your father died were sort of a blank to me--I lived on +here because I had nowhere else to go. Gradually my gratitude to John +Travis turned to real affection--not like what I had given your father, +but something quite as deep. And the years I have lived with him here +have been very happy--as though my poor little ship had found the still +waters of an inland stream after having been tossed on a stormy sea. And +I've tried to make myself think that in these still waters I could keep +_you_ always, that you would grow up here and--perhaps--marry +someone----" she laughed. "Mothers always dream way ahead, darling. +But as you grew older I could see that that was not going to be easy. +You've so quickly outgrown everything I can give you--or that +anyone--here--can; you have grown so curious, your mind is always +reaching out. What is here, what is there, what is this, where is +that--questions like these always on your tongue! And you _are_ like +your father--very." + +Jerry shivered the least little bit, perhaps from the night air, warm as +it was, perhaps from the thought that she was like poor, poor Craig +Winton, who did not seem at all like a real father. + +In a moment her mother had wrapped her in the soft shawl she carried. +Something in the loving touch of her hands broke the spell of unreality +that had held Jerry. + +"I don't understand, mamsey," she whispered, cuddling close, "if you +felt like--_that_--and worried, why did you let me go away?" + +"Because, my child," there was something triumphant in her mother's +voice, "some inner sense made me believe that though you look like your +father and act like him in many ways, you have a nature and a character +quite of your own. I tried to put away the fears I had had which I told +myself were foolish and morbid. John Westley's arguments helped me. I +knew immediately that he was related to the Peter Westley who had +crushed your father, but I felt certain he knew nothing of it--and I was +glad; to bury the past entirely was the only way to bury forever the +bitterness that had killed your father. And when John Westley made the +offer to give you a year of school, I thought it was only justice! I had +known school life in a big city where I had many schoolmates and I lived +for several years in the shadow of a great university, though the life +in it only touched me indirectly, and when the opportunity opened, I +wanted you to have the same experience; I felt it might solve the +problem that confronted me. And I told myself that I was _sure_ of you +that you could go away to school, go anywhere, and come back again and +be my same girl! Jerry, these people have been very, very good to you; +out of pure generosity they have given you a great deal, do you now--now +that you know the truth--feel any bitterness toward them?" + +Never had Jerry associated Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley, nor the +younger Westleys, nor the charming, hospitable home, with the Peter +Westley she had pictured from Gyp's vivid descriptions. And, too, +remembering the pathetic loneliness of the old man's last days, she felt +nothing but pity. + +"Oh, no," she answered, softly, decidedly. "Anyway, he made up for +everything he'd done when he gave beautiful Highacres to Lincoln +School," she added, loyally. + +Then Jerry fell silent. "I was sure of you," her mother's words echoed. +Had she not glimpsed more, in those months at Highacres, than her mother +dreamed? A promise of what college might hold for her--new worlds to +conquer? + +"Mother, am--am I the--same girl?" She put the question slowly. + +"No, Jerry--and that's what I've been fighting out here--all by myself. +For I realize that it was only selfishness made me dread finding a +change! A mother's selfishness! That you should grow and go on and +forward, even though you leave me behind, darling, I know must be my +dearest wish. But oh, my dear, I understand how the poor mother robin +feels just before she shoves her babies out of the nest! For don't you +think _she_ hates an empty nest as much as any human mother? Do you +remember the little story I used to tell you when you were small enough +to cuddle your whole self on my lap? How yours and my love was a +beautiful, sunny garden where you dwelt and that the garden had a very +high wall around it?" + +"I love that story, mamsey. I told it once to Mrs. Westley and she loved +it, too. And you used to say that there was a gate in the wall with a +latch but the latch was quite high so that when I was little I could not +find it!" + +"And then you grew bigger and your fingers could reach the latch--you +wanted to open it to go out and see what was outside. I had made the +little garden as beautiful as I knew how and it was very sunny and the +wall was so high that it shut out all trouble--but you wanted so much to +open the gate that I knew I must let you!" + +"And then I went away to Highacres----" put in Jerry, loving the story +as much as ever. + +"And I was alone in the garden our love had built, but I was not +lonely--I _will_ not be lonely, for--wherever you go--you are my girl +and I love you and you love me! _Nothing_ can change that. And I shall +leave the gate open--it will always be open!" She said it slowly; her +story was finished. + +Jerry's face was transfigured. "You mean--you _mean_"--she spoke +softly--"that--if I want to go--back to Highacres--you'll _let me_? I +can _go to college_? Oh, mamsey, you're wonderful! Mothers _are_ the +grandest things. And the gate will always be open so's I can always come +back? And you won't be lonely for I'll always love you most in the world +of anybody or anything. And when I'm very grown-up and can't go to +school any more we'll travel, won't we? You and me and Little-Dad--won't +we, mamsey?" + +"Yes, dear." But the mother's eyes smiled in the darkness--she was +thinking of the empty nest. + +Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath. + +"The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in +it, like my--father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that +he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall _never_ be like +that! And it's dreadful"--she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit +valley--"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to +school. Why, I'm the very, very richest girl in the world!" Then she +blushed. "I don't mean _that_ money, mamsey, I mean having you +and--Sunnyside and Kettle and just knowing about--our garden!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE WISHING-ROCK + + +Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its +mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a +momentous day--momentous because so many things had been decided and +such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with +Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, +then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was +going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett, +Renee La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee +was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed +upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile. + +"You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and +then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and----" + +Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a +chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed +an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little +tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted +it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he +yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately--he knew +just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a +sewing-machine. + +But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry +should go back to Highacres---- + +"_Pinch_ me, Gypsy Editha Westley--pinch me _hard_!" she cried as she +sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And _really, truly_ +going back to Highacres! I _can't_ be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to +sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver +ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them +because _they_ could go and _I_ couldn't. But it used to be fun +pretending I knew just what the world was like." + +Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been +anywhere?" + +"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being +places and seeing things yourself." + +Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the +great rock. + +"Do you suppose it really _is_ a 'wishing-rock'?" + +"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I +pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree +fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for +things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did +not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it +seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock. +Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things." + +"Well, it's funny if it wasn't _some_ sort of magic that made Uncle +Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you +were wishing! And your wish came _true_. And if he hadn't--why, you'd +never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that +secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known +that you were _really_ Jerauld Winton. Oh, it _has_ magic!" + +Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more +than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the +little things which shape our living! + +"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish! +It's so still you could 'most believe there _were_ fairies hiding +'round. I'll wish first." + +Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of +the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial +fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral +note. + +"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball +team--I wish _that_ dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the +college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through +college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly +spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a +tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has +asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry him and have six children and +I'll bring them to the mountains to live. Then"--she paused for +breath--"if I'm not asking too much I wish that my hair'll get curly." + +"Did I remember everything?" she asked anxiously, jumping down from the +rock. "Who's next?" + +Jerry politely waved Isobel to the top. + +Isobel laughed in her effort to frame all that she wanted to wish. + +"I just want to be the most famous decorator in the country. I want to +have women coming to me from all over, begging me to do their houses. +And if the women are cross and ugly I'll make everything pink to cheer +them up and if they're smug and conceited I'll make their houses dull +gray, and if they are too frivolous I'll make things a spiritual blue. +Oh, it will be _fun_! And I want to go to Paris to study just as soon as +I get through college, and I don't want to get married for a long, long +time, maybe never." + +It was Jerry's turn. Isobel and Gyp stood aside. Jerry's eyes were +shining--it _was_ fun to pretend that, maybe, a shadowy, spectral Fate +waited there in the valley to hear what they were saying! + +"I wish--oh, it seems as though just going back to Highacres is all +anyone _could_ wish! I want to go to school as long as ever I can and +then I want to go all around the world, and then I want to study to be a +doctor like Little-Dad and take care of sick people and make them well, +so they can enjoy things. And I want to marry a man who's jolly and +always young-acting and loves dogs and has light brown hair and a very +straight nose and----" + +"Jerry Travis, that's just like Dana King," cried Gyp, accusingly. + +Jerry flushed scarlet. "It isn't anything of the sort! I mean--can't +there be lots of men with light brown hair and straight noses--hundreds +of them? And anyway," loyalty blazed, "Dana King _is_ the nicest boy +I've ever known!" + +"And he thinks _you're_ the nicest girl," Gyp laughed back. "I know +it--he told Garrett Lee and Garrett told Peggy. So there----" + +"You've interrupted my wish and I don't know where I left off," Jerry +rebuked. "Oh, I wish most of all that I can always, no matter where I +am, come back to Sunnyside and Sweetheart and Little-Dad and--my garden! +There, I've wished everything!" + +The distant tinkle of a cowbell sounded faintly; a thrush sang; the sun, +dropping low toward the wooded crest of the opposite mountain, cast a +golden glow over valley and slope. The air was filled with the drowsy +hum and stirring of tiny unseen creatures, the birches that fringed the +glade leaned and whispered. The three girls sat silent, staring down +into the valley, each visioning a golden future of her own. But a +thoughtfulness shadowed the radiance of Jerry's face. Yesterday she had +been just Jerry Travis of Kettle, now she was another Jerry; on a page +far back in her life's book, opened to her, she had glimpsed the tragedy +of disappointment, of blighted hope, of defeat--her own young, undaunted +spirit cried out that none of this must come into _her_ life! Or, if it +did, she must be strong to meet it---- + +Gyp roused. For her the golden spell was broken. She yawned and +stretched. + +"Isn't school funny? You think you hate it and then when vacation comes +you keep thinking about going back. And you bury geometry and Caesar +forever and try to forget them and then first thing you're thinking +about what you're going to take next year and whom you'll get and what +new girls will come and what sort of a team we'll have! We've just _got_ +to train a forward who'll be as good as Ginny when she graduates and I +believe, Jerry Travis, you're _it_." + +Jerry and Isobel turned promptly from their dreaming. + +"I wonder who'll take Miss Gray's place--and Barbara Lee's----" + +"And, oh," Jerry hugged them both. "I'll be _there_! I'll be _there_! I +hated to _think_ of your all going on without me. It would have broken +my heart! Dear old Highacres!" + + "To thy golden founts of wisdom, + Alma Mater, guide our step----" + +caroled the young voices, softly. + + * * * * * + +BY JANE ABBOTT + +HAPPY HOUSE + +A NOVEL + +"There is something of Louisa May Alcott in the way Mrs. Abbott unfolds +her narrative and develops her ideals of womanhood; something refreshing +and heartening for readers surfeited with novels that are mainly devoted +to uncovering cesspools."--_Boston Herald._ + + +STORIES FOR GIRLS + +KEINETH + +"'Keineth' is a life creation--within its covers the actual spirit of +youth. The book is of special interest to girls, but when a grown-up +gets hold of it there follows a one-session under the reading lamp with +'finis' at the end."--_Buffalo Times._ + +LARKSPUR + +"Mrs. Abbott takes her story writing seriously and the standards she +sets up in the actions of her characters must help to shape the judgment +and ideals of those who read her books."--_Christian Endeavor World._ + + +HIGHACRES + +"Saturated with the spirit of youth, and written in the happy vein +characteristic of Mrs. Abbott's previous stories and which is endearing +the author with her growing army of youthful readers."--_Brooklyn +Standard Union._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHACRES*** + + +******* This file should be named 29865.txt or 29865.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/8/6/29865 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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