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diff --git a/47854-8.txt b/47854-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 41e3935..0000000 --- a/47854-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6768 +0,0 @@ - GREENACRE GIRLS - - - - -This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 -http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United -States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are -located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Greenacre Girls -Author: Izola L. Forrester -Release Date: June 11, 2015 [EBook #47854] -Language: English -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREENACRE GIRLS *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - - *GREENACRE - GIRLS* - - - BY - - IZOLA L. FORRESTER - - - - THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO. - CLEVELAND, O. NEW YORK, N.Y. - - - - - _Copyright, 1915, by - George W. Jacobs & Company - All rights reserved_ - - - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - - *CONTENTS* - -CHAPTER - -I The Finger of Providence -II The Motherbird and Her Robins -III Breakers Ahead -IV The Queen's Privy Council -V Kit Rebels -VI White Hyacinths -VII The Land o' Rest -VIII Spying the Promised Land -IX The Lady Managers Choose a Name -X Settling the Nest -XI Ma Parmelee's Chicks -XII Gilead's Girl Neighbors -XIII Cousin Roxy to the Rescue -XIV The Lawn Fête -XV Kit Pulls Anchor -XVI Guests and Ghosts -XVII Billie Meets Trespassers -XVIII Harvesting Hopes -XIX Ralph and Honey Take the Long Trail -XX Roxana's Romance - - - - - *GREENACRE GIRLS* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - *THE FINGER OF PROVIDENCE* - - -"It does seem to me, folkses," said Kit warmly, "that when anyone is -trying to write, you might be a little quiet." - -The three at the end of the room heeded not the admonition. Doris was -so interested that she had almost succeeded in reclining like a Roman -maiden on the library table, trying to see over Helen's shoulder. Jean -was drawing up the plan for action. The list of names lay before her, -and she tapped her pencil on her nose meditatively as she eyed it. - -"Now, listen, Jean," Helen proposed. "This would really be a novelty. -Let's have a Cupid for postman and not give out our valentines until -after the games. And just when we've got them all seated for supper -have the bell ring, and a real postman's whistle blow, and enter Cupid!" - -"It's too cold for wings," Doris interposed mildly. - -"Oh, Dorrie, you goose. He'd be all dressed up beautifully. Buster -Phelps is going to be Cupid, only we were going to have him sit in front -of a Valentine box and just hand them out. We'll put a little white suit -on him with red hearts dangling all over him, and curl his hair -angelically." - -"You'd better have red heart favors too, Helen," Jean added; "something -that opens and shuts, with something else inside for a surprise. And -we'll put red crepe shades on all the electric bulbs. Could we get -those, do you think, girls?" - -"We can get anything if Dad and Mother are home by that time," answered -Helen. The rest were silent. Kit, sitting at her mother's desk beside -the wide bay window, looked up and frowned at the stuffed golden -pheasant on top of the nearest bookcase. Outside snow was falling -lightly. The view of the Sound was obscured. A pearly grayness seemed -to be settling around the big house as if it were being cut off from the -rest of the world by some magic spell. - -"Hope Dad's feeling all right by now," Kit said suddenly, pushing back -her thick, dark curls restlessly. "They sail from Sanibel Island the -8th. Wasn't it the 8th, Jean?" - -"Oh, they'll be home in plenty of time," Jean exclaimed. "Here we all -sit, having the silent mullygrumps when he's better. Mother said -positively in her last letter that he had improved wonderfully the -previous week." - -Helen stared at the long leather couch on one side of the open -fireplace. It was over four weeks since her father had lain on it. -Throughout the winter there had been day after day of unremitting -weakness following his breakdown, and somehow she could not help -wondering whether the future held the same. She rose quickly, shaking -her head with defiance at the thought. - -"Let's not worry, girls. If we all are blue when he comes, he'll have a -relapse." - -Then Jean spoke, anxiously, tenderly,--her big dark eyes questioning -Kit. - -"What about Mother?" - -"We're all worried about Mother, Jean. It isn't just you at all," Kit -spluttered. "But you can be just boiling inside with love and -helpfulness, and still not go around with a face like that!" - -"Like what?" demanded Jean haughtily. - -"Don't fight, children, don't fight," Doris counseled, just as if she -were the eldest instead of the youngest. "Remember what Cousin Roxy -says about the tongue starting more fires than the heart can put out. -You two scrap much more than Helen and I do." - -"Well, I think," said Helen sedately, "that we ought to remember Mother -just as Jean says. She's almost sick herself worrying over Dad, and -there she is, away down in Florida with just the White Hen to talk to." - -Jean smiled, thinking of the plump little trained nurse, Miss Patterson, -so spick and span and placid that the girls had declared they expected -her to cluck at any moment. They had nicknamed her the White Hen, and -it surely suited her. Even though no Chantecler had arrived yet to -claim her, she was the White Hen,--good-tempered, cheerful, attending -strictly to business always, but not just what one might call a lovable -companion. - -"She's too chirpy for anyone who has responsibilities," Jean said. - -"Note Jean when she has responsibilities," Kit proclaimed. "Jean's been -playing Mrs. Atlas and carrying the rest of us around on her shoulders. -And look at her! Where is the merry smile of old, fair sister?" - -Jean smiled rather forlornly. It was true that she had shouldered most -of the responsibility since they had been left alone. Cousin Roxana had -arrived only a few days previous to the departure of Mrs. Robbins, and -it had been rather a formidable task suddenly to assume a mother's place -and run the home. - -"Oh, I'm all right," she said. "It's only that everything seems to be -coming at once. The valentine party and Kit's special effusion for -Lincoln's Birthday." - -"Class symposium on 'Lincoln--the Man--the President--the Liberator'--" -Kit ran it off proudly. "Little classics of three hundred words each. -You just ought to see Billie Dunbar's, Jean. He's been boiling it down -for a week from two thousand words, and every day Babbie Kane asks him -how he's getting along. And you know how Billie talks! He just glowers -and glooms and this morning he told her, 'It's still just sap.' He's a -scream." - -"Kit, don't," laughed Jean in spite of herself. "If you get ink spots on -Mother's best suede desk pad, you'll find yourself a little classic." - -Kit moved the ink well farther back as a slight concession, and -suggested once more that the rest of the family try their level best to -keep still about their old party while she finished her symposium. - -"You know," Helen began with a far-off look in her eyes, "I think we're -awfully selfish, and I mean all of us, not just Kit--" - -"Thanking your royal highness," murmured Kit. - -"Here's Dad coming back home after five weeks' absence, and we don't -know really whether he's better or worse--" - -"Helen, don't be a raven quothing things at us," pleaded Jean. - -"But it's perfectly true. He needs rest above everything else, Miss -Patterson told me so; and here we're planning for a party the minute he -gets home." - -"Dad says always to go right ahead and have a good time, that it makes -him happier to know we are happy." - -Kit frowned again. She had straight dark brows set above wide gray -eyes, and her frown was somewhat portentous. At fifteen she was far -more energetic than Jean at seventeen. No matter what fate might -deliver to her she would always find a quick antidote for any manner of -trouble. With her short curly hair, she seemed more like the boy of the -family, like her father himself, cheery, optimistic, fond of all outdoor -life. It was a saying in the Robbins family that Kit might neglect the -weeds a bit in her special garden of life, but the general landscape -effect would always be artistic and beautiful. - -Privately, now that the family were facing a crisis, Kit felt far more -competent to act as the head pro tem. than did Jean. The main trouble -was, as Helen had said, that Kathleen needed a brake to check her -official impetus. - -"Anyway, the invitations are all out now and Mother knows we're going to -have the party because I wrote her all about it, and she sent back word -that she didn't mind a bit so long as we had Cousin Roxy to steer us -safely." - -"But did you ask Cousin Roxy, Jean?" - -"You ask her," said Jean. "She'd fly around the morning star if you -asked her to, Helenita." - -Helen thawed at once. The thought of their elderly and stately Cousin -Roxana sailing blithesomely around in the early dawn circling the -morning star, brought about an immediate resumption of friendly -relations. It was the prerogative of sisters to scrap, Kit always held. -Sometimes it was quite a satisfaction to say just what you thought in -the bosom of your family, get it all off your mind, and know that the -family loved you just the same. Under these circumstances, Kit was wont -to chant feelingly: - - "Oh, what was love made for, if 'twere not the same - Through joy and through torment, through sorrow and shame. - I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, - But I know that I love thee, whatever thou art." - - -Therefore the mere mention of Cousin Roxana brought harmony and mirth -into the strained atmosphere of the library. - -It seemed as if a special dispensation of Fate had brought their elderly -cousin down from her calm and well-ordered seclusion at Gilead Center, -Connecticut, just when they needed her most. - -Usually she contented herself with sending the family useful and proper -gifts on birthdays and at Christmas, but otherwise she did not manifest -herself. - -She was forty-seven, plump, serene, and still good to look upon, with -her fluffy flaxen hair just beginning to look a trifle silvery, and a -fine network of wrinkles showing around the corners of her eyes and -mouth. - -"Land alive, Elizabeth Ann," she had told Mrs. Robbins happily the -moment she set foot inside the wide entrance hall at Shady Cove, "didn't -I know you needed me?" And she laughed wholesomely. "I didn't plan to -descend on you so sudden, but it looked as if it was the finger of -Providence pointing the way, with Jerry down sick and you so sort of -pindling yourself. Don't you fret a mite about my being put out. I'll -stay here with the children and take care of things till you get back -home." - -And lovely Elizabeth Ann, she who had been Betty all through her -girlhood and graceful matronhood, had agreed thankfully. After a three -months' siege of nursing her husband through a nervous breakdown, she -was glad indeed to welcome the hearty assistance of Cousin Roxy. - -"Let's put it right up to her now," Kit exclaimed. "I'd just as soon -ask her if Helen's afraid." - -Before the others could hold her back, she had slipped out of the -library and was running up the stairs, two at a time, into the large -sunny room at the south end of the house which Cousin Roxy had chosen -because from its windows she could look out over Long Island Sound. But -at the door Kit stopped short. Over at the window stood Cousin Roxy, -energetically wiping her eyes with a generous-sized plain linen -handkerchief, and the end of her nose was red from weeping. - -"Come in, child, come right in," she said hastily, as Kit backed away. -"I'm glad you happened up. Come here to your old second cousin and -comfort her. I feel as if all the waves and billows of David had washed -over me." - -Kit hurried over and wrapped her arms around the tall, self-sufficient -figure. - -"There, there, save the bones," laughed Cousin Roxana, through her -tears. "You're just like your father; oh, dear me, Kit, your dear -splendid father." - -"What's the matter with Dad?" demanded Kit, swift to catch the -connection between her cousin's tears and words. "Did you get a -letter?" - -In silence Cousin Roxana handed over a telegram. It was from Miss -Patterson at Palm Beach. They were to stop there after leaving Sanibel -Island on the west coast. Kit read it breathlessly: - - -"Mr. Robbins worse. Sailing 2nd." - - -"You know, Kit, they'd never do that if there hadn't been a turn for the -worse." There was a break in Cousin Roxana's voice as she reached for -the telegram. "I just wish that I had him up home safe in the room he -used to have when he was a boy. He had measles the same time I did when -my mother was alive. That's your Aunt Charlotte, Kit, she that was -Charlotte Peabody from Boston. But I always seemed to take after the -Robbins' side 'stid of the Peabody, they said, and Jerry was just like -own brother to me. I wish I had him away from doctors and trained -nurses, and old Doctor Gallup tending him. I've seen him march right up -to Charon's ferryboat and haul out somebody he didn't think was through -living." - -Kit stood with her hands clasped behind her head, looking down at the -pines, their branches lightly crystalled with snow and ice. Somehow it -didn't seem as if God could let her big, splendid father slip out of the -world just when they all needed him so much. During all the months of -illness, the girls had not grasped the seriousness of it. He only -seemed weak and not himself. They knew he had had to give up his work -temporarily, that he never went to the office in New York any more, that -it was even an effort for him to give orders over the telephone, but -they had taken these things as of little moment. - -Perhaps only Jean had really gleaned the real import of her mother's -anxious face, the steady daily visits of the nerve specialist, and, last -of all, the consultation two days before they had left for the South. - -Kit closed her eyes and wrinkled her face as if with a twinge of sharp -pain. "It's going to be awful," she said softly, "just awful for -Mother." - -Cousin Roxana squared her ample shoulders unconsciously, and lifted her -double chin in challenge to the worry that the next few days might hold. - -"It's more awful for you poor children and Jerry. We women folks are -given special strength to bear just such trials; we've _got_ to be -strong." - -But the tears came slowly, miserably to Kit's gray eyes. She pulled the -curtains back, and looked out of the window to where the blue waters of -Manhasset Bay were turning purple and violet in the gathering gloom of -the late afternoon. The land looked desolate, and yet it was but a light -snowfall. Down close to the bay some gulls rose and swept in a big half -circle towards the other side of the inlet. Buster Phelps, running -along the sidewalk towards home, waved up at her a big bunch of pussy -willows. - -"Spring's coming, Kit," he called riotously. "Just found some and -they're 'most out!" - -Kit waved back mechanically. Of course she must not break down and cry. -Doris might do that, but she and Jean must be strong and brace up the -two younger ones so they all could help their mother. Still the tears -came. What was the use of spring if-- - -"Kit, aren't you ever coming down?" called Jean from the foot of the -stairs. - -"Right now," Kit answered. "You come too, please, Cousin Roxy. We need -you fearfully to tell us what to do next." - -"No, you don't," said Cousin Roxana calmly. "You don't need me any more -than the earth needs me to tell it this snow's going away and the -flowers will soon be blossoming. Just trust in the Lord, child. 'It -may not be my way, and it may not be thy way, but yet in His own way, -the Lord will provide.' It's one thing to stand in the choir and sing -that, and it's another to live up to it. The first thing you girls must -do is learn how to meet your father with a smile." - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - *THE MOTHERBIRD AND HER ROBINS* - - -The next three days were ones of anxious waiting. All plans for the -Valentine party had been abandoned, and after school hours the girls -hung around Cousin Roxana feeling that she alone could help them bear -the suspense. Jean occasionally stole away to her mother's room and -looked around to be sure that everything was as she liked it best, and -when she came out into the wide upper hall she usually met Kit and Doris -stealing from their father's room, their eyes red from weeping. - -Helen hunted the cosy corners and curled herself up like a forlorn -kitten. Kit declared there wasn't a dry sofa cushion in the house. - -"How about your own self?" Doris asked. - -"I cry too, but not all the time. Jean and I are standing shoulder to -shoulder with Cousin Roxy." Kit straightened her shoulders and stood in -martial attitude. "We represent the--the ultima--what's the farthest -beyond in Latin, Jean? Anyway that's what we represent, the beyondness -in feminine efficiency." - -"What does that mean, Kit?" - -Kit patted the short bobbed curls on the head of the youngest "robin." - -"Means that we've got to keep our heads no matter what happens." - -Jean said little. Ever since she could remember, her mother had said to -her, "You know I rely on you most, dear. You're mother's comforter." - -It was a thought that always gave her fresh strength, to know how much -her mother needed her. She was smaller than Kit, slender and with dark -eyes, with a look in them that Doris said reminded her of the eyes of a -deer. - -"Jeanie, there's a Virginia fallow deer over in the Park that looks -exactly like you," she would say soberly. "And so do all the squirrels -when they keep still and stare at one sideways. You've got such -sympathetic, interested, mellow eyes." - -"Eyes can't be mellow, Dorrie," Jean laughed. "Try something else." - -"Well, they are mellow just the same,--tender and nice, aren't they, -Helen?" - -And Helen would always agree that they were, tender like the eyes of -Jeanne, the girl in the garden at Arles, listening to the voices. - -But they were full of trouble now, as Jean hurried around the house, -following Cousin Roxana's directions, and encouraging Tekla, the -Hungarian cook, to stand at her post. Cousin Roxana really did herself -proud, as she would have said, as director of preparations. Mr. -Robbins' rooms were as immaculate and as clear of non-essentials as the -deck of a battleship. Under her orders the girls and Bertha, the second -maid, worked faithfully; while Tekla regarded her with silent, wide-eyed -admiration. - -"We'd never have managed without you, Cousin Roxy," Jean declared when -the final half-hour arrived, and they all gathered in the long -living-room, listening for the hum of the car up the drive. Helen and -Doris were together, arms entwined about each other's shoulders, on the -wide window-seat. Kit paced back and forth restlessly, and Jean sat on -the arm of her father's favorite chair before the open fireplace, her -eyes watching the curling flames. - -"Land, child, I don't see what you want to burn open fires for when you -run a good furnace," Cousin Roxana had demurred. "Up home, I'd be only -too glad of the furnace. I have to keep the kitchen stove going steady -all day, and run one more in the sitting-room." - -"I know it isn't necessary," Jean answered, sitting on the rug before -the fire, her hands clasped around her knees, kiddie fashion, in spite -of her seventeen years, "but it warms the cockles of your heart to watch -an open fire. Don't you think so, Cousin Roxy?" - -Cousin Roxana sat in the low willow rocker, placidly knitting on a -counterpane square of old-fashioned filet. - -"We must all hope for the best," she said, beaming at the anxious faces. -"Helen, for pity's sake stop that silent drizzling. If it should be the -will of the Lord that your blessed father be taken, it isn't right for -us to rebel and take on so, is it? I feel just as badly as any of you." -She took off her eyeglasses, that were always balanced half way down her -nose, and ruminated, "Land, didn't I live with him for years after his -mother died. That was your own grandmother, Helen Faunce Robbins. I've -got her spinning-wheel up home in the garret still. But I always did -say we made too much woe of the passing over of our dear ones. Why, it -isn't any time at all before we're going along right after them. I do -believe there's many a person been worried to death by weeping -relations. Smile, girls, even if your hearts do ache, and cheer him up. -Don't meet him with tears and fears. Jean, run and tell Tekla to keep -an eye on that beef tea while I'm up here. It has to keep simmering. -Kit, can't you keep still for a minute, or does it rest your mortal coil -to keep it on the trot?" - -So she cheered and encouraged them, and when the automobile rolled up to -the veranda steps with Mr. and Mrs. Robbins and the spotless little -White Hen, the children did their best to appear happy. Mr. Robbins, -wrapped close in furs, waved to them, his lean, handsome face eager with -home love and longing. - -"Hello, my robins," he called to them. "Back to the nest. Roxy, God -bless you, give me a hand. I'm still rather shaky." - -They were all trying to kiss him at once, and Doris held one of his thin -white hands close against her cheek. It did not require the look in -their mother's beautiful eyes to warn them about being careful. Slender -and stately, she stood behind him, smiling at them all. Surely in all -the world there was nobody quite like Mother, the girls thought, nobody -who could be so tender and sweet and yet so gracious and queenlike. - -"Why, he doesn't look nearly so bad as I expected," Cousin Roxana told -her, kissing her in a motherly way. Somehow it seemed quite natural for -all to pet and comfort the Motherbird, to try and shield her from the -harsher side of life and make the sun shine for her always. Life had -always run in smooth, flower-bordered canals of peace for Betty Robbins. -Only the past three months had shown her the possibilities of trouble -and sorrow, and even now they had only knocked at her door, not entered -as unbidden guests. - -"You mustn't tire him, girls," she told them warningly, as the nurse and -Cousin Roxana assisted him upstairs, one step at a time, then a rest -before the next. "He must have a chance to recover from the long -journey." - -"Land o' rest," Roxana called back happily, "I'm so relieved that you -didn't have to bring him back on a stretcher I can hardly catch my -breath." - -"We're hopeful since he stood the journey so well," answered Mrs. -Robbins. She leaned back in the big, cushioned willow chair that Doris -always called "The Bungalow." Jean slipped off her cloak and Doris took -her gloves. Helen knelt to put a fresh log on the fire and Kit hurried -down after a tea tray. It was not fitting that the Queen Mother should -receive service at the hands of hirelings. But when she returned she -found a scene that might have baffled even Cousin Roxana. Helen and -Doris knelt on the floor beside the big chair, the tears running down -their faces, and Jean hung over the back with her arms close around her -mother. - -"Mother darling," she begged. "Don't, don't cry so. Why, you're home, -and we're all going to look after him, and be your helpers." - -Helen sped up after Cousin Roxana, and presently she came bustling -downstairs, flushed and efficient. - -"Why, Elizabeth Ann," she cried, smoothing back her hair just as if she -had been one of the girls. "Don't give way just when your strength -should be tried and true." - -"Please call me Betty," protested Mrs. Robbins, smiling even through her -tears. "It sounds so formal for you to call me Elizabeth Ann. It -always makes me feel like squaring my shoulders, Roxy." - -"So you should, child," Roxana declared cheerily. "Betty's so sort of -gaysome to my way of thinking and there's stability to Elizabeth Ann. -Lord knows, you're going to need a lot of stability before you find the -way out of this." - -"I know I am." As she spoke the Motherbird held her brood close to her, -Doris and Helen kneeling beside her and Jean and Kit on each side. She -leaned back her head and smiled at them. It was such a lovely face, -they thought. Nobody in all the world had quite the same look or air as -Mother. Back from her low broad forehead waved thick brown hair. Doris -loved to perch on the broad arm of the willow chair and search -diligently for any gray hairs that dared to show themselves. If any -were found, they were promptly pulled out. Nine might come in the place -of each, as Cousin Roxana said was highly probable according to -tradition, but while they were few and far between, they were all -eradicated, almost in indignation that Father Time should dare to -assail, ever so gently, the splendid fortress of Mother's youth. - -"Really, girls," Kit would say sometimes in her abrupt way, "I think -Mother has the most interesting face I ever saw, and the most soulful -eyes. They can be just as full of fun and mischief as Dorrie's, and -then, again, just watch them when she feels sorry for anybody. It's -worth while having a pain or something happen to you just to see her -look that way." - -She was looking "that way" at this moment as she smiled up at Cousin -Roxana; just as though there was nothing too hard or too difficult in -all the world for her to undertake. - -"That's better," Cousin Roxy said comfortably. "Now you children take -her up to her room and play you're maids of honor to the queen. I have -to tend my broth and see how Jerry's coming along. Looks to me like -rest and quiet and cheerful hearts will carry him through if anything -will." - -"Roxy!" There was a hidden note of tragedy in the Motherbird's voice. -Nobody but the same unemotional Roxy knew how she longed to put her head -right down on that ample bosom and have a good old-fashioned cry. -"Roxy, the doctors say he'll never be any better." - -"Fiddlesticks and pinwheels!" exclaimed Miss Robbins indignantly, with a -toss of her head. "Lots they know about it. I declare, sometimes I -think the more you pay a doctor the less he can do for you and the -bigger-sounding names he thinks up to call what may ail you. I -certainly do wonder at the way they try to make folks think they've got -a special little private telephone wire right up to the Death Angel's -door. I never take any stock in them at all, Betty." It came out quite -easily. "Give me castor oil, some quinine and calomel, and maybe a -little arnica salve for emergencies, and I'll undertake to help anybody -hang on to their mortal coils a little bit longer." - -"But things seem to be near a crisis now." - -"Let them." Cousin Roxana stood with arms akimbo, as if she were -hurling defiance at somebody, and the girls fairly hung on her words. -"If the soul never had trials, what would be the use of life? Put ye on -the armor of faith, Betty Robbins, and hope for the best. As for you, -Jean and Kit, and you too, Helen and Dorrie, if I find any of you -looking down your noses, I declare I'll stick clothes-pins on them and -fasten a smile to your lips with court plaster." - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - *BREAKERS AHEAD* - - -St. Valentine's Day came and went without the party. Once, and -sometimes twice, a day the doctor's runabout turned into the broad -pebbled driveway and the children went around with subdued voices and -anxious faces. Even Tekla, down in her kitchen domain, wore an ominous -expression, and told Cousin Roxana that she had dreamed three times of -three black birds perching on the chimneys, which was a sure sign of -death, anyone could tell you, in her own country. - -"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," Roxy laughed back comfortably. "If I -were you, Tekla, I'd take something for my liver and go to bed a mite -earlier at night." - -All the same, her own face looked worried when she entered the sick-room -and looked down at Mr. Robbins' face on the pillows. - -"It seems ridiculous for me to be lying here, Roxy," he would say to -her, with the whimsical boyish smile she loved. "Why, there isn't -anything the matter with me only I'm tired out. Machinery's a bit rusty, -I guess." - -"No, nothing special only that you can't eat or walk or sit up without -keeling over." Her keen hazel eyes regarded him amusedly. "You know, -Jerry Robbins, if it wasn't for Betty and the girls, I'd trot you right -back home with me." - -He looked from her to the window. Jean had just brought in a bunch of -daffodils in a slender Rookwood jar and had set them in the sunlight. - -"You're not going soon, are you, Roxy?" - -Roxana seated herself in the chair beside his bed. As she would have -put it, there was a time for all things, and this seemed a propitious -moment, for her to get something off her mind that had been weighing -there for some time. - -"I'll have to pretty quick. It looks like an early spring, Jerry, and -there's a sight to do up there. Of course Hiram knows how things go as -well as I do, but I've been away a month now, and I like to have the -oversight of things. Men are menfolks after all, and you can't expect -too much from them. I want to get the hay barn shingled, and some new -hen runs set out before the little chicks begin to hatch, and all my -berry canes need clearing out. You know that mass of blackberries along -the stone wall in the clover patch below the lane--what's the matter, -Jerry?" - -He had closed his eyes as if in pain, and his hand closed suddenly over -her own as it lay on the counterpane. - -"It makes me homesick to hear you talk, Roxy." - -Their glances met presently in a long look of sympathetic remembrance of -the dear old times at Maple Lawn. - -"If it were not for the girls," he went on slowly. "They are all at an -age now when they need the advantages of being near the city." - -"Well, I'm not so sure of that," answered Roxy dubiously. "I suppose -you feel that you can do more for them down here, Jerry, and it is a -sightly place to live, but you did pretty well yourself up at the old -Frost District, didn't you?" - -He smiled and nodded his head. - -"I wonder what Betty would say to the Frost District school-house?" he -asked. A vision of it arose out of the memories of the past, the little -white school-house that stood at the crossroads, with rocky pastures -rising high behind it, and the long white dusty road curving before it. -He had been just a country boy, born and bred within a few miles of -Maple Lawn at the old Robbins' homestead. He knew every cow path -through the woods about Gilead Center, every big chestnut and hickory -tree for five miles around, every fork and bend in the course of the -wild little river that cut through the valley meadows. Somehow, in -these days of weakness and fear that he was losing his grip on life, -there had grown up a great yearning to be home again, to find himself -back in the shelter of the mothering arms of the hills. They had always -been the hills of rest to him as a boy. Over their margins the skyline -had promised adventure and bold emprise, but now they beckoned to him to -come back to peace and health. - -"She isn't country bred, is she, Jerry?" - -The question recalled him to the sick-room. - -"No," he answered gently, "no, Betty's from California. I believe her -people went out originally from New York State, but she herself was born -in San Francisco. Later, she lived on her father's ranch for a while in -the Coronado Valley, but she was educated in the city. She doesn't know -anything about farm life as we do." - -Roxana's placid face looked nonplussed. California might just as well -be Kamchatka, so far as her knowledge of it was concerned. It did seem -rather too bad that Betty had come from such far-off stock, but still, -she thought, a great deal could be excused in her on account of it, -since it wasn't given to everybody to be born in New England. - -"Would she mind it for just a summer, do you suppose?" - -"It would have to be for a longer time than one summer, Roxy." - -Something in his voice made her suspicious. The nurse had gone out for -her daily airing down the shore road. Mrs. Robbins had walked out to -meet the girls on their way from school, intending to accompany them to -afternoon Lenten service at St. James's. A lone adventurous fly crept -up the window curtain and Roxana promptly slapped him with a ready hand. - -"Pesky thing," she said; then, "What did you say, Jerry?" - -"I said that it would have to be for a longer time than just one summer. -Things have not gone well with me for the past year. I haven't told -Betty or the girls about it." - -"You should have," said Roxy promptly. "It isn't fair to them not to -share your sorrows with them as well as your joys. Partner, that's what -it says, doesn't it? Partner of your joys and sorrows, you know, -Jerry." - -"Betty has never seemed to understand much about money matters so I did -not want to worry her." - -"Just like a man. So you broke your health down and landed here in bed -trying to do it all yourself. Can I help you? How much money do you -need to tide you over?" - -He laughed unsteadily. - -"Dear old Roxy. You'd give anyone your left ear if they needed it, -wouldn't you? You don't understand how we live. It takes nearly every -cent I earn to cover our current expenses. As long as I could keep well, -it did not matter, but three months' illness shows breakers ahead. I am -wondering what we are going to do, and I dread even speaking to Betty -about it." - -"Then let me do it," said Miss Robbins promptly. "I'd love to. Better -yet, call a family council and talk things over if you are strong enough -to do so. How long can you hold out here?" - -"I'm not certain." He looked weary and bothered. "We only rent the -place, as you know. The lease is up the first of May. It is $1800 a -year." - -"You can buy a good farm up home for that, Jerry; house, barns, pasture, -haylands, wood lots and all," said Roxana thoughtfully. "It's a nice -place here, but it's fearfully extravagant." - -"Do you think so, Roxy?" he smiled up at her with a glint of fun in his -eyes like Kit's. "Betty and the girls want me to take over the estate -below here along the ocean front at $2500 a year because they like the -ocean view and the private beach. It really is quite moderate too, -considering we're on the North Shore. Property on Long Island is -expensive." - -She looked out at the clean park-like territory around the large modern -house. Winding drives swept in and out. Each residence stood in its -own spacious grounds. High rock walls with ornamental entrance gates -surrounded each one. There was an artificial pond where the children -skated in whiter and the country club crowned the hill with golf links -sloping away to the shore on the north. - -Down in the ravine stood the artistic gray stone railroad station -matching the real estate office over the way, and farther along were the -village stores, the new High School of stucco and tile, and the two -churches. Back and forth along the smooth highway slipped a -never-ending line of motor cars coming and going like ants over an ant -hill. Roxy turned her head towards the bed once more and asked: - -"Would you rather do that than go up home with me?" - -"It isn't what I'd rather do. It's what we may have to do unless I gain -my old strength." - -"You'll never get a mite better lying there worrying over unpaid bills -and new ones stacking up. I'm going to talk to Betty." - -He shook his head with a little smile of doubt. - -"But it would never be fair to take them away from this sort of thing, -Roxy. You don't understand. They have their church and their club work -and their special studies. Jean has been taking up a course in Applied -Design and Modeling, and Helen has her music. Kit's deep in school work -and belongs to about five clubs outside of that. Dorrie's about the -only one disengaged, and she has a dancing class and the Ministering -Children's League over at church. Betty's on more committees and things -than I can count, and she believes that we owe it to the children to -give them the best social environment that we can. Perhaps we can get -along in some way. There's a little left at the bank." - -"How much?" demanded Roxana uncompromisingly. "I mean, after you've paid -up everything. I'll bet there isn't five thousand left." - -"Five thousand! I doubt much whether there is one thousand. Don't tell -Betty that. I have never bothered her about such things, and there are -a few securities I might sell and realize on." - -"And you think that you've been a good husband to her. Land alive, what -are men made of! Here she stands a chance of being left alone in the -world with four children to bring up and you've never bothered her about -your business. The sooner you get to it, the better, I think." Roxana -stood up and adjusted her eyeglasses resolutely. She had seen what he -could not, Betty coming leisurely up the box-bordered walk, a loose -cluster of yellow jonquils in her arms, and the girls following, all -except Kit. "There they come now. I won't say anything till you do, -Jerry." - -Suddenly Kit's voice sounded at the door. Her short curls were rumpled -and towsled, and her eyes wide with excitement, as she hugged a hot -water bottle to her face. - -"I've heard almost every word you said," she burst out. "I had -neuralgia and stayed home this afternoon, and I've been asleep in there -on the couch. Please don't be sorry, Dad. I'll help you every blessed -bit I can, and I think it would be glorious for us all to go up into the -country." - -She stopped as the door below, in the front entrance hall, banged and -Doris came upstairs on a run, a herald of love and joy. - -"Well, child, keep your mouth shut till we know where we're at," -counseled Roxy quickly. "Go back and lie down. Here they come." - -But Kit stood her ground, and Jean and Helen seemed to catch from her -the fact that there was something unusual in the wind as they came in -behind their Mother. - -"It was a lovely walk," said Mrs. Robbins, drawing off her gloves as she -sat down beside the bed and smiled at the patient. "We went down to -look at the Dunderdale place, Jerry. It is simply lovely there even in -winter. You can see the summer possibilities. I never saw so many -shrubs and trees and such beautiful grouping. It made me think of our -Californian places." - -"Or an Italian garden, Mother dear," Jean added eagerly. "Why, Dad, -it's exactly like some of Parrish's pictures, don't you know; tall -poplars over here, and then a hedge effect and a low Roman seat tucked -in every once in a while. Why, it's just as cheap as can be." - -"You'd enjoy the garden so this summer, and there are enclosed sleeping -porches, and an inner court like a patio garden. The garage is small, -but it will do if we don't get a new car this year." - -Right here Cousin Roxana sniffed, a real, unmistakable sniff. She was a -believer in quick action. If you had anything to do, the quicker you -did it and got over it the better, she always said. So now she raised -her head as they all looked at her, and sprang her bolt right out of a -clear sky. - -"You won't get a new car this year, Betty, my dear, and you're not going -to move into any two-thousand-five-hundred-dollars-a-year bungalow, -either. I'm going to take the whole lot of you to Gilead Center, and -see if Jerry can't get his health back up in those blessed hills of -rest." - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - *THE QUEEN'S PRIVY COUNCIL* - - -There was a queer silence, fraught with suspense for each person in the -room. Mrs. Robbins looked down at the wearied face lying back on the -white pillows with a startled expression in her usually calm eyes. -Instinctively both her hands reached for his and held them fast, while -Jean laid her own two down on her mother's shoulders as if she would -have given her strength for this new ordeal. - -"You mean for a little visit, don't you, Cousin Roxy?" she asked -eagerly. - -"No, I don't, Jeanie. I mean for good and all, or at least until your -father has time to get well, and that can't be done in a few days." - -"But Doctor Roswell says he's gaining every day," Mrs. Robbins said. -She waited for some reassuring answer, her eyes almost begging for one, -but Cousin Roxana was not to be dismayed. - -"Jerry, tell what the doctor said to us this morning. Not that I take -much stock in him, but he may be on the right track." - -"Nothing special, Motherbird and robins all," smiled back Mr. Robbins; -"only it appears that I am to be laid up in the dry dock for repairs for -a long while, and the sinews of war won't stand the vacation expenses if -we stay where we are now." - -"I wouldn't try to talk about it, dear, before the children," began Mrs. -Robbins, quick to avoid anything that savored of trouble or anxiety. "We -must not worry. There will be some way out of it." - -"There is," Cousin Roxy went on serenely. "If ever the finger of -Providence pointed the way, it's doing it now. I say you'd better move -right out of this kind of a place where expenses are high and you can't -afford anything at all. This is a real crisis, Elizabeth Ann." She -spoke with more decision as she saw Jean pat her mother comfortingly. -"It has got to be met with common sense. When the bread winner can't -work and there's a nestful of youngsters to bring up and feed and -clothe, it's time to sit up and take notice, and count all of your -resources." - -"How would it do for you to take Father up home with you for a rest, -Cousin Roxy?" Jean suggested, stepping into the awkward breach as she -always did. "Then we could let Annie and Rozika go, and just keep Tekla -to do the cooking and washing. And when he came back we'd have all the -moving over, and it would be the prettiest time of the year along in -late August." - -Mrs. Robbins' face brightened at the suggestion. - -"Or we might even renew the lease here, Jerry. The house is very -pleasant after all, and we could get along with it if it were all done -over this spring." - -Mr. Robbins looked up at Cousin Roxana's countenance with whimsical -helplessness, and she answered the appeal. - -"Now, look here," she said with decision and finality. "You'd better -put the idea of staying here right out of your mind, Betty. The winds -of circumstance have blown your nest all to smithereens, and if you're -the right sort of a motherbird, you'll start right in building a fresh -one where it's safer. I think your way lies over the hills to Gilead -Center. You can pay all your bills here, sell off a lot of heavy -furniture, and move up there this spring. For you can't stay here. -There's hardly enough money to see you through as it is. I'm going to -help you along a bit until you get your new start." - -"Not money enough," said Mrs. Robbins as though she could not comprehend -such an idea. "But we couldn't think of going up there and all living -with you, Cousin Roxy." - -"You're not going to," answered Roxana. "Thank the Lord, I live in a -land where houses and food are cheap and there's room for everybody. We -don't tack a brass door-plate on a rock pile like I saw there in New -York, Betty, and call it a residence at about ten dollars a minute to -breathe. I've been telling Jerry you'd better rent a farm near me, and -settle down on it." - -"But Roxy--" Mrs. Robbins hesitated. - -"Oh, Mother, do it, do it," came in a quick outburst from Kit, standing -back against the wall. "It would be perfectly dandy for all of us and -would do Dad a world of good!" - -"We wouldn't mind a bit. We'd love it, wouldn't we, Dorrie?" Helen -squeezed Doris's hand to be sure she would answer in the affirmative. -"We'd all help you." - -Doris was silent, still too bewildered at the outlook to express an -opinion. - -"I shouldn't mind for myself, but we must think of the girls--their -schooling and what environment means at their age. I suppose Jean could -be left at school." - -"Thought she was all through school," came from Cousin Roxana. - -"I am, only I've been taking lessons in town this winter in a special -course, arts and crafts, you know, and next fall I was going into the -regular classes at the National Academy of Design." - -"What for, child?" Roxy's gray eyes twinkled behind her glasses. -"Going to be an artist?" - -"Not exactly pictures," Jean answered with dignity. "Conventionalized -designs." - -"Well, whatever it is, I guess it will hold over for a year while you go -up to the country and learn to keep house. Kit here can go to High -School. It's seven miles away, but our young folks drive down and put -up their horses at Tommy Burke's stable in East Pomfret, and take the -trolley over from there. It's real handy." - -Kit's eyes signaled to Jean, and Jean's to Helen and Doris. A fleeting -vision of that "handy" trip to High School in the dead of winter -appeared before them. Kit had a ridiculous way of expressing utter -despair and astonishment. She would open her eyes widely, inflate her -cheeks, and look precisely like Tweedledee in "Through the -Looking-Glass." Doris emitted a low but irrepressible giggle under the -strain. - -"I think," Mrs. Robbins said hurriedly, "that we might manage if we had -a little roadster." - -"Rooster?" repeated Cousin Roxy in surprise. - -Kit and Doris departed suddenly into the outer hall. - -"No, roadster; a runabout that either Jean or I could learn to run. -Don't they have them, Jerry, with adjustable tops, one for passengers, -one for delivering goods, and so on?" - -"Doubtless one for ploughing and harrowing likewise, Betty," Cousin -Roxana said merrily. "I guess you'll jog along behind a good, sensible -horse for a while. Remember Ella Lou, Jerry? She's fifteen years old -and just as perky as ever. I always have to hold her down at the -railroad crossing." - -"What do you think of it, dear?" asked Mr. Robbins, looking longingly up -at the face of the Motherbird. "It would be a great comfort and relief -to me to get back to those old hills of rest, but it doesn't seem fair -to you or the children. The sacrifice is too great. They do need the -right kind of environment, as you say. Suppose we left Jean at least, -where she could keep up her studies, and perhaps put Kit into a good -private school. Then I might go up home with Roxy, and you and the two -younger girls could go out to California to Benita Ranch--" - -But Mrs. Robbins laid her fingers on his lips. - -"You're not going to banish us to Benita Ranch. If you think it is the -best thing to do, Jerry, we'll all go with you. Remember, 'Whither thou -goest, I will go. Where thou lodgest, I will lodge--'" - -Helen laid her hand over Jean's, and they stepped out softly. Their -mother had slipped down on her knees beside the bed, and even Cousin -Roxana had gone over to the window to pretend she was looking out at the -Sound. The girls fled downstairs to the big music-room back of the -library. It had been their special shelter and gathering place ever -since they had lived there. Kit and Doris were already there, deep into -an argument about the entire situation. - -"I don't think it's right to move up there," Helen said, judicially. -"We may not like it at all, and there we'd be just the same, planted, -and maybe we never could get out of it, and we'd grow old and look just -like Cousin Roxy and talk like her and everything." - -"Prithee, maiden, have a care what thou sayest," Kit expostulated. "Our -fair cousin hath a way, 'tis true, but she is a power in the land, and -her voice is heard in the councils of the mighty. I wish I had half her -common sense." - -"I hate common sense," Jean cried passionately. "I know it's right and -we must do the best thing, but, girls, did you see Mother's face? It was -simply tragic. Dad's been a country boy, and he's going back home where -he knows all about everything and loves it, but Mother's so different. -She's like a queen." - -"Marie Antoinette had an excellent dairy, and Queen Charlotte raised a -prize brand of pork, my dear," Kit answered. Perched upon the long -music stool, she beamed on the disconsolate ones over on the long -leather couch. "I think Mother's a perfect darling, but she's a good -soldier too, and she'll go, you see if she doesn't. And it won't kill -any of us. I don't see why you can't hammer copper and brass, and cut -out leather designs in a woodshed just as well as you can in a studio. -The really great mind should rise superior to its environment." - -"Let's tell Kit that the first time she scraps over dishwashing," Doris -said. "I didn't hear anything about Tekla going along, did you, Jean?" - -Kit turned around and drummed out a gay strain of martial music on the -piano keys, while she sang: - - "Oh, it has to be done, and it's got to be done, - If I have to do it myself." - - -"You'll do your share all right, Kathleen Mavourneen, and when the gray -dawn is breaking at that," laughed Jean. "Farm life's no joke, and -really, while I wouldn't disagree with Dad and Cousin Roxy about it, I -think that those who have special gifts--" - -"Meaning our darling eldest sister," quoth Kit. - -"--Should not waste their time doing what is not their forte. It takes -away the work from those who can't do the other things." - -Jean's pointed chin was raised a bit higher in her earnestness, but Kit -shook her head. - -"You're going to walk the straight and narrow path up at Gilead Center -under Cousin Roxy's eagle eye just the same, Jean. It's no good kicking -against the pricks. I don't mind so much leaving this place, but we'll -miss the girls awfully." - -"And the church," added Helen, who was in the Auxiliary Girls' Choir. -"We're going to miss that. I wonder if there is a church up there." - -"I see where Kit steps off the basket ball team and learns how to run a -lawn mower," Kit remarked. "Also, there will be no Wednesday evening -dancing class, Helenita, for your princesslike toes to trip at." - -"I wish we could all move back to town and see if we couldn't do -something there to earn money," Jean said. "One of the girls in the art -class found a position designing wall paper the other day, and another -one decorates lacquered boxes and trays. When the fortunes of the house -suddenly crash, the humble but still genteel family usually take in -paying guests, or do ecclesiastical embroidery, don't they?" - -"Don't be morbid, Jean," Kit wagged an admonishing finger at her from -the stool where she presided, "We'll not take in any boarders at all. I -see myself waiting on table this summer at some hillside farm retreat -for aged, and respectable females. If we've got to work, let's work for -ourselves in the Robbins' commonwealth." - -"And if it has to be, let's not fuss and make things harder for Mother," -Doris put in. - -"How about Dad?" Kit demanded. "Seems to me that he's got the hardest -part to bear. It's bad enough lying there sick all the time, without -feeling that you're dragging the whole family after you and exiling them -to Gilead Center." - -"It's too funny, girls," Jean said all at once, her eyes softening and -her dimples showing again. "Just the minute anyone of us takes Dad's -part, some one springs up and gives a yell for Mother, and vice versa. -I think we're the nicest, fairest, most loyal old crowd, don't you? We -won't be lonesome up there so long as we have ourselves,--you know we -won't,--and if things are slow, then we'll start something." - -"Will we? Oh, won't we?" Kit cried. She twirled around to the keys -again, and started up an old darky melody. - - "Crept to de chicken coop on my knees, - Ain't going ter work any more. - Thought Ah heard a chicken sneeze, - Ain't going ter work any more. - - "Balm of Gilead! Balm of Gilead! - Balm, Balm, Balm, Balm, - Ain't going ter work any more, Ah tole yer. - Balm of Gilead! Balm of Gilead! - Balm, Balm, Balm, Balm, - Ah ain't going ter work any more." - - -"That's better," Jean said, with a sigh of relief. "We've got to pull -all together, and make the best of things. Dad's sick, and the Queen -Mother's worried to death. Let's be the Queen's Privy Council and act -accordingly." - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - *KIT REBELS* - - -Cousin Roxy departed for Gilead Center, Connecticut, the following -Monday. - -"I'd take you with me, Jerry, and the nurse too, if it were spring," she -said, "but the first of March we get some pretty bad spells of weather, -and it's uncertain for anybody in poor health. You stay here and cheer -up and get stronger, and gradually break camp. If you need any help, -let me know." - -It was harder breaking camp than any of them realized. They had lived -six years at Shady Cove, near Great Neck on Long Island. Before that -time, there had been an apartment in New York on Columbia Heights. As -Kit described it with her usual graphic touch: "Bird's-eye Castle, eight -stories up. Fine view of the adjacent clouds and the Palisades. With -an opera glass on clear days, you could also see the tops of the -Riverside 'buses." - -It had seemed almost like real country to the girls when they had left -the city behind them and moved to Shady Cove. Doris had the measles -that year, and the doctor had ordered fresh air and an outdoor life for -her, so the whole family had benefited, which was very thoughtful and -considerate of Dorrie, the rest said. - -But now came the problem of winnowing out what Cousin Roxana would have -called the essential things from the luxuries. - -"Dear me, I had no idea we had so many of the pomps and vanities of this -wicked world," Jean said regretfully, one day. There were sixteen rooms -in the big home, all well furnished. Reception-room, library, -music-room, and dining-room, with Tekla's domain at the back. Upstairs -was a big living-room and plenty of bedrooms, with three maids' rooms in -the third story. - -At the top of the broad staircase over the sun-parlor was a wide -sleeping-porch. In the cold weather this was enclosed and heated, and -the girls loved it. Broad cushioned seats like cabin lockers surrounded -it on three sides, and here they could sit and talk with the sun fairly -pelting them with warmth and light. Here they sat overhauling and -sorting out hampers and bags and bureau drawers of "non-essentials." - -"I can't find anything more of mine that I'm willing to throw away," -said Doris flatly, stuffing back some long strips of art denim into a -box. "I want that for a border to something, and I'll need it fearfully -one of these days. What's a luxury anyway?" - -"Makes me think of Buster Phelps," Helen remarked. "Last night when I -went over to tell Mrs. Phelps that we couldn't be in the Easter -festival, Buster was just having his dinner, and he wanted more of the -fig souflé. His mother told him he mustn't gorge on delicacies. So -Buster asked what a delicacy was anyway, and he said some day he was -going to have a whole meal made of delicacies. Isn't that lovely?" - -"Don't throw away any pieces at all, girls," Jean warned. "Cousin Roxy -says we'll need them all for rag carpets." - -"You can buy rag rugs and carpets anywhere now," said Helen. - -"Yes, oh, Princess, and at lovely prices too. We folks who are going to -live at Gilead Center, will cut and sew our own, roll them in nice fat -balls, and hand them over to old Pa Carpenter up at Moosup, to be woven -into the real thing at fifteen cents a yard. It'll last for years, -Cousin Roxy says. When you get tired of it, you boil it up in some dye, -and have a new effect. I like the old hit-and-miss best." - -Kit regarded her elder sister in speechless delight. - -"Jean Robbins, you're getting it!" she gasped. "You're talking exactly -like Cousin Roxy." - -"I don't care if I am," answered Jean blithely. "It's common sense. -Save the pieces." - -"She who erstwhile fluttered her lily white hands over art nouveau -trifles light as air," murmured Kit. "I marvel." - -She looked down at the garden. Windswept and bare it was in the chill -last days of February. Yet there was a hint of spring about it. A robin -was perched near the little Japanese tea house they had all enjoyed so -much, with its wistaria vines and stone lantern. Leading from it to the -hedged garden at the back was a pergola over a flagged walk. - -The garage was of reddish fieldstone, and like the house covered with -woodbine. A tall hedge of California privet enclosed the grounds, with -groups of shrubbery here and there. Memories of all the fun which they -had enjoyed in the past six years passed through her mind. There had -been lawn fêtes and afternoon teas, croquet parties and tennis -tournaments. She hugged her knees, rocking back and forth anxiously. - -"What is it, Kit?" asked Jean, mildly. Jean was the first to have an -emotional storm over the inevitable, but once it was over, she always -settled down to making the best of things, while Kit gloomed and raged -inwardly, and felt all manner of premonitory doubts. - -"Wonder what we'll really find to do there all the time. I don't want -to be a merry milkmaid, do you?" - -"If it would help Dad and Mother, yes." - -"Certainly, certainly. You don't quoth 'Nevermore,' do you? You're a -chirruping raven. We'd all walk from here to Gilead Center on our left -ears if it would help Dad and Mother, but the fact that we'd do it -wouldn't make it any easier, would it?" - -"Don't be savage, Kit," said Helen. - -"Who's savage?" demanded Kit haughtily. "I'm just as ready to face this -thing as anyone. If it were a small town up in the wilds, even, I -wouldn't mind, but it just isn't anything but country." - -Jean tapped the end of her nose thoughtfully with her thimble. - -"What is Gilead Center then? Isn't that a town?" - -"No, it isn't. It's a hamlet. Trolley seven miles away, post office -five. There used to be a post office there when the mail-wagon made the -trip over, but they needed the building to keep the hearse in, so it's -gone." - -"You're making that up, Kit," severely. - -"I'm not," protested Kit. "You can ask Cousin Roxy. Nobody ever dies -up there. They just fade away, and the hearse is seldom needed and was -in the way. There are only nine houses in the village proper, one -store, one church, and one school. Her house is a mile outside the -village, so where will we be?" - -"Is it on the map?" asked Doris hopefully. - -"Some maps. Township maps. This morning Mother and I were looking up -how to get there. You've got your choice of two routes and each one's -worse than the other, and more of it." - -"Kit, you're crawfishing." - -Kit swept by the remark, absorbed in her own forebodings. - -"You can reach this spot by land or sea. Cousin Roxy says that it takes -five hours for anybody to extricate oneself after one is really there. -You can take a boat to New London, ride up to Norwich, transfer to a -trolley and trundle along for another hour, then hire a team at Tommy -Burke's stable in East Pomfret, and drive an hour and a half more up -through the hills. Or you can take a Boston Express up to Willimantic, -and hop on a side line from there. A train runs twice a day--" - -"What road, Kit?" asked Helen. They leaned around her, fascinated at -her sudden acquisition of knowledge. - -"Any road you fancy. Central Vermont up to Plainfield, or Providence -line over to South Pomfret. There's South Pomfret and East Pomfret and -Pomfret Green and Pomfret Station. It really doesn't seem to matter -which way you go so long as it lands you at one of the Pomfrets. And -Pomfret is five miles from Gilead Center, Plainfield is seven miles, -Boulderville is--" - -"Oh, please, Kit, stop it," Jean cried, with both hands over her ears. -"We'll motor over anyway--" - -"Didn't you hear that Dad's going to sell the machine?" Helen whispered. -It would never do to let a hint of regret reach beyond the sleeping -porch circle. "The Phelpses are going to buy it. Buster told me so." - -"I knew it before," Jean said quite calmly, going on with her sorting of -pieces. "Dad says it will pay nearly all moving expenses and keep us -for months. What else could he do? There'd be nobody to run it, would -there? Anyway I want a horse to ride, don't you, Kit? Can't you see us -all in a joyous cavalcade riding adown the woodland way? I'm -Guenevere." With laughing lips, and happy eyes she quoted: - - "All in the boyhood of the year - Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere - Rode to covert of the deer." - - -"Plenty of deer up there, Cousin Roxy says. We all can go hunting." - -"Never mind the deer. We won't be doing that at all. Mother says Tekla -can't possibly go and we're going to do our own housework. Isn't it -queer, when a father breaks down, it just seems as if a home caves in." - -"Well, it doesn't do any such thing, Helen," responded Kit stolidly. -"It may seem to, but it doesn't. Even if we are going to live five -miles from nowhere with the eye of Cousin Roxana forever resting upon -us, there'll be lots of fun ahead. What's that about the world making a -pathway to your door? I'm going to be famous some day and there'll be a -nice little sheep path leading from New York up to Gilead Center, worn -by the feet of faithful pilgrims." - -"It's so nice having one genius in the family," Jean answered, leaning -her chin on one hand. "Now I don't mind leaving the house behind, or the -machine, or anything like that. But it's the people I like best that I -can't take up with me. Who will we know there, I wonder?" - -"Human beings anyhow," Helen stated. "We'll make hosts of new friends. -Besides, lots of the girls have promised to visit us. Think of Mother, -girls. She's breaking away from everything she likes best. And you -know that we're just girls after all, with all our lives ahead of us, so -we may have a chance to escape some time; but Mother can't look forward, -she is just cutting herself off from everything." - -"Just listen to dear old Lady Diogenes." Kit reached down and gave the -slender figure a good all-around hug. "How do you know she's losing -what she loves best? Don't you remember that old Druid poem in Tennyson -about the people calling for a sacrifice and they asked which was the -king's dearest? Supposing Dad had died right here. What would he have -missed? His country club, his golf, his town club, his business, and -his business friends. Mother loses about the same, the country club and -golf club, the church, and the social study club. They'll never settle -down to real farm life, Jean. It's just impossible. You can't take a -family of--of--" - -"Peacocks? Bulfinches? Canaries?" suggested Doris. - -"No, I should say park swans," Kit said. "That's what we are out -here,--park swans swimming around on an artificial lake, living on an -artificial island in a little artificial swan house, swimming around and -around, preening our feathers and watching to see what people think of -us. You can't take park swans and put them right out into the country, -and expect them to make the barnyard a howling success all at once." - -"Kit, dear old goose," Jean interposed, "we're not park swans or any -such thing. We're just robins, and robins are robins whether they build -in a park catalpa or a country rock maple. We'll just migrate, build a -new nest, and behave ourselves. Not because we like to, but because -it's our nature to, being, as I said before, just robins." - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - *WHITE HYACINTHS* - - -It had been decided to leave Kit and Jean behind to finish their -schooling. They could board at the Phelpses' home next to Shady Cove -along the shore road, but both girls begged to go with the family. - -"Why don't you stay?" advised Helen. "You'll escape all of the moving -and settling and ploughing." - -"We don't want to escape anything," said Kit firmly. "It isn't any fun -being left behind with the charred remains." - -"Oh, Kit, don't call them that; it's grewsome," begged Doris. - -"I don't care. I feel grewsome when I think of being left behind. How -do you suppose we'd feel to walk past the Cove and not see any of the -rest of you around." - -"It's better than being cut right bang off in the middle of everything," -replied Helen, with one of her rare explosions. Whenever wrath decided -to perch for a minute on her flaxen hair, it always delighted the other -girls. Kit said it was precisely like watching a kitten arch its back -and scold. "Everything," she repeated tragically. "I can't finish a -single thing and I know I'll never pass, being switched off to goodness -knows what sort of a school." - -"Let's not grouch anyway," counseled Jean. "Mother's getting thinner -every day. As long as it's got to be, tighten your belts and face the -enemy. Right about face! Forward! March!" - -"I do wish that Kit wouldn't be so happy about things that make you just -miserable." - -Kit danced away down the hallway warbling sweetly: - - "Gondolier, row, row! - Gondolier, row, row! - 'Tis a pretty air I do declare, - But it haunts a body so." - - -"You're an old tease, Kit," Jean admonished in her very best big-sister -style. "Please keep away from that crate of perishable matter. Mother's -just promised me that we can go with the rest, only I'm going up first -with Dad and Miss Patterson." - -It had been decided to send Mr. Robbins up before the moving, so he -could have a week or two of rest at Maple Lawn, Cousin Roxana's home. -The latter was diligently sending down descriptions of adjacent farms -and all sorts of home possibilities, but none seemed to fit the bill, as -she said. Either there was too much land, or not enough, or it was too -far from the village or not far enough, or too much room, or not room -enough. - -"For pity's sake," Kit said one night, after all the family had -suggested various styles in nests, "let's all tent out and do summer -light housekeeping. We'll never find just what we want,--never, Mumsie. -Jean wants a rose garden and a sun dial. I want golf links, or at least -a tennis court, even if we remove the hay fields. Helen wants wistaria -arbors and a very large vine-covered porch. Doris wants a dog, four -cats, a hive of bees, a calf, and a pony. You want a house facing -south, far back from the road, barn not too near, dry cellar, porch, -century-old elms for shade, good well, sink in house, and option of -purchase, not over ten dollars a month." - -"What do you want, Dad?" asked Jean. It was one of her father's "good" -days, when he was able to sit up in his big Morris chair before the fire -in the upstairs living-room, and be one of the circle with them. - -"Peace and rest," smiled Mr. Robbins. - -"Me too," Kit agreed, kneeling beside his chair and rubbing her head up -and down his arm. "Dad and I are going to seek gracious peace the -livelong day under some shady chestnut tree." - -"Dad may, but you won't, Kathleen," Jean laughingly prophesied. "It's -going to be the commonwealth of home." - -"Wish we were going to an island," Helen said wistfully. "I've always -felt as if I could do wonders with an island." - -"Anybody could. There's some chance for imagination to work on an -island, but what can you do with a farm in Gilead Center?" Kit looked -like a pensive parrot, head on one side, eyes half closed in melancholy -anticipation. "Darling, precious old Dad here doesn't know a blessed -thing about farming--" - -"Now, Kit, go easy," Mr. Robbins chided. "Seneca farmed and so did Ovid. -It's all in the way you look at things." - -"'Under the greenwood tree,' you know, Kit," added Jean. - -"Yes, and that ends with a fatal warning too," Kit rejoined mournfully, -"'While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.'" - -"We'll all be keeling pots, Kathleen. It's the Robbins' destiny. You -know, Dad, I thought all along that Tekla would go with us. I thought -she'd feel hurt if we didn't take her, after she'd been telling us girls -all these fairy tales about her native land where she loved to milk -twenty cows at three A.M. I thought she'd simply leap at the chance of -rural delights, and now she isn't going along with us at all. She says -she won't go anywhere unless there are street pianos and moving -pictures." - -Jean's face was deliciously comical as she recounted the backsliding of -Tekla, and Helen chanted softly: - - "Knowest thou the land, Mignon?" - - -"You can laugh all you want to, but it's a serious proposition, -Helenita. If Tekla deserts, we'll all have to pitch in. The Nest -expects that every robin will do its duty." - -"Oh, I don't believe it's going to be nearly as bad as we expect," Mrs. -Robbins said happily, as she passed through the room with her pet cut -glass candlesticks in her hands. "We're facing the summer, remember, -girls, and I can't help but think that Cousin Roxana will be a regular -bulwark of strength to all of us." - -By the second week in March word came from the family's bulwark that she -thought the weather was mild enough for Mr. Robbins and Miss Patterson -to attempt the trip. Accordingly, the first section of the caravan set -out on its exodus to the promised land, as Kit called it. - -"It does seem, Mother dear," Jean said at the last minute, "as if Kit -ought to go with them, and let me stay down here to help you close up -things." - -"I'd rather have you with your Father." Mrs. Robbins laid her hands on -Jean's slender shoulders tenderly. "If I can't be with him, I'd rather -have the little first mate. Remember how he used to call you that, when -you were only Doris's size?" - -"Well, I feel terribly grown up now, Mother. Seventeen is really the -dividing line. You begin to think of everything in a more serious way, -don't you know. When I look at Kit and Helen sometimes, it seems years -and years since I felt the way they do, so sort of irresponsible." - -"Poor old grandma," Mrs. Robbins laughed, as she kissed her. "We'll -make some nice little lace caps for you with lavender bows. Maybe -Cousin Roxy'll let you pour tea." - -Jean had to laugh too, seeing the comic side of her aged feeling, but it -was true that she felt a new sense of responsibility when they left New -York City for Gilead Center. The Saturday following their departure, -the first carload of household goods left Shady Cove. It had been a -difficult task, weeding out the necessities from the luxuries, as Kit -expressed it. Many a semi-luxury had been slipped in by the girls on -the plea that Father might need it, or would miss it. Kit had managed -to save the entire library outfit intact on this excuse: three -bookcases, leather couch, two wide leather arm-chairs, and the -flat-topped mahogany desk. - -"Books and pictures are necessities," she declared firmly, saving an old -steel engraving of Touchstone and Audrey in the Forest of Arden. "This, -for instance, has always hung over the little black walnut bookcase, -hasn't it? Could we separate them? I guess not. In it goes, Helen, -and see that you handle it with care. There's one thing that we can take -up with us, and no slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune can get it -away from us, either, and that's atmosphere. Even if we have to live in -a well-shingled, airy barn, we can have atmosphere." - -"Don't laugh, Dorrie," Helen admonished, as Doris dove into a mass of -pillows. "Kit doesn't mean that sort of atmosphere. She means--" - -"I mean living in a garden of white hyacinths. Miss Carruthers, our -teacher at the art class, told us a story the other day about Mahomet -and his followers. He told them if they only had two pence, to spend -one for a loaf of bread to feed the body, and the other for white -hyacinths to feed the soul. That's why I want all our own beloved -things around us, don't you know, Mother dear? Just think of Dad's face -if we can blindfold him, lead him into a lovely sunny room up there, -take off the bandage, and let him find himself right in his own library -just as he had it down here!" - -"And as long as he's going to stay in bed, or lie on a lounge, he'll -never know what the rest of the house is like," added Doris. - -"But he's not going to stay in bed, we hope," answered the Motherbird, -catching the youngest robin in her arms for a quick kiss. "That's why -we're going up there, to get him out into the sunlight as soon as -possible, so he'll get quite well again." - -Kit passed down the stairs completely covered with the burden which she -bore. - -"I've got all the portières, table covers, couch covers, scarfs and -doilies," she called. "We may have to turn the attic into a cosy corner -before we get through. It's all in the effect, isn't it, Mumsie?" - -"I'm sorry that Dad sold the machine, that's all," Helen remarked. -Helen was the far-sighted one of the family. "Talbot Pearson says he -knows we could have gotten fifteen hundred for it just as easy as not. -His mother told him it was worth every penny of fifteen hundred, and Dad -let it go for eight hundred just because he liked the Phelpses." - -"Helen, dear, eight hundred cash is worth more than fifteen hundred -promised," Mrs. Robbins said, smiling over at her. "And the machine is -last year's model. I'm glad with all my heart that Mr. Phelps bought -it, because they've been wanting one very much, and the children will -get so much enjoyment out of it." - -The girls looked down at her admiringly, almost gloatingly, as she sat -back contentedly in the low wicker arm-chair in the sunny bay-window. - -"Mother, you're a regular darling, truly you are," Kit exclaimed. -"You're so big and fine and sympathetic that you make us feel like two -cents sometimes when we've been selfish. Why do you look so happy when -everything's going six ways for Sunday?" - -Mrs. Robbins held up a letter that Doris had just brought upstairs to -her. - -"Cousin Roxana writes that Father stood the trip well and has slept -every night since they reached Maple Lawn. Isn't that worth all the -automobiles in the world?" - -The eight hundred dollars in cash had been a helpful addition to their -bank account. During the past few weeks, the girls had learned what it -meant to consider money, something they had never given a thought to -before. While they had never been rich, there had always been an -abundance of everything they wanted, with never a suggestion of -retrenching on expenses until now. Once they understood the situation, -however, they all seemed to enjoy helping to solve the family problem. -For several days Doris had appeared to have something on her mind. -Finally, she came in smiling, and opened her hand, disclosing a ten -dollar bill. Kit fell gracefully over into a chair. - -"Dorrie, you mustn't give your poor old sister sudden shocks like that -in these days," she exclaimed. "Where did you find that?" - -"I sold Jiggers to Talbot Pearson," Doris replied, her eyes shining like -stars. "He's been asking and asking for him ever since I got him, and -now I've done it. There's ten dollars I got all by myself to help Dad." - -Neither Kit nor Helen spoke, but they regarded the youngest robin with -the deepest pride and affection. Jiggers was a Boston bull puppy, the -special property of Doris, and they knew just what a heart-wrench it had -been to part with him. Mrs. Robbins took the crisp green bill from -Doris's hand, while the tears slowly gathered on her lashes. - -"It's perfectly splendid of you, dear," she said. - -Doris beamed and danced around on tiptoe like a captive butterfly, but -the family noticed she kept away from the spot where Jiggers' little -kennel had stood. There are some things the heart cannot quite bear. - -Much debating was held over the piano. The girls loved it and declared -it could not be true economy to part with it. It was an Empire baby -grand that had descended to them from the Riverside apartment days in -town. Helen said she always expected to see it pick up its skirts and -pirouette like Columbine, it was so gay and pretty in its gold case all -decorated in trailing flower garlands and little oval panels with -Watteau figures treading gaysome measures in blossomy dells. - -"Listen, Mother darling," Kit said finally, "you know what I told you -about white hyacinths. That precious old piano is a white hyacinth and -we'll starve our inmost souls if we try to live without it. Why, we've -loved it and pounded it for years." - -So it was boxed and shipped to Gilead Center as a white hyacinth, -together with many another disguised "necessity." - -"They've turned into arrant smugglers," Mrs. Robbins wrote her husband. -"And I cannot blame them, because I catch myself doing the same thing, -packing things I should not, and making myself believe they are -essential. I'm sure I don't see where we are ever to put everything in -a farm-house." - -Cousin Roxana brightened up and smiled when that portion of the letter -was read aloud to her. She was sitting in a straight-backed, -split-bottomed chair by the south window in the sitting-room, sorting -out morning-glory and nasturtium seeds and putting them into baking -powder boxes. - -"Guess Betty'll hearten up some when she sees the Mansion House," she -said. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - *THE LAND O' REST* - - -While some of the Long Island farms had begun to look faintly green by -the end of March, not a blade or a leaf was unfurled anywhere around -Gilead Center. Pussy willows and reddening maple twigs held the only -promise of spring so far. - -Jean drew on a pair of heavy driving gloves, and waited at the side -"stoop" for Hiram to drive around from the barn with Ella Lou and the -double seated democrat. Hiram was Cousin Roxana's hired help, smooth -faced and lean, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty. He took care of -three horses and two cows and worked the farm with outside help in busy -seasons. - -Some folks in Gilead Center held that Roxy Robbins could have got along -with one horse, but Roxana kept her pair of handsome Percherons just the -same, and let Hiram haul wood all winter with them. - -Ella Lou was a black mare with white shoes and stockings and a white -star on her forehead. It really did seem as if she knew all about the -family's affairs. She was aware of every road in the township. Not a -tree could be cut down along the road, not a cord of piled wood added or -taken away, that Ella Lou did not take note of the fact at her next -passing by. - -To-day when Hiram drove up with her to the three stone steps by the -white lilacs, she acted as wise and knowing as could be, turning her -head around to look at Jean just as if she could have said, "We're going -after them at last, aren't we?" - -Cousin Roxy stood at the screened pantry window, mixing pie crust. She -leaned down and called some last advice as Jean climbed up and took the -reins. - -"Hitch her to that white post above the express office, Jeanie. There's -a couple freights come in right after that 3:30 train, and they set her -crazy shuffling back and forth. And have the girls sit on the back seat -'cause them springs are kinder giving way, and your Mother's nervous. -And bring up a wick for the student lamp from the Mill Company Store. -No, never mind," just as Ella Lou started to prance, "'cause they don't -keep that kind, come to think of it. Good-bye. If you don't remember -the turnings, just slack up the reins and she'll find the right road." - -Jean laughed and waved her hand. It was her first attempt at driving -alone, but Ella Lou seemed to appreciate just how she felt, and swung -out around the triangle of grass that marked the entrance to the private -driveway. - -Maple Lawn stood just at the crossroads, a white comfortable-looking -house, one story and a half high, with a long low "ell" hitched on to -the back, and a white woodshed leaning up against it for company. - -Four great rock maples grew before its spacious lawn like a row of Titan -sentinels, in summertime, garbed in Lincoln green like Robin Hood's -merry men. Then too, Baltimore orioles and robins nested in them and -contended with the chipmunks for squatter rights. - -The house stood on a hill that faced the sunset. Down from the orchard -sloped corn fields and rye fields. Below the winding white road was a -deep ravine where a brook ran helterskelter by hilly pastures until it -slipped away into the cool shade of a quiet glen, sweet scented with -hemlock and spruce. - -In the distance, hill after hill rose in mellowed beauty, each seeming -to lean in sisterly fashion against the next taller one. From the -sitting-room window Cousin Roxana declared she had seen "the power and -the glory" unfold in rapturous vision when the sun spread its alchemy -over old Gilead township. - -The course of Little River could be traced down through the valley by -its fringe of willows and alders. For perhaps fifteen miles it rambled, -winding in and out around little islands, dodging old submerged trees -that lifted skeleton arms in protest, spreading out above some old rock -dam into a tiny lake, then dashing like some chased wild thing through a -mill run and out again into low, moist meadows, thick with flag and -rushes. - -At a point about a mile below the house stood the old Barlow lumber -mill. Ella Lou caught the first hum of it and quickened her pace until -she came to its watering trough, half toppling over at one side of the -road, its sides all green with moss. - -Jean let her take her own way. Once she shied at a shadowy brown shape -that skitted across the road under her feet, and Jean wondered whether -it was a rabbit or a muskrat. Already she was catching the country -spirit. Little objects of everyday life held a meaning for her and she -found herself watching eagerly for new surprises as she drove along the -old river road. How the girls would love it all, she thought, with a -little tightening of her throat. It might be a little lonesome at first, -but surely it was, as Cousin Roxana always said, "the land o' rest." - -The final decision on the new home site was to be left to her mother. -Several places had been selected with a leaning towards the Mansion -House, but, as Roxy said again, in her cheery, buoyant way, Betty must -be left unbiased to form her own opinion, although according to her way -of thinking, no sensible person with half their wits could pass over the -merits of the Mansion House, or the wonderful opportunities it -presented. - -"It's going to rack and ruin, and it fairly cries out for somebody to -take hold of it and love it," she had said. "I don't know but what I'd -drive by it if I were you, Jeanie, on your way back from the station, -even if it is a mite out of your way, just to see the look on your -Mother's face when she sees it. There's a Providence in all things, of -course, and I ain't gainsaying it, but I do like to jog it along a bit -now and then." - -It was a drive of seven miles down to Nantic, the nearest railroad -station. Ella Lou made it in good time and now stood complacently -hitched to the white post above the express office. Already, it -appeared, Mr. Briggs, the station master knew Jean, and smiled over at -the trim, city-like figure pacing up and down on the platform waiting -for the Willimantic train. This was the side line up to Providence that -connected with the Boston express from New York. - -"Expecting some of your folks up?" asked Mr. Briggs pleasantly. Nobody -could say that friendly interest in strangers and their affairs was not -evinced around Nantic. It was part of the joy of life to Mr. Briggs to -locate their general intentions. - -"My Mother and sisters," Jean answered happily. - -"Figure on staying a while, do they?" - -She nodded rather proudly. "We're going to live here. We're Miss -Robbins' cousins. You'll have the freight car up with our goods this -week." - -"Like enough," said Mr. Briggs encouragingly. "Yes, I knew you belonged -to Roxy. I've known Roxy herself since she was knee high to a toadstool. -There comes your local." - -Around the hillside bend of track came the train. It seemed to Jean as -if seconds turned to minutes then. The dear blessed train that was -bearing Mother and Helen and Kit and Doris up out of the world of -uncertainty and trouble into this haven of blossoming hopes. She wanted -to stretch out both her arms to it as it slowed down and puffed, but -there on the last car she caught a glimpse of Kit, one foot all ready to -drop off, waving one hand and hanging on with the other. - -"Oh, Mother darling," Jean cried, joyously, once she had them all safe -on the platform. "It's so beautiful up here, and Dad's looking better -every day. He sits up for a while now, and the old doctor told us the -only thing that ailed him was a little distemper. Isn't that fun? -Where are your trunks, girls?" - -But this was Mr. Briggs's cue to come forward, hat in hand, and be -introduced, so he took the baggage under his own personal supervision. -It appeared that you never could tell anything about when trunks were -liable to show up once they got started for Nantic, but the likelihood -was, barring accidents, that they'd come up on the six o'clock train, -and there wasn't a bit of use putting any reliance on that either, -'cause they might not show up till the milk train next morning. - -"Hope you'll like it up here," was his parting salute, as they drove up -the hill road, and Kit called back that they liked it already, much to -Mr. Briggs's enjoyment. - -Mrs. Robbins sat on the front seat, both as the place of honor, and in -remembrance of Cousin Roxana's warning against the back springs. At the -top of the hill Jean rested Ella Lou, so the girls could look back at -the little town. There was the huge one story stone mill, covering -acres of ground, with immense ventilators looking like those on -steamships or like strange uprearing heads of prehistoric reptiles. - -The little crooked main street could be traced by its lines of -buildings, and back in a mass of trees stood the old French convent. -Scattered everywhere were the houses of the mill workers, all of a -uniform pattern, painted white with green blinds, and a patch of green -yard to each. Jean, flushed and proud of her responsibility, turned Ella -Lou's head towards home and made quick time. The maple buds were -swelling and looked rosy red against the thickets of dark shiny green -laurel. Behind them rose slim lines of white birches. Doris named them -the "White Ladyes," after the gentle lady ghost in "The Monastery." - -"How far is it, Jeanie?" asked Helen. Just then the road came out on -the hilltop overlooking the big reservoir. "Oh, look, look, girls," she -cried. "Isn't it like a bit of out West, Motherie? All those rocks and -pines." - -"I'd rather have these dear old hills than all the mountains going," Kit -declared with her usual forcefulness. "We seem to be going up higher -and higher all the time." - -"So we are," Jean told her. "It's a steady rise from New London to -Norwich, then up to our own Quinnebaug hills. Are you warm enough, -Mumsie?" - -"Plenty," said Mrs. Robbins, happily. "Though it is ever so much cooler -here than on Long Island, isn't it, girls?" - -"We've got an open log fire in your room all ready for you," Jean -replied. "You can just sit and toast and toast away to your heart's -content, Queen Motherkin." - -"For pity's sake, who ever had the courage to carry all the rocks for -these stone walls?" asked Kit. "Jean, what do you say to this? Let's -buy barrels of cement, and mix it up with sand and water, and make a lot -of lovely old garden seats and grottoes and pergolas. I'm going to make -a sun dial." - -"Why not get a Roman seat mold," Jean proposed, "and just pour in cement -and turn out a lot of them and whenever we come to a particularly fine -view, put a seat there." - -"Oh, you castle builders," laughed Mrs. Robbins. "When we haven't even a -home yet. You'd think there was a baronial estate waiting for us." - -"There is," Jean answered mysteriously. "Cousin Roxy and I think that -we've found the right place. Father hasn't seen it, of course, but I -found it, and Cousin Roxy said we couldn't get it because somebody'd -died, and it had gone to people out West." - -"Which gave our precious old Jean a chance to delve into mystery," Kit -suggested. "Yes, yes, go on, sister mine. You interest us amazingly. -What didst do then?" - -"Oh, I found him," said Jean, enthusiastically. "He lives away out West -in Saskatoon, and has never even seen this place, so he's willing to -sell it for almost nothing, $2,500, and even that includes the water -power." - -Kit shook her head deploringly. - -"Listen to the poor child, Mother dear. She chats of thousands as if -they were split peas and she was making a pudding." - -"Hush, Kit. He'll rent it too for a hundred dollars a year, timber -rights reserved excepting for our own use, and we can sell the hay." - -"How many rooms, dear?" asked Mrs. Robbins. - -"Seventeen," replied Jean, blithely. "Oh, it isn't a country cottage or -a farm-house at all. They call it the Mansion House out here, and it's -so big that nobody wants it for a gift." - -"Do you want a castle or an inn?" asked Kit. - -"Where is it?" Helen inquired cautiously. - -"When can we move in?" Doris asked practically. - -"Well, you can see the cupola, I think, as soon as we get up to the top -of Peck's Hill. I'll stop then. It's fearfully lonesome, and perhaps -you'd rather be in the village. Cousin Roxy says that some folks do -say--" - -"Stop her, stop her," Kit exclaimed. "Jean, you're talking exactly like -Cousin Roxy. Isn't she, Mother?" - -"Never mind, dear. Go right on," comforted Mrs. Robbins, smiling at the -eager young face beside her. Three weeks at Maple Lawn had surely taken -a lot of the spread out of Jean's sails. - -"I don't think we'd be one bit lonely. It's about a mile from Maple -Lawn, and half a mile from Mr. Peck's place down the valley, and the -mail goes right by the door. And there's an old ruined stone mill on an -island, and a waterfall, and a bridge, and big pines along the terrace -in the front yard. It does need painting, I suppose, and shingling in -spots, and the veranda lops a little bit where it needs shoring up, -Hiram told me--" - -"Specify Hiram," Helen asked mildly. "We don't know a thing about -Hiram, Jeanie." - -"He's the hired man, and he can do anything." - -"But, dear," interrupted Mrs. Robbins, "can't you realize that there -must be something wrong with it or it never would be rented for such a -sum. - -"Oh, there is," Jean replied promptly. "It's too far from the railroad -or village, and the mill burned down six years ago, and the owner died -from the shock of losing everything he had, and there it stands, going -to rack and ruin, Cousin Roxy says, waiting for the Robbinses to appear -and turn it into a nest." - -"How about school?" asked Kit suddenly. - -Jean waved her long whip grandly. - -"Who wants a school out here? The groves were God's first temples. -There's a school, though, over at the Gayhead crossroads. We're going -to have a horse and drive you over to the trolley so you can catch it to -the High School." - -"Jean has us all moved and settled already," Mrs. Robbins said, "I'm -sure I'd like to be near where Roxana lives." - -"Well, there it is," Jean exclaimed happily. Ella Lou pricked up her -ears, and quickened her pace, down one little hill, up another, over a -culvert, and suddenly there appeared white chimneys rising above an -apple orchard at the top of the hill. - -"There it is," she said, pointing to it with her whip. "Seven miles -from nowhere, but right next door to Heart's Content." - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - *SPYING THE PROMISED LAND* - - -The following morning Miss Robbins said she thought she would drive down -to the Mansion House with Elizabeth Ann herself, and they'd look it -over. - -"If you girls feel like coming down, you can take the short cut through -the woods. Like enough you'll find some blood root out by now and -saxifrage too. Don't be like Jean, though. The other day she came up -from the brook and said she'd found a calla lily, and it was just skunk -cabbage." - -So the girls took the short cut through the woods. They were just -beginning to show signs of spring. The trees were bare, but under the -dry leaves they found the new life springing. It was all new and -interesting to them. Down at the Cove they had been in a beautiful part -of Long Island but it was all restricted property. Here the woods and -meadows spread for miles on every hand. Every pasture bar seemed to -invite one to climb over it and explore the "Beyond," as Doris called -it. And where the woods ended in rocky pastures and wide spreading -fields, they came out to a spot where they overlooked the Mansion House -and its grounds. - -Cousin Roxana and Mrs. Robbins were there before them. The side door -stood hospitably open, and Ella Lou was hitched to the post just as -though she belonged there. It was a curiously interesting old place. -First of all, a rock wall enclosed the grounds, with rock columns at the -two entrance gates. These were wide, for the drive entered on one side, -wound around the house, and came out on the other road, as the house -stood at a corner. - -The house itself looked like a glorified farmhouse. It wasn't at all -like a bungalow, Kit declared. In fact it was hard to place it in the -history of architecture. - -"I think perhaps it started out to be Mid-Victorian with that general -squareness and the veranda," said Mrs. Robbins. - -"That isn't Mid-Victorian, Mother darling," Jean interposed. "That's -the Reaction Period in New England. First of all none of the Puritan -women had any time to sit out on porches or verandas, so all the houses -were made plain faced. Then after the war they began to turn their minds -to lighter things, so they stuck a cupola up here, and tacked on a -little porch there, and gave the windows fancy eyebrows, and little -scalloped wooden lace ruffles along the edges of the eaves. Isn't that -so, Cousin Roxy?" - -"Well, I declare, Jeanie," laughed Miss Robbins, "maybe you're right. -I'd say, though, it was mostly a hankering after titivation. I don't -set much store by it myself, so long as I've got plenty of flowering -bushes 'round a house, and climbing vines. That makes me think, you've -got a sight of them here, flowering quince and almond, and 'pinies,' and -all sorts of hardy annuals. There used to be a big border of them, I -remember, at the back of the house, and behind it was an old-fashioned -rose garden." - -"A rose garden!" Kit and Helen gasped. - -"Wish I had my sun dial under my arm this minute," added Jean. "Come -on, girls." - -Back they went to find it, and after hunting diligently through hazel -bushes and upspringing weeds, they found where one terrace dipped into a -sunken space walled in once upon a time, though now the tumbled gray -rocks had half fallen down, and some were sunken in the earth. But still -they found some old rose canes, and several large bushes that looked -hopeful. There was a flagged walk with myrtle growing up between the -stones, and a tumble-down arbor that Doris declared looked exactly like -a shipwrecked pilot house off some boat. - -"Let's call it our pilot house. We may need piloting before we get -through," said Helen, sitting down on the broad front steps, her chin on -her palms, listening to the music of falling water in the distance and -the wind overhead in the great, slumbrous pines. There were four of -these, two on each side of the long terrace, with rock maples down near -the rock wall, and several pear and cherry trees. Along the terrace -were old-time flower beds, three on each one, outlined with clam shells. - -"Miss Trowbridge used to have gladiolus set out in those beds, with -pansies and sweet alyssum set 'round the edges, and outside again, -old-hen-and-her-chickens. They looked real sightly." - -"Who was Miss Trowbridge, Cousin Roxy?" asked Mrs. Robbins. She sat -beside Jean, her hands clasped lightly in her lap, her hat lying beside -her. There was a look of concent on her face that had been a stranger -there for many months. Doris dropped a spray of half blossomed cherry -twigs in her lap, and ran away again. - -"She was own sister to the Trowbridge that owned the mills. She married -some man out in Canada, lived a while out there, then gave up and died. -She never did have much backbone that I could see, but she loved -flowers. Did you notice a big glass bay window off the dining-room? She -called that her conservatory. I remember asking her if it was her -'conversationary,' and how she did laugh at me! Well, everyone can't be -expected to know everything. It's all I can do to keep up with Gilead -Center these days. Her name was Francelia and she married a McRae." - -"But who had the place after she and her brother died?" - -Cousin Roxana never believed in directness when it came to genealogies. -She delighted in them, and would slip her glasses down to the middle of -her long nose, elevate her chin, and go after a family tree like a -government arborist. - -"Well, according to my way of thinking, it should belong to Piney -Hancock and her brother Honey. His name's Seth, but they call him -Honey. Their mother was Luella Trowbridge, own sister to Francelia and -Tom who owned the mills, but she married Clint Hancock against -everybody's word, and her father cut her off in his will, and never saw -her from the day she was married. Tom did the same, but Francelia used -to go over and see her after Piney and Honey were born. They live down -near Nantic. You must have passed the house, little bit of a gray one -with rambler roses all over it, and a well sweep at one side. The -property went to Francelia after Tom died, and she had one boy. He's -out in Northwest Canada now and don't give a snap of his finger for this -place, when there's Piney and Honey loving it to death and can't hardly -walk on the grass. Still, I suppose if they went to law, they'd get -nothing out of it after all the lawyers had been satisfied." - -Kit and Helen listened open-eyed. - -"My goodness, Cousin Roxy," exclaimed Kit, "how on earth do you ever -manage to keep track of all of them?" - -"Keep track of them? Land, child, that ain't anything after you've been -to school with them and lived neighbors all your life. You children -will like Piney and her brother, and maybe you can help put a little -happiness into their lives, poor youngsters." - -"Oh, Mumsie, I love this place already," whispered Jean contentedly, -snuggling close to her mother's side. - -"Do you, dear?" Mrs. Robbins smiled down into the eldest robin's face. -For some reason she always waited for Jean's judgment and opinion. - -"Yes, I do, because it isn't really a farm and still we can have a -garden and sell the hay and get out wood and raise all we need for -ourselves. I don't think we can do much else the first year, can we, -Cousin Roxy?" - -"If you do all that you'll be getting along finely. I'm going to start -you off chicken raising with a lot of little ones from my incubator. You -can buy all you want for ten cents apiece, and if you get about fifteen -last year pullets and a rooster, you've got your barnyard family all -started." - -"Oh, I want to be mother to the incubator chickens; may I, please?" -begged Doris instantly. "I think one of the saddest things in life is to -be hatched without a mother." - -"Sympathetic Dorrie," laughed Kit, catching her down on the grass and -rolling her. "She's going to adopt all the chickens and goodness only -knows what else." - -"I'm going to keep bees," Helen announced serenely, with a certain -aloofness in her manner quite as if she had stated that her chosen -occupation was one befitting a damsel of high degree. "I've always -wanted bees ever since I read Maeterlinck's 'Life of the Bee.' I want a -garden close and bees that bring me home the honey from the clover -fields and meadows fair." - -"Lovely," Jean exclaimed, hugging her knees, and rocking to and fro -contentedly. "You always select such royal occupations, Helenita. I -shall be the middleman of the farm. I am going to find markets for all -that my princess sisters raise. I'll make the castle pay expenses and -that's more than most castles do. I want a horse and some sort of a -wagon." - -"Don't get anything foolish," admonished Cousin Roxana. "Either a good -low buggy with a top for bad weather, and a good deep space at the back -to tuck things away in, or else a covered democrat's nice too, and you -can put in an extra seat in them if you like. I guess a democrat's the -best thing for you after all." - -"Until we get our roadster," supplemented Helen. "I know Mother'll -never get along way up here without some kind of a car, will you, Mother -dear?" - -Mrs. Robbins shook her head smilingly. - -"I'm thinking more about a new steel range for the kitchen, Childie." - -Roxana smiled too. Only a few weeks before, kitchen ranges had been -things of small import with Betty Robbins. All that the Motherbird had -been able to say when questioned at that time was that they cooked with -electricity, and had a gas range, she believed, but Tekla was the one -who knew. - -"You'll have to burn wood out here, Helen, unless you get a tame -lightning rod and hitch it to an electric stove," Kit said. - -"I don't care what we have to do," Jean interposed. "I want the place; -don't you, Mother?" - -"I think I shall love it," said Mrs. Robbins, lifting her face to the -swaying pine boughs overhead. "I wish that I could stay here now and -not have to go away at all." - -"Helen, put the kettle on, and we'll all have tea," chanted Kit. "You -know, Cousin Roxy, we always make Helen fix our tea. It isn't that she -does it so wonderfully better than the rest of us, but she thinks she -does, and she makes the most enticing ceremonial of it. You want to -burn incense and kowtow before her serene highness. Wait till you see -her do it!" - -Helen rose and made a deep curtsey before Miss Robbins. - -"We ask the pleasure of your ladyship's presence at tea two weeks from -today." - -"Oh, I'll be here," Cousin Roxana answered. "But I guess we'll leave the -ladyship behind. I've got a Quaker great-grandmother tucked in behind me -along the line of ancestors, and there's a silver goblet up home that -Benjamin Franklin drank from once when he was a guest at your -great-great-great-grandfather Eliot's place on the old Providence -plantations. Nice, pleasant, unassuming sort of man too, I've always -heard tell he was. So I'm all democrat clear through." - -"You're a darling," Doris exclaimed, hugging her from behind, both arms -wound tightly around her throat. "We'd never have come up here at all -if it hadn't been for you." - -"There, child, there. It says in the Book, you know, 'The Lord moveth -in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform,' and if I do say it as -shouldn't, He seems to pick me out every once in a while and lets me -help a little bit, blessed be His Name. Now, let's start for home." -She rose from the porch step energetically. "Ella Lou's begun to move -around and that's to let me know it's after five. She can always tell -the time when the sun gets low." - -"I feel sure Mother wants the place, don't you, Jean?" Kit asked, as the -girls went up through the woods towards home. "All the time we were -going through the house I could see every bit of our furniture in the -right places there. And there's so much room that Dad will hardly know -the difference between this place and the old one at the Cove. He could -have those two big rooms overlooking the valley on the second floor. -You can see the great brown stone dam from there and the ruins of the -mill, and hear the falling water. I wish we had time to climb out over -the old dam to the mill." - -"It's better than living right in a village," Jean answered, pushing -aside the young birches that crowded the way. "I rather dreaded that -somehow. Everybody'd want to know all about us right off, and why we -came up, and what ailed Dad, and everything else. I hope, though, -Mother won't be lonely here. You know, girls, it is lonely for a woman -like her, where Cousin Roxy doesn't mind it." - -"We'll have to pitch in and make up to her for everything she's lost," -said Doris solemnly. - -"Dear old Dorrie." Kit put her arm around the littlest sister and -squeezed her affectionately. "You know, you are an awful make-believe. -You are just like somebody, I've forgotten who it was, in the old Norse -fairy lore, who lost his way over the hills and fell asleep in a magic -ring, and when he wakened the wee folks had anointed his eyes with fairy -ointment and everything that he looked at after that seemed beautiful to -him. Goodness knows we're going to need something like that out here. -Of course it's all lovely now, but what will it be like in the winter -when the north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will -poor robin do then, poor thing?" - -"It's all a question of system," Jean declared, her hands deep in her -white sweater pockets, and its collar turned high around her neck. -"We'll have to make a business of living, and learn how to do things we -hate to do with the least effort." - -"You're just a bluffer, Jean Robbins," exclaimed Helen, "just a bluffer. -Anyone would think to hear you talk that you actually enjoyed -privations. Of course when we're with Mother and Dad, or even Cousin -Roxy, we have to put on a whole lot, but when we're alone I do think we -might at least be sincere with ourselves. We all know how we feel at -heart about this sort of thing." - -"What sort of thing?" asked Kit, on the offensive instantly. "What do -you mean?" - -"Giving up everything we've been used to, and living out here in the -woods. I'm going to miss the girls most of all." - -"Well, we don't like losing everything any better than you do, Helen," -Jean said soothingly. "Only--" - -"Don't pat me," retorted Helen, shaking off her hand; "I know I'm -selfish, and I'm beginning to feel sorry I said anything. Only it does -look so bleak and forlorn here somehow." - -"But if you have to do a thing, why, you just have to do it, that's -all," Kit declared. "It's better to make up your mind you're going to -like it. Look at that cow ahead of us. It must have strayed." - -Through the birches ahead they could see some object obstructing the -narrow path, its back towards them. Large as a cow it was, and reddish -brown, but in place of short horns, this animal had spreading antlers, -and Jean caught sight of its round puff of a tail. - -"Oh, girls, it's a deer!" - -At her voice the deer started and pushed into the thick underbrush until -it came to a stone wall. They watched it rise and clear it at a bound -like a thoroughbred horse, its knees bent under, its head held high. -Then it was gone. - -"Well, isn't that perfectly gorgeous!" gasped Kit, explosively. "I've -never seen one on its native heath before. Wish we could tame some, -don't you, girls?" - -"The Lady Kathleen doth already see a baronial estate with does and -fawns at large," said Jean teasingly. "Wouldst have a few white -peacocks standing on one foot upon thy entrance gates, oh, sister mine?" - -"Well, I don't know but what they would look nice," Kit answered -placidly. "I tell you what we do want to raise--turkeys. I've always -wanted turkeys or geese. It's the simple turkey-tender that the fairy -godmother turns into a beauteous princess." - -Doris danced along the path ahead of them. - -"I like this ever so much better than the Cove," she called. "It is all -so wild and free." - -"It will be fun mixing things up and making a success out of it whether -it wants to be or not--I mean the new home," Jean replied. "Only we're -sure to get lonely sometimes for the people we liked down there. You -know what I mean, don't you, Helen?" - -"Indeed I do," Helen said fervently. "That's just what I told you. -Think of our being buried up here in these woods for months and maybe -years." - -"Still, it is worse for Mother. It's sort of an adventure for us girls -from which we'll escape some time, but it's the real thing for her, -something that's going to last perhaps all through her life." - -"No, it won't, Kit, because we'll grow up and rescue her if she doesn't -like it." - -"What about Dad?" asked Doris. "The doctors in the city say he'll never -get any better, and the old doctor up here says he'll begin to get -better at once if he just stops thinking about himself and gets out of -doors." - -"I'd believe a doctor that talked to me like that even if I was half -afraid he might be wrong," Kit said soberly. - -They paused at a spur of land that looked out over the long valley. -Little River flowed in a winding course marked by alders and willows. -Now that there was no foliage to obscure the view, they could catch a -glimpse here and there of a red roof or a white chimney. There was the -Smith mill, then the old white Murray homestead with its weather vane -standing on a little hill like a big yardarm at large. Then came their -own old ruined mill, half tumbling down, with empty window casings, all -overgrown with woodbine and poison ivy. Farther up the valley one -caught the hum of another mill, purring musically in a sort of crescendo -scale until it broke off into a snappy zip! as the log broke. - -Already Jean declared she knew the names and histories of all the people -there, and which way the roads went, and where the nearest towns lay. - -"I feel exactly as if I stood now on the crest of the Delectable -Mountains," she said with a quiet; sigh. They had stood there some time -in silence, looking at the widespread land of hills and valleys, upland -meadows, warm and brown in the early spring sunshine, and sweeps of -woodland, russet red with maple and ash, with here and there the dark -sombre richness of laurel or pine. "Who was it did that, Christian in -'Pilgrim's Progress,' wasn't it?" - -Helen and Doris knelt to look at some blossoming saxifrage at the edge -of a rock. Kit stood erect and tender-eyed. - -"Oh, I don't know who it was," she said, quite gently for her, "but I -know how he felt anyway. I always feel that way when I look out over -vast distances, specially skylands; I wish I had wings or was all I want -to be. Don't you know what I mean, Jeanie? It makes you think of all -the things you hope to do some day." - -"Like the spies that Gideon sent forth to look over the Promised Land," -Jean answered. "I always think of them at such times, traveling miles -and miles up through the mountains until all at once they came to a -sudden opening and they looked out at it all lying at their feet like -this." - -Kit smiled, her cheeks rosy from the upland climb, her hands deep in her -sporting coat pockets. There was almost a challenging tilt to her chin -as she faced that sweep of valley, barren and brown in the spring sunset -hour. - -"Well, it is _our_ Promised Land," she declared, "and I can tell it -right now that it's got to blossom like the rose and pour out milk and -honey, because we've come to stay." - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - *THE LADY MANAGERS CHOOSE A NAME* - - -That very night a council was held of what Mr. Robbins termed "the Board -of Lady Managers." - -"I think I need Hiram in here for support," he said laughingly, from his -favorite resting place, the old fashioned high-backed davenport in the -sitting-room. - -There were no such things at Maple Lawn as a library, a reception room, -or a den. There was a front entry and a side entry and a well-room at -the back of the kitchen. There was a parlor and a front bed-room, a -side bed-room and a big sunny sitting-room that was dining-room also, -and finally the old kitchen with its Dutch oven, and hooks in the -ceiling for hanging up smoked beef and bacon sides. - -Not that Cousin Roxy ever used the Dutch oven nowadays excepting to -store things away in. She had instead a fine shiny, water-back steel -range, over which she hovered like a sorceress from five A.M. to eleven -A.M., producing such marvels of cookery as held the girls spellbound: -raised doughnuts with jam inside and powdered sugar outside; apple -turnovers made with Peck's Pleasants and rich Baldwins; ginger cookies, -large as saucers with scalloped edges, soft and rich as butter scotch; -and pies, with rich, flaky crust and delectable filling in endless -varieties. Jean declared that she had learned more about cooking in the -few weeks she had lived at Maple Lawn than in all her life before. - -"Well, there's cooking and cooking, girls," Cousin Roxana had replied -placidly, fishing for brown doughnuts with her long, hand-wrought iron -fork. "It's one thing to cook when you've got everything to do with, -and quite another when you are eternally figuring out how to make both -ends meet. Of course, I don't have to do that. Land knows there's -plenty to eat and more to, praise the Lord, but it's all plain food, and -you've got to learn how to toss vegetables around in forty different -ways out here if you want any variety." - -That evening it was when the Board of Lady Managers discussed everything -that lay ahead of them from the said vegetables to chickens, cows, -horses, and farm implements. - -Mr. Robbins had seemed relieved when he was sure that the Motherbird -approved of the Mansion House. It was near Maple Lawn and Roxana, he -said, and they would surely need both many times during their first -experimental year in the country. Also, it was on the mail route, and -not too large a place in acreage for them to handle. There was a good -apple orchard, somewhat run down, but it would be all right with pruning -and proper care. Besides, there were four good pear trees, two large -cherry trees, white hearts and red, and three crabapple trees. - -"Guess if you hunt around, you might find some quinces too, and plenty -of berries and currants," Cousin Roxana said. "It's been let go to -waste the past few years, and it'll take a year or more to get it back -into shape. You'd better write out West and get a three-year lease, -with option of purchase." - -"We couldn't think of buying it, even with water rights and all," Mrs. -Robbins demurred, "but we might try the three-year lease. What do you -think, dear?" - -"I should write tonight," Mr. Robbins told her, confidently. "Even if I -should gain my health completely"--how cheerily he said it, the girls -thought--"we could still stay up here summers, and you all would enjoy -it, I know. Look at Dorrie's pink cheeks, and Jean looks like another -girl. If I keep on much longer on Roxy's cooking, I expect to be mowing -hay in the lower meadows by July." - -So the letter was written, the wonderful letter freighted with so many -hopes. All four girls escorted Mrs. Robbins down to the mailbox at the -crossroads the next noon. It was truly a fateful moment, as Kit -remarked solemnly. So much depended upon the nature of the answer from -far-off Saskatoon. Perched on the fence rail Dorrie began to compose -poetry to fit the occasion. - -"Kit, beat time for me, will you?" she called happily, teetering on the -rail like a young bluebird. "Here it goes now: - - "Oh, Saskatoon, - Please answer soon! - Sweet Saskatoon, - We ask this boon-- - -What's his name, Mumsie?" - -"Ralph McRae," Jean answered for her mother. - -"You know, really, Dorrie," protested Helen, "if you could just see -yourself on that rail fence chanting doggerel to the spring breezes, -you'd come down." - -But Doris kept to the rail all the same, and sang with her fair hair -blowing around her little face, already showing freckles. Even Kit felt -the inspiration of the moment. - -"Oh, I love these April mornings! You can smell everything that's sweet -and new in the air, can't you, Motherkin? And I found arbutus buds down -in the pines too, and an old crow's nest, and the crocuses are up." - -Mrs. Robbins lifted her face to the blue sky, with its great white -clouds that drifted up from the south in an endless argosy of beauty, -and quoted softly: - - "When Spring comes down the wildwood way, - A crocus in her hair--" - - -"There comes the mail wagon down the wildwood way," Jean called from the -curve of the road. - -Already they had grown to watch for it as the one real event of the day. -Mrs. Robbins said it reminded her of the little milk wagons in the -South. It had a white oblong body with a projection at the back, a -"lean-to" as Cousin Roxana called it, for parcel post packages. The top -came forward over the front seat in a canopy effect to shield Mr. -Ricketts, the rural free delivery carrier, from the sun. Finally, there -was a plump white horse that matched the whole turnout exactly, and Mr. -Ricketts, his cap pushed back on his head, a smile of perpetual -well-being on his face. - -"Looks like we'd get a spell of fine weather," he called. "Tell Miss -Robbins I noticed a postcard for her about her subscription being up for -her floral monthly, and if she ain't going to renew hers, I'll send in -my own for this year." - -"Now just hear that," exclaimed Cousin Roxy when she was given the -message. "He's read my floral monthly regularly coming along the route. -Well, I don't know as I mind. He's a real good mail carrier anyhow, and -all men have failings. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, the good -Book calls them, and I'd like to know what else the pesky things are -for. That doesn't mean you at all, Jerry. You were always a good boy. -Tom Ricketts knows better than to read my floral monthly without so much -as by your leave, ma'am. But I'll renew it." - -"He must have read the postcard too," said Helen. - -"Read it?" Cousin Roxy sniffed audibly. "I'd like to see anything get by -them down at that post office. They know a sight more about you than -you do yourself. Postmaster Willets could sit down single-handed and -write a history of the local inhabitants of this town just from memory -and postcards, I don't doubt a mite." - -The very next day the girls went again to the Mansion House. The keys -were at Mr. Weaver's, the next house down the road from Maple Lawn. It -was a regular gray mouse of a house sitting far back from the road and -facing the western hills. Philemon Weaver lived there alone. He was -ninety-one and had had six wives, Cousin Roxana told them. - -"Though mercy knows, nobody holds that against him. It was a compliment -to the sex, I suppose, if he could get them. And Uncle Philly's buried -them all reverently and properly." - -They found the old fellow working at a carpenter's bench out in the -woodshed. His hair was gray and curly and his upper lip clean shaven. -Doris said he looked just like the pictures of Uncle Sam. He was tall -and lean and stoop-shouldered, but his blue eyes were full of twinkles -and he had the finest set of false teeth, Kit remarked soberly, that -she'd ever seen, and the most winsome smile. - -"Winsome? Philly Weaver winsome?" laughed Cousin Roxana when she heard -it. "Well, I must say, Kit, that is the greatest yet. Winsome!" - -"But he is," Kit protested, "really winsome. He gave us each a drink -from his well and showed Jean his Dutch tile stove and his grandfather's -clock. And he's got the dearest old chest out in that side hall, Cousin -Roxy. I asked him how much he'd take for it, and he said no, he guessed -he'd better not, though it was worth as much as two dollars and a half, -but it had been his great-grandmother's setting-out chest. Wasn't that -dear of him?" - -Armed with the key and waving good-bye to the old man at the top of the -hill, they started down to the crossroads. Already they called the -house home. It was so satisfying, Kit said, just to wander about the -rooms and plan. There was one large southeast room that must be the -living-room and library combined. Back of this, opening out on a wide -side porch, was the dining-room. On the opposite side of the front -hallway was a sitting-room with a glass-enclosed extension for flowers, -and between it and the kitchen was a good-sized hallway lined with -shelves and long handy drawers beneath them. - -It was the kitchen and garret, though, that the girls lingered over -most. The former extended across the entire back of the house and Helen -counted eleven doors opening out of it. The floor was made of oaken -planks worn smooth as satin, some of them over two feet wide. Behind -the sheet iron partition, they found a huge old-fashioned rock fireplace -with the crane still hanging in it. Helen and Doris could easily stand -inside the aperture and there was a jutting out of the walls on each -side that formed the cosiest kind of an inglenook. - - "It seemed from this they e'en must be, - Each other's own best companie," - -quoted Kit, from "The Hanging of the Crane." "Where are you, Jeanie? -You're missing thrills of discovery." - -But Jean was getting her own thrills. She had gathered her skirts -around her, and ventured down the old winding cellar steps, groped -around in the dark until she found the outside doors and removed the big -wooden bar that held them. The stone steps outside were green with -moss, and an indignant toad hopped back out of the sunlight when she -threw open the doors. - -"We'll get the mouldy smell out of the cellar in a few days," she told -the others, rolling up her sleeves and sitting down in the sunshine on -the top step. "And there's a furnace down there, too. It looks old and -rusty, but it's there. No wonder they called it the Mansion House with -a real furnace in the cellar and running water in the kitchen sink. But -how funny and New Englandy, girls, to call it that, doubling up on -mansion and house. Let's name it something else, something piney." - -"Valley View," suggested Helen. - -"Sounds too slippery," Kit said. "How's Heart's Content? Too -sentimental? Well then, Piney Crest. It is on a sort of crest or mount -up here above the valley and the pines make it seem solemn." - -"Well, they won't after we once get here," Doris declared. "Let's call -it something happy." - -Kit stood with arms akimbo, looking up at the tall tapering pines. They -were splendid old lords of the conifers, towering as high as the cupola -itself. Their branches spread out like great hoopskirts of green. -Underneath was a thick silky carpet of russet needles, layer on layer -from many seasons of growth. Beyond the limits of the garden lay the -strip of white road, and across that came wide fields that seemed to -fall in long waves to meet the river. On all sides they slipped away -from the old mansion, their square borders outlined with the gray rock -walls, each with its brave showing of springtime green, where every -clambering vine had sent forth leafy tendrils, and even the moss had -freshened up under the April showers. - -"In a couple of weeks more they'll all be green," said Jean, her dark -eyes bright with anticipation. "And we'll plough them and sow them, and -they'll grow and grow, girls, and turn a real golden harvest over to us -by fall. Blessed green acres of promise!" - -"There you are," exclaimed Kit triumphantly, wheeling around on them. -"Greenacres. It just fits the place, and it's full of the country and -makes you think of good things to eat. Greenacres. All in favor of that -name please signify in the usual manner." - -Whereupon Doris picked up her skirts and made a low curtesy, and Helen -did the same, and lastly Jean and Kit swept each other an elaborate -court bow, showing that the vote was entirely unanimous. - -Therefore, Greenacres was the new name given to the old Mansion House, -and the girls felt that in the bestowal of the name, they held a -guarantee with Fate of happy augury. - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - *SETTLING THE NEST* - - -"Goods have come," called Mr. Ricketts from the mail box one morning. -The pink freight card lay on top, and he seemed as pleased as anyone to -find it there. "Letter from out West too, I noticed, so I presume you -folks will be settled pretty soon." - -"I almost feel as if I ought to let him read what Mr. McRae says," Mrs. -Robbins said amusedly. "He's so friendly and interested." - -As she opened the letter, the girls gathered around her chair, -eager-eyed and curious to see what it contained. Jean declared that she -liked the handwriting because it was firm and plain without any -flourishes. Kit was sure he used a stub pen and was rather morose and -dignified. Helen asked if she might keep the postage stamp for a -memento, and Doris kept patting her mother's shoulder tenderly as if she -would have protected her against any disappointment. - -"You read it, dear. I'd much rather you did," the Motherbird said, -handing it over to Mr. Robbins. - -Cousin Roxana was out in the buttery singing softly to herself about -some day when the mists had rolled in splendor from the beauty of the -hills, and the nurse was upstairs, packing to return to New York the -following day. There was just their own little home group of robins and -they listened anxiously for the verdict. The letter ran: - - -SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN, - April 4th, 19--. - -_Mr. Jerrold Robbins, Gilead Center, Conn._ - -MY DEAR MR. ROBBINS: Your letter of March 28th, received. I should be -very glad to rent the old house down at Stony Eddy on a lease, but do -not want to let it go out of the family. Miss Robbins can tell you the -conditions under which it came into my possession and why I am not at -liberty to part with it. If you care to rent it at $100 a year, it is -yours. Any necessary repairs it may need I am willing to make. I have -never seen the property myself, but whatever Miss Robbins says about it -will be satisfactory to me, as she was my Aunt Trowbridge's dearest -friend. - -Hoping if you decide to take the place, you may be happy there, I am, - -Yours sincerely, - RALPH McRAE. - - -"It's ours," Jean breathed thankfully. - -"I always felt that it was, somehow," Mrs. Robbins smiled happily around -at her brood. "And I know you'll like it, Jerry." - -"Oh, I know the place, I remember admiring it as a boy. Besides, I'd -like anything up here. Why, I could live out yonder in Roxy's corncrib -very comfortably this summer if she'd only let me," teased the invalid. -"Better send a check out at once for the rent, Betty, and get into it as -soon as possible." - -It was the third week in April when they drove down in relays from Maple -Lawn and took possession of the new home. There had been considerable -repairing to be done: painting and papering, mending the waterpipes and -furnace, and cleaning out the chimneys. - -The goods had been brought up from Nantic by Hiram in the big hay wagon, -he making four trips. Mrs. Robbins had wanted to hire an automobile -truck from Norwich, but Roxana said it was all nonsense with two big -horses standing idle in the barn just aching for work, and Hiram fussing -around over frost still being in the ground so he couldn't do any deep -ploughing. So the goods came up and were packed into the big front room -downstairs while the girls and Mrs. Robbins went back and forth -"settling." - -Hiram's younger brother came to do the papering and painting. He looked -exactly like a young rooster, Kit declared, all neck and legs, and he -was fearfully shy. She found immediate diversion in appearing before -him suddenly in her most abrupt manner and asking his opinion anxiously -on something, whereupon Shad would blush intensely to the roots of his -taffy colored hair, and splash paste blindly. - -His name was Shadrach Farnum, but Shad suited him to perfection. As -Cousin Roxana said, he did sort of run to bone. But he could paint and -paper to the queen's taste and gradually the rooms began to look -different. The big living-room was covered with a soft wood brown -burlap that harmonized well with their ash furniture and bookcases, and -the brown Spanish leather cushions. Window seats were built around the -two bay windows, and the girls sewed diligently to cover the cushions -for these with burlap, and to make inside curtains just to outline, as -Jean said, the cream filet ones. - -"It looks so warm and tender and friendly, doesn't it?" Doris exclaimed -when the big brown suede cover was laid on the long library table and -the copper lamp placed in the center. The copper lamp was really an -institution in the Robbins' family. The girls had given it personal -conduct from the Cove on Long Island to Nantic. Jean had found it in an -old copper and brass shop in New York at a wonderful reduction, and had -carted it home herself in triumph. The bowl was broad and low and -squat, shaped a good deal like a summer squash. The shade was -perforated by hand with exquisite artistry into strange Muscovite -designs, through which the light shone softly. When it was lighted the -first evening in the new home, Helen said she felt as if she were before -a shrine. - -"And it is a shrine too," Jean told them, "the shrine of home." - -Once in the long ago when they had all been quite young, Jean had been -found industriously writing names on bits of paper, and fastening them -with mucilage to pieces of the furniture. - -"I thought they might feel queer not having any names," she said when -discovery came, "so I was naming them." - -The lamp had a name too; it was always alluded to as Diogenes. - -"It looks exactly like the kind of lamp he would have loved," Kit -explained. - -The day after they really moved in, Cousin Roxana drove down with Ella -Lou and some good advice, a large brown crock of freshly baked beans and -a loaf of brown bread. - -"You need a good safe horse that you all can drive," she said. "Sam -Willetts has a brown mare that seems just about the ticket. I -telephoned over to him this morning and he'll sell her for $75.00, which -isn't bad at all. If you like, Betty, I'll call him up again as soon as -I get back and Honey Hancock can bring her over. Honey's working for Mr. -Willetts now, and the mare used to belong to the Hancocks. She was a -regular pet, Piney said." - -Mrs. Robbins was sure it was a good plan and Cousin Roxana was -instructed to close the bargain. So it was that Greenacres made the -acquaintance of Honey Hancock, destined to be a close friend before -summer was over, and always a family standby. - -It was a little past the supper hour when Honey drove up. Hitched to -the back of the wagon was the brown mare, and they all went out to look -at her. Honey was about fourteen and tall for his age. Rosy-cheeked he -was, with blue eyes and curly brown hair and dimples so deep and -ingratiating that Helen said it was a burning shame to waste them on a -boy. - -He stood at the mare's head, patting her slender, glossy neck and -combing her mane with his fingers, telling the girls her history, how -she had belonged to Molly Bawn, their old mare, and how his father had -broken her to harness himself. - -"But she never had to be really broken in. Piney and I started riding -her bareback when she was out in pasture and she was just as tame as a -kitten. She understands anything you say to her. Mother hated to sell -her to Mr. Willetts, but we had to, and as I was working for him, why, -she didn't know any difference. She's used to a good deal of petting--" - -"Oh, we'll all pet her here," Jean promised. "We must have something to -drive her in. Haven't you a davenport that she'll drive nicely in?" - -"A davenport!" exclaimed Kit. "Jean Robbins, a davenport's a sofa. -She'd look nice hitched to a sofa. My sister isn't used to the country -at all, Honey. She means a democrat, you know. The kind of a wagon you -can put one seat or two on, and still have room to put things away in." - -"We haven't anything like that," said Honey, "but they might have down -at Mr. Butterick's. He's the carriage maker. He can take a pair of old -carriage wheels, and turn out a good buggy almost while you watch him." - -"You have wonderful people up here," Helen said fervently. "It seems as -if whenever you want a certain kind of a person, there he is waiting for -you. Where does Mr. Butterick live?" - -"Down in Rocky Glen; second house past the basket weaver, Mr. Tompkins." - -"Suppose we go over there tomorrow, girls," Jean suggested. "Or do you -have to take the mare over, Honey, and let Mr. Butterick sort of fit her -with a carriage and a harness? I wish I could put her in the barn right -now." - -"Better get somebody to take care of her first," Helen said practically. -"We'd feed her fish cakes and doughnuts." - -Honey shifted his weight from one foot to the other somewhat uneasily. - -"Don't suppose you folks think of taking anybody on regularly, do you? -Mother said I was to ask, and say if you wanted me I might come up. It's -nearer home than Mr. Willetts' and there's only Piney and Mother at -home, and they need me to do the chores after I get home at night." - -Jean hastily signaled to Kit for fear she wouldn't remember all that -Cousin Roxana had told them about Honey Hancock and his sister. But just -then Mrs. Robbins stepped out on the side porch and smiled at Honey -until he turned red and grinned delightedly. - -"I could come for about ten a month, Mother thought," he vouchsafed with -much embarrassment. - -The other Mother thought ten was about right too, and Honey drove away -in the spring twilight, happy as one of the barn swallows that circled -in the dusk in a wonderful vesper dance. All the way up the hill they -heard him whistling "Beulah Land," and the hearts of the girls echoed -the sweet old melody. Although the deal had been closed over the brown -mare, and the check reposed in Honey's overalls' pocket, he took her -back with him, and promised to ride her over in the morning so the girls -should not have the care of her over night. - -"I asked him what her name was," Doris said, "and he told me they just -called her Mollie's Baby. We must think up some wonderful name for her. -You know, Mother darling, she looked over at me so tenderly and -wistfully when Honey said she would have to go back over night. I know -she longed to stay with us." - -The next addition to the place was the lot of chickens. It had been -agreed the first year that no large expenditures should be made for -anything, because it was all more or less experimental. - -"We want to take care of Dad, and make him well this first year," Jean -told the other girls up in their room one night. - -One point about the Robbins family that was different from other -families was their distinctive individualities; they simply demanded -separate expression, as Jean put it. Nobody liked to double up with -anyone else, and here at Greenacres there were plenty of rooms to choose -from, so that each daughter might have her own. Two large bed-rooms -with alcoves crossed the front of the house. These had been turned over -to Mr. and Mrs. Robbins. Then came curious rooms, as Kit said. The -hallway rambled through the second story, two steps up over here and two -steps down over there. There were unexpected little corridors opening -out from it like crooked arms. It really was a fascinating hallway, and -the rooms along it were quite exceptional. There were two wings to the -house, and an extension at the back over the summer kitchen "ell." This -was a source of delight to the girls, for they found all kinds of -interesting relics tucked back in this extension. - -"Mother dear," Helen said seriously, appearing one day with cobwebs in -her hair and dust smudges on her arms and face, "we've found perfectly -wonderful things. Old newspapers before the war, and old magazines with -hoopskirts in them and bonnets with flowers inside the poke!" - -"And two old maps dated 1829, one of New York State and one of -Connecticut," Kit added. "Both mounted on old yellow homespun linen and -braced with hand carved ebony. Now what do you think of that, Dad? -I'll bring them down to you. And a thing that looks like a little pilot -wheel, but it isn't. Jean says it's part of a spinning outfit because -she's seen them out in front of antique shops on Madison Avenue in New -York. And we found a foot warmer, and an hour glass with one support -broken, and a tailor's goose, and some old clothes-pins that had been -whittled by hand." - -Jean selected the west room for her very own. It had a square bay window -over the bower, as the girls had nicknamed the little conservatory off -the dining-room. The upstairs window was smaller, but almost as -pleasant, with small panes of glass and a beautiful outlook over the -valley and the old dam. - -Doris had a smaller room next to Jean's, and then came a pleasant -southeast room for a guest chamber. - -"And for pity's sake, let's make it comfy and cheery," said Kit. "Most -guest chambers give you the everlasting dumdums, don't they, Jeanie? -Let's make ours look as if it were really to enjoy." - -Kit had taken for her special domicile the room over the summer kitchen, -because it had so many shelves and cupboards in it. At first she had -wanted the cupola room, but was talked out of it, much against her will -and predilections. The upper staircase was circular, and you had to -watch out going up to the cupola, or you'd get an unmerciful bump on the -head as the door was very low. But once inside, it was a surprise, that -held you spellbound for a minute. The room was square in shape, and had -eight long narrow windows in it. From them you caught wonderful framed -views of the far-reaching valley, the ruined stone mill, the great brown -rock dam, covered now with the spring freshet, and beyond the placid -lake with several islands dotting it and long rows of hills guarding its -margins, one after the other like sentinels. - -"Yes, I want this one," Kit had said. "I'm the only one in the family -with genius and this should be mine. I want to walk around this crystal -enclosure and play that I am one of Maeterlinck's sleeping princesses." - -"They didn't walk," Jean had protested, "and you needn't imagine that -you're a genius, Kit Robbins, because you're not." - -"Well, I'm the only one in the family with much imagination anyway," Kit -had answered pleasantly. "'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,' -you know, Jeanie dear. And if I can't be a sleeping princess I will be -the Lady of Shalott." Whereupon she had swept about the room with a -couch cover draped around her in approved Camelot style, and a curtain -cord bound about her brow for a circlet, declaiming: - - "'Four gray walls and four gray towers, - Overlook a space of flowers, - And the silent isle embowers, - The Lady of Shalott.'" - - -"It would be such a hard place from which to rescue you if the house -caught fire," Helen had remarked thoughtfully, peering from one of the -windows. "You couldn't very well skip down the lightning rod, Kit." - -"I should prefer to have all my girls nearer to me," Mrs. Robbins had -remarked. "Suppose you should be taken ill in the night! How would any -of the rest know of it or be able to help you? You had better select a -room on the floor below, Childie." - -"Very well," Kit had said regretfully. "Of course I will not insist if -the family are going to worry over me, but I shall come up here every -day to comb out my golden tresses. I think we'll get Shad to build us -window seats all the way around, stain the floor, and make a sort of sun -parlor out of it." - -"Oh, Kit, remember the place in Egypt we always wanted to see, the -Ramasseum, the thinking place of the king?" Jean's dark eyes had -sparkled with mischief. "Let's call this the Thinking Place. Then we -can retire here when we wish to meditate, and fairly soak in the -sunlight until we feel radiant and revived. Do you all like that?" - -So it had been agreed upon and the cupola room became the thinking place -of the four princesses. - -Another discovery they made soon after was the Peace Spot. This was -over on the hillside across the bridge. Here was a rocky field with any -number of evergreen trees. They were assorted sizes and all varieties. -There were juniper trees and hemlocks, fat tubby little spruces and -slender straggly cedars. It looked like a premeditated burial ground, -Kit remarked, but Helen named it the Peace Spot. They often walked over -there in the late afternoons. Kit had ideas of turning it into a -wonderful Italian garden some day, but just now it was their place of -rest. - -At first the housework had proved to be the great stumbling block in the -way of perfect peace and daily comfort. - -"I tell you, Motherbird, if you'll just say what you want done, we'll be -your willing handmaidens," Jean had promised at the very beginning, but -the willing handmaidens had found themselves tangled up in less than two -days, treading on each other's heels and losing their tempers too. - -Mrs. Robbins laughed at them when she happened in and found them all -"looking down their noses," as Doris expressed it. - -"Girls, you'll have to learn team work," she explained. It appeared -that Jean had put a chicken to roast in the top of the double baking pan -and the gravy had all run out of the air draft at one end. "You must -learn that when you put your bread to rise it doesn't shape itself into -loaves and hop into the pans and walk over to the oven." Here Kit -blushed hotly, remembering how her first batch had risen to the occasion -beyond all expectations, and rambled during the night all over the edge -of the pan and the arm of the chair she had set it on. "And, Dorrie, -precious, if you catch mice in traps alive, and then decide to tame -them, we'll have mice all over the place." - -Doris had discovered a nice little brown prisoner under the pantry -shelf, had taken him out into the rose garden and there let him go, all -in a spirit of lofty pity that left Kit and Jean speechless. - -Also, Doris had taken to rescuing flies caught on sticky paper, putting -them into pill boxes until they recovered their usual blithe and -debonnaire attitude towards life. Also, sundry noises having issued -from her room at night, the other girls had started down the dark hall -to investigate, and had stepped on turtles which Doris had found sunning -themselves on logs in the pond, and had put into empty tomato cans and -smuggled up to her room for future humanitarian reference. - -"Go for us, Queen Mother," Jean cried valiantly. "Go for us. It's the -only way we'll ever learn anything. I told Kit to fix the bread a dozen -times. I was reading up tomato plants, and Helen was cutting out a -stencil for her scrim curtains--conventionalized tulips--" - -"Lotos buds," corrected Helen. - -"Well, I'm not sure. They look like raised biscuits to me. I wish -spring would hurry along and make up its mind to stay a while." She -pressed her nose against the window pane and stared out at the land. -Letters had come from some girl friends back at the Cove that day, and -she felt a wave of loneliness and half panic at what they had -undertaken. - -Just then Honey came to the kitchen door, bareheaded and smiling. - -"Piney said for me to tell you folks that she heard Ma Parmelee had some -good Plymouth Rocks for sale. They're about as reliable a hen as you -can get. Ma's going to sell off everything and go to live with her son -down in Nantic. It's near towards where I live, if you'd like to drive -over that way." - -Mrs. Robbins thought it was a good idea, and that Jean could go with -her. There had been a trip over to Rocky Glen after the purchase of -Mollie's Baby, and Mr. Butterick had been persuaded to part with a buggy -that just fit the mare. It was low and held three easily on its broad -cushioned seat, and there was a fair space at the back where odds and -ends could be packed away. - -It seemed rather foolish to call the mare Mollie's Baby every time they -spoke to her, so a family council had given her a brand new cognomen and -already she pricked up her ears when she heard it. They called her -Princess, and the Jersey heifer that came up from the State farm was -called Buttercup, after her famous predecessor. Buttercup was Mr. -Robbins' special pride on the farm and great things were hoped from her. - -Jean gathered up the reins and Honey put some burlap sacks in the back -of the wagon for the hens. - -"Better tie them to something when you start off," he advised. "They -always flop around a lot in sacks." - -It was a drive of about two and a half miles, up through the hills. -Each new road seemed to lead them straight up to the edge of the world -and then to dip again and leave cloudland behind. The woods held a haze -of green now that hung over the distant hills like a mist. Once a row -of young quail blinked dizzily from a pasture bar at the surprising -apparition of the horse and buggy. And all at once there came the quick -thud of hoofs behind them, and a young girl riding horseback drew rein -beside their buggy. She was about as old as Kit, with thick brown hair -brushed back boyishly from her face, and big friendly blue eyes. - -"How do you do," she said, blushing in a way that seemed familiar to -them, for it reminded them of Honey. "I'm Piney Hancock. Mollie -wouldn't let me ride by unless I stopped to let her see Babe." - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - *MA PARMELEE'S CHICKS* - - -"Oh, we're ever so glad to know you, Piney," Jean said at once. -"Honey's told us all about you until we felt that we really did know -you." - -Piney blushed deeper than ever, just as Honey did, and brushed a fly off -her pony's neck. She rode across saddle, in a home-made corduroy skirt, -with a boy's cap set back on her head, and a boyish waist with knotted -tie. Altogether both Mrs. Robbins and Jean approved of her at sight, -for she seemed like a girl edition of Honey himself. - -Piney told them they were on the right road, and to keep to the left -after they passed the burial ground. - -"I'm going down the other way or I'd ride along and show you where it -is." - -"You must come down to see us girls when you can, please. We're rather -lonesome, not knowing anyone around here. Are there many girls?" - -"Quite a few," said Piney. "There are the Swedish girls over on the old -Ames place, and there are two French girls near us. Their father's the -carpenter, Mr. Chapelle. Etoile's the older one and the little one they -call Tony. Her name's really Marie Antoinette. Mrs. Chapelle's awfully -funny. She told me one day the reason they changed the little girl's -name to Tony was because if she ever should get on a railroad track or -anywhere in danger, and they had to call her in a hurry, they wanted -something short and quick to say. She talks broken English, and it was -so comical the way she said it." Piney's deep dimples were showing and -her eyes were sparkling, as she imitated the voice of Mrs. Chapelle. -"How I say to her ver' fast Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette, Marie -Antoinette! She can be dead four--five--time. I call her that way, I -tink so. I yell Ton-ee! Right away she jump." - -"Isn't she a darling, Mother?" Jean exclaimed when they drove on. "I do -hope she'll come down. Kit would love her." - -"Anybody would love her," agreed Mrs. Robbins, still smiling. "You -know, Jean, I think that you girls are going to find a special work up -here that only you can do. A work among these girls of our own -neighborhood." - -"But, Mother dear, our own neighborhood up here means a radius of about -ten miles." - -"Even so. Cousin Roxana's old doctor covers twenty miles and has been -doing it for forty years; he knows all of the families as if he were a -census taker." - -Jean thought for a minute. They were going up a long hill and Princess -took her time. Honey had fastened two bunches of ferns to her bridle to -keep away flies, and she looked as if she wore a Dutch bonnet. - -"There seem to be so few real American girls up here, Mother," Jean -began slowly. "I thought we'd find ever so many, but while I lived up -at Maple Lawn I rode around a good deal, and you'd be surprised how many -foreigners are up here. Cousin Roxy told me the reason. The old -families die out, or the younger generation moves away to the towns, and -the foreigners buy up the old homesteads cheaply." - -"Well, dear?" - -"But, Mother, you don't understand. There are all sorts. French -Canadians, and a Swedish family, and a Polish family, and the old miller -up the valley from us used to be a Prussian sailor. Then there are the -real old families, of course--" - -"Do you think of confining your circle of acquaintances to the old -families, Jeanie?" - -Jean laughed at the amusement in her mother's voice. - -"I know what you're thinking, Mother, dear. Still I suppose we must be -careful just moving into a new place like this. We don't want to get -intimate with everybody. You'll like some of the old families." - -"I think I'll like some of the new ones too. Have you noticed, Jean, in -driving around, that the houses which are mostly unpainted and rather -run-down looking belong to the old timers, grandchildren and -great-grandchildren, probably, of first settlers?" - -"Oh, Mother, there are some of the most interesting stories about them -too, how they came out--walked, actually walked most of them--from the -Massachusetts Bay Colony when there was some sort of a break up, and a -few dropped off here, and a few there, and they settled in hamlets -wherever they happened to stop. I found a burial ground in the woods -near Cousin Roxy's, with old slate gravestones, and dates away back to -1717." - -"I'd like to see them, dear, but at the same time they were foreigners -too, or children of foreigners, immigrants from a far land. Can't you -understand what I mean? These newer families are like new blood to the -country. It takes only a couple of generations to blend them in, Jean, -and they bring new strength to us. Think what we get from the different -nations. I remember out in California I had a wonderful girl friend -whose people had been Polish exiles. That was a strange group of exiles -who sought a haven in our land of flowers. There was Sienkiewicz the -great novelist, and splendid Helena Modjeska, and many whose names I -forget. Wanda was my girl friend's name, and my Mother and aunts did -not like me to chum with her because she was a foreigner. I think that -you children are very fortunate to be born in an age when these queer -old earth lines, these race barriers, are falling down, and leaving the -world-brotherhood idea instead. Up here in our lonely old hills, we are -going to face this same problem that all nations are coping with, and we -in our small way can help open the gates of the future." - -"Why, Mother, I never heard you talk this way before," Jean exclaimed. -"You always seemed just dear and sweet, don't you know. I--why, somehow -I never felt you were interested in such things." - -Unconsciously, she moved a little nearer to this new kind of Mother, and -Mrs. Robbins' hand closed over hers. - -"If we mothers are not interested in them, who should be?" she asked, -her eyes full of a beautiful tenderness and compassion. "Some one has -called us the torch bearers, the light bringers, but I like to think of -women best as the tenders of the ever-burning temple lamps." - -"You mean love and truth and--" - -"I mean everything, dear, that tends for world betterment. And you -girls are going to do your little share right here in Gilead Center, -making a circle that shall join together the hands of all these girls -from different races. We'll give a party soon and get acquainted with -them all. Now let's pay attention to chickens, for I think this must be -the house." - -Princess turned into a side drive leading around to a house that stood -well back from the road. As Jean said afterwards, the house looked as -if it had been outdoors all its life, it was so weather-beaten and gray. -"Ma" Parmelee bustled out to meet them, plump and busy as one of her own -Plymouth Rocks. - -"Twelve pullets and one rooster you want?" she said. "Well, I guess I -can fix you up. I heard you folks had moved in down yonder. Thought I'd -see you at meeting Sunday but I didn't." - -Mrs. Robbins explained that they were Episcopalians and the nearest -parish was nine miles away. - -"So it is, over at Riverview, but we're all bound for the same place, so -you might as well come up and help fill the pews. Land knows they need -it." She led the way out to the big barn, followed by the chickens. -The great doors were wide open, and the barn floor was covered lightly -with wisps of hay. "Ma" scattered a measure of grain over this, and let -the hens scratch for it. - -"I have to work hard for what I get, and they ought to too," she said -pleasantly. "Now, we'll take any that you like and put them into bags. -I'm going to sell you my very best rooster. His name's Jim Dandy and -he's all of that. He's pure Rhode Island Red, and two years old. You -don't have to worry about hawks when he's around." - -After the chickens were all safely in the bags and put in back of the -wagon seat, "Ma" waved good-bye and told them not to forget the Finnish -family that was moving into her house. - -"I'm going to live with my married daughter, and these poor things don't -know a living soul up here. Do drive over and speak to them as -neighbors. There's a man and his widowed sister and her children. All -God's folks, you know." - -"Finns," murmured Jean speculatively, as they drove away. "There's a -new blend to our Gilead sisterhood, Motherie." - -Mrs. Robbins laughed at the puzzled expression on her eldest daughter's -face. - -"We'll let Kit drive over and see them," she promised. - -Spring seemed to descend on the land all at once in the next few days, -as if she had quite made up her mind to come and sit a while, Cousin -Roxy said. One day the earth still looked wind-swept and bare, and the -next there seemed to be a green sheen over the land and the woods looked -hazy and lacy with the delicate budding leaves. - -One night as Doris was out shutting up the hen houses and filling the -pigeons' pan with water, she stopped short, her head upraised eagerly -like a fawn, listening to a new sound away off along the edges of the -woods, and deep down in the lower meadow where the brook flowed. -Keenest and sweetest it sounded over where the waters of the lake above -the old dam moved with soft low lapping among the reeds and water -grasses. Here it became a curiously shrill trilling noise, subdued and -yet insistent like the strumming of muffled strings on a million tiny -harps. - -"It's the peep frogs," called Honey, coming up from the barn with -Buttercup's creamy contribution to the family commonwealth. "They're -just waking up. That means it's spring for sure." - -"Isn't it dear of them to try and tell us all about it," Doris cried -delightedly, and away she ran to the house to insist that Kit and Jean -and Helen come straight out-of-doors and listen too. In the twilight -they walked around the terraces below the veranda, two by two. Once -Helen stopped below their father's window to call up to him in the long -"Coo-ee!" their mother had taught them from her own girlhood days out in -California on her grandfather's ranch. - -Day by day they would assure each other of his returning strength and -health. The country air and utter restfulness of life as it ran here in -channels of peace were surely giving him back at least the power to -relax and rest. He slept as soundly as Doris herself, all night long, -something he had not been able to do in months, and his appetite was -really getting to be quite encouraging. The little nurse had left -Greenacres the fifteenth of April both because of his gain in health and -also to decrease expenses. - -"And you needn't worry about anything at all, Mother darling," Kit had -assured her. "Just keep right upstairs with Dad and let us girls run -the kitchen, and we'll feed you on beautiful surprises." - -Mr. Robbins smiled over at them, and quoted teasingly: - - "The Chameleon's food I eat; - Look you, the air, promise crammed." - - -Piney paid her promised visit within a few days, and from her the girls -received their first real information about the other girl neighbors -around Gilead Center. - -Honey was ploughing up the kitchen garden behind the house and Jean, -with Piney at her side, sat on the low stone wall that separated it from -the orchard, studying a seed catalogue diligently. - -"I'd love some elephant ears and castor beans and scarlet lichens in big -beds along the terraces," she said. "Think of the splashes of red up -against those pines, girls. Remember the Jefferies' place back at the -Cove. Mrs. Jefferies paid her gardener a hundred dollars a month." - -"You'll like the rare, rich red of radishes and beets and scarlet runner -beans better," Piney declared merrily. "We always lay out money on the -food seeds first and then what is left can go for flowers. Anyhow, when -you've got heaps of roses and snowballs and syringas and lilacs and -things that keep coming up by themselves every year, you don't need to -buy very much. Did you find the lilies of the valley down along the -north wall? Mother says they used to be beautiful when she was a girl." - -The girls were silent, remembering what Cousin Roxana had told them of -the romance of Luella Trowbridge. But Doris's curiosity got the better -of her caution, and she coaxed Piney away to hunt for the delicate pale -green spear points with their white lilybells hidden away under the -hazel bushes. - -It was Piney, too, who took them up the hill to the rocky sheep pasture -and showed them where arbutus bloomed around the edges of the gray, -mossy rocks. And it was Piney who pointed out to them the wintergreen, -or checkerberry, as she called it, with its tiny pungent berries. - -"She's perfectly wonderful," Kit declared that day at the noon dinner. -"She knows the exact spot in this entire township where every single -flower bobs up in its season. We found saxifrage at the base of an old -oak, and white trilium and blood root, and perfect fields of bluets. -And she wouldn't let us pick many either, only a few. She says it's just -as cruel to rob a patch of wild flowers of all chance of blooming again -next year as it is to rob birds' nests." - -Here Helen chimed in. - -"And she's going to teach me how to start a flower calendar. Not in a -book, Motherie. We're going to take some of that dull castor-brown -burlap that was left from the library and mount specimens on it, then -make a folio with leather covers of dyed sheepskin." - -"Piney seems to be a regular dynamo for starting activities," said Mrs. -Robbins amusedly. - -"She is, just exactly that," Kit answered earnestly. "I never met a -girl with so many ideas up her sleeve. And they're as poor as Job's -turkey, too. Piney told us so herself. And here she is, cooped up in -Gilead Center without any outlet at all. She knows what she wants to -do, but we girls can tell her how to do it." - -"I wonder what her real name is," Helen pondered. "Maybe it's Peony. -Cousin Roxy calls peonies 'pinies." - -"It's much nicer than that," Jean said. "I can't think of any other -name that would suit her. It's Proserpine. The minute she told me I saw -her wandering along the seashore with the winds of the isles of Greece -blowing back her funny short curls, and her hands up to her lips calling -to the sea maids to come and play with her while her mother was away." - -"That's all very pretty and poetical, Sister Mine, but Piney's going to -peddle our rhubarb for us," Kit remarked. "I think that rhubarb is one -of the most grateful plants we have. It seems to spring up everywhere -and pay compound interest on itself every year. I found a lot of it -growing and thought it was peonies or dahlias, but Piney told me it was -rhubarb, and we're going to market it. She says there's a big cranberry -bog on this place too, away off in some sunken meadows above the dam, -and we must look out because somebody comes and picks them without -asking anything at all about it. So we're going to watch the old wood -road that turns into the sunken meadows. We can see it, Mother dear, -from the eyrie outlook, and heaven help any miscreant who takes our -cranberries!" - -"I wouldn't start looking for him yet awhile, dear. Cranberries won't -be along until frost," laughed Mrs. Robbins. - -Doris, with Honey's help, was devoting herself to the hens. Although -they had come rather late, still quite a few were setting, and Doris had -several almanacs and calendars marked with the dates of the "coming -offs," as Honey put it. Then there were about twenty tiny balls of fluff -in the brooder from Cousin Roxana's incubator, and over these Doris -crooned and fussed and wasted more sentiment than any chickens deserved. - -"But they're motherless. Think of being born motherless and helpless--" - -"Don't be ridiculous, Dorrie," Kit said crossly. "You can't be born -motherless. You're hatched." - -"And if they don't know any better, what's the difference?" added Jean. - -"I don't see that at all," Doris insisted plaintively. "Every time I go -there and they call to me, I just want to take them in my lap, and cry -and cry over them." - -One of "Ma" Parmelee's pullets had turned out to be a vagrant. Never -would she stay with the rest of the chickens in the hen house or yard, -or even around the barnyard. She was jet black and very peculiar. At -feeding time she would show up, but hover around the outskirts of the -flock and nibble at kernels of corn anxiously. - -Jean named her "Hamlet" in fun, because she said she was always looking -for "rats in the arras." But her real name was Gypsy. It was agreed -that Gypsy had no idea of her natural obligation to society at all, that -she didn't have the slightest intention of setting on any eggs, in fact -that she didn't even have the gratitude to lay any eggs. All she did was -appear promptly at meal time and eat her share. - -"There'll be Gypsy a la Reine one of these fine Sundays," Kit prophesied -darkly, but Doris begged for her life. In fact, whenever chicken was on -the bill-of-fare Doris always begged off any of her flock from -execution, and Honey had to go to one of the neighboring farms and -purchase a fowl. - -"It seems so awful to eat a chicken that you're well acquainted with," -Doris explained. "And another thing, Motherie, did you know that the -boys set traps around? Not now, but in the fall. At least, I think it's -in the fall. I had Honey paint me some signs on shingles and I'm going -to put them all over the place." - -"What do they say, dear?" - -"They say just this," Doris's tone was full of firmness and decision. - -"_Any traps set on this-property will be sprung by ME._" - -"Do they state who 'Me' is?" - -"I signed it with Dad's name, and put underneath 'Per D.'" - -Jean wrapped loving arms around the youngest robin. - -"Dorrie, you're a sweety," she said. "We don't appreciate you. You -adopt everything in sight, but we have to look out for most of your -orphans and semi-orphans. Never mind, Dorrie. I'm for you anyway." - -"We're such a devoted and loyal family tree, I think," sighed Doris. -"Don't you, Motherie? I'm so glad I'm a branch." - -"You're not, dear, yet. You're just a twig," Kit teased. "And Mother -is the beautiful dryad who lives in her very own family tree. Isn't -that interesting, though? One thing about us, girls, is this, and it is -very consoling. Scrap as we may, we turn right around and become a -mutual admiration society at the slightest excuse. Good-night, -everybody. The night is yet young, but I've promised Honey,--or rather, -Honey and I have a bet that I couldn't get up at five and help weed the -garden. And we bet my three foot rule against Honey's two pet -turtles--" - -"Are they trained?" asked Doris eagerly. - -"They will be if they're not already. Don't anyone call me, because -it's got to be fair running. Good-night." - -Helen and Doris decided that they were sleepy too, and the three went -upstairs together, leaving Jean and her mother to read in the big -living-room. Presently Mrs. Robbins glanced up and saw that the book lay -idle on Jean's lap, and she was looking down at the wood fire that -burned on the old rock fireplace. - -"What is it, dear?" she asked. "Tired?" - -Jean shook her head, and smiled half-heartedly. - -"I'm awfully ashamed of it, Mother, but I do get so lonesome now and -then, for everything, don't you know? All the people that we knew and -the things that we used to do. Nothing happens up here." - -"Well, cheer up," said the Motherbird happily. "I am lonely too -sometimes, but there is so much to compensate for what we have lost that -I feel we must not dare be unhappy. And Father grows better every day." - -Jean dropped on her knees beside her mother's chair, arms folded close -around her. - -"You dear, precious, most wonderful person that ever was," she cried. -"Don't even _think_ of what I said! I'm not a bit lonely, and tomorrow -I'm going to see Piney and make calls." - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - *GILEAD'S GIRL NEIGHBORS* - - -The breakfast hour at Greenacres was supposed to be seven-thirty, but -the girls rose at about six and spent the hour before out in the garden. -It was so fascinating, Helen said in her rather reserved way, to be -out-of-doors in the early morning. Sometimes when the air was warmer -than the ground there would be a morning mist out of which rose clumps -of tree tops like little islands. - -The following day at five-thirty exactly, Jean wakened drowsily to find -Kit standing by her bed, booted and spurred for the fray, as one might -say. - -"I want you to look at this clock and be a witness that I'm up on time," -she said briskly, holding up a bland, nickel-plated clock from the -kitchen, a relic of the days of Tekla. "It's perfectly gorgeous -outside, Jean. I don't see how you girls can lie and sleep with all -nature calling." - -"Nature didn't call you before, did she, Kathleen Mavourneen? Go away -and let me sleep." - -"Well, I get the turtles anyway. I've got them named already." She -seated herself blithely on the foot of the bed, "Triptolemus and -Prometheus. Like them? I'll call them Trip and Pro for short." - -Jean sat up in bed and hurled her pillow at the laughing, fleeing form. -From the end of the hall came a last challenge. - -"I'm the early bird this morning anyway, Sleepyhead." - -After breakfast though, when the little dew-spangled cobwebs were gone -from the meadow grass, Jean had Honey harness Princess, and declared she -was going to drive over and get Piney to accompany her on a round of -calls. Kit and Doris were busy out in the kitchen garden, and Helen was -helping with the dusting and upstairs work. For some reason Jean wanted -to go without them on this first reconnoitering expedition. - -She drove down the hill towards Gilead Green, bowed with a little rising -flush of color at the group in the front of the blacksmith shop, and -stopped in front of the brown and white house where the Hancocks lived. -It might have been the veritable witch's house in "Hansel and Gretel," -all constructed properly and comfortably out of sugar-loaf and -gingercakes. The clapboards were a deep cream color and the trimmings -were all of brown, scalloped and perforated with trefoils and hearts. -The green stalks of tiger lilies grew in thick clusters along its picket -fence, and marigolds and china asters were coming up in the long beds. - -"Hello, Jean," called Piney buoyantly, beating some oval braided rugs -out on the back line. "Can you stop in?" - -Jean leaned forward, the reins lying in her lap. - -"I wanted to see if you couldn't go driving with me. Just so I can meet -some of the girls. We want to give a lawn social or some sort of a -summer affair to get acquainted with our neighbors. It's too warm for a -house warming, so we'll have a garden party." - -"Why, the idea," Piney exclaimed, dropping her stick and pushing back -her hair. "I think that's awfully nice. Wait till I ask Mother if I -can go." - -Jean waited and presently Mrs. Hancock stepped out on the side porch and -down the steps to the carriage. She was rather like Honey and Piney, -curly-haired and young appearing, with deep dimples and eyes that still -held an abiding happiness in their blue depths. Her face was careworn -and there were lines around her mouth that told of repressed pain, but -it was the look in the eyes that held you. Luella Trowbridge may have -gone through trouble, but she had married the man she loved and had been -happy with him. She stretched out both hands to Jean. - -"Honey's told us so much about you all up there that it seems as if I -know every single one of you," she said, pleasantly. "You're Jean, -aren't you? Of course Piney can go along if she wants to. Don't forget -the new girl over at the old Parmelee place." - -"It's funny, you're speaking of a lawn social," Piney remarked, as they -drove away. "We've been wanting to give one up at the church--" - -"Which church?" asked Jean. "I can see so many little white spires -every time I get to a hilltop. They look like fingers pointing up, -don't they?" - -"I suppose so." Piney was not much given to sentiment. "Anyway, here -in our part of town, we've got two. Mother belongs to the Methodist but -Father was a Congregationalist, so Honey and I divide up between them. -Then over at Happy Valley, three miles south, there's another -Congregational church, and we wanted to give a social--" - -"Who wanted to?" - -"We girls up here at our Congregational church. But our folks don't get -along very well with the folks at the Green church, and they say we're -just dead up here, dead and buried because we never get anything up. -And Mr. Collins, our minister, isn't on speaking terms with the Green -minister because something went wrong when old Mr. Bartlett died. He -wasn't a professor, you see--" - -"What's that?" Jean's eyes were wide with interest. She was getting -local data at the rate of a mile a minute. - -"Didn't belong to any of the churches at all, but he was awfully nice, -so when he died a year ago, Mr. Collins said he'd bury him, though the -Green minister had said he wouldn't; so there you are. Then the other -minister is a lady--" - -"Forevermore!" gasped Jean. - -"She's the best of them all, just the same," Piney said soberly. "Only -the two other ministers say it isn't the place for women in the pulpit, -and how on earth we're ever going to have any social and invite them -all, I don't see." - -Jean's eyes suddenly shone with the joy of a new idea. - -"I do," she said. "Let's visit all the three parsonages first off." - -So they followed the road over to the Green and stopped at the white -colonial house where Mr. Lampton lived. He was tall and gray-haired, -and welcomed his callers with a twinkle in his eyes. It was not -customary for two girls to pay a business call at the parsonage, but -Jean launched upon her subject at once. His advice and co-operation -were asked, that was all. Greenacre lawn would be given for the social, -and the girls would look after the refreshments and the Japanese -lanterns to decorate the grounds. Ten cents could be charged for ice -cream and cake, and the ladies could donate the cake. The proceeds -would go to church needs. - -"I didn't tell him how many churches, did I?" said Jean, when they drove -away with Mr. Lampton's earnest promise to help. He was invited to -attend a committee meeting at Greenacres the following Saturday. - -Miss Titheradge of the Happy Valley Church was delighted with the idea. -Jean liked her at first sight. She was rather plump, with wide brown -eyes that never seemed to blink at all, and rosy cheeks. - -"It's just what I've been telling the folks up here in these old granite -hills. Get together, warm your hands at the fire of neighborly love and -kindness. Have socials and all sorts of good times for your young -people and your old people. Bless everybody's hearts, they only need -stirring up and turning over, and the old fire burns afresh. Yes, I'll -help, children." - -"We're sure of Mr. Collins," said Piney, as they drove away this time. -"I'll see him myself, and tell him about the committee meeting at your -house on Saturday. Now we can find some of the girls." - -Jean never forgot that afternoon. They drove miles together, stopping -at the different houses and meeting the girls who were, to Jean at -least, the new material upon which she had to work. - -At the old Ames place they found the two Swedish girls, tall, blonde, -and blue-eyed, working out in the onion patch with their brothers. -Ingeborg was the elder and Astrid the younger, sixteen and fourteen -years old. They had moved up from New York two years before, but had -both gone to the public schools there and were ready for anything Jean -suggested. - -"Ingeborg belonged to a basket ball team," Astrid said. "I can swim and -row best." - -The Chapelles lived in a little gray house close to the road on -Huckleberry Hill, two miles below Cousin Roxana's. Etoile was shy-eyed -and graceful, smiling but non-committal, and little Tony peered around -her mother's skirts at the stranger in the carriage and coquetted -mischievously. But they would come, ah, and gladly, Mrs. Chapelle -promised. - -"They like ver' much to come, you see?" she said eagerly, trying to -detach Tony from her skirt. "Ton-ee, I have shame for you, _ma petite_. -Why you no come out, make nize bow? Etoile, go bring some lilacs, make -quick!" - -Etoile sped away to the tall rows of white and purple lilac bushes, and -broke off two large bunches to put in the back of the wagon. Then Mrs. -Chapelle remembered that she must send over to her new neighbor a pat of -her butter. Such beautiful butter never anyone see, never. Jean must -drive around through the lane and see the three Jersey cows browsing -there in the clover field, Henriette, Desiree, and Susette. - -Last of all came the Icelandic farm, and here Jean found only the hired -men, two grave-faced, light-haired transplanted vikings, who eyed her -curiously and silently. Hedda, the daughter, and her mother had driven -over to sell two young pigs at the Finnish place. - -"Oh, dear me," laughed Jean, "let's go home. I feel as if I had been -riding like Peer Gynt, all over the world, just touching at countries -here and there. Let's go right straight home, so I can talk to Mother -and get a perspective on it all." - -"Better ask the Mill girls over while you're about it," Piney suggested, -so they made one last stop at the red saw-mill in the valley below -Greenacres. "They're Americans. My chum lives here, Sally Peckham. -She's got five sisters and three brothers, but Sally's the whole family -herself." - -The three brothers worked in the saw-mill after school hours, and Jean -only caught a glimpse of them, but Sally sufficed. She came running out -of the kitchen with a brown and white checked apron covering her up, and -her red hair blowing six ways for Sunday, as Piney said laughingly -afterwards. She was short and freckled and not one bit pretty, unless -good health and happiness and smiles made up for beauty. But the -instant you met Sally you recognized executive ability concentrated in -human form. - -"Billy, keep out of those lettuce beds," she called to a younger -brother, strayed somehow from the mill. "How do you do, Miss Robbins--" - -"Oh, call me Jean," Jean said quickly. "We're close neighbors. If we -didn't hear your whistle we'd never know what time it is." - -"Well, we've been intending to get up the valley to see you, but -Mother's rather poorly, and all the girls are younger than me, so I help -her round the house. We've got twins in our family, did Piney tell you? -Piney and I named them. We thought of everything under the sun, Martha -Washington and Betsey Ross, and Ruth and Naomi, and Mercy and Faith, and -then we got it all at once. We've had twins in our family before, -Josephine and Imogene, that's Mother and Aunt Jo, but we didn't want to -repeat. Somehow, it didn't show any--any imagination." She laughed and -so did Jean. "So we called ours Elva and Sylvia. We say Elvy and Sylvy -for short. Anne and Charlotte are twelve and nine and the twins are -only five. They're too cute for anything. Wish you'd all come down and -see us Sunday afternoon." - -"Sally'd ask the whole world to supper Sunday afternoon," Piney said as -they finally turned up the home road. "She's just a dear, and she has -to work all the time. She never has a single day to herself, and she -doesn't mind it a bit. She does manage to get away to sing in the choir -Sunday mornings, but that's all. And even if she isn't pretty, she's -got a voice that makes gooseflesh come out all over you, and you shut -your eyes and just tingle when it rises and falls. I love her, she's -so--oh, so sort of big, you know. Isn't her hair red?" - -"It's coppery and it's beautiful," Jean answered decidedly. "I think -she's dandy. Why can't the twins and Anne and Charlotte buckle in and -help, so that Sally can get away once in a while?" - -"Her mother says she can't do without her." - -Jean pondered over that and finally tucked it away for the consultation -hour with the Motherbird, as being too deep for her to settle. - -It had been a very profitable afternoon, and after she had taken Piney -home, she drove into the home yard, feeling as if she really had a line -on Gilead Center girls. Doris came running down to meet her as she -jumped out, while Honey came to take care of Princess. Doris's eyes -were shining with excitement. - -"Jean Robbins, what do you suppose has happened?" - -"Something's sprouted," Jean guessed laughingly. Doris spent most of her -time watching to see if any of the seeds had started to sprout. - -"No. It isn't that. Gypsy's got little chickens. She marched into the -barnyard with ten of them, as proud as anything. And nobody knows where -she hatched them at all. Isn't she a darling to attend to it all by -herself?" - -Jean had to go immediately to see the new brood. Gypsy had cuddled them -around her in the barn on a pile of hay and steadfastly refused to be -removed. If ever a hen looked nonchalant she did, quite as if she would -have said, "I can do it just as well as any of these ridiculous nesters -that you're so proud of, and my chicks are twice as perfect as theirs." - -"They're wonderful babies, Gypsy," Jean told her. "Be careful of them -now. Mothers have to behave themselves, you know. No more gallivanting -off to the wildwood." - -"She probably will. I'm going to have Honey put them into a little coop -tomorrow and her too, and let's change her name, Jeanie. Let's call her -something tender and motherly. Call her Cordelia, after the Roman -Mother with the jewels, that Mother was telling us about." - -So Cordelia she was, and Gypsy seemed to acclimate herself both to -maternity and to her new cognomen. It only proved, as Kit remarked, -what children would do for a flighty and light-minded person, and she -trusted that some day Doris would have twins to occupy her mind. - -Jean changed her dress and ran down into the kitchen to help get supper -and tell her experiences of the day, which proved so entertaining and -comical that Mrs. Robbins finally came out and asked if they were ever -to have anything to eat. - -"Dad's tray is all ready, Mother mine," Jean replied, sitting up on the -tall wood box behind the stove, "I'm just waiting for the scones to -bake, and Kit's fixing a beautiful jelly omelette. Mother, dear, you -never saw anything so funny as these precious inhabitants, but they're -all gold, just the same, and I like them. And we're going to have a -lawn party here and invite all the warring factions. Isn't that nice? -All the folks that aren't on speaking terms with each other we've asked -to serve on the committee, so they'll have to come here for tea and chat -sociably and neighborlike with each other." - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - *COUSIN ROXY TO THE RESCUE* - - -"We've forgotten to write Mr. McRae and tell him how much we like the -house," Helen said a few days later. - -"He doesn't know anything about the house, or care either," protested -Kit, struggling with some raspberry canes that needed disentangling and -tying back against the woodshed boards. "He's never even seen it. Do -you suppose he has the least bit of sentiment for it the way we have or -Piney has? I wouldn't bother to write to him." - -"Oh, I would," Helen answered serenely. She was down on her knees in -the clover diligently hunting four-leaved ones. "It isn't his fault -that he's never seen the place. Maybe we could coax him back." - -"We don't want to coax him back. It must be our one endeavor to keep -him right out there in Saskatoon forever. We must tell him the cellar's -damp and the roof leaks and the whole place has gone to rack. If we -don't he may come East and take it away from us, and we want to save up -and buy it and give it back to Piney and her Mother and Honey." - -"What's Honey's real name?" asked Doris irrelevantly. "I never thought -to ask him. Somehow it does seem to suit him, doesn't it?" - -"He wants to study electrical engineering or else be a rancher," Kit -said. "I never asked him what his real name is. You're awfully -inquisitive, Dorrie." - -"What do all boys see in ranches, I wonder. Back at the Cove, Otis -Phelps always wanted to be a cowboy and he's got to be a lawyer, his -father says." - -"Maybe he'll escape West some day and be whatever he likes. I think one -of the very worst things in life is to have to be something you don't -want to be." Kit surveyed her work admiringly. "Of course, in the ups -and downs and uncertainties, as Cousin Roxy would remark, we must be -prepared for all things, but if you can dig inside of yourself and find -out what you're best fitted for, then you ought to aim everything at -that mark. If Honey wants to be an electrical engineer, he ought to get -books now, and swallow them whole, and if he wants to be a rancher, he -ought to go West--" - -A voice came from midair apparently, overhead on the woodshed roof which -Honey was patching with waterproof paint and tar. It was a mild and -cheerful voice and showed plainly that Honey was personally interested -in the conversation. - -"I can't go West just now, Mother needs me; but I'm going as soon as I -can." - -The three girls stared up at him with laughing faces. - -"Honey Hancock," exclaimed Doris, "why didn't you sing out to us -before?" - -"Wanted to hear what you had to say," said Honey simply. "Thought maybe -I'd get some good advice. And my first name's Guilford. The whole -thing's Guilford Trowbridge Hancock. I'm named for my grandfather. -Piney called me Honey when I was a little shaver, so I suppose I'll be -that all my life." - -"Piney and Honey," repeated Helen musingly, "when you're really -Proserpine and Guilford. Nicknames are queer, aren't they? I think that -babies should all be called pet names till they're old enough to choose -their own. Still Guilford's a good name. It's a name to grow up to, -Honey. You ought to be stout and dignified, don't you know, like Mr. -Pickwick." - -"Guess I don't know him, do I?" asked Honey. "Piney wants to be -something too, but girls can't do that. She wants to be a builder and -look after land. She wants to go to the State Agricultural College too, -and take the forestry course. Do you know what she does? She read some -place that the chestnut trees were dying out, so she takes a pocketful -of sound chestnuts with her whenever she goes out for a walk in the -woods, and every once in a while she sticks her finger in the ground and -plants a chestnut. What do you think of that?" - -Kit drew in a deep breath. - -"I think she's wonderful. We'll do that too. And acorns and walnuts. I -don't see why she can't go to the State College if she likes, or why she -can't take the forestry course. It isn't whether you're a boy or a girl -that matters in such things. It's just whether you can do the work that -counts." - -"She can shut her eyes and walk through the woods and tell the name of -every tree just by feeling its leaves." - -Jean appeared on the back porch and called down to them to come up and -wash for dinner. This noon-time wash-up was really a function after one -had been working and grubbing in the garden all the morning. Honey -would bring in a fresh pail of well water first. Some day Kit intended -demanding water piped into the house from Mr. McRae, but now they used -the well. - -Just as Honey came into the summer kitchen with the pail of water, Ella -Lou's white nose showed outside the door by the hitching post and Cousin -Roxana's voice called to them. - -"No, thanks, I can't stop," she called. "I want Betty and Jean." - -Mrs. Robbins came downstairs from her husband's room, cool and charming -in her black and white lawn, with her hair piled high on her head, and -little close curls framing in her face. - -"Why, Roxy, come in and have dinner with us," she exclaimed. - -"Don't talk to me about things to eat, Betty," answered Cousin Roxana -briskly. "Never had such a set-to in my life. Why, I'm so turned over -I can hardly talk. The poor thing, all alone up there on that hill with -nothing but woods around her. Enough to make anybody lose heart, I -declare it is. Get your bonnet right on, Betty. We can't stop for -anything. I wouldn't eat dinner with King Solomon and the Queen of -Sheba." - -"What is it? Please tell us," Jean pleaded, and all three girls crowded -around the carriage. - -"Don't waste time, Jean. Get your hat on. She may be dead by now. It's -that little Finnish woman up on the Parmelee place where you bought your -chickens. Her husband's only been dead a little while, took sick on the -ship coming over and died at Ellis Island, I heard. And she's pined and -pined with four children on her hands, and this morning she just tied-- -Oh, my land, I can't talk about it. Do come along. Thank the Lord the -water wasn't very deep in the well and they've got her out. And we call -ourselves church folks and Christians." - -"Had I better take anything with me, Roxy?" asked Mrs. Robbins, hurrying -down the porch steps with a motor cloak thrown around her. "Medicine, do -you think?" - -"No, I've got everything. Always keep emergency things on hand. You -never can tell up around here what's going to happen. Bennie Peckham -ran a big wooden splinter through his palm the other day, and didn't I -have to get it out for him? And Hiram stepped square bang on a piece of -glass and cut his foot so he's still going around like old -Limpy-go-fetch-it. Have to be prepared for anything when you live out -here. This morning Hiram stood his fishing pole up against the side of -the house and the line got loose, and one of my best ducks swallowed the -bait. I got it out, though. Go long there, Ella Lou, pick up your -feet." - -Ella Lou started away as if she knew what lay ahead. Jean sat between -her mother and Cousin Roxana, listening with wide eyes as the latter's -tongue rambled on. It was a beautiful day. The air was heavy with -fragrance. Bluebirds preened and fluttered on nearly every fence rail, -and robins hopped along the meadows, chirping mate calls. In the -roadside thickets the swamp apples were all in radiant pink blossom, -whole bouquets of rare color, with overhead the white dogwood flowers -and wild crab-apple. - -"It seems fearful that anyone should want to die a day like this," said -Mrs. Robbins. "How old is she, Roxy?" - -"Old enough to know better, to my way of thinking, with all those -children dependent on her for love and care and upbringing," said Roxana -promptly. "But that's neither here nor there. We mustn't judge another -because we don't know how we'd act in their place. There are four -children and her brother. The brother's been around peddling -vegetables, potatoes and apples, but everybody's got all they need -around here, and he didn't have the gumption to drive fourteen miles to -town with them. If I'd been his sister, I'd have hitched up and taken -them myself. Men folks are all right in a way and I suppose if the -proper one had come along, I'd have married the same as the rest of -women folks, but from what I can tell of them at a distance, they're -fearful trying and uncertain." - -The hill dipped into a deep valley mottled with cloud shadows. When -they came in sight of the old Parmelee place, there were the four -children grouped forlornly around the barn door as if the presence of -tragedy at the house had frightened them away from it. Cousin Roxy -waved to them and smiled. - -"Come here," she called. "Yes, that tallest boy. 'Most twelve, aren't -you, son? Old enough to hitch a horse. What's your name?" - -"Yahn," answered the boy shyly. - -"Yahn? Guess that's Johnnie in plain American, isn't it?" She jumped -to the ground as nimbly as any girl, and handed him the hitch rope. -"Doctor got over yet?" - -Johnnie shook his head sadly, and the youngest girl broke suddenly into -frantic, half-stifled sobbing. - -"There's your work cut out for you, Jean," Roxana said briskly. "You -amuse these children while your Mother and I go into the house." - -So Jean took the three youngest for a walk over into the woods, and told -them stories until the frightened, blank look left their eyes and they -clung around her confidingly. Yahn and Maryanna, Peter and Rika. From -Yahn, who could speak a little English, she found out that the family -had only been in the wonderful new land a year, that their mother had -been sad for weeks, and would never smile. - -"She says she don't know nobody and nobody want to know her. Too many -woods all around, too." - -"Never mind, she's going to know everyone now," Jean promised hopefully. - -Over in the house Cousin Roxy was promising about the same thing to the -discouraged little Finnish settler. Weak and listless, she lay on the -bed in the room. A morning glory vine rambled up the window casing, and -framed in a view of the orchard in full bloom. Pink and white petals -drifted from their boughs like fairy snow. Mrs. Robbins looked at them -wistfully and remorsefully. She had only lost in worldly goods. This -woman had lost husband and hope and happiness, and the old well back in -the orchard had been her solution of life's problem. If little Yahn had -not seen her fall into it, she would have been dead now. When her eyes -opened, and Cousin Roxy questioned her, she only shook her head, and -whispered: "Too tired." - -"Upon my heart, Betty, I think I'll just bundle her up and take her home -with me for a while to rest and feed up, and you can take a couple of -the children down with you. Maybe Johnnie and the other boy could stay -here with the uncle. Anyway, we'll pull her through." - -When the old doctor came he agreed it was the very best thing to do. -The Finnish brother had stood helplessly around in the kitchen, getting -hot water ready when he was told to and eyeing the form on the bed with -perplexity. - -"She haf plenty to eat," he kept saying, until Cousin Roxana took him by -the shoulder and almost shook him. - -"Don't be so silly," she exclaimed. "Man can not live by bread alone, -and neither can a woman. She needs to be heartened up once in a while. -And put a cover on your old well." - -Helen, Kit, and Doris were all watching for the return, and when Jean -handed them out Maryanna and Rika, the two little Finns, Kit gasped. - -"It's our first chance at what Mother's been telling us about," Jean -declared, flushed and enthusiastic, as she turned her two charges out to -play with Doris. "It doesn't matter whether your neighbor happens to be -a Finn or a Feejee. He's your neighbor and it won't do to let him or his -sister take tumbles into old wells because they're strangers in a -strange land." - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - *THE LAWN FÊTE* - - -For two weeks the little Finns remained at Greenacres, getting rosy and -happy. The girls hunted up their old toys; Rika rambled around with a -little red express wagon, and Maryanna hugged a big doll to her heart -all day long and slept with it at night. - -Up at Maple Lawn the tired mother grew steadily better, partly from Dr. -Gallup's medicine, partly from Cousin Roxy's persistent infusion of -hope, womanly courage, and endurance into her mind. As she grew -stronger she began to help Cousin Roxy around the house, and Hiram in -caring for the cows. This was odd for a woman, it seemed to Miss -Robbins, but Karinya told her it was what she had always done in the -homeland when she was a girl, dairy work on a farm, and she liked it -best. And out of this grew a plan that Mrs. Robbins helped with. There -were three good Holstein cows over at the Finnish home, and when Ella -Lou took back the Mother and two kiddies, Cousin Roxana put up a -business proposition to the brother and sister. They were to make -butter, the very best butter they could, and Mrs. Robbins would get -customers for them back at the Cove in Long Island. Homemade butter up -here in the hills ranged from ten to twelve cents below the city market -price, and was better in every way. So prosperity began to dawn for the -little woman who had been too tired to live, and Cousin Roxana kept an -eye on the upland farm all summer long, with Jean to help with the -children. - -After the children went home, the girls turned their attention heart and -soul to the lawn party. The first thing to be sure of was a full moon. -This came along the last week in June, so they made their arrangements -accordingly. - -The committee meeting turned out a success in every way. Saturday -afternoon Mrs. Robbins and the girls set the dark green willow chairs -and table under one of the pines on the lower terrace, and prepared to -conquer. The three ministers arrived, each one surprised to find the -other two present, but all very gracious and pleasant. - -"Why, they were almost cordial before they left," Kit declared after it -was over. "I think the prospect of having anyone besides Cousin Roxy -make an effort for a good time inspired them. I'm to have charge of a -fishpond, and Helen will sell flowers with fortunes attached to them, -and Dorrie can help with the ice cream. I know that will suit her." - -"I'm to be gypsy fortune teller," Jean announced. "Mother, dear, may I -have your Oriental silk mantel scarf, please, and the gold bead fringe -off the little boudoir lamp in your room?" - -"You may have anything to help the cause along," Mrs. Robbins answered -happily. "I've sent down to New York for Chinese lanterns to decorate -the grounds with, and Hiram's going to play the violin for us. I'm sure -it will be very sociable and just what they need up here." - -Honey and Piney took almost as much interest in the affair as the girls -themselves. All that day, when it finally did arrive, they worked, -putting wires around the trees out on the lawn, and hanging up the -many-colored lanterns. Two tents were erected, one for Jean as the -gypsy, and the other for lemonade, made in two big new tubs. Helen said -she had cut and squeezed lemons until her whole mouth was puckered up, -and her finger nails felt pickled. Kit was everywhere at once, it -seemed. She inspired the two ministers to join hands in brotherly ardor -and erect long plank tables for refreshments. She showed Honey how to -twist young birches together and make an inviting arch over the entrance -posts at the end of each drive. She beguiled Hiram, who had come down -from Maple Lawn to help around a bit, into moving the piano out on the -front veranda. - -"When you're tired of playing the violin for them, Mother or one of us -girls will play the piano. Music sounds ever so nice at night." - -It did seem as if all Gilead Center, Gilead Green, and Gilead Proper had -turned out to show its neighborly spirit. There were teams hitched -along the road, and teams hitched in the barnyard and the front yard and -everywhere. The Chinese lanterns made the grounds look wonderfully -enticing and Hiram sat up on the veranda in a kitchen chair tipped back -against the wall, and played bewitchingly, so Helen said. - -"I shouldn't wonder, Miss Robbins, if we had as many as a hundred folks -here tonight," said Mr. Lampton. - -"More likely two hundred, Mr. Lampton. It only goes to show what really -lies back in our hearts and needs digging up--sociability. Bless their -hearts, how I do love to see them all enjoying themselves." Cousin -Roxana moved her glasses half an inch higher up on her nose and surveyed -the scene. Miss Titheradge was helping Mr. Collins pass the ice cream, -and the two were chatting happily together. - -Up on the veranda Mrs. Robbins hovered between the Morris chair, where -Mr. Robbins sat, and her various guests, welcoming each in her own -charming way, and blending the different social elements together with -tact and understanding. - -Helen and Kit followed Jean's lead. First Jean rounded up the girls -whom she had met on the drive with Piney and introduced them to the -other Greenacre girls. Doris could not be located from one minute to -another. She was like a firefly, bobbing around with a big orange -colored Chinese lantern on the end of a long mop handle. But Helen and -Kit led the other girls over to the refreshment tent and had them all -don little white aprons and help serve ice cream and cake. It was much -better than standing around, shy and silent, not knowing what to do -next. Kit found one girl, Abby Tucker, leaning disconsolately against a -pear tree at the side of the drive. Her white dress was too short for -her, and her hair was cut short to her neck and tied with a bow on top -very tightly. She looked lonely and rather indignant too. - -"Don't you want to come over and help us with the ice cream?" asked Kit. - -"No, I don't," said Abby flatly. "They always ask me to help pass -things to eat at the church suppers. I want to have a good time myself -tonight. Though we aren't going to have a good time." - -Kit looked at her doubtfully. She thoroughly realized the state of mind -that will not let itself be happy, that in fact, finds its happiness in -being unhappy, but Abby's moroseness baffled her. - -"Don't you like it here?" she asked. - -Abby nodded. - -"Don't you know anyone?" - -"Know most of them. My father's a blacksmith and they all come over to -get shod." - -"Then what is it?" Kit laid her arm around the stooped shoulders and at -the touch of real human sympathy, Abby's reserve melted. - -"My new shoes pinch awful," she exploded. - -Kit never stayed upon the order of her going. She took her straight up -to the house to her own room, and ransacked closets and shoe boxes until -she found a pair of low shoes to fit Abby, and the latter came down -again smiling and radiant, ready to serve ice cream, or make herself -agreeable in any way she could. - -Piney came up to the veranda where Mrs. Robbins sat, personally -conducting her mother to meet her. She was a tall, fair-haired woman -with deep dimples, like the children's, and a happy face. Seated in a -willow rocker on the veranda with the roses and honeysuckle shedding a -perfume around, she breathed a sigh of relief. - -"Seems so nice to sit up here again, Mrs. Robbins," she said. "Piney's -told me all about how you've fixed the place up till it seemed as if I -couldn't wait to see it. I used to drive over once in a while after -Father died, and get some slips of flowering quince and rose bushes to -set out. You know I love every blade of grass in the garden and every -pine cone on those trees." - -"It's too bad you and the children could not have had it." - -"Well, I don't know. I never fret much over what has to be. Maybe this -boy Ralph is all right. He's my nephew, but I've never seen him. His -father was a claim settler out in Oregon first off, when Cousin France -married him. We called her that. Her name was Francelia. Good stock, I -guess. I wish Honey could know him, he's so set on being a rancher. I -suppose settling and ranching's about the same thing?" - -"Not quite," Mrs. Robbins told her. Then came a chat about her own -father's ranch in California, and when Piney came back after her mother, -she found her all animated and interested over Honey's future. - -Kit and Etoile were arranging a dancing class for alternate Saturday -afternoons, the ones between to be given up to lawn tennis and basket -ball. Ingeborg and Astrid and Hedda Hagerstrom stood listening and -agreeing with shining eyes and eager faces, but silent shy tongues. -Hedda was short and strong looking, with the bluest eyes possible and -heavy blond braids. She stared at Kit with wide-eyed wonder, Kit, -radiant and joyous in her prettiest summery dress, with sprays of -flowering almond around her head like a pink blossomy crown. - -"You'll come, won't you, Hedda?" she asked. "And bring any other girls -over your way." - -"There's only Abby over my way. We live on the same road." - -"Then bring Abby, but tell her to wear old shoes. We ought to find -enough girls to make up a good team out here." - -"Do you like hikes?" asked Sally Peckham. "I think it would be fun to -have a hike club, and each week tramp away off somewhere. There's ever -so many places I want to see." - -"It's a good idea, Sally," Piney exclaimed. "First rate. We could call -ourselves the Pere--pere--what's that word that means meandering around, -Jean, don't you now?" - -"Peregrinating?" - -"That's it. Peregrinating Gileadites." - -"I think 'Greenacre Hikers' would be better," said Ingeborg. "I'd love -to go along, wouldn't you, 'Trid?" - -Astrid was sure she would. So while Hiram played "Good-night, Ladies," -and the three ministers smiled and shook hands together and with their -hostess and host, the girls of Gilead planned their first campaign for -summer outings. - -It was after twelve before the last team had driven away. Hiram and Kit -went around with a couple of chairs, mounting them to reach the lanterns -and blow out the candles inside. Doris was found sound asleep in the -library on the couch. Jean and Helen hunted in the grass for lost -spoons and ice cream saucers. - -"How much do you suppose we made?" asked Mrs. Robbins. "I'm so proud of -it, I had to tell our executive committee. Forty-five dollars and -thirty-five cents. Isn't that good for Gilead?" - -"Good land alive!" Cousin Roxana exclaimed, her shoulders shaking with -laughter. "I didn't suppose you could ever find so much money around -loose in Gilead. They're all of them tighter'n the bark to a tree. I -do believe, Betty, they paid ten cents admission to the grounds just to -see what you all looked like." - -"I don't care if they did," Jean said happily. "We got acquainted with -all our neighbors, and now I feel as if I could go ahead and organize -something." - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - *KIT PULLS ANCHOR* - - -The following Saturday had been set as the first day for the girls to -meet at Greenacres. Sally was the first to arrive, as she lived nearest, -and she brought with her Anne and Charlotte, who, in a process known in -large families, had become Nan and Carlie. - -Hedda and the two girls from the old Ames place, Ingeborg and Astrid, -arrived together and helped Kit and Helen plan the tennis court. Below -the terraces the lawn lay smooth and even out to the south wall, but it -had been decided to sacrifice a slice of the hay field across the road -rather than the garden, and Hiram had ploughed up a good sized oblong of -land for them, harrowed it smooth, and then the girls had pondered over -the problem of rolling it. It must be rolled flat, wet down, and rolled -again until it was fit to use. - -"We could fill a barrel with sand, and roll that," Doris suggested, -thoughtfully. - -"Got something better than that," Honey said. "Over at Mr. Peckham's -they've got a road roller. Mr. Peckham's the road committee in Gilead -township--" - -Kit caught him up, - -"The whole committee, Honey?" - -"Ain't he enough? Ought to see him get out and clean up with those boys -of his. He'll let us take it, I'm sure, and it will roll that court -down as smooth as can be. I'll go after it this afternoon when I finish -with the potato patch." - -"Don't I wish we had the old garden hose," Helen said, after they had -carried buckets of water from the well unremittingly for nearly an hour, -and emptied them on the harrowed patch. "I'm half dead." - -"Cheer up, sister mine," Kit told her briskly. "Think of the result. -'Finis coronat opus!' From dawn till dewy eve we will play out here." - -"We've got a croquet set down at the house, but the boys are always -using the mallets to pound something over at the mill, and the balls get -lost. I like this best." Sally stood with arms on her hips, smiling -happily. "What else are you going to do up here?" - -"Next we're going to start weekly hikes," Kit told her. "You girls have -lived here for years, haven't you--" - -"We just came up a while ago," Ingeborg corrected. - -"I know, and so did Hedda, but Etoile and Tony and Sally and the rest of -you all grew right here, didn't you? Well, then. What do you know -about the country for ten miles around?" Kit paused dramatically. "Do -you know every wood road and cow path through the woods? Do ye ken each -mountain peak and distant vale? Where does Little River rise? Have any -of you followed the rock ledge up into the hills?" - -"Nobody but the hunters go there, and they don't come till fall," said -Hedda gravely. She hardly ever smiled, this transplanted little -daughter of far-off Iceland. Her manner and expression always seemed to -the girls to hold a certain aloofness. Up at her home, later on, they -saw a finely carved model of a viking ship which her father had made -back in the home island, and Jean declared after that she always -pictured Hedda standing at its high prow, facing the gale of the -northern seas, her fair hair blowing behind her like a golden pennant, -her blue eyes fearless and eager. - -"But we'll go. With something to eat and trusty staves. That makes me -think, girls, we haven't seen many snakes. Aren't there any up here, -Sally?" - -"Lots. But mostly black snakes. They're ugly to look at, but they -don't hurt you. And little garter snakes, and green grass snakes. I -never think about them." - -"Are you afraid of anything out here, Sally?" Doris asked, interestedly. -She had eyed Sally admiringly from the first moment of their -acquaintance, and privately Dorrie held many fears. It was all very well -to say there wasn't anything to worry over, as Kit did; but one may step -on toads in the dark, or hear noises in the garret that make one shiver -even if they do turn out to be just chipmunks after corn and huts. - -"Nothing that I know of," Sally replied serenely. "I never felt afraid -in the dark. Just as soon go all over the house, up stairs and down, -and into the cellar, as not. And I go all over the barn and garden at -night. Guess the only thing I'm really afraid of is a bat." - -"Everybody's afraid of something," Etoile said, her eyes wide with -mystery. "I have the fear too, oh, but often. I am most afraid of -those little mulberry worms, you know them? They come right down at you -on little ropes they make all by themselves, and they curl up in the air -and then they drop on you. Ugh!" - -Kit fairly rolled with delight at this, over on the grass. - -"How perfectly lovely," she laughed. "Tell some more, Etoile." - -"We've got a haunted house on our road," Astrid said in a lowered voice. -"The little spring house between the old mill and our place. It's been -there years and years, my father says. He knows the old man at the mill, -and he told him. As far back as they can remember it has always been -haunted. First there lived an old watchmaker there. He had clocks and -watches all over the house, and they ticked all the time." - -"Maybe they kept him from being lonely," Helen suggested. - -"He was very strange, and when he died, then two old Indian women came -to live there. And there was a peddler used to go through and put up -over night there, and he never was seen any more." - -"You can see the grave in the cellar where they buried him," Ingeborg -whispered. "Right down at the foot of the stairs. And at night he -comes up and goes all around the house, rattling chains. Yes, he does. -My brother went down with some of the boys and stayed there just to find -out and they heard him." - -"Let's go over there on our hike and stay over night, girls," Kit -exclaimed. "I think it would be dandy." - -"Don't you believe in ghosts, Kit?" asked Sally. "I don't like to -believe in them, but I just thought they had to be believed in if -they're really so." - -"Remember in Dickens's 'Christmas Carol,'" Jean joined in, "hew old -Scrooge insisted that he didn't believe in ghosts even when the ghost -sat right beside him, and rattled his chains?" - -"Oh, don't, Jeanie," Doris begged, arms close around the big sister's -neck. "Don't talk about it." - -"We'll stay over night at the spring house, girls," Kit promised -happily. "It's a shame to have a real ghost around and not make it -welcome. If there are any ghosts they must be the lonesomest creatures -in all creation because nobody wants them around. Suppose we say that -next Friday we'll walk up to the house and camp out for the night. -Who's afraid?" - -The girls looked at each other doubtfully. - -"Can I bring our dog along?" asked Ingeborg. "Then I am not afraid, I -don't think." - -"Bring anything you like. I'm going to take an electric flashlight. -Here comes our roller, now. We'd better finish the tennis court." - -That night the girls talked it over themselves up in Jean's room. It -was always the favorite council hour, when all the queen's hand-maidens -combed their silken tresses, as Helen said. - -Somehow it did seem as if you could think clearer and weigh matters -better, after you were undressed, with a nightgown and kimono on, -sitting cross-legged on the bed or couch. Mrs. Robbins always stopped on -her way to bed to look in at either one room or the other, and chat for -a while. She listened with an amused smile to the story Ingeborg had -told. - -"The fear of the dark, they say, comes from away back in the first dawn -of the world," she said. "It is the old dread of the unknown the cave -man felt when darkness fell over the land and wild beasts prowled near. -But this other idea about the ghost is queer, isn't it, girls? Do you -really want to stay over night there?" - -"I think we'd better, Mother dear," Jean answered comfortably, "We'll be -the warrior maidens, and slay the dragon Fear which hath most wickedly -enthralled our fair land. That's a nice little house, and everyone's -afraid to live in it." - -"Ingeborg told me after you girls came up to the house, that there was -one door in the sitting-room nobody could keep shut. It swung open all -the time." - -"Never mind, Helen," Kit said. "I'll take it off its hinges, and cart -it right down cellar. Then I guess it will behave itself." - -Cousin Roxana told the story of the old spring house when they saw her. -She could remember Scotty McDougal, the old watchmaker who had lived -there. - -"Land, yes, I should say I could. He used to wear an old coonskin cap -with the tail hanging down, and carried an old gun along with him -wherever he went. After he died, two old women moved in from somewhere -in the woods towards Dayville. They were Injun, I guess, or gypsy, real -good-hearted folks so far as I could see. Used to weave carpet and rag -rugs and make baskets. There was a story around that they could tell -fortunes and see things in the future, but that's just talk. I never -pay any attention to such things at all. The Lord never has seen fit to -let His way be known excepting through His own messengers. Probably, if -you could clear the house of its name, somebody'd be willing to live in -it. It belongs to Judge Ellis." - -"Who's Judge Ellis?" asked Kit, who always caught at a new name. - -"Who is he?" Cousin Roxy laughed heartily. "Meanest man in seven -counties, I guess. He ran for Senator years ago, and was beaten, and he -took a solemn oath he'd never have anything to do with anybody in this -township again, and I guess he's kept it. He lives in the biggest house -here." - -"All alone?" asked Doris. - -"All alone excepting for a housekeeper and his grandson. He's just a -fussy old miser, and the way he lets that boy run wild makes my heart -ache." - -"How old a boy is he, Roxy?" asked Mrs. Robbins, quick sympathy shining -from her eyes. - -"Oh, I should say about fifteen. Name's Billie. He's a case, I tell -you. What he can't think of in five minutes isn't worth doing. Still, -he's a good boy too, at that. Five of my cows strayed off from the -pasture lot last summer and he found them after Hiram had run his legs -off looking for them. And once we lost some turkeys, and he found them -over in the pines roosting with the crows. He knows every foot of land -for ten miles around here and more, I guess. You never know when he's -going to bob out of the bushes and grin at you. The Judge don't pay any -more attention to him than if he was a scarecrow. Seems that he had one -son, Finley Ellis, and he was wild and the Judge turned him off years -ago. And one day he got a letter, so Mr. Ricketts told me, from New -York, and away he went, looking cross enough to chew tacks. When he -came back he had Billie with him, and that's all Gilead ever found out. -Billie says he's his grandfather, and the Judge says nothing." - -"I'd like to see him," Jean exclaimed. - -"Who? The Judge?" - -"No, no. Billie, this boy. What does he look like?" - -"Looks like all-get-out half the time, and never comes to church at all. -You'll know him by his whistling. He can whistle like a bird. I've -heard him sometimes in the early spring, and you couldn't tell his -whistle from a real whip-poor-will. There is something about him that -everybody likes." - -"I hope he comes over this way," Mrs. Robbins said. - -"Oh, he will. The Judge never lets him have any pocket money, so he's -always trying to earn a little. He'll come and try to sell you a tame -crow, most likely, or a trained caterpillar. I was driving over towards -their place one day and I declare if I didn't find him lying flat in the -middle of the road. Ella Lou stopped short and I asked him what he was -doing. 'Don't drive in the middle of the road, Miss Robbins,' he said, -''cause I've got some ants here, taming them.' Real good looking boy he -is too." - -"My, but he sounds interesting," Kit remarked fervently. "I almost feel -like hunting him up; don't you, Jean?" - -Jean nodded her head. She was putting up currants and raspberries, and -the day was very warm. - -"Why do you keep a fire going in the house?" Miss Robbins asked her. -"Put an old stove out in the back-yard, the way I do, and let it sizzle -along. Good-bye, everybody. I hear all the ministers are still -speaking to each other." - -"Come down and play tennis with us," called Helen. - -"Go 'long, child." Cousin Roxy chuckled. "How would I look hopping -around like a katydid, slapping at those little balls! Get up there, -Ella Lou." - -"Well," Kit exclaimed, as the buggy drove away, "it seems as if every -single day something new happens here, and we thought it would be so -dull we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves." - -"You mean Billie's something new?" asked Helen. - -"Doesn't he sound interesting? I'm going out to ask Honey about him." - -"You'd better help me finish these berries, Kathleen," Jean urged. So -Kit gave up the quest temporarily, and sat on the edge of the kitchen -table, stripping currants from their stems, and singing at the top of -her clear young lungs: - - "'Oh, where have you been, Billie Boy, Billie Boy, - Where have you been, charming Billie?' - 'I've been to seek a wife, she's the comfort of my life,' - But she's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother.' - - "'Did she bid you come in, Billie Boy, Billie Boy, - Did she bid you come, charming Billie?' - 'Yes, she bid me come in, with a dimple in her chin, - But she's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother.' - - "'Did she offer you a chair, Billie Boy, Billie Boy, - Did she offer you a chair, charming Billie?' - 'Yes, she offered me a chair, with the ringlets in her hair, - But she's a young thing and cannot leave her mother.' - - "'Can she make a cherry pie, Billie Boy, Billie Boy--'" - - -"Oh, Kit, do stop," begged Jean. "It's too hot to sing." - -Kit looked out at the widespread view of Greenacres, rich with the uncut -grass, billowing with every vagrant breeze, like distant waves. It was -hot in the kitchen, hot and close. - -"I'll bet he'd let her stay right in the kitchen keeling pots and making -cherry pies, too," she said suddenly. - -"Who?" - -"Who?" wrathfully. "All the Billies of the world. They can ramble -fields and whistle like whip-poor-wills, but we've just got to stay and -make cherry pies forever and ever, amen." - -"Why, Kit, dear--" - -"Don't 'dear' me. I want to get out and tramp and live in a tent. I -hate cooking. I don't see why anybody wants to eat this kind of -weather. I'd nibble grass first." - -"Yes, you would," laughed Helen. "You'll be the first at supper to lean -over sweetly and ask for preserves and cake. I see you nibbling grass, -Miss Nebuchanezzar." - -But Kit had fled, out the back door and over to the pasture where -Princess rambled. - -"Kit's fretful, isn't she?" - -"She's pulling on her anchor," answered Jean. "We all do. Some days I -get really homesick for the girls back home and everything that we -haven't got here,--the library and the art galleries and the lectures -and the musicales and everything. I think we ought to write down and -ask some of the girls to come up." - -"I don't. Not until Dad's well." - -Doris was out of hearing. Jean looked over at Helen, who in some way -always seemed nearer her own age than Kit. - -"Helen, honest and truly, do you think Dad's getting any better?" she -asked in a low voice. - -Helen hesitated, her face showing plainly how she dreaded acknowledging -even to herself the possibility of his not improving. - -"He eats better now, and he can sit up." - -"But he looks awful. It fairly makes my heart ache to look at him -sometimes. His eyes look as if they were gazing away off at some land -we couldn't see." - -"Jean Robbins, how can you say that?" - -"Hush. Don't let Mother hear," cautioned Jean anxiously. "I had to -tell somebody. I think of it all the time." - -"Well, don't think of it. That's like sticking pins in a wax statue -back in the Middle Ages, and saying, 'He's going to die, he's going to -die,' all the time. He's getting better." - -Jean was silent. She felt worried, but if Helen refused to listen to -her, there was nobody left except Cousin Roxy. Somehow, at every -emergency Cousin Roxy seemed to be the one hope these days, unfailing -and unfearing. Dauntless and cheerful, she rode over every obstacle like -some old warrior who had elected to rid the world of dragons. - -But when Jean found an opportunity of speaking to her of her father, -Cousin Roxana's face looked oddly passive. - -"We're all in the Lord's hands, Jeanie," she said. "Trust and obey, you -know. There are lots worse things than passing over Jordan, but we've -just got that notion in our heads that we don't want to let any of our -beloved ones take the voyage. Jerry's weak, I know, and he ain't -mending so fast as I'd hoped for, but he's gained. That's something. -You've been up here only a couple of months. It took years of overwork -to break him down, and it may take years of peace and rest to build him -up. Let's be patient. Dr. Gallup seems to think he's got a good deal -more than a running chance." - -Jean wound eager, loving arms around the plump figure, and laid her head -down on Cousin Roxy's shoulder. - -"You dear," she exclaimed. "You're the best angel in a gingham apron I -ever saw. I feel a hundred times better now. I can go back and work." - -"Well, so do, child, and comfort your mother. Hope springs eternal, you -know, in the human breast, but it takes a sight of watering just the -same to make it perk up." - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - *GUESTS AND GHOSTS* - - -It would never do to leave Piney out of any jaunts, Kit said, as the end -of the week drew near again, and so Honey was commissioned as despatch -bearer. - -"Tell her we're going to walk from here over to Mount Ponchas, and back -by way of the Spring House. We want to start at five Friday night." - -"Ought to start at daybreak for a hike," Honey replied. "Never heard of -starting near sundown. You'll fetch up by dark at the rock ridge and -sleep in a deer hollow." - -"Maybe we will," Kit responded hopefully. "I hadn't thought of that, -Honey. It sounds awfully nice. If you could just get a peep at our -lunch you'd want to hike too, no matter where we fetched up." - -"I've camped out along the river. Not this river. The big one down at -the station, the Quinnebaug. We boys go down there when the bass is -running and fish for them nights. Eels too." - -"Do you know a boy named Billie Ellis?" Kit asked suddenly. "Does he -ever go along with you?" - -"Billie Ellis? I should say not." Honey was very emphatic. "Judge -Ellis wouldn't let him go along anywhere with the rest of us fellows. He -caught a big white owl the other day over in the pines back of the Ellis -burial ground." - -"I wish he'd come over our way some time. I'd love to know him. He -sounds so kind of--well, different, don't you know?" - -"He's different all right," laughed Honey, good-naturedly. "I remember -once three years ago it was awfully cold, and we boys had been skating -and went into the blacksmith shop to get warm, Abby Tucker's father's -shop. And who should come in but Billie Ellis without any hat on, and -only an old sweater and a pair of corduroy knickers on, and shoes and -stockings. We asked him how he ever kept warm such weather, and what do -you suppose he said?" - -"What?" Kit's face was eager with interest. - -"Said he had seven cats he kept specially to keep him warm. Said the -Judge wouldn't let him have any fire, so he trained the cats to cuddle -around him and keep him warm all night! Good-night. I'll tell Piney you -want her to go along with you." - -Kit sat out on the terrace after he had passed up the hill road. Jean -and Helen were upstairs with their father, and Doris was practising her -music with her mother in the big living-room. Somehow, Mother's fingers -made scales sound sweet. Honey had been gone about fifteen minutes when -Kit heard the sound of a carriage coming along the level valley road. -It couldn't be anyone for Greenacres, she thought; but just then the -carriage turned in at the wide drive entrance and came up to the veranda -steps. - -"You had better wait," she heard a voice say, such a dandy voice, young -and full of happy sounding. Then somebody bounded up the steps, three -at a time, and crossed the veranda, with her sitting right there on the -top terrace below the rose and honeysuckle vines. Kit was always -precipitous in her conclusions. It flashed across her mind in one -brilliant, intuitive wave that this was Ralph McRae, from Saskatoon. -Doris's madcap verse ran riot through her brain: - - "Oh, Saskatoon, - Don't come too soon--" - - -There was no door-bell or even knocker, and the double doors stood wide -open, but the screen doors were locked, inside, so Kit stood up and -called. - -"Just a minute, please. I'm coming." - -He waited for her, cap in hand and smiling. It was shadowy, but she saw -his face and liked it. As she told the other girls later, it looked like -all the faces you could imagine that had belonged to the real heroes' -best friends, the Gratianos, and Mercutios, and Petroniuses of life. - -"Is this Miss Robbins?" he asked, and Kit flushed at the tone. As if -she didn't long seventeen hundred times a month to be _the_ Miss Robbins -like Jean. - -"No. I'm only Kit," she answered. "You're our Mr. McRae, I think. How -do you do?" - -He took her proffered hand and shook it warmly, until there were little -red lines around her rings, and Kit led him around to the side door and -let him in while she lighted a lamp. - -"Mother's in here," she said, leading the way into the living-room. -Mrs. Robbins sat by the west window. She loved the quiet rest hour -after sundown, and Doris was playing with the soft pedal down. "Mother, -dear," Kit said. "Mr. McRae's come from Saskatoon." - -"Just as if he'd stepped over the whole distance in about seven -strides," Doris told later, after Mr. McRae had been safely disposed of -in the guest chamber, and the family could discuss him safely. "I think -he's awfully nice looking, don't you, Jean?" - -"I can't think about his looks, Dorrie," Jean replied laughingly. "All -I can do is wonder what he has come after. Does he want the house and -farm? Or has his conscience troubled him so much about Piney and her -mother and Honey that he's going to lay Greenacres on their front -doorstep in restitution? Or did he just want to see what we all looked -like?" - -"Ask him," suggested Kit blandly. "He seems to be a very approachable -young man so far as I can see." - -"He wanted to go up to Cousin Roxy's for the night and Mother wouldn't -let him. That shows that she likes him." - -"Mother'd spread her wing over any lone wanderer after nightfall, -Helenita. Wait and see what the morrow doth portend. We'll go for our -hike just the same." - -The next day Mr. Robbins sat out in a big steamer chair on the veranda -with the stranger, and seemed to enjoy his company wonderfully. - -"I do believe, Mumsie," Jean said, "that poor Dad has been smothered -with too much coddling. Just look at him brace up and talk to Mr. -McRae." - -"I hope we can persuade him to stay with us while he is in Gilead." - -"He doesn't act as if he needed much persuading. They've rambled all the -way from salmon culture to Alaska politics and whether alfalfa would -grow in Connecticut. Now they're settling Saskatoon's future. It -appears that if no cyclones hit it, Saskatoon will be a booming town. -I'm glad we don't need any cyclone cellars here." - -"Jeanie, you tempt Providence with your jubilant crowing. Come and help -me put up our lunch. Bacon and biscuit are going to be the staff of our -existence, with gingerbread and cheese for the reserves." - -It had been agreed that the girls should meet at Greenacres that -afternoon. Honey had been sent up to Maple Lawn with a note announcing -the arrival of Ralph McRae, and inviting Cousin Roxy down for tea. She -drove down about four, fresh as a daisy in her black and white dimity -and big black sun hat with sprays of white lilacs on it. Ralph helped -her out and stood smilingly while she ran her fingers through his thick -brown hair and patted his shoulder. - -"Just the sort of boy I expected Francelia'd have," she said happily. -"Well set up and manly too from all appearances. Going to stay around a -while, Ralph, and get acquainted?" - -"Why, I'd like to, Miss Roxy. It was rather lonesome out West with none -of my own people there. I've always wanted to come back here and see -all of you. Mother used to talk a lot about you all to me when I was -little. She didn't have anybody else to tell things to." - -"Like enough," Roxy responded rather soberly for her. "You must meet -your cousins." - -"I didn't know I had any." - -Miss Robbins glanced over to the woodpile where Honey was sawing some -chestnut tops for dry wood to mix in with the birch. - -"Come over here, Honey," she called briskly. "This is the boy cousin and -Piney's the girl, both children of your mother's own sister Luella. -Guess we'll get this straightened out some time. Honey, this is Ralph -McRae, your own blood cousin." - -Ralph took the tanned, supple hand of the boy in his, and held it fast, -looking down at Honey's cheery, freckled face. - -"I think we're going to be pals, old man," he said, and Honey's heart -warmed to him. Nobody had ever before called him that. - -When Piney arrived with the other girls, she too was introduced, but she -proved less pliable than Honey. Straight and tall, she faced her new -cousin, every flash of her eyes telling him that she resented his having -all while they had nothing, and Ralph could make no headway with that -branch of the family. - -At five they were ready to start. Sally could not go, nor Nan, Carlie, -or Tony. But the older girls were all there, and at the last minute -Abby Tucker came hurrying along the road with a large paper bag. - -"Thought I'd never get here, but I did," she said triumphantly. "I made -popcorn balls for all of you. And I've got some red pepper too. Going -to throw it at the ghost." - -"Why, you cold-blooded person," Kit exclaimed. "Red pepper at a poor -harmless ghost! Shame on you." - -But Abby only smiled mysteriously and gave the girls to understand that -red pepper was the very latest weapon for vanquishing ghosts. - -Jean had told each girl to bring a blanket. These were spread down and -rolled up army-fashion until they looked like life buoys, then slung -over the girls' shoulders. The commissary department consisted of Kit, -Hedda and Ingeborg, who counted over their supplies almost gloatingly. -Etoile had brought jam turnovers and deviled-egg sandwiches. Hedda had -brought loaf cake and cheese,--cream cheese with sweet red peppers -chopped up in it. - -"So funny for Hedda to bring Italian stuff. You'd expect pickled walrus -from her," Kit remarked. - -"I like this," Hedda answered gravely. "I never tasted walrus." - -Ingeborg and Astrid brought sandwiches, made of rye bread with -home-cured roast ham. And Piney appeared with a big bag of cherries, -white-hearts and deep red ox-hearts. - -"There's a loaf of gingerbread too, with raisins in it," she said. - -"You're equipped for a journey over Chilkoot Pass," Ralph told them -teasingly. "How many weeks will you be gone?" - -"We'll be home tomorrow about sundown, good sir," Kit retorted -haughtily. "Should you see the distant light of a signal fire you may -come after us." - -"Piney can tell direction by the sun," Honey said. "You won't get lost -with her along. Better keep out of the woods though. Mount Ponchas is -due south." - -The girls left the grounds of Greenacres and turned into the open road. -At each clear point they paused to wave back to the group on the -veranda, but Jean and Ingeborg led at a good pace and the rest fell into -it, following the river road to the old spring house. Helen started to -sing with Piney, and the others joined in. The first mile seemed to -vanish before they knew it, and even by the time they reached the old -red saw-mill, where Mr. Rudemeir lived, they were not tired. He was the -old Prussian sailor Honey had told them of. They met him driving a -couple of heavy Percheron horses along the river path, and he waved an -old pipe in friendly fashion. - -"He's mighty nice," Piney said fervently. "Last summer there were some -girls boarding up the valley, and they couldn't swim. One went out -beyond her depth and he saved her life." - -"Bless his heart, let's give him a cheer," Kit proposed. "He needs -encouragement." - -So they gave a rousing cheer, and the old man looked back in surprise, -grinned, and waved again to them. - -"Wait a minute," Jean said suddenly. "We've forgotten matches. Run back -and ask him for some, Dorrie, please." - -"He asked where we were bound for," said Doris when she returned. "When -I told him he said he guessed we'd have our hands full." - -"It's getting a little dark." Etoile glanced back over the shadowy road -behind them. - -"We've got a lantern and some candles," Astrid said comfortably, "and -Tip for sentinel. There isn't anything to be afraid of that I can see." - -"'Speak for yourself, John,'" Kit quoted. "If we don't see or hear -something I'm going to be awfully disappointed. And if we do hear -anything coming slowly upstairs, don't flash the electric light right at -it until it has a chance to show itself. I hope it will be a lovely -pale green, like the ghost in Hamlet." - -Etoile stopped short in the middle of the road, her eyes wide with -dread. - -"I think perhaps I'd better go right back now, girls." - -But Kit and Ingeborg wound their arms around her waist and promised -faithfully to guard her if she would only stick the night out. They went -on up the long wood-road, past the falls above the mill, past Mud Hole -where the boys fished for eels, past Otter Island where Hiram came to -fish, and on to the old spring house. It was set far back from the road -in a garden overgrown with weeds and tall timothy grass, and tiger -lilies grew rankly in green clumps along the gray stone walls. The -little wooden shelter over the well was knocked over and the boards that -protected the windows had been pulled half off. Jean went to the -kitchen door and found it unlocked. Only wasps and spiders were to be -seen, and one stout old toad that backed hurriedly out of sight under -the stone doorstep. - -"Let's look it all over before it gets really dark," she said, and they -went in and out of each bare room, upstairs and downstairs, into the old -musty cellar, even into the low-roofed loft over the summer kitchen. - -"Now, we know there's nothing here, don't we?" Kit said, after the tour -of inspection was over, and they sat out on the grass near the well, -with their lunch spread around them. "How perfectly wonderful things -taste after you've tramped, don't they? More ginger cookies, please, -Hedda." - -"Which room are we going to sleep in?" asked Abby. "I'd just as soon -sleep out here all night on blankets, wouldn't you, Etoile?" - -"We don't care if you want to," Helen agreed. "Try it on the little side -porch. Then you can watch the cellar entrance because the ghost may -decide to come up that way." - -It was getting quite dark by the time the supper remains were cleared -away. Candles were lighted and set on the mantel in the front room and -in the kitchen. Kit and Hedda had returned from a successful foraging -expedition around the barn and corn house, and had brought back armfuls -of hay to spread under their blankets on the floor. Tip, the brown -water spaniel, took the whole affair very seriously and made the circuit -of the grounds over and over again, chasing imaginary intruders. - -"Well, girls, I guess we're all ready to go to bed, aren't we?" Kit -called finally. "It's eight-thirty by Jean's watch, and we'll have to -get an early start." - -They agreed it was the best plan and went into the big living-room where -the fireplace was. The nights were still very cool up in the hills, so -Hedda and Doris had been appointed wood gatherers and a fine dry wood -fire blazed on the stone hearth. After they were ready for the night, -they sat around this in a semi-circle, eating popcorn balls and telling -stories, until all at once there came a sound that silenced every one -and left them wide-eyed and scared. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - *BILLIE MEETS TRESPASSERS* - - -It was unlike any sound the girls had ever heard back at the Cove; -almost like a human being in distress and yet like some animal cry too. - -"It's a fox," whispered Astrid, getting nearer to her big sister. - -"No, it isn't," said Abby. "That's a deer. They always yell like that -when the moon's full." - -"It was right near, I think, right outside." Kit sat up eager and tense. -"Shall I flash the light, Jean?" - -"Not yet. Wait until it comes again. I think it was only some night -bird." - -So they waited breathlessly. Every tiny creaking noise in the old house -was intensified by the heavy silence. Jean rose and went to the window. -The moon was not up yet, and it was hard to distinguish objects, but -down in the garden she thought she saw something that looked like a cow -lying down. - -"I can't tell just what it is. It may be only a stray cow or horse," -she said softly. - -"Throw something at it," suggested Kit, hopefully. "Let's all throw -something." - -"Just to see whether it jumps or not," Astrid assented. She hunted -around and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place. - -"Where's Tip? He hasn't barked once," remarked Abby. - -"Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away at -it first, girls." Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at the -dark object with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leaned -far out the window, staring at it anxiously. "It seems to me I can see -it move and it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, girls." - -"Sounds like a yak," Kit chuckled. "I'm willing to do this much. I'll -go to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks to -throw, and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me." - -But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer and -more thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challenge -and a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession of -them. As soon as it stopped Piney exclaimed: - -"Now I know. That's an owl and it comes from the little garret over the -'ell' where we couldn't climb because there weren't any stairs. Don't -you know, girls?" - -"Sure, Piney?" Etoile's tone was almost trembling. "Never I hear such -a cry." - -"Oh, I have. It's an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Riding -through the woods at night coming home from town I've been half scared -to death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled into -one. Come along, Kit. You and I'll go hunt it up." - -The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kit -leading with the flash, light. Tip stumbled up drowsily from the -kitchen door and barked at them. - -"Oh, yes, it's all very well for you to bark now," laughed Jean. "Why -didn't you go after that noise?" - -They reached the "ell" room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abby -remembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door and -this was brought in. - -"And see this, girls," she exclaimed, running her finger over it. "No -dust on the rounds. That shows it's been used lately." - -"Aren't we perfectly wonderful scouts? Abby, I love the way you never -miss anything." Kit leaned the ladder up against the wall, and mounted -it, with Piney close behind and the other girls at its base. "What if -it shouldn't be an owl--" - -She stopped with her palm against the trapdoor. Raising it about an inch -she flashed the light, and there was a great fluttering and flopping -overhead. - -"What did I tell you!" Piney cried excitedly. "Do it again, Kit. It -can't hurt you and the light blinds it." - -So the trap-door was lifted again with the light of the electric hand -lamp turned on full and Kit cautiously pulled herself up into the -aperture. It was tent shaped and low, not more than four feet at its -highest. But instead of being bare like the rest of the old house, -there were certainly evidences of human occupancy. There was a tin can -filled with fresh water, and a strip of rag carpet laid down on the -floor. A box of fish hooks and neatly rolled lines lay on one side, and -there was a small frying pan and a horn handled steel knife and fork. -Rolled up in one corner was a pair of old overalls, and some books much -the worse for wear lay beside them. Kit's glance took in everything, -and last of all, backed into a corner and blinking hard, was the ghost -itself,--a big white owl. - -Piney pulled herself up too, and reached out after the books gently so -as not to frighten the owl any more. With a couple in her hand, they -lowered the door again, and joined the others. - -"It's an owl and a hermit's nest," Kit told them excitedly. "Open the -books, Piney. Is there any name inside?" - -Piney read off the titles, - -"'Treasure Island' and 'Peveril of the Peak.' He's got a nice -collection, hasn't he, whoever he is? There isn't any name inside. -There's a bookplate in each though." - -"Let me see." Helen and Kit both tried to look at the same time. The -bookplate was pasted in each, but it was a hard one to decipher. It -looked like some cryptogram with its intertwined letter forms, and they -gave it up for the night. - -"Well, there was certainly fresh water in that tin," Kit said -positively, "and that shows the haunted house is inhabited by something -tangible, I mean something besides the owl. Let's go to bed very calmly -and sleep. I'm sure we've laid the ghost." - -It did seem as though they had, for the remainder of the night was -peaceful and safe except for the owl crying out lonesomely at intervals -until about four o'clock, when the dawn came. Rolled in their blankets, -the girls slept soundly until the sunlight threw broad golden beams into -their quarters. - -There was no rope on the windlass at the well, so Ingeborg proposed that -they go down to the river and wash there. It was lots of fun. They -found that the dark and fearsome object they had heaved bricks at the -night before was only a big gray rock half sunken in the ground. - -Along the river margin turtles sunned themselves in rows on the -half-submerged logs, and a muskrat scuttled clumsily for cover at sight -of the invaders. - -"I wish we could go right in," said Jean, looking up and down the -winding course of the river as she parted the alders; "but it isn't -really safe when you don't know the water. This looks full of -unexpected holes and snags. Where does it run to?" - -"Down past the two mills, and rises away up in the Quinnebaug Hills," -Piney told her, kneeling on a flat rock and splashing herself well. "Did -you see that black snake hustle out of the way then? They're awful -cowards. Yes, Jean, this comes from Judge Ellis's place about two miles -beyond here, three and a half by road." - -"Judge Ellis? Billie's grandfather?" - -"You talk just as if you knew him, Kit." - -"Well, I feel as if I do, and when I do I'm going to take him right -under my wing and be a mother to him," said Kit defiantly. - -"Who? The Judge?" - -"No. This Billie person. Or I'll trot him home to Mother and let her -be nice to him." - -"Here are some fishpoles, girls, hidden in the bushes," Doris called -out. "Know what I think? There are boys around." - -All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it sounded -almost like a bird trilling high and clear, but birds do not sing -"Marching Through Georgia," so the girls sat there on the bank, -sheltered from view by the alders, and waited until a flat bottomed -row-boat came into view. Standing at the stern, one bare foot on the -back seat and one on the cross seat, with a long punting pole in his -hands, was a boy of about fifteen. His head was bare and his overalls -were rolled above his knees. Whistling recklessly, sure of himself and -the solitude, he came down the river and guided the boat to shore near -where the girls sat. He hauled it up half-way out of the water, dropped -the pole into it, and started up the bank before he caught sight of -them. - -"That's Billie Ellis," Piney said quickly, and waved her hand to him in -friendly greeting. "Hello, Billie." - -"Hello," Billie returned. "Where'd you come from?" - -"We came from Whence and are going Whither," Kit spoke up merrily. "Got -some fish for breakfast?" - -Billie hesitated, trying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very much -rattled at these persons who had taken up squatter rights on his domain. -He rolled down his overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time, -and this gave the girls a chance to see just what he looked like, this -Billie person, as Kit had dubbed him. He was taller than Honey by a -good deal, with short-cropped curly hair rather nondescript in color, -and big brown eyes, eyes as startlingly frank and uncompromising in -their gaze as those of a deer. He was tanned a nice healthy brown, and -his smile was extremely satisfying if one were looking for friendliness. -Altogether, the Greenacre girls approved of Billie at sight. To the -others he was more or less familiar, even while none of them knew him -well. - -"Where you all going?" he asked. - -"Just walking over the country," Abby told him. "Where are you going, -Billie?" - -Billie flushed at this direct query. - -"Oh, I don't know," he answered lamely. "I come down the river a lot." - -"We fed the owl," Kit said innocently. "Just some bread and ham. I -suppose it thought it had a new kind of mouse." - -Billie glanced at her with quick boyish indignation. They had not been -satisfied with finding out his landing place and swimming hole. They had -gone into the old house and discovered his secret den and the big white -owl. He had always regarded girls as semi-dangerous, but this was worse -than even he had expected. He turned to Piney as the one in the crowd -that he knew best. - -"What did you go into the house for?" - -"Shelter for the night," Piney answered promptly. "The door was open -and we went in. If folks don't want company they should keep their doors -locked. Anyhow, nobody lives here and we didn't hurt a thing. We -wanted to see the ghost." - -Billie grinned at this admission, a quick mischievous grin that made his -whole face light up and seem to sparkle with fun. - -"Did he come up and rattle his chains for you?" - -"No, he didn't, and I don't believe he ever did for anybody else." - -"Maybe not," Billie agreed blandly. "How far up the river are you -going?" - -"To Mount Ponchas." - -"That's only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill road -from here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poles -on it, you turn off and go west. It's three hills over and you pass -through one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don't -forget to look for the grave of the Cavalier." - -"Where's that?" asked Jean. "We haven't heard of it at all." - -This was touching Billie's heart in the right spot. He knew every rod -of land for miles around Gilead and loved its old historic lore. The -girls did not know it then, but life was rather a dull affair over at -the Judge's place. There were only the Judge himself; Mrs. Gorham, his -housekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, the -hired man. It was rather an unsympathetic household for a boy of -fifteen, especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friends -with Ben and had found him a treasure house of information. - -There might be other sections of importance in the United States besides -Gilead Center, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He had -been born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away. -The sun had always risen and set for him beyond the encircling -Quinnebaug Hills. He was about forty when Billie first came, genial, -optimistic, rather good-looking, and an insatiable reader. - -Billie's two favorite occupations were ranging the country on personal -hikes of exploration and sitting up in Ben's room over the corn house in -the evenings, looking at his books and magazines and listening to him -talk on current topics and historic events. No topic was too intricate -for Ben to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came to -diplomatic tricks or ways. He was on to them all, as he told Billie. - -So now Billie remembered how Ben had told him about the mysterious -stranger who had come to Gilead back in the earliest days of the -settlement. The colonists had suffered much from Indian raids until -there came into their midst a man whom they called the Cavalier. With -his negro body-servant, he had lived amongst them and taught them -defense against their savage foes, taught them the best way to win over -the soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet when he died they knew no more -of him than on the first day when he rode into their village. His grave -lay over on the south side of Mount Ponchas where he had wished it to -be, near a rock where he had often held council with the Indians. - -"Be sure to see it when you get there," Billie advised. "I wish I was -going along with you." - -"Come over to our place, won't you, Billie?" Kit asked in her most -neighborly way. "I'd like to ask you about some arrow heads we found. -Will you?" - -Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird an -invitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But he -watched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and when -Doris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested in -his trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for having -discovered his pet hiding place. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - *HARVESTING HOPES* - - -It was noon before they reached Ponchas, although they might have gone -ever so much faster if every new flower by the way had not coaxed them -to linger. Then they came to a big mill in the heart of the woods, -where the men were cutting out chestnut trees for ties. Then Shiloh -Valley was so pretty it was hard to leave it. There was a little white -church, with a square steeple and green blinds, standing on a large -church green, a dot of a schoolhouse opposite, one lone store, and about -nine houses. But each house was set in its own little domain -independent and aloof, with its barn and granary, tool house and smoke -house, woodshed and corn crib, and one had a silo and a forge besides. - -The only person they saw was a little girl coming out of the store, and -she stood and watched them out of sight, with wide surprised eyes, just -as if, Doris said, they were a circus. - -"I suppose we're the most interesting sight she's seen in weeks. Wish I -could run back and coax her to go with us." - -But Ponchas beckoned to them in the distance, a violet tinted cone of -rock, and they kept steadily on until, as the shadows pointed north, -they camped for luncheon at its base. Helen and Ingeborg went hunting -the Cavalier's grave, but Hedda found it when she brought water from the -spring house that had been built over a live spring gushing out at the -base of the rock. Nearby was a heap of gray moss-covered rock piled into -a cairn, with a rugged rock cross at the head twined with wild -convolvulus. On it were cut the words: - - - "He succored us - The Cavalier - 1679." - - -"Well, I do think they might have told us more than that," Jean said, -when the other girls came to look at it. "Perhaps, though, this would -have pleased him better. Let's name him, girls." - -"Sir John Lovelace," said Helen. - -"Oh, no, give him something sturdy; call him Modred or Gregory," Kit -protested. "Gregory Grimshaw." - -They stood for a few moments in silence gazing at the quiet resting -place, wondering what the real story was of the stranger it sheltered. - -"I think his servant could have told if he had so wished," Etoile said -wisely. "I will ask my father about him. He knows many of the old -stories of the places around here. He came here from Canada when he was -a very little boy. There were gray wolves around in the winter time, and -the spring came earlier then. He has found arbutus the first week in -March." - -"What kind of wild animals are here now?" asked Doris anxiously. -"Nothing that's dangerous, is there?" - -"Wild cats sometimes," Astrid said. "Deer, foxes, 'coons, muskrats, -woodchucks, otters, rabbits, squirrels. What else, Ingeborg?" - -"I can tell you of something that really happened over where I live," -Abby interrupted. Under the excitement of the trip and its novelty, Abby -had fairly bloomed. From a listless, rather unhappy girl she had become -a sturdy, cheerful hiker. Kit had taken her under her wing from the -start. - -"It's fun getting hold of somebody so awfully hopeless," she had said, -"and trying to make her see the sun shining and the flowers growing -right under her nose. Abby's going to be happy. She's like some little -half-drowned kitten." - -It was because nobody had ever taken any interest in her before. Her -father was the blacksmith, a silent, rather morose man who had quarreled -with his own brothers and never spoke to them. Her mother was a frail, -nervous woman, so used to being yelled at that she jumped the moment -anyone spoke to her. Jean had driven over there one day to get Princess -a new set of shoes, and Mrs. Tucker had come out from the kitchen door, -a thin, flat-chested woman with straggly hair and vacant eyes. - -"How be ye," she said wistfully, looking up at the pretty new neighbor. -"How's your Ma? And Pa? Sickly, ain't he? I suffer something fearful -all the time. Sometimes my head feels as if it was where my feet are, -and my feet feel as if they were where my head is. I can't seem to make -any doctor understand what I mean, but that's exactly the way I feel, -and it's fearful confusing." - -Then Abby had come out and sort of shooed her mother back into the house -as one would a fretful hen. - -"There was a circus up at Norwich," said Abby now. "And a real live -panther escaped and the hunters said they found his tracks down our way. -Then one night when I was in bed, they knocked on our door and said the -tracks led right into our woodshed. And my father got out his shotgun -and went with them, but I went down in the kitchen with Ma, because -she's nervous, and when I started up the back stairs I saw its eyes -shining at me right under my bed." - -"How could you see your bed on the back stairs?" asked Piney doubtfully. - -"I left my door open and when I got on the middle stair I could see -right in under my bed, and there it was." - -"Abby Tucker! What did you do?" exclaimed Hedda. "You never told me." - -"What do you suppose I did? I fell right downstairs. Guess you would -have too, if you thought you saw a live panther under your bed. But it -wasn't. It scooted out past me and it was our big tiger cat Franklin." - -"Did they find the real one?" asked Etoile. - -"He is not anywhere around now, is he, Abby?" - -"Oh, land, no," laughed Abby. "They got it over in the pine woods and -it was half starved and cold. It went back to the circus." - -"Well," exclaimed Kit, with a sigh. "I used to think things were -monotonous in the country, but I've changed my mind. There's something -new happening here every minute." - -Just then Doris gave a little squeal of dismay, and jumped up. - -"Something bit my hand," she said. The girls searched in the grass and -found the breaker of the peace. It was a shiny pinching beetle. - -"Don't kill it," Abby warned. "They bury the dead birds, Ma says. -They're the sextons of the woods." - -"Maybe it thought I needed to be buried too," said Doris ruefully. "It -nipped me good and plenty." - -When they started back they sang along the road, first old songs that -all of them knew, and then Hedda sang two strange Icelandic songs her -mother had taught her, lullabies with a low minor strain running through -them. - - "Day has barred her window close and goes with quiet feet, - Night wrapped in a cloak of gray, - Comes softly down the street, - Mother's heart's a guiding star, - Tender, strong and true, - Lullaby and lulla-loo, sleep, lammie, now." - - -The other was about the reindeer that would surely come and carry the -baby away if it didn't go to sleep. She had a strong, sweet voice, and -sang with much feeling. After hearing the other girls, Jean said they -ought to have a glee club, even if they met only once a month. - -"Just for music. Mother says that music is the universal language that -everyone understands. Let's meet at our house next week, and give the -afternoon to it." - -"I think we ought to meet somewhere else, not all the time at your home, -Jean," Etoile demurred in her courteous French way. "We would be very -glad to have you with us any time." - -"Then we will come, won't we, girls?" Jean agreed. "And Sally will -enjoy that because she can sing too, and it will be near home for her. -I think we are organizing splendidly." - -But the next few weeks were filled with home activities and it was hard -to squeeze in time for all that they had outlined. There were berries -to can and preserve, and Mr. McRae prolonged his stay, but only on -condition that he be allowed to take hold of the farm, with Honey's -help, and manage the haying and cultivating for them. - -"I had no idea a man could be so handy," Kit declared. "He's mended the -sink so we don't have to cart out all the waste water, and he's burned -up the rubbish at the end of the lane, and he put new roofing on the hen -houses, and he climbed up into the big elm and put up Doris's swing for -her. I think he's a perfect darling." - -"Kit, dear, don't be so positive and so extreme," Mrs. Robbins warned -gently. "It's very kind indeed of Ralph to help us, but don't let your -speech run away with you." - -"I wish he belonged right in the family. I've always thought that every -family should have a carpenter and a gardener in it. Mother dear, to -see him climb down the well, right down into that thirty-foot black hole -and fish out the bucket after Helen had dropped it in, was a sight for -men and angels." - -"He's very capable," Mrs. Robbins agreed laughingly. "I think by the -time he goes we will have everything on the place mended and repaired. -I never saw a landlord like him." - -"He's a good doctor too, a doctor of the soul," Jean said soberly. -"Dad's been fifty per cent. better since he came. I wish when he goes -back to Saskatoon that he'd take Honey with him. Piney's able to help -her mother, and Honey's heart is set on going West. They're own cousins -and it would be splendid for him." - -"Honey's only fourteen, girlie. I think he's rather young to leave the -Mother wings, don't you?" - -Jean pondered. - -"I don't know, Mother. Mothers are wonderful people and darlings, but I -do think that every boy needs a good father and if he can't get a -father, then the next best man who can talk to him and teach him -the--what would you call it?" - -"The code of manliness?". - -"That's it. And Ralph seems so manly, don't you think so?" - -"Do you call him Ralph, dear?" - -"Well, he asked me to, mother, and I didn't want to refuse and hurt his -feelings. I suppose it made him feel more at home. And Cousin Roxy -says he's only twenty-four. I don't think that's old at all." - -It took three days to cut the hay on the Greenacre land, and the girls -had a regular Greek festival over it. They all went down and followed -the big rake and helped pitch the hay up on the wagon. Then Helen got -her kodak and took pictures of them pitching, and riding on the load up -the long lane, and of the big sleepy-eyed yoke of oxen. - -"You know," Jean said, "it looks like some scene from away back in the -colonial days. I love to watch the oxen come along that lane with the -top of the load brushing the mulberry tree branches." - -"I'm so glad that you found out what those trees were," Kit teased. -"Ever since we came here, you and Helen have been watching for apples to -grow on them. I told you they were mulberry trees." - -"It's so nice," Helen said dreamily, "to have one in the family who is -always right." - -Kit quickly fired a bunch of hay at her, but she dodged it and ran. - -"Going to cut about nine ton or more," Honey said, coming up with a pail -of spring water. "That ain't counting bedding neither. You can get -fifteen a ton for bedding." - -"What's bedding?" asked Kit. - -"Oh, all sorts of stuff, pollypods and swamp grass and such. Say, if -you go down where Ralph's cutting now, you'll see a Bob White's nest and -speckled eggs. Don't take any, though." - -"Isn't it lovely out here, Kit?" Jean wound her arm around Kit's waist -as they crossed the meadow land. "I was lonesome at first but now I -think I'd be more lonesome for this if I were away from it long." - -"I love it too, but wait until the north wind doth blow. What will all -the poor Robbins do then, poor things?" - -"We'll pull through," Jean said pluckily. "I don't feel afraid of -anything that can happen since Dad really is getting better." - -"Isn't it funny, Jean, how we're forgetting all about the Cove and the -things we did there?" Kit pushed back her hair briskly. She was warm -and getting "frecklier," as Doris said, every minute. "I wonder when -fall comes, if we won't miss it all more than we do now." - -"All what?" - -"Places to go, mostly, and people who help us instead of us always -helping them. Mother's turned into a regular Lady Bountiful since we -came out here." - -"I think they've all helped us just as much as we've helped them," Jean -said slowly. "We're getting bigger every minute. You know what I mean. -Broader minded. At home we went along in the same little groove all the -time. I think work is splendid." - -"Well, you always did have the faculty, you know, Jean, for staring -black right in the face and declaring it was a beautiful delicate cream -color. I suppose that's the stuff that martyrs are made of. Now, don't -get huffy. You're a perfect angel of a martyr. I like it out here and -I think the work is doing us good, but I'm like Helen, I don't want to -stay here all my life, nor even a quarter of it. Mother said she wanted -to let one of us older girls go back with Gwennie Phelps." - -"Back with her?" repeated Jean in dismay. "You haven't asked her up here -this summer, have you, Kit?" - -"I didn't. Helen did before we came away. Mother said she might. You -know Mother's always had the happiness of the Phelps family on her -mind." - -"But Gwennie! I wouldn't mind Frances so much." - -"Frances does not stand in need of missionary work. Gwennie does. -Anyway, she's coming up the first week in August, and Mother says that -either you or I can go back with her for two weeks before school opens. -Do you want to go, Jean? Because I really and truly don't give a rap -about it. I'm afraid to go for fear I'll like it and won't want to come -back. I'm just dead afraid of the schools up here this winter." Kit's -tone was tragic. "This year means so much to me in my work. I was -getting along gloriously, you know that, Jean, and from what the girls -here tell me, the schools can't touch ours in finish." - -"How are they in beginnings?" Jean asked laughingly. "You poor old -long-sufferer, I know what you mean. Why don't you ask Dad and Mother -to let you board down at the Cove with the Phelpses, and keep up your -old class work right there until you finish High School anyway?" - -"Seems like a desertion," said Kit. "We're here and we should stick it -out. I think you'd better go back with Gwennie." - -"We ought to talk it over with Mother thoroughly. She thinks she's -giving us a week of extra pleasure, probably, and to us it's a -temptation that we're afraid we can't withstand, isn't that it?" - -"Well, I feel like this, it's like taking a soldier out of the trenches -and throwing him into a seaside week end." - -"Kit, you always exaggerate fearfully. You're a regular Donna Quixote, -tilting at windmills." - -"But are you willing to go back?" - -"I think we'll let Helen go. She will enjoy it and not take it a bit -seriously. Helen's poise will carry her through any crisis -triumphantly." - -Kit agreed that the thought of Helen was really a stroke of diplomatic -genius. The waves and billows of circumstance only buoyed Helen up, -lighter than ever. They never went over her or disarranged her curls a -particle. Whenever Kit had one of her customary "brain storms" over -something and Helen suggested that she was "fussy," Kit always -retaliated with the statement that she was the only member of the family -with any temperament. Jean had imagination, and Doris gave promise of -much sentiment, but when it came to real temperament Kit believed that -she had the full Robbins allowance. - -"You can call it what you like, Kit. I'd leave off the last two -syllables, though," Helen would say serenely. - -"There you are," Kit always answered. "Only geniuses have any -temperament and when you've got one in the family you deny it. You'll -be sorry some day, Helenita. When you are darning stockings with a -fancy stitch for your great grandchildren I shall face admiring throngs -all listening for pearls of wisdom to fall from my lips." - -"What do you think you're going to be anyway?" - -"Haven't made up my mind yet, but something fearfully extraordinary and -special, Ladybird." - -So now when the proposition was made after supper that Helen return for -a visit to the Cove with Gwen Phelps, Helen agreed placidly that it -would be rather nice, and Jean and Kit looked at each other with a smile -of deep diplomacy. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIX* - - *RALPH AND HONEY TAKE THE LONG TRAIL* - - -The last week in July saw the end of Ralph McRae's visit at Greenacres. -He had been East nearly two months and Honey was to go back with him. -It was impossible to measure or even to estimate the inward joy of Honey -over the decision. Through some odd twist of heredity there had been -born in him the spirit of those who long for travel and adventure. -Every winding road dipping over a hillcrest had always held an -invitation for him to follow it. He had listened often to the distant -whistle of the trains that slipped through the Quinnebaug valley, and -longed to be on them going anywhere at all. At home in the little -parlor there were some old seashells that a seafaring great-grandfather -had brought back with him, and Honey loved to hold them against his ear, -listening to the murmur within. He had never looked upon the sea. To -do so was a promise he had made to himself. Some day he would go and see -it, and now Ralph told him that they would go part way by sea, up from -Boston to Nova Scotia, and around to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and -up it to Lake Ontario, and on through the Great Lakes, and so up to the -ranch in the Northwest. - -"I wish I were going too," said Piney. "I wish you were going, Mother, -and both of us youngsters. I'd love to take up a claim out there and -work it." - -"Oh, dear child, what strange notions you do have for a girl," Mrs. -Hancock sighed. "I never thought of such things when I was your age. I -wanted to be a teacher, that was all." - -"Why didn't you?" - -"Well, your grandfather said I was needed at home, and so I stayed on -until I met your father when I was eighteen. Then I married." - -"And maybe if he'd let you be a teacher, you wouldn't have wanted to get -married. I want to study all about trees and forestry and conservation, -and I want to ride over miles and miles of forests that are all mine. -I'm going to, too, some day." - -"How old are you now, Piney?" asked Ralph. - -"Going on sixteen." - -"Maybe next year when I bring Honey home, we can coax Aunt Luella to -take a trip out with you. How's that?" - -Mrs. Hancock flushed delicately, and smiled up at her tall nephew. - -"How you talk, Ralph. That would cost a sight of money." - -"Well, I tell you, Aunt Luella," said Ralph, his hands deep in his -pockets, as he leaned back against the high mantelpiece in the -sitting-room, "I want to hand over Greenacres to you and the children. -I haven't any feeling for it like you have, and it seems to me, after -talking it over with Mr. Robbins, that it rightfully belongs to you. He -would like to buy it, he says, inside of two or three years. They like -it over there, and propose to stay here in Gilead, but if you want to -take it over, I'm willing to transfer it before I go west." - -It was said quietly and cheerfully, quite as if he were offering her a -basket of fruit that she was partial to, and Luella Trowbridge Hancock -sat back in her rocking-chair, staring up at him as if she could hardly -believe her ears. - -"Ralph, you don't mean you'd give up the place yourself? Why, whatever -would I do with it? I love every inch of ground there and every blade -of grass, but you see how it is. Honey's set on going west and Piney -wants to go to college and I don't know what all. I couldn't live on -there alone, and they haven't got the feeling for it that I have. The -younger generation seems to have rooted itself up out of the soil -somehow. I wouldn't know what to do with it after I'd got it, and I -wouldn't take it away from Mrs. Robbins and the girls for anything. -Why, they love it 'most as well as I do." - -"I know, Aunt Luella, but I wanted you to have the refusal of it," -answered Ralph. "Now, then, here's the other way out. Supposing I make -it over to you, and you have the rental money, and then sell it to Mr. -Robbins when he is able to take it over. You'd have the good of it -then." - -"That's the best way, Mother," Piney spoke up. "They have all been so -nice to us, and it's just as Ralph says. They do love it." - -"You could come back east every now and then and visit if you did make -up your mind to live out at Saskatoon." - -"Land alive, the boy speaks of journeying thousands of miles as if he -was driving up to Norwich. I went to Providence once after I was -married, and that's the only long trip I've ever taken from home." - -"Then it will take you a whole year to get ready," laughed Ralph. -"Honey and I will be back for you next summer, and Piney shall have the -best pony I've got all for her own to make up for Princess." - -The night before their departure Mrs. Robbins gave a dinner for them, -with Cousin Roxana and Mr. and Mrs. Collins from the Center church. -Piney was rather morose and indignant at the fate that had made the -first Hancock child a girl and the second one a boy. - -"Honey'll like the horses and the traveling, but what does he know about -land and learning about everything? He's only fourteen." - -But Honey did not appear to be worrying. He sat between Ralph and Helen, -and really looked like another boy in his new suit of clothes with his -hair cut properly. Helen was quite gracious to him, and Jean gave him a -second helping of walnut cream cake. - -"We're going to miss you, Ralph," Mrs. Robbins said, smiling over at -him. She had heard the new business arrangement whereby Greenacres was -to become really the nest. It had been her suggestion first that Ralph -give the place to Mrs. Hancock, but since she had decided she would -rather have the sale price instead, a wave of relief had swept over the -Motherbird. The roomy old mansion had been a haven of refuge to her and -her brood during the storm stress, and now that fair weather was with -them, she found herself greatly attached to it. - -Ralph colored boyishly. He could not bring himself even to try and -express just what it had meant to him, this long summer sojourn with -them at Greenacres. He had come east a stranger, seeking the fields -that had known his mother's people, and had found the warmest kind of -welcome from the newcomers in the old home. He looked around at them -tonight, and thought how much he felt at home there, and how dear every -single face had grown. - -First there was Mr. Robbins's thin, scholarly one with the high forehead -and curly dark hair just touched with gray, his keen hazel eyes behind -rimless glasses, and finely modeled chin. Then the Motherbird, surely -she was the most gracious woman he had ever known excepting his own -mother. Her eyes were so full of sympathy and understanding that they -sometimes made him feel about ten again, and as if he wanted to lean -against her shoulder the way Doris did, and be comforted. Just the mere -sound of her soft, engaging laugh made trouble seem a very unimportant -thing in life. And Jean, almost seventeen, already a replica of her -mother in her quick tenderness and her looks. Ralph's eyes lingered on -her. She was a mighty sweet little princess royal, he thought. Then -Kit, imperious, argumentative Kit, so full of energy that she was like a -Roman candle. - -It had been Kit's voice that had spoken the first words of welcome to -him the night of his arrival. He thought he should always remember her -best as she had stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight and given -him her hand in comradely fashion. - -Helen beamed on him from her place next her mother. He came as near -being a knight errant as any that had come along the highway so far, and -Helen would have had him in crimson hose and plumed cap if possible. To -her Saskatoon meant nuggets and gold dust, and it did no good at all for -Jean to tell her she would have to adventure along the trail farther -north before she would find gold, and that the only gold where Ralph -lived was the gold of ripening harvest fields, miles upon miles of them. - -Doris snuggled against his shoulder after dinner and told him over and -over again to send her a tame bear, one that she could bring up by hand -and train. - -"Well, I guess you'll have your hands full, Ralph," Cousin Roxana -exclaimed, "if you fill all these commissions. I declare it seems as if -you belonged to all of us." - -The days that followed were very lonely ones without Honey and Ralph. -Hedda's big brother came to work at Greenacres. He was a strong, big, -silent boy named Eric. About the only information even Kit was able to -glean from him was that he had gone barefooted in the snow in Iceland -and often stood in the hay in the barn to get warm. - -The first week of August brought Gwen Phelps, and that auspicious event -should have satisfied anyone's craving for novelty. - -"I don't know why it is that Gwen always riles me, as Cousin Roxy says," -Kit told Jean after they were in bed the night of Gwen's arrival, -"unless it is the way she acts. You know what I mean, Jeanie, as if she -were the queen, and the queen could do no wrong. Helen kowtows to her -until I could shake her. Did you hear her telling that she was going to -Miss Anabel's School out at Larchmont-on-the-Sound? It's fifteen -hundred for the term, and extras, and it's nearly all extras. I know a -girl who went there--" - -"Kit, you're getting to be as bad a gossip as Mrs. Ricketts," Jean -declared merrily. - -"Well, I don't care. It isn't the way to bring a girl up. What if her -father were to lose everything like Dad, and she'd have to pitch in and -work, what on earth could she do?" - -"Solicit customers for Miss Anabel," laughed Jean. "Go to sleep, goose, -and don't covet your neighbor's automobile nor his daughter's extras." - -But before the week was over, Gwen was running around in a middy blouse, -short linen skirt, and tennis shoes like the rest of them. She and -Sally struck up a fast friendship. The sight of a girl hardly any older -than herself handling most of the cooking and housework in a large -family left a lasting impression on Gwen, and she respected Sally -thoroughly. - -"Why, she bakes the bread and cake and everything, and even does the -washing," she told Helen. "And she says it isn't hard once you get the -swing of it. Hasn't she wonderful hair, Helen? It's coppery gold in -the sun. Think of her in dull green velvet with a golden chain around -her waist like Melisande." - -"Wouldn't it look cute over the wash machine?" Kit agreed beamingly. -"Gwennie, you'll have to learn the fitness of things if you live out -here." - -"I think I'd like to live here," Gwen replied stoutly. "I like it -better than the mountain resort where we went last summer down in North -Carolina. But of course you couldn't stay up here in the winter time." - -"We are going to, though," Kit said. "Right here, with five big fires -going, and cord upon cord of wood going up in smoke. If you come up -then, Gwen, we'll promise you some of the finest skating along Little -River you ever had, and plenty of sleigh rides." - -"You haven't a car now, have you?" - -"Oh, but I could have shaken her for that," Kit said wrathfully, later -on. "When she knew we had to sell ours to her father." - -"But she didn't mean anything, Kit," Helen argued. "I think you're -awfully quick tempered." - -"I'm not. I'm sweet and bland in disposition. Don't mind me, Helenita -darling. I'm only madly jealous because I want everything that money -can buy for Mumsie and Dad and all of us. I do get so tired of doing -the same thing day after day. I'll bet a cookie even Heaven would be -monotonous if it were just some golden clouds and singing all the time. -I hope there'll be work to do there." - -Jean drove them down to the station, and when she returned the house -seemed quite empty without Helen and Gwen. But she was soon too busy to -miss them. - -Kit had been lent to Cousin Roxana for a few days to help her with her -canning and preserving. Doris had her hands full with a new calf, so -only Jean was left to help her mother study out the problem of new fall -dresses to be evolved from last year's left overs. - -"When the royal family lose their throne and fortune they always have to -wear out their old royal raiment before they can have anything new, -Mother dear. One peculiar charm of living up here is that you are about -five years ahead of Gilead styles. Kit will look perfectly stunning in -that smoke gray corduroy of mine and she may have my old blue fox set -too. I'm going to make my chinchilla coat do another winter, and fix -over my hat till I defy anyone to recognize it. Hiram gave me a couple -of beautiful white wings. I don't know whether they came off a goose or -a swan--no, a swan's would be too large, wouldn't they? Anyhow, they -are lovely and I shall wear them and feel like the Winged Victory." - -Mrs. Robbins smiled happily at her eldest. They were in the sunny -sitting-room, surrounded by patterns and pieces. The scent of camphor -was in the room, for Jean had been unpacking furs and hanging them out -to air. - -"Clothes seem of such secondary importance in the country, probably as -they were intended to be. Cousin Roxy said the other day the only -fashion she ever bothered about was whether her crown of glory would be -becoming to her, because she hadn't the slightest idea how to put on a -halo and she'd probably get it on hind side before in the excitement of -the moment. Isn't she comical, Jean? But her heart's as big as the -world." - -Jean sat on the floor straightening out patterns that had become -crumpled in packing. - -"I wonder why she never married, Mother. She's so efficient and cheery." - -"She was engaged," answered Mrs. Robbins. "Your father has told me about -it. To Judge Ellis." - -"Judge Ellis?" Jean dropped her hands into her lap and looked up in -amazement. "Why, the very idea!" - -"Have you ever met him, dear?" - -"No, not him, but his grandson Billie Ellis. We met him when we went on -the hike over to Mount Ponchas. He must have married some one else -then, didn't he?" - -"I believe so. They had a dispute a few days before they were to have -been married, and Cousin Roxana broke the engagement. They never spoke -to each other afterwards. She wanted to go up to Boston on her wedding -trip and on to Concord from there, and the Judge wanted to go to New -York, as he had some business to settle there and he thought he could -attend to it on the honeymoon trip. Roxana said if he couldn't take -time away from his business long enough to be married, she wouldn't -bother him to marry her at all. Even now it's rather hard deciding -which one was right. I'm inclined to think the very fact that they -could have a dispute about such a subject shows they were unfitted for -each other. If they had really loved, she would not have cared where -the honeymoon was held, and he would have granted any desire of her -heart." - -"Well, if that isn't the oddest romance! Won't Kit love it." - -"I hardly think I would talk much about it, dear. Roxy has never even -mentioned it to me and it might hurt her feelings. She's such a dear -soul I wouldn't worry her for anything." - -So when Kit returned home from Maple Lawn, Jean told her nothing, but -Kit brought her own news with her. - -"What do you suppose, Jeanie. We were rummaging in the garret after -carpet rags and there are old chests up there, and Cousin Roxy told me I -could look in them at the old linen sheets and things, and in one I -found"--Kit paused for a good effect--"wedding clothes!" - -"I know," Jean said. - -"You know? Why didn't you tell me, then?" - -"Mother thought I had better not." - -"Humph. I found it out just the same, didn't I? But she wouldn't tell -me who he was, and I coaxed and coaxed. I think he must have been a -soldier who died in the Civil War." - -"Oh, Kit, when Cousin Roxy's only fifty-two! Do figure better than that. -You'll have her like the Dauphins, betrothed when they were about three -years old." - -"And another thing I found out. Who do you suppose comes to see her -regularly? The Billie person. She lets him run all over the house, and -likes him immensely. We got real well acquainted. He calls her Aunt -Roxy, and if you could ever see the amount of doughnuts and cookies and -apple pie and whipped cream that boy consumes, you'd wonder how he ever -managed to get home! They must starve him over at the Judge's. Cousin -Roxy says he's so stingy that he'd pinch a penny till the Indian -squealed." - -Jean was fairly aching to tell all she knew, but a promise was a -promise, and she kept it. That night, though, she dreamt that the Judge -and Cousin Roxy were being married and that she was chasing them around -with large portions of apple pie and whipped cream. Kit heard her say -in her sleep, very plaintively, - -"Please take it." - -"Take what, Jeanie?" she asked sleepily, but Jean slumbered on without -revealing the secret. - - - - - *CHAPTER XX* - - *ROXANA'S ROMANCE* - - -Two weeks before school opened Helen came home. She was not changed at -bit, Doris said admiringly, just as if she had been gone a year. - -"Oh, I like it here so much better than at the Cove," she told them. "I -wouldn't give our precious Greenacres for all the North Shore. Only I do -kind of wonder about school, Mother dear." - -"Doris will go to the District school at the village and Kit and Helen -can drive over to the High School together. It is only five miles, and -they can arrange to put the horse up at one of the stables. In severe -weather Eric will take them over." - -Jean was silent for a few moments. Right ahead of them she could see -the winter. It would take many cords of wood to heat the big house -thoroughly. There would be plenty of potatoes and winter vegetables -down in the cellar, plenty of jellies and preserves and pickles, but the -running expenses were still to be considered, and Eric's wages, and feed -for the pony and Buttercup. - -"Mother," she said suddenly when they were alone, "have we really any -money at all to depend on? Please don't mind my asking. I think about -it so much." - -"I don't mind, daughter. Aren't we all part of the dear home -commonwealth? Nearly all that Father had saved has dwindled away during -his illness. Stocks have depreciated badly the past year. Several that -we depended on are not paying dividends at all, and may never recover. -We have just about enough cash from the sale of the automobile and other -things, Father's law books and some jewels that I had--" - -"Mother!" Jean sprang to her side, and clasped her arms close around -her. She knew how precious many of the old sets of jewelry had been, -things that had come from her grandmother on her mother's side. "Not -the old ones?" - -"No. I saved those," the Motherbird smiled back bravely. "They are for -you girlies. But I had my earrings and two rings which Father had given -to me and I sold those. Oh, don't look so blue, childie." She framed -Jean's anxious face in her two hands. "Jewelry doesn't amount to -anything at all unless it has some dear associations. Do you know the -old Eastern legend, how the Devas, the bright spirits, drove the dark -evil spirits underground and in revenge they prepared gold and silver -and precious stones to ensnare the souls of men? I was very glad indeed -to turn those diamonds into Buttercup and Princess and many other things -that have made our new home happier." - -"Wouldn't it make a lovely fairy story," Jean exclaimed, smiling through -her tears. "The beautiful queen with a magic wand touching her diamonds -and turning them into a cow and a pony and household helps." - -"Then," continued her mother, "you know I have a half interest in the -ranch in California. That brings in a little, not much, because it isn't -a rich ranch by any means, just a big happy-go-lucky one that Harry, my -brother, runs. I hope that you girls will go there some time and meet -him, for he is a splendid uncle for you all. I receive about a thousand -a year from that. It isn't a cattle ranch. Harry raises horses. He is -unmarried, and lives there alone with Ah Fun, a Chinese cook, and his -men. I used to go out to the ranch summers when I was a girl. We lived -near San Francisco." - -"And now you're clear away over here on a Connecticut hilltop." - -"Dear, I would not mind if it were a hilltop in Labrador, if there are -any there, or Kamchatka either, so long as I was with your father. When -you love completely, Jean, time and space and all those little -limitations that we humans feel, seem to fall away from your soul." - -It seemed to Jean as though her mother's face was almost illumined with -love as she spoke, so radiant and tender it looked. She laid her cheek -against the hand nearest to her. - -"You make me think of something that John Burroughs wrote, precious -Mother mine, something I always loved. It is called 'Waiting.' May I -say it to you?" - -She repeated softly and slowly: - - "Serene, I fold my hands and wait, - Nor care for wind or tide or sea; - I rave no more 'gainst time or tide, - For lo! my own shall come to me. - - "I stay my haste, I make delays, - For what avails this eager pace? - I stand amid the eternal ways, - And what is mine shall know my face. - - "Asleep, awake, by night or day, - The friends I seek are seeking me. - No wind can drive my bark astray, - Or change the tide of destiny. - - "What matter if I stand alone, - I wait with joy the coming years; - My heart shall reap where it has sown, - And garner up its fruit of tears. - - "The waters know their own and draw - The brook that springs in yonder height; - So flows the good with equal law - Unto the soul of pure delight. - - "The stars come nightly to the sky, - The tidal wave unto the sea; - Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high - Can keep my own away from me." - - -"Whoa, Ella Lou!" came Cousin Roxy's voice out at the hitching post. -"Anybody home?" - -Kit sprang out of the Bartlett pear tree and Helen emerged from the -vegetable garden as if by magic. The Billie person sat beside Cousin -Roxy as big as life, as she would have said, and looked at the girls in -friendly fashion. - -"The Judge is very sick," Miss Robbins began without preamble. "I'm -going down there with Billie, and I may have to stay over night. He's -pretty low, I understand, and wants me, so I suppose I'll have to go. -Good-bye. If you've got any tansy in the garden, Betty, I'd like to -take it down." - -Jean hurried to get a bunch of the desired herb, and Mrs. Robbins -stepped out beside the carriage. - -"Is he very sick, really, Roxy?" she asked. - -"Can't tell a thing about it till I see him, and then maybe not. A -man's a worrisome creetur at best and when he's sick he's worse than a -sick turkey. I suppose it's acute indigestion. Dick Ellis always did -think he could eat anything he wanted to and do anything he wanted to, -and the Lord would grant him a special dispensation to get away with it -because he was Dick Ellis. I guess from all accounts he hasn't changed -much. I'll get a good hot mustard plaster outside, and calomel and -castor oil inside, and tansy tea to quiet him, and I guess he'll live -awhile yet. Go 'long, Ella Lou." - -"Well, of all things, Mother," Jean exclaimed, laughing as she dropped -into the nearest porch chair. "And they haven't spoken to each other in -over thirty years. I think that's the funniest thing that's happened -since we came here. I want to go and tell Dad. He'll love that." - -"What is it?" Kit teased. "I think you might tell us too. I didn't -know that Cousin Roxy knew the Judge." - -"They were engaged years ago, dear," Mrs. Robbins explained, "and -quarrelled. That is all. Now he thinks he is dying and has sent for -her. And I suppose underneath all her odd ways, that she loves him after -all." - -It was the first romance that had blossomed at Gilead Center and the -girls felt as eager over it as though the participants had been twenty -instead of fifty years of age. They waited eagerly for Ella Lou's white -nose to show around the turn of the drive, but night came on and passed, -and it was well into the next afternoon before Billie drove in alone. - -"Grandfather'd like to have Mr. Robbins come down and draw up his will. -Cousin Roxy says he's been a lawyer, and there isn't another one -anywhere around." - -"But, Billie, he isn't strong enough," began Mrs. Robbins. She was -sitting out on the broad veranda, a basket of mending on her lap, and in -the big steamer chair beside her was Mr. Robbins. "Is the Judge worse?" - -"Oh, no, he's better. Aunt Roxy fixed him right up. He'd just eaten -too much, she said." - -"I think I should like to go, dear," said Mr. Robbins. "You could go -with me, or Jean, and I should like to meet him again. I knew him when -I was a boy up here." - -It was his first trip away from the house since they had moved there, -but now that the time had come, it seemed an easy thing to do, as if the -strength had been granted to him to meet just such a crisis. Mrs. -Robbins accompanied him, and they drove over through the village and up -two miles beyond until they came to the Judge's home, a large square -colonial residence on a hill, surrounded by tall elms and rock maples. -The green blinds were all carefully closed excepting in the south -chamber where Roxy held supreme sway now. She sat by his bedside, -wielding a large palm leaf fan, spick and span in her dress of white -linen, and there was a bunch of dahlias on the table. - -"Come in, come in, boy," the Judge said in his deep voice. He stretched -out his hand to Mr. Robbins, and nodded his head. Such a fine old head -it was, as it lay propped up on the big square feather pillows, a head -like Victor Hugo's or Henri Rochefort's. The thick curly white hair -grew in deep points about his temples, and his moustache and imperial -were white and curly too. There was a look in his eyes that told of an -indomitable will, but they softened when they rested on his visitor. - -"Sit down, lad; no, the easy chair. Roxy, give him the easy one. So. -Well, they try their best to get us, don't they? I thought last night -would be my last." - -"Oh, fiddlesticks," laughed Miss Robbins. "Just ate too much, and had a -little attack of indigestion, Dick. You'll live to be eighty-nine and a -half." - -The Judge's eyes twinkled as he gazed at her. - -"Still contrary as Adam's off ox, Roxy. Won't even let me have the -satisfaction of thinking you saved my life, will you?" - -"A good dose of peppermint and soda would have done just as well," -answered Roxana serenely, turning to introduce Mrs. Robbins. "He says -he wants to make his will, but I think it's only a notion, and he wants -company. Still I guess we'll humor him. It seems that he was going to -leave everything he had to me. And I just found him out in time. The -very idea when he's got Billie, his own grandchild, flesh and blood, and -such a darling boy too. He can leave me Billie if he likes, but he -can't leave me anything else; so you make it that way, Jerry." - -"Leave her Billie, Jerry," sighed the Judge, "leave her Billie, and me -too, if she'll take us both." - -"Wouldn't have you for a gift, Dick," she answered, cheerful and happy -as a girl as she looked down at him. "You're a fussy, spoiled, selfish -old man, just as you always was, and I couldn't be bothered with you. -But I'll keep an eye on you so you don't kill yourself before your time -with sweet corn and peach shortcake, though I suppose it's a pleasant -sort of taking off at that. I'll take Billie and Betty with me around -the garden while you and Jerry fix up that will, and mind you do it -right. Billie's going to have all that belongs to him." - -As the door closed behind her, the Judge winked solemnly at Mr. Robbins. - -"Finest woman in seven counties. Ought to have been the mother of -heroes and statesmen, but there she is, mothering Billie and bossing me -to her heart's content. Do you think she'd marry me, Jerry?" - -"I don't know, Judge," Mr. Robbins answered, smiling. "Roxy's odd." - -"Well, maybe so. Go ahead and make the will as she says. Everything to -Billie, and make her guardian. All except," he stopped and his eyes -twinkled merrily, "the house in Boston. Jerry, lad, it's got all our -wedding furniture still in it just as it was thirty years ago. I bought -it and moved the stuff up there after she gave me the mitten, and it's -waited for her to change her mind these many years. I married for -spite, and my poor wife died after Billie's father was born. Served me -right, I guess. Anyhow, the house is there and she can take it or leave -it as she likes." - -So the will was drawn up and Mrs. Gorham and Mrs. Robbins witnessed it. -Billie, standing down in the garden, showing Miss Robbins the flowers, -did not realize what was happening. He only knew that somehow the -barriers of ice were lifted between himself and his grandfather, and -that a new era had dawned for all of them. - -He watched them drive away, and went back upstairs to the long corridor. -Roxana heard his step and opened the door of the sickroom. - -"Come in here, Billie dear," she said. It was the first time that -Billie had ever been in his grandfather's room. He stood inside the -door, a sturdy, manly figure, barefooted and tanned, with eyes oddly -like those old ones that surveyed him from the pillow. He hesitated a -moment, but the Judge put out his hand, a strong bony one, yellowed like -old ivory, and Billie gripped it in his broad boyish one. - -"I'm awfully glad you're better, Grandfather," he said, a bit shyly. - -"So am I, Billie. Last night I thought my hour had come, but I guess it -was only a warning. A meeting with the Button Moulder perhaps. Do you -know about him? No? You must read 'Peer Gynt.' A boy of your age -should be well up on such things." - -"And when has he had any chance to get well up on anything, I'd like to -know?" demanded Roxana, in swift defense of her favorite. "The boy -finished the district school a year ago. Been learning everything he -knows since then from Ben, your hired help. If the Lord has spared you -for any purpose, Dick, it is to bring up Billie right and teach him all -you know." - -"Well, well, quit scolding me, Roxy. Do as you like with him. I'll -supply the money." The Judge pressed Billie's hand almost with -affection. "What do you want to be, lad?" - -"A lawyer or a naturalist," said Billie promptly. - -"Be both. They're good antidotes for each other. Talk it over with -him, Roxy, and do as you think best." - -He closed his eyes, and Billie took it as a signal to leave the room, -but the Judge spoke again. - -"Where you do sleep, Bill?" - -Billie colored at this. It was the first time anyone had ever called -him Bill. He felt two feet taller all at once. - -"In the little bed-room over the east 'ell,' sir." - -"Change your belongings to the room next this. It faces the south and -has two bookcases in it filled with my books that I had at college. You -will enjoy them." - -Billie went out softly, down the circular staircase to the lower hall -and, once outdoors, on a dead run for the barn. Ben was husking corn on -the barn floor, sitting on a milking stool with the corn rising around -him in billows, whistling and singing alternately. - -Billie poured out his news breathlessly, and Ben took it all calmly. - -"Well, I'm glad for ye. I always believed the Judge would come out of -his trance some day and do the proper thing. That Miss Roxy's a sightly -woman. Knows just how to take hold. Guess she could marry the Judge -tomorrow if she wanted to. Mrs. Robbins is a fine woman too. I never -see her before." - -Somehow this didn't seem to fit in with Billie's mood, and he left the -barn. All the world looked different to him. He was wanted, really -wanted, now. He wasn't just somebody the Judge had taken in because -they were related and he had to out of pride. He was to have the big -south chamber right next the Judge's own room and study all he wanted -to. Best of all, since he had grasped that yellow old hand in his, he -knew that he could go to him with anything and that he really was going -to be a grandfather to him. - -It was nearly two miles over to Greenacres if he went cross lots, but he -started. The goldenrod was high and in full bloom on every hand and -purple asters crowded it for room. The apple trees held ripening fruit, -and the fragrance of Shepherd Sweetings and Peck's Pleasants was in the -air. It was the last week in August when all the summerland seemed to -rest after a good work done, and the hush of harvest time was on the -earth. - -In the woods he startled a doe and two fawns and they leaped ahead of -him through the brush. Farther along in the pines a partridge whirred up -under his nose almost, and coaxed him away from her young. Some young -stock, Jersey heifers and a few Holsteins, grazed in the woods, and -lifted grave eyes to watch him pass. Usually he would notice them, but -today all he thought of was the Judge's words, and the longing to talk -them over with somebody. - -"Why, there's Billie," Kit exclaimed, looking up from some apples she -was paring for pies. Helen was reading on the circular seat that was -built around one of the old elms back of the house. "Come over here and -help." - -Billie climbed the stone wall and came, flushed and triumphant. -Throwing himself down on the grass beside Kit, he told what had -happened, and she made up for all that Ben had lacked in enthusiasm and -imagination. - -"Billie Ellis," she cried, setting down the pan of apples, and hugging -her knees ecstatically. "Isn't that wonderful? Why, you can be anything -at all now that you want to be. Oh, I'm so glad for you!" - -Billie looked at her peacefully. - -"I knew you'd take it like that," he said. "I just wanted to tell -somebody who would almost bump the stars over it, the way it made me -feel. Kit, you're a good old pal, know it?" - -"Thank you, kind sir, thank you." Kit spread out her blue chambray -skirt and dropped a low curtsey. "When you come into your kingdom, -forget not your humble handmaid, Prince Otto." - -"Who was he?" demanded Billie hungrily. "Gee, I'm tired hearing of -people all the time that I don't know about. I'm going to read my head -off now." - -"So do, child, so do," laughed Kit. "He was a king who left his throne -to wander among his people and see how they lived." - -"It must have been awfully hard to go back and stay on the throne. I -want to study hard and be somebody that Grandfather will be proud of, -but I like everyday folks mighty well." - -Helen dropped her book and shook back her curls from her face. She had -hardly ever noticed him before, but now he seemed more interesting. -Still Kit was forever spending the largesse of her sympathy on anyone -who needed it just as Doris did on animals and birds and chickens. So -after a moment she went on with her book, "Handbook of Classical -History," preparing for her entry into High School with Kit the -following week. The joys and sorrows of the Billie person had small -place in her mind. - -But Kit took him into the kitchen and gave him a big square of -gingerbread with whipped cream on it, and listened to him plan out the -future without a single word of depreciation or discouragement. The -world was golden, and Fortune had handed him a lighted flambeau and told -him to take his place with the other Greek lads and race for the prize. - -"I just know you'll win out, Billie," she told him confidently, when she -said good-bye on the back steps. "Come down any time and we'll help you -out on your studies." - -Jean and Doris had gone to the village for some groceries. Cousin Roxy -was coming to take supper with them. Kit set the table, with sprays of -early asters in the center, singing softly to herself Cousin Roxy's -favorite hymn. - - "I've reached the land of corn and wine, - And all its riches freely mine, - Here shines undimmed one blissful day, - For all my night has passed away. - Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land--" - - -"Does it seem like that to you, child?" asked her mother, coming lightly -down the long staircase and into the dining-room, mellow with late -afternoon sunlight. - -"It's everything all rolled up in one," Kit answered happily. "It's -Beulah Land and the Land of Heart's Desire and the Promised Land, it's -the whole thing in one, Mother dear. Don't you feel that way too?" - -And with her arm around the second daughter, the Motherbird led her out -on the wide veranda. They could see for miles, up and down the valley -and over the distant hills. Helen dropped her book when she saw them, -and came up the steps to hug up close too, on the other shoulder. And -down the river road they heard Jean and Doris driving and singing as -they came. - -"Remember what we called them when we first came up, girls?" asked Mrs. -Robbins. "The hills of rest. Somehow when I look at them, the winter -doesn't frighten me at all. They look as if they could shelter us. - - "'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, - From whence cometh my help,'" - -she quoted softly. "They have given us security and happiness." - -"And Dad's health," added Kit. "We've all worked hard, but I do think -we've got some results anyway, don't you, Helen?" - -"Lots of preserves," said Helen dreamily. - -Cousin Roxana joined them, chin up and smiling. - -"He's sound asleep," she said. "Now that everything's kind of quieted -down, I don't mind telling you something. After Billie had gone, the -Judge and I talked over things before I had Ben hitch up Ella Lou, and I -don't know but what I'll have to move over there and take care of the -two of them. Land knows they need it." - -"Oh, Cousin Roxy, marry the Judge?" gasped Kit. - -"Well, I might as well," laughed Roxana. "We've wasted thirty years now, -and he'll fret and fuss for thirty more if I don't marry him. I'll sell -Maple Lawn, or you folks can have it if you like, rent free." - -There was a moment's hesitation. No words were needed though. With two -pairs of arms pressing her until they hurt, the Motherbird said gently -that she thought the Robbins would winter at Greenacres. - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREENACRE GIRLS *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47854 - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. -Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this -license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg(tm) -electronic works to protect the Project Gutenberg(tm) concept and -trademark. 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