CHAPTER V
GOOD NEWS FROM TOWN
Everyone rushed eagerly forward, and crowded around Miss Mercer as she descended from the buggy, smiling pleasantly at the bashful Tom Pratt, who did his best to help her in her descent. And not the least eager, by any means, was Tom Pratt’s mother, whose early indifference to the interest of these good Samaritans in her misfortunes seemed utterly to have vanished.
“Oh, these girls of yours!” cried Mrs. Pratt. “You’ve no idea of how much they’ve done—or how much they’ve heartened us all up, Miss Mercer! I don’t believe there were ever so many kind, nice people brought together before!”
Eleanor laughed, as if she were keeping a secret to herself. And her words, when she spoke, proved that that was indeed the case.
“Just you wait till you know how many friends you really have around here, Mrs. Pratt!” she said. “Well, I told you I hoped to bring back good news, and I have, and if you’ll all give me a chance, I’ll tell you what it is.”
“You’ve found a place for all the Pratts to go!” said Dolly.
“You’ve arranged something so that they won’t have to stay here!” agreed Margery.
“I don’t know whether Mrs. Pratt would agree that that was such good news,” she said. “Tell me, Mrs. Pratt—you are still fond of this place, aren’t you?”
“Indeed, and I am, Miss Mercer!” she said, choking back a sob. “When I first saw how it looked this morning, I thought I only wanted to go away and never see it again, if I only knew where to go. But I feel so different now. Why, all the time we’ve been working around here, it’s made me think of how Tom—I mean my poor husband—and I came here when we were first married. Tom had the land, you see, and he’d built a little cabin for us with his own hands.”
“And all the farm grew from that?”
“Yes. We worked hard, you see, and the children came, but we had a better place for each one to be born in, Miss Mercer—we really did! It was our place. We’ve earned it all, with the help from the place itself, and before the fire—”
She broke down then, and for a moment she couldn’t go on.
“Of course you love it!” said Eleanor, heartily. “And I don’t think it would be very good news for you to know that you had a chance to go somewhere else and make a fresh start, though I could have managed that for you.”
“I’d be grateful, though, Miss Mercer,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t. It’ll be a wrench, though—I’m not saying it wouldn’t. When you’ve lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived here, and seen all the changes, and had your children born in it, and—”
“I know—I know,” interrupted Eleanor, sympathetically. “And I could see how much you loved the place. So I never had any idea at all of suggesting anything that would take you away.”
“Do you really think we can get a new start here?” asked Mrs. Pratt, looking up hopefully.
“I don’t only believe it, I know it, Mrs. Pratt,” said Eleanor, enthusiastically. “And what’s more, you’re going to be happier and more prosperous than you ever were before the fire. Not just at first, perhaps, but you’re going to see the way clear ahead, and it won’t be long before you’ll be doing so well that you’ll be able to let my friend Tom here go to college.”
Mrs. Pratt’s face fell. It seemed to her that Eleanor was promising too much.
“I don’t see how that could be,” she said. “Why, his paw and I used to talk that over. We wanted him to have a fine education, but we didn’t see how we could manage it, even when his paw was alive.”
“Well, you listen to me, and see if you don’t think there’s a good chance of it, anyhow,” said Eleanor. “In the first place, none of the people in Cranford knew that you’d had all this trouble. It was just as I thought. Their own danger had been so great that they simply hadn’t had time to think of anything else. They were shocked and sorry when I told them.”
“There’s a lot of good, kind people there,” said Mrs. Pratt, brightening again. “I’m sure I didn’t think anything of their not having come out here to see how we were getting along.”
“Some of them would have been out in a day or two, even if I hadn’t told them, Mrs. Pratt. As it is—but I think that part of my story had better wait. Tell me, you’ve been selling all your milk and cream to the big creamery that supplies the milkmen in the city, haven’t you?”
“Yes, and I guess that we can keep their trade, if we can get on our feet pretty soon so that they can get it regular again.”
“I’ve no doubt you could,” said Eleanor, dryly. “They make so much money buying from you at cheap prices and selling at high prices that they wouldn’t let the chance to keep on slip by in a hurry, I can tell you. But I’ve got a better idea than that.”
Mrs. Pratt looked puzzled, but Tom Pratt, who seemed to be in Eleanor’s secret, only smiled and returned Eleanor’s wise look.
“When you make butter you salt it and keep it to use here, don’t you?” Eleanor asked next.
“Yes, ma’am, we do.”
“Well, if you made fresh, sweet butter, and didn’t salt it at all, do you know that you could sell it to people in the city for fifty cents a pound?”
Mrs. Pratt gasped.
“Why, no one in the world ever paid that much for butter!” she said, amazed. “And, anyhow, butter without salt’s no good.”
“Lots of people don’t agree with you, and they’re willing to pay pretty well to have their own way, too,” she said, with a laugh. “In the city rich families think fresh butter is a great luxury, and they can’t get enough of it that’s really good. And it’s the same way, all summer long, at Lake Dean.
“The hotel there will take fifty pounds a week from you all summer long, as long as it’s open, that is. And I have got orders for another fifty pounds a week from the people who own camps and cottages. And what’s more, the manager of the hotel has another house, in Lakewood, in the winter time, and when he closes up the house at Cranford, he wants you to send him fifty pounds a week for that house, too.”
“Why, however did you manage to get all those orders?” asked Margery, amazed.
“I telephoned to the manager of the hotel,” said Eleanor. “And then I remembered the girls at Camp Halsted, and I called up Marcia Bates and told her the whole story, and what I wanted them to do. So she and two or three of the others went out in that fast motor boat of theirs and visited a lot of families around the lake, and when they told them about it, it was easy to get the orders.”
“Well, I never!” gasped Mrs. Pratt. “I wouldn’t ever have thought of doin’ anythin’ like that, Miss Mercer, and folks around here seem to think I’m a pretty good business woman, too, since my husband died. Why, we can make more out of the butter than we ever did out of a whole season’s crops, sellin’ at such prices!”
“You won’t get fifty cents a pound from the hotel,” said Eleanor. “That’s because they’ll take such a lot, and they’ll pay you every week. So I told them they could have all they wanted for forty cents a pound. But, you see, at fifty pounds a week, that’s twenty dollars a week, all the year round, and with the other fifty pounds you’ll sell to private families, that will make forty-five dollars a week. And you haven’t even started yet. You’ll have lots more orders than you can fill.”
“I’m wonderin’ right now, ma’am, how we’ll be able to make a hundred pounds of butter a week.”
“I thought of that, too,” said Eleanor, “and I bought half a dozen more cows for you, right there in Cranford. They’re pretty good cows, and if they’re well fed, and properly taken care of, they’ll be just what you want.”
“But I haven’t got the money to pay for them now, ma’am!” said Mrs. Pratt, dismayed.
“Oh, I’ve paid for them,” said Eleanor, “and you’re going to pay me when you begin to get the profits from this new butter business. I’d be glad to give them to you, but you won’t need anyone to give you things; you’re going to be able to afford to pay for them yourself.”
Mrs. Pratt broke into tears.
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said or done yet, Miss Mercer,” she sobbed. “I just couldn’t bear to take charity—”
“Charity? You don’t need it, you only need friendly help, Mrs. Pratt, and if I didn’t give you that someone else would!”
“And eggs! They’ll be able to sell eggs, too, won’t they?” said Dolly, jumping up and down in her excitement.
“They certainly will! I was coming to that,” said Eleanor. “You know, this new parcel post is just the thing for you, Mrs. Pratt! Just as soon as a letter I wrote is answered, you’ll get a couple of cases of new boxes that are meant especially for mailing butter and eggs and things like that from farmers to people in the city.
“You’ll be able to sell eggs and butter cheaper than people in the city can buy things that are anything like as good from the stores, because you won’t have to pay rent and lighting bills and all the other expensive things about a city store. I’m going to be your agent, and I do believe I’ll make some extra pocket money, too, because I’m going to charge you a commission.”
Mrs. Pratt just laughed at that idea.
“Well, you wait and see!” said Eleanor. “I’m glad to be able to help, Mrs. Pratt, but I know you’ll feel better if you think I’m getting something out of it, and I’m going to. I think my running across you when you were in trouble is going to be a fine thing for both of us. Why, before you get done with us, you’ll have to get more land, and a lot more cows and chickens, because we’re going to make it the fashionable thing to buy eggs and butter from you!”
Mrs. Pratt seemed to be overwhelmed, and Eleanor, in order to create a diversion, went over to inspect the lean-to.
“It’s just right,” she said. “Having a floor made of those boards is a fine idea; I didn’t think of that at all. Good for you, Margery!”
“That was Dolly’s idea, not mine,” said Margery.
“You were perfectly right, too. Well, it’s getting a little late and I think it’s time we were thinking about dinner. Margery, if you’ll go over to the buggy you’ll find quite a lot of things I bought in Cranford. We don’t want to use up the stores we brought with us before we get away from here. And—here’s a secret!”
“What?” said Margery, leaning toward her and smiling. And Eleanor laughed as she whispered in Margery’s ear.
“There are going to be some extra people—at least seven or eight, and perhaps more—for dinner, so we want to have plenty, because I think they’re going to be good and hungry when they sit down to eat!”
“Oh, do tell me who they are,” cried Margery, eagerly. “I never saw you act so mysteriously before!”
“No, it’s a surprise. But you’ll enjoy it all the more when it comes for not knowing ahead of time. Don’t breathe a word, except to those who help you cook if they ask too many questions.”
Dinner was soon under way, and those who were not called upon by Margery busied themselves about the lean-to, arranging blankets and making everything snug for the night.
The busy hands of the Camp Fire Girls had done much to rid the place of its look of desolation, and now everything spoke of hope and renewed activity instead of despair and inaction. A healthier spirit prevailed, and now the Pratts, encouraged as to their future, were able to join heartily in the laughter and singing with which the Camp Fire Girls made the work seem like play.
“Why, what’s this?” cried Bessie, suddenly. She had gone toward the road, and now she came running back.
“There are four or five big wagons, loaded with wood and shingles and all sorts of things like that coming in here from the road,” she cried. “Whatever are they doing here?”
“That’s my second surprise,” laughed Eleanor. “It’s your neighbors from Cranford, Mrs. Pratt. Don’t you recognize Jud Harkness driving the first team there?”
“Hello, folks!” bellowed Jud, from his seat. “How be you, Mis’ Pratt? Think we’d clean forgot you? We didn’t know you was in such an all-fired lot of trouble, or we’d ha’ been here before. We’re come now, though, and we ain’t goin’ away till you’ve got a new house. Brought it with us, by heck!”
He laughed as he descended, and stood before them, a huge, black-bearded man, but as gentle as a child. And soon everyone could see what he meant, for the wagons were loaded with timber, and one contained all the tools that would be needed.
“There’ll be twenty of us here to-morrow,” he said, “and I guess we’ll show you how to build a house! Won’t be as grand as the hotel at Cranford, mebbe, but you can live in it, and we’ll come out when we get the time and put on the finishing touches. To-night we’ll clear away all this rubbish, and with sun-up in the morning we’ll be at work.”
Eleanor’s eyes shone as she turned to Mrs. Pratt.
“Now you see what I meant when I told you there were plenty of good friends for you not far from here!” she cried. “As soon as I told Jud what trouble you were in he thought of this, and in half an hour he’d got promises from all the men to put in a day’s work fixing up a new house for you.”
Mrs. Pratt seemed too dazed to speak.
“But they can’t finish a whole house in one day!” declared Margery.
“They can’t paint it, and put up wall paper and do everything, Margery,” said Eleanor. “That’s true enough. But they can do a whole lot. You’re used to thinking of city buildings, and that’s different. In the country one or two men usually build a house, and build it well, and when there are twenty or thirty, why, the work just flies, especially when they’re doing the work for friendship, instead of because they’re hired to do it. Oh, just you wait!”
“Have you ever seen this before?”
“I certainly have! And you’re going to see sights to-morrow that will open your eyes, I can promise you. You know what it’s like, Bessie, don’t you? You’ve seen house raisings before?”
“I certainly have,” said Bessie. “And it’s fine. Everyone helps and does the best he can, and it seems no time at all before it’s all done.”
“Well, we’ll do our share,” said Eleanor. “The men will be hungry, and I’ve promised that we’ll feed them.”
CHAPTER VI
THE GOOD SAMARITANS
“Well, I certainly have got a better opinion of country people than I ever used to have, Bessie,” said Dolly Ransom. “After the way those people in Hedgeville treated you and Zara, I’d made up my mind that they were a nasty lot, and I was glad I’d always lived in the city.”
“Well, aren’t you still glad of it, Dolly? I really do think you’re better off in the city. There wouldn’t be enough excitement about living in the country for you, I’m afraid.”
“Of course there wouldn’t! But I think maybe I was sort of unfair to all country people because the crowd at Hedgeville was so mean to you. And I like the country well enough, for a little while. I couldn’t bear living there all the time, though. I think that would drive me wild.”
“The trouble was that Zara and I didn’t exactly belong, Dolly. They thought her father was doing something wrong because he was a foreigner and they couldn’t understand his ways.”
“I suppose he didn’t like them much, either, Bessie.”
“He didn’t. He thought they were stupid. And, of course, in a way, they were. But not as stupid as he thought they were. He was used to entirely different things, and—oh, well, I suppose in some places what he did wouldn’t have been talked about, even.
“But in the country everyone knows the business of everyone else, and when there is a mystery no one is happy until it’s solved. That’s why Zara and her father got themselves so disliked. There was a mystery about them, and the people in Hedgeville just made up their minds that something was wrong.”
“I feel awfully sorry for Zara, Bessie. It must be dreadful for her to know that her father is in prison, and that they are saying that he was making bad money. You don’t think he did, do you?”
“I certainly do not! There’s something very strange about that whole business, and Miss Eleanor’s cousin, the lawyer, Mr. Jamieson, thinks so too. You know that Mr. Holmes is mighty interested in Zara and her father.”
“He tried to help to get Zara back to that Farmer Weeks who would have been her guardian if she hadn’t come to join the Camp Fire, didn’t he?”
“Yes. You see, in the state where Hedgeville is, Farmer Weeks is her legal guardian, and he could make her work for him until she was twenty-one. He’s an old miser, and as mean as he can be. But once she is out of that state, he can’t touch her, and Mr. Jamieson has had Miss Eleanor appointed her guardian, and mine too, for that state. The state where Miss Eleanor and all of us live, I mean.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes is trying to get hold of you, too, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is. You ought to know, Dolly, after the way he tried to get us both to go off with him in his automobile that day, and the way he set those gypsies on to kidnapping us. And that’s the strangest thing of all.”
“Perhaps he wants to know something about Zara, and thinks you can tell him, or perhaps he’s afraid you’ll tell someone else something he doesn’t want them to know.”
“Yes, it may be that. But that lawyer of his, Isaac Brack, who is so mean and crooked that no one in the city will have anything to do with him except the criminals, Mr. Jamieson says, told me once that unless I went with him I’d never find out the truth about my father and mother and what became of them.”
“Oh, Bessie, how exciting! You never told me that before. Have you told Mr. Jamieson?”
“Yes, and he just looked at me queerly, and said nothing more about it.”
“Bessie, do you know what I think?”
“No. I’m not a mind reader, Dolly!”
“Well, I believe Mr. Jamieson knows more than he has told you yet, or that he guesses something, anyway. And he won’t tell you what it is because he’s afraid he may be wrong, and doesn’t want to raise your hopes unless he’s sure that you won’t be disappointed.”
“I think that would be just like him, Dolly. He’s been awfully good to me. I suppose it’s because he thinks it will please Miss Eleanor, and he knows that she likes us, and wants to do things for us.”
“Oh, I know he likes you, too, Bessie. He certainly ought to, after the way you brought him help back there in Hamilton, when we were there for the trial of those gypsies who kidnapped us. If it hadn’t been for you, there’s no telling what that thief might have done to him.”
“Oh, anyone would have done the same thing, Dolly. It was for my sake that he was in trouble, and when I had a chance to help him, it was certainly the least that I could do. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, maybe that’s so, but there aren’t many girls who would have known how to do what you did or who would have had the pluck to do it, even if they did. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t, and yet I’d have wanted to, just as much as anyone.”
“I wish I did know something about my father and mother, Dolly. You’ve no idea how much that worries me. Sometimes I feel as if I never would find out anything.”
“Oh, you mustn’t get discouraged, Bessie. Try to be as cheerful as you are when it’s someone else who is in trouble. You’re the best little cheerer-up I know when I feel blue.”
“Oh, Dolly, I do try to be cheerful, but it’s such a long time since they left me with the Hoovers!”
“Well, there must be some perfectly good reason for it all, Bessie, I feel perfectly sure of that. They would never have gone off that way unless they had to.”
“Oh, it isn’t that that bothers me. It’s feeling that unless something dreadful had happened to them, I’d have heard of them long ago. And then, Maw Hoover and Jake Hoover were always picking at me about them. When I did something Maw Hoover didn’t like, she’d say she didn’t wonder, that she couldn’t expect me to be any good, being the child of parents who’d gone off and left me on her hands that way.”
“That’s all right for her to talk that way, but she didn’t have you on her hands. She made you work like a slave, and never paid you for it at all. You certainly earned whatever they spent for keeping you, Miss Eleanor says so, and I’ll take her word any time against Maw Hoover or anyone else.”
“I’ve sometimes thought it was pretty mean for me to run off the way I did, Dolly. If it hadn’t been for Zara, I don’t believe I’d have done it.”
“It’s a good thing for Zara that you did. Poor Zara! They’d taken her father to jail, and she was going to have to stay with Farmer Weeks. She’d never have been able to get along without you, you know.”
“Well, that’s one thing that makes me feel that perhaps it was right for me to go, Dolly. That, and the way Miss Eleanor spoke of it. She seemed to think it was the right thing for me to do, and she knows better than I do, I’m sure.”
“Certainly she does. And look here, Bessie! It’s all coming out right, sometime, I know. I’m just sure of that! You’ll find out all about your father and mother, and you’ll see that there was some good reason for their not turning up before.”
“Oh, Dolly dear, I’m sure of that now! And it’s just that that makes me feel so bad, sometimes. If something dreadful hadn’t happened to them, they would have come for me long ago. At least they would have kept on sending the money for my board.”
“How do you know they didn’t, Bessie? Didn’t Maw Hoover get most of the letters on the farm?”
“Yes, she did, Dolly. Paw Hoover couldn’t read, so they all went to her, no matter to whom they were addressed.”
“Why, then,” said Dolly, triumphantly, “maybe your father and mother were writing and sending the money all the time!”
“But wouldn’t she have told me so, Dolly?”
“Suppose she just kept the money, and pretended she never got it at all, Bessie? I’ve heard of people doing even worse things than that when they wanted money. It’s possible, isn’t it, now? Come on, own up!”
“I suppose it is,” said Bessie, doubtfully. “Only it doesn’t seem very probable. Maw Hoover was pretty mean to me, but I don’t think she’d ever have done anything like that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it above her! She treated you badly enough about other things, heaven knows!”
“I’d hate to think she had done anything quite as mean as that, though, Dolly. I do think she had a pretty hard time herself, and I’m quite sure that if it hadn’t been for Jake she wouldn’t have been so mean to me.”
“Oh, I know just the sort he is. I’ve seen him, remember, Bessie! He’s a regular spoiled mother’s boy. I don’t know why it is, but the boys whose mothers coddle them and act as if they were the best boys on earth always seem to be the meanest.”
“Yes, you did see him, Dolly. Still, Jake’s very young, and he wouldn’t be so bad, either, if he’d been punished for the things he did at home. As long as I was there, you see, they could blame everything that was done onto me. He did, at least, and Maw believed him.”
“Didn’t his father ever see what a worthless scamp he was?”
“Oh, how could he, Dolly? He was his own son, you see, and then there was Maw Hoover. She wouldn’t let him believe anything against Jake, any more than she would believe it herself.”
“I’m sorry for Paw Hoover, Bessie. He seemed like a very nice old man.”
“He certainly was. Do you remember how he found me with you girls the day after Zara and I ran away? He could have told them where we were then, but he didn’t do it. Instead of that, he was mighty nice to me, and he gave me ten dollars.”
“He said you’d earned it, Bessie, and he was certainly right about that. Why, in the city they can’t get servants to do all the things you did, even when they’re well paid, and you never were paid at all!”
“Well, that doesn’t make what he did any the less nice of him, Dolly. And I’ll be grateful to him, because he might have made an awful lot of trouble.”
“Oh, I’ll always like him for that, too. And I guess from what I saw of him, and all I’ve heard about his wife, that he doesn’t have a very happy time at home, either. Maw Hoover must make him do just about what she wants, whether he thinks she’s right or not.”
“She certainly does, Dolly, unless she’s changed an awful lot since I was there.”
“Well, I suppose the point is that there really must be more people like him in the country than like his wife and Farmer Weeks. These people around here are certainly being as nice as they can be to the poor Pratts. Just think of their coming here to-morrow to build a new house for them!”
“There are more nice, good-hearted people than bad ones all over, Dolly. That’s true of every place, city or country.”
“But it seems to me we always hear more of the bad ones, and those who do nasty things, than we do of the others, in the newspapers.”
“I think that’s because the things that the bad people do are more likely to be exciting and interesting, Dolly. You see, when people do nice things, it’s just taken as a matter of course, because that’s what they ought to do. And when they do something wicked, it gets everyone excited and makes a lot of talk. That’s the reason for that.”
“Still, this work that the men from Cranford are going to do for the Pratts is interesting, Bessie. I think a whole lot of people would like to know about that, if there was any way of telling them.”
“Yes, that’s so. This isn’t an ordinary case, by any means. And I guess you’ll find that we’ll do plenty of talking about it. Miss Eleanor will, I know, because she thinks they ought to get credit for doing it.”
“So will Mrs. Pratt and the children, too. Oh, yes, I was wrong about it, Bessie. Lots of people will know about this, because the Pratts will always have the house to remind them of it, and people who go by, if they’ve heard of it, will remember the story when they see the place. I do wonder what sort of a house they will put up?”
“It’ll have to be very plain, of course. And it will look rough at first, because it won’t be painted, and there won’t be any plaster on the ceilings and there won’t be any wall paper, either.”
“Oh, but that will be easy to fix later. They’ll have a comfortable house for the winter, anyhow, I’m sure. And if they can make as much money out of selling butter and eggs as Miss Eleanor thinks, they’ll soon be able to pay to have it fixed up nicely.”
“Dolly, I believe we’ll be able to help, too. If those girls at Camp Halsted could go around and get so many orders just in an hour or so, why shouldn’t we be able to do a lot of it when we get back to the city?”
“Why, that’s so, Bessie! I hadn’t thought of that. My aunt would buy her butter and eggs there, I know. She’s always saying that she can’t get really fresh eggs in the city. And they are delicious. That was one of the things I liked best at Miss Eleanor’s farm. The eggs there were delicious; not a bit like the musty ones we get at home, no matter how much we pay for them.”
“I think it’s time we were going to bed ourselves, Dolly. This is going to be like camping out, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and we’ll be just as comfortable as we would be in tents, too. The Boy Scouts use these lean-tos very often when they are in the woods, you know. They just build them up against the side of a tree.”
“I never saw one before, but they certainly are splendid, and they’re awfully easy to make.”
“We’ll have to get up very early in the morning, Bessie. I heard Miss Eleanor say so. So I guess it’s a good idea to go to bed, just as you say.”
“Yes. The others are all going. We certainly are going to have a busy day to-morrow.”
“I don’t see that we can do much, Bessie. I know I wouldn’t be any good at building a house. I’d be more trouble than help, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all you know about it! There are ever so many things we can do.”
“What, for instance?”
“Well, we’ll have to get the meals for the men, and you haven’t any idea what a lot of men can eat when they’re working hard! They have appetites just like wolves.”
“Well, I’ll certainly do my best to see that they get enough. They’ll have earned it. What else?”
“They’ll want people to hand them their tools, and run little errands for them. And if the weather is very hot, they’ll be terribly thirsty, too, and we’ll be able to keep busy seeing that they have plenty of cooling drinks. Oh, we’ll be busy, all right! Come on, let’s go to bed.”
CHAPTER VII
THE HOUSE RAISING
The sun was scarcely up in the morning when Eleanor turned out and aroused the girls.
“We’ve got to get our own breakfast out of the way in a hurry, girls,” she said. “When country people say early, they mean early—EARLY! And we want to have coffee and cakes ready for these good friends of ours when they do come. A good many of them will come from a long way off and I think they’ll all be glad to have a little something extra before they start work. It won’t hurt us a bit to think so, and act accordingly anyhow.”
So within half an hour the Pratts and the Camp Fire Girls had had their own breakfasts, the dishes were washed, and great pots of coffee were boiling on the fires that had been built. And, just as the fragrant aroma arose on the cool air, the first of the teams that brought the workers came in sight, with jovial Jud Harkness driving.
“My, but that coffee smells good, Miss Mercer!” he roared. “Say, I’m not strong for all these city fixin’s in the way of food. Plain home cookin’ serves me well enough, but there’s one thing where you sure do lay all over us, and that’s in makin’ coffee. Give me a mug of that, Mis’ Pratt, an’ I’ll start work.”
And from the way in which the coffee and the cakes, the latter spread with good maple syrup from trees that grew near Cranford, began to disappear, it was soon evident that Eleanor had made no mistake, and that the breakfast that she had had prepared for the workers would by no means be wasted.
“It does me good to see you men eat this way,” she said, laughing. “That’s one thing we don’t do properly in the city—eat. We peck at a lot of things, instead of eating a few plain ones, and a lot of them. And I’ll bet that you men will work all the harder for this extra breakfast.”
“Just you watch and see!” bellowed Jud. “I’m boss here to-day, ma’am, and I tell you I’m some nigger driver. Ain’t I, boys?”
But he accompanied the threat with a jovial wink, and it was easy to see that these men liked and respected him, and were only too willing to look up to him as a leader in the work of kindness in which they were about to engage.
“I don’t know why all you boys are so good to me, Jud,” said Mrs. Pratt, brokenly. “I can’t begin to find words to thank you, even.”
“Don’t try, Mis’ Pratt,” said Jud, looking remarkably fierce, though he was winking back something that looked suspiciously like a tear. “I guess we ain’t none of us forgot Tom Pratt—as good a friend as men ever had! Many’s the time he’s done kind things for all of us! I guess it’d be pretty poor work if some of his friends couldn’t turn out to help his wife and kids when they’re in trouble.”
“He knows what you’re doing, I’m sure of that,” she answered. “And God will reward you, Jud Harkness!”
Heartily as the men ate, however, they spent little enough time at the task. Jud Harkness allowed them what he thought was a reasonable time, and then he arose, stretched his great arms, and roared out his commands.
“Come on, now, all hands to work!” he bellowed. “We’ve got to get all this rubbish cleared out, then we’ll have clean decks for building.”
And they fell to with a will. In a surprisingly short space of time the men who had plunged into the ruined foundations of the house had torn out the remaining beams and rafters, and had flung the heap of rubbish that filled the cellar on to the level ground. While some of the men did this, others piled the rubbish on to wagons, and it was carted away and dumped. The fire, however, had really lightened their task for them.
“That fire was so hot and so fierce,” said Eleanor, as she watched them working, “that there’s less rubbish than if the things had been only half burned.”
“I’ve seen fires in the city,” said Margery, “or, at least, houses after a fire. And it really looked worse than this, because there’d be a whole lot of things that had started to burn. Then the firemen came along, to put out the fire, and though the things weren’t really any good, they had to be carted away.”
“Yes, but this fire made a clean sweep wherever it started at all. Ashes are easier to handle than sticks and half ruined pieces of furniture. As long as it had to come, I guess it’s a good thing that it was such a hot blaze.”
The work of clearing away, therefore, which had to be done, of course, before any actual building could be begun, was soon accomplished.
“We’re going to build just the way Tom Pratt did,” said Jud Harkness. He was the principal carpenter and builder of Lake Dean, and a master workman. Many of the camps and cottages on the lake had been built by him, and he was, therefore, accustomed to such work.
“You mean you’re going to put up a square house?” said Eleanor.
“Yes, ma’am, just a square house, with a hall running right through from the front to the back, and an extension in the rear for a kitchen—just a shack, that will be. Two floors—two rooms on each side of the hall on each floor. That’ll give them eight rooms to start with, beside the kitchen.”
“That’ll be fine, and it will really be the easiest thing to do, too.”
“That’s what we’re figuring, ma’am. You see, it’ll be just as it was when Tom Pratt first built here, except that he only put up one story at first. Then, as Mis’ Pratt gets things going again, she can add to it, and if she don’t get along as fast as she expects, why, we’ll lend her a hand whenever she needs it.”
“How on earth could you get all the lumber you need ready so quickly? That’s one thing I couldn’t understand. The work is not so difficult to manage, of course. But the wood—that’s what’s been puzzling me.”
Jud grinned.
“Well, the truth is, ma’am, I expect to have a little argument about that yet with a city chap that’s building a house on the lake. I’ve got the job of putting it up for him, and if it hadn’t been for this fire coming along, I’d have started work day before yesterday.”
“Oh, and this is the lumber for his house?”
“You guessed it right, ma’am! He’ll be wild, I do believe, because there’s no telling when I’ll get the next lot of lumber through.”
“You say the fire stopped you from going ahead with his house?”
“Yes. You see all of us had to turn out when it got so near to Cranford. My house is safe, I do believe. I’m mighty scared of fire, ma’am, and I’ve always figured on having things fixed so’s a fire would have a pretty hard time reaching my property. But of course I had to jump in to help my neighbors—wouldn’t be much profit about having the only house left standing in town, would there?”
Eleanor laughed.
“I guess not!” she said. “But what a lucky thing for Mrs. Pratt that you happened to have just the sort of wood she needed!”
“Oh, well, we’d have managed somehow. Of course, it makes it easier, but we’d have juggled things around some way, even if this chap’s plans didn’t fit her foundations. As it happens, though, they do. Old Tom Pratt had a mighty well-built house here.”
“Well, I’m quite sure that just as good a one is going up in its place.”
Jud Harkness watched the work of getting out the last of the rubbish. Then he went over to the cleared foundations, and in a moment he was putting up the first of the four corner posts, great beams that looked stout enough to hold up a far bigger house than the one they were to support.
All morning the work went on merrily. As Eleanor had predicted, and Bessie, too, there was plenty for the girls to do. The sun grew hotter and hotter, and the men were glad of the cooling drinks that were so liberally provided for them.
“This is fine!” said Jud Harkness, as he quaffed a great drink of lemonade, well iced. “My, but it’s a pleasure to work when it’s made so nice for you! I tell you, having these cool drinks here is worth an extra hour’s work, morning and afternoon. And what’s that—just the nails I want? I’ll give you a job as helper, young woman!”
That remark was addressed to Bessie, who flushed with pleasure at the thought that she was playing a part, however small, in the building of the house. And, indeed, the girls all did their part, and their help was royally welcomed by the men.
Quickly the skeleton of the house took form, and by noon, when work was to be knocked off for an hour, the whole framework was up.
“I simply wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with, my own eyes!” said Eleanor. “It’s the most wonderful thing I ever saw!”
“Oh, shucks!” said Jud, embarrassed by such praise. “There’s lots of us—I don’t think we’ve done so awful well. But it does look kind of nice, don’t it?”
“It’s going to be a beautiful house,” said Mrs. Pratt. “And to think of what the place looked like yesterday! Well, Jud Harkness, I haven’t any words to tell you what I really think, and that’s all there is to it!”
For an hour or more Margery and her helpers had been busy at the big fire. At Eleanor’s suggestion two of the men had stopped work on the house long enough to put up a rough, long table with benches at the sides, and now the table was groaning with the fine dinner that Margery had prepared.
“Good solid food—no fancy fixings!” Eleanor had decreed. “These men burn up a tremendous lot of energy in work, and we’ve got to give them good food to replace it. So we don’t want a lot of trumpery things, such as we like!”
She had enforced a literal obedience, too. There were great joints of corned beef, red and savory; pots of cabbage, and huge mounds of boiled potatoes. Pots of mustard were scattered along the table, and each man had a pitcher of fine, fresh milk, and a loaf of bread, with plenty of butter. And for dessert there was a luxury—the only fancy part of the meal.
Eleanor had had a whispered conference with Tom Pratt early in the day, as the result of which he had hitched up and driven into Cranford, to return with two huge tubs of ice-cream. He had brought a couple of boxes of cigars, too, and when the meal was over, and the men were getting out their pipes, Eleanor had gone around among them.
“Try one of these!” she had urged. “I know they’re good—and I know that when men are working hard they enjoy a first-class smoke.”
The cigars made a great hit.
“By Golly! There’s nothing she don’t think of, that Miss Mercer!” said Jud Harkness appreciatively, as he lit up, and sent great clouds of blue smoke in the air. “Boys, if we don’t do a tiptop job on that house to finish it off this afternoon we ought to be hung for a lot of ungrateful skunks. Eh?”
There was a deep-throated shout of approval for that sentiment, and, after a few minutes of rest, during which the cigars were enjoyed to the utmost, Jud rose and once more sounded the call to work.
“I’ve heard men in the city say that after a heavy meal in the middle of the day, they couldn’t work properly in the afternoon,” said Eleanor, as she watched the men go about their work, each seeming to know his part exactly. “It doesn’t seem to be so with these men, though, does it? I guess that in the city men who work in offices don’t use their bodies enough—they don’t get enough exercise, and they eat as much as if they did.”
“I love cooking for men who enjoy their food the way these do,” said Margery happily. “They don’t have to say it’s good—they show they think so by the way they eat. It’s fine to think that people really enjoy what you do. I don’t care how hard I work if I think that.”
“Well, you certainly had an appreciative lot of eaters to-day, Margery.”
As the shadows lengthened and the sun began to go down toward the west the house rapidly assumed the look it would have when it was finished. A good deal of the work, of course, was roughly done. There was no smoothing off of rough edges, but all that could be done later.
And then, as the end of the task drew near, so that the watchers on the ground could see what the finished house would be like, Mrs. Pratt, already overwhelmed by delight at the kindness of her neighbors, had a new surprise that pleased and touched her, if possible, even more than what had gone before. A new procession of wagons came into sight in the road, and this time each was driven by a woman.
And what a motley collection of stuff they did bring, to be sure! Beds and mattresses, bedding, chairs, tables, a big cook stove for the kitchen, pots and pans, china and glass, knives and forks—everything that was needed for the house.
“We just made a collection of all the things we could spare, Sarah Pratt,” said sprightly little Mrs. Harkness, a contrast indeed to her huge husband, who could easily lift her with one hand, so small was she. “They ain’t much on looks, but they’re all whole and clean, and you can use them until you have a chance to stock up again. Now, don’t you go trying to thank us—it’s nothing to do!”
“Nothing?” exclaimed Mrs. Pratt. “Sue Harkness, don’t you dare say that! Why, it means that I’ll have a real home to-night for my children—we’ll be jest as comfortable as we were before the fire! I don’t believe any woman ever had such good neighbors before!”
Long before dark the house was finished, as far as it was to be finished that day. And, as soon as the men had done their work, their wives and the Camp Fire Girls descended on the new house with brooms and pails, and soon all the shavings and the traces of the work had been banished. Then all hands set to work arranging the furniture, and by the time supper was ready the house was completely furnished.
“Well,” said Eleanor, standing happily in the parlor, “this certainly does look homelike!”
There was even an old parlor organ. Pictures were on the wall; a good rag carpet was on the floor, and, while the furniture was not new, and had seen plenty of hard service, it was still good enough to use. The Pratt home had certainly risen like a Phœnix from its ashes. And tired but happy, all those who had contributed to the good work sat down to a bountiful supper.
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE MARCH AGAIN
After supper, when the others who had done the good work of rebuilding were ready to go, all the girls of the Camp Fire lined up in front of the new house and sped them on their way with a cheer and the singing of the Wo-he-lo cry.
“Listen to that echo!” said Dolly, as their song was brought back to them. “I didn’t notice that last night. Is it always that way?”
“Always,” said Tom Pratt. “Folks come here sometimes to yell and hear the echo shout back at them.”
“Good!” cried Eleanor. “That supplies a need I’ve been thinking of all day!”
“What’s that, Miss Mercer?” asked Mrs. Pratt.
“Why, if you are going into the business of supplying eggs and butter to the summer folk at the lake and to others in the city, you’ll need a name for your farm. Why not call it Echo Farm? That’s a good name, and in your case it means something, you see.”
“Whatever you say, Miss Mercer! Though I’d never thought of having a name for the place before.”
“Lots of things are going to be different for you now, Mrs. Pratt. You’re going to be a business woman, and to make a lot of money, you know. Yes, that will look well on your boxes. When I get back to the city I’ll have a friend of mine make a drawing and put that name with it, to be put on your boxes, and on all the paper you will use for writing letters.”
“Dear me, it’s going to be splendid, Miss Mercer! Why, that fire is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us, I’m sure!”
“I think we can often turn our misfortunes into blessings if we take them the right way, Mrs. Pratt. The thing to do is always to try to look on the bright side, and, no matter how black things seem, to try to see if there isn’t some way that we can turn everything to account.”
“Well, I would never have done it if you hadn’t come along, Miss Mercer. You gave us all courage in the first place, and then you got Jud Harkness and all the others to come and help me this way.”
“Oh, they’d have done it themselves, as soon as they heard. I didn’t suggest a thing—I just told them the news, and they thought of everything else all by themselves. The only thing I thought of was using your farm so that it would really pay you.”
“Now that you’ve told us how, it seems so easy that I wonder I never thought of it myself.”
“Well, lots and lots of farmers just waste their land and themselves, Mrs. Pratt. You’re not the only one. My father has a farm, and in his section he’s done his level best to make the regular farmers see that there are new ways of farming, just as there are new ways of doing everything else.”
“That’s what my poor husband always said. He had all sorts of new-fangled ideas, as I used to call them. Maybe he was right, too. But he didn’t have money enough to try them and see how they’d do, though we always made a good living off this place.”
“Well, the advantage of my idea is that you don’t need much money to give it a trial, and if you don’t succeed, you won’t lose much.”
“I think we’d be pretty stupid if we didn’t succeed, after the fine start you’ve given us, and the way you’ve told me what to do.”
“Well, I think so myself,” said Eleanor, with a frank laugh. “And I know you’re not stupid—not a bit of it! It’s going to be hard work, but I’m sure you’ll succeed. You’ll be able to hire someone to do most of the work for you before long, I think, and then you’ll have to have a rest, and come down to visit me in the city.”
“Well, well, I do hope so, Miss Mercer! I ain’t been in the city since I don’t know when. Tom—my husband—took me once, but that was years and years ago, and I expect there’s been a lot of changes since then.”
“I’m going to keep an eye on you, Mrs. Pratt. And I feel as if I were a sort of partner in this business, so if you don’t make as much money as I think you ought to, why, you’ll hear from me. I can promise you that! Girls, we’ll sleep in the lean-to to-night, and in the morning we’ll be off, bright and early.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Pratt, “have you really got to go? And you’ll not sleep out to-night! You’ll take the house, and we’ll be the ones to sleep outside.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Pratt! Who should be the ones to sleep in this fine new house the first night but you? We love to sleep in the open air, really we do! It’s no hardship, I can tell you.”
And, despite all of Mrs. Pratt’s protests, it was so arranged.
“I’ll hate to go away from here—really I will!” said Dolly, to Bessie. “It’s been perfectly fine, helping these people. And I feel as if we’d really done something.”
“Well, we certainly have, Dolly,” said Bessie.
“I do hope that butter and egg business will do well.”
“I know it’s going to do well,” said Eleanor, who had overheard. “And one reason is that you girls are going to help. Now we must all get to sleep, or we’ll never get started in the morning. I think we’ll have to ride part of the way to the seashore in the train, after all. We don’t want to be too late in getting there, you know.”
And in a few minutes silence reigned over the place. It was a picture of peace and content—a vast contrast to the scene of the previous night, when desolation and gloom seemed to dominate everything.
Parting in the morning brought tears alike to the eyes of those who stayed behind and those who were going on. The experience of the last two days had brought the Pratts and the girls of the Camp Fire very close together, and the Pratt children—the younger ones at least—wept and refused to be comforted when they learned that their new friends were going away.
“Cheer up,” said Eleanor. “We’ll see you again, you know. Maybe we’ll all come up next summer. And we’ve had a good time, haven’t we?”
“We certainly have!” said Mrs. Pratt, and there was sincerity, as well as pleasure, in her tone. “I’ve often heard that good came out of evil, and joy out of sorrow, but I never had any such reason to believe it before this!”
Before the final parting, Eleanor had shown Mrs. Pratt exactly what she meant about the new way in which the butter was to be made.
“Of course, as your business grows, you will want to get better machinery,” she had said. “That will make the work much easier, and you will be able to do it more quickly too, and with less help than if you stuck to the old-fashioned way.”
“I’m going to take your advice in everything about running this farm, Miss Mercer,” Mrs. Pratt had replied. “You’ve certainly shown that you know what you’re talking about so far.”
“Take a trip down to my father’s farm some time, Mrs. Pratt, and they’ll be glad to show you everything they have there, I know. My father is very anxious for all the farmers in his neighborhood to profit by any help they can get. The only trouble is that a good many of them seem to feel that he is interfering with them.”
“Well, if they’re as stupid as that, it serves them right to keep on losing money, Miss Mercer.”
“But it’s natural, after all. You see they’ve run their farms their own way all their lives, and it’s the way they learned from their fathers. So it isn’t very strange that they’re apt to feel that they know more, from all that practice and experiment, than city people who are farming scientifically.”
“Does your father enjoy farming?”
“He says he does—and it’s a curious thing that he makes that farm pay its way, even allowing for a whole lot of things he does that aren’t really necessary. That’s what proves, you see, that his theories are right—they pay.
“Of course, he could afford to lose money on it, and you can’t make a whole lot of those farmers in our neighborhood believe that he doesn’t. So now he is having the books of the farm fixed up so that any of the farmers around can see them, and find out for themselves how things are run.”
Tired as the girls of the Camp Fire had been, the night before, they were wonderfully refreshed by their night’s sleep. The weather was much more pleasant than it had been, and a brisk wind had driven off much of the smoke that still remained when they reached the Pratt farm as a reminder of the scourge of fire. So the conditions for walking were good, and Eleanor Mercer set a round, swinging pace as they started off.
“I’ll really be glad to get out of this burned district. It’s awfully gloomy, isn’t it, Bessie?” said Dolly.
“Yes, especially when you realize what it means to the people who live in the path of the fire,” answered Bessie. “Seeing the Pratts as they were when we came up has given me an altogether new idea of these forest fires.”
“Yes. That’s what I mean. It’s bad enough to see the forest ruined, but when you think of the houses, and all the other things that are burned, too, why, it seems particularly dreadful.”
“Tom Pratt told me that a whole lot of animals were caught in the fire, too—chipmunks, and squirrels, and deer. That seems dreadful.”
“Oh, what a shame! I should think they could manage to get away, Bessie. Don’t you suppose they try?”
“Oh, yes, but you see they can’t reason the way human beings do, and a lot of these fires burn around in a circle, so that while they were running away from one part of the fire they might very easily be heading straight for another, and get caught right between two fires.”
Soon, however, they passed a section where the land had been cleared of trees for a space of nearly a mile, and, once they had travelled through it, they came to the deep green woods again, where no marring traces of the fire spoiled the beauty of their trip.
“Ah, don’t the woods smell good!” said Dolly. “So much nicer than that old smoky smell! I never smelt anything like that! It got so that everything I ate tasted of smoke. I’m certainly glad to get to where the fire didn’t come.”
Now the ground began to rise, and before long they found themselves in the beginning of Indian Gap. The ground rose gradually, and when they stopped for their midday meal, in a wild part of the gap, none of the girls were feeling more than normally and healthfully tired.
“Do many people come through here, Miss Eleanor?” asked Margery.
“At certain times, yes. But, you, see, the forest fires have probably made a lot of people who intended to take this trip change their minds. In a way it’s a good thing, because we will be sure to find plenty of room at the Gap House. That’s where we are to spend the night. Sometimes when there’s a lot of travel, it’s very crowded there, and uncomfortable.”
“Is it a regular hotel?”
“No, it’s just a place for people to sleep. It’s where the trail starts up Mount Sherman, and it’s the station of the railroad that runs to the top of the mountain, too, for people who are too lazy to climb. There’s a gorgeous view there in the mornings, when the sun rises. You can see clear to the sea.”
“Oh, can’t we stop and see that?”
“We haven’t time to climb the mountain. If you want to go up on the incline railway, though, we can manage it. You get up at three o’clock in the morning, and get to the top while it’s still dark, so that you can see the very beginning of the sunrise.”
There was not a dissenting voice to the plan to make the trip, and it was decided to take the little extra time that would be required.
“After all,” said Eleanor, “we can get such an early start afterward that it won’t take very much time. And to-morrow we’ll finish our tramp through the gap, and stop at Windsor for the night. Then the next day we’ll take the train straight through to the seashore. I think really we’ll have more fun, and get more good out of it if we spend the time there than if we go through with our original plan of doing more walking before getting on the train.”
“Yes. We’ve lost quite a little time already, haven’t we?” said Margery.
“Two whole days at Lake Dean, and two days more staying with the Pratts,” said Eleanor. “That’s four days, and one can walk quite a long distance in four days if one sets one’s mind and one’s feet to it.”
“Well, we certainly couldn’t help the delay,” said Margery. “At Lake Dean the fire held us—and I wouldn’t think very much of any crowd that could see the trouble those poor people were in and not stay to help them.”
They slept well in the early part of that night in the rough quarters at the Gap House, and, while it was still dark, they were routed out to catch the funicular railway on its first trip of the day up Mount Sherman.
At first, when they were at the top of the mountain, there was nothing to be seen. But soon the sky in the east began to lighten and grow pink, then the fog that lay below them began to melt away, and, as the sun rose, they saw the full wonder of the spectacle.
“I never saw anything so beautiful in all my life!” exclaimed Bessie with a sigh of delight. “See how it seems to gild everything as the light rises, Dolly!”
“Yes, and you can see the sea, way off in the distance! How tiny all the towns and villages look from here! It’s just like looking at a map, isn’t it?”
“Well, it was certainly worth getting up in the middle of the night to see it, Bessie. And I do love to sleep, too!”
“I’d stay up all night to see this, any time. I never even dreamed of anything so lovely.”
“We were very fortunate,” said Eleanor, with a smile. “I’ve been up here when the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see a thing, and only knew the sun had risen because it got a little lighter. I’ve known it to be that way for a week at a time, and some people would stay, and come up here morning after morning, and be disappointed each time!”
“That’s awfully mean,” said Dolly. “I suppose, though, if they had never seen it, they wouldn’t mind so much, because they wouldn’t know what they were missing.”
“They never seemed very happy about it, though,” laughed Eleanor. “Well, it’s time to go down again, and be off for Windsor. And then to-morrow morning we’ll be off for the seashore. We’re to camp there, right on the beach, instead of living in a house. That will be much better, I think.”