CHAPTER VI
IN THE ORCHARD
Until Webb could finish the task that Nancy had assigned to him, Nancy curbing her impatience, had to return to the study of "Joshua, Jacob and John."
"It was John that was killed in the war of 1812, and now we have progressed to the next generation of Samuel and Ezekiel," she wrote to Claire. "But let me tell you that just as soon as Webb finishes the 'rig-up' (that is what he calls my perfectly beautiful idea) I'm not going to have a minute to spend on any of the old ancestors. Won't it be wonderful to see Aunt Milly's face when she knows about it? Think of it, Claire—how we love to frolic all around this good old earth, and how awful it would be to be tied to a couch all your days—and in such a room!"
"After to-day my letters will be just scraps and you can picture your Nancy working madly in her tree-top!
"So far all is safe, and I'm really beginning to feel as though I was a real Leavitt and not walking around in Anne's shoes, especially when I am with Aunt Milly. But it's terribly hard not to talk about Dad and you and Anne, and I have to hold my lips together lots of times to keep from bursting out with something. I suppose it's good training for me—Miss Sykes used to tell me my impulsiveness would be my ruin some day.
"I have seen the hired man! Yesterday, when I went out to my nest, I deliberately walked around the edge of the orchard. I saw a lot of tumble-down sheds and things over on a rise of ground that I supposed was Judson's, and of course the lot in between was the ten-acre strip that Webb told me about. I couldn't see that it was any better than any other part of the country around here. And while I was staring, suddenly something moved, and there was that creature with a hoe standing at the other end of the lot. And he waved his hand! Says I, 'Nancy Leavitt, this is your chance,' and I tossed my head so hard that my neck truly cracked, and I stalked off back to the orchard. It was good enough for him.
"Oh, oh, oh, Webb has come! He's taken the rig-up around the lilac side (for strategic reasons, I have divided the grounds of Happy House) and out to the carriage barn. Now I shall tackle B'lindy and make ready for the blessed hour of rest.
"Adieu, dearest Claire, pray for your old pal."
The winning of B'lindy to her plan was not as easy as Webb had been. It had been a "bad" morning for B'lindy; the fire would not draw well, she had forgotten to "set" her bread, and Judson's cat had gotten into the cream. Nancy's arguments fell on deaf ears.
"I guess what's well enough's well enough," at last she threw over her shoulder. "Milly Leavitt's laid on that couch twenty years and it ain't likely she'll lay there many more, and there ain't no use meddlin' with what's what!"
"But, B'lindy, no one has ever tried this! It's so easy. Wait until you see how nice and safe Webb has made the chair. It's wonderful! It would be wicked to keep her shut up there when we could take her out! Think of it, B'lindy, all we have and poor little Aunt Milly! Why, it might make her well! I really know of such a case. It was a woman who had tried every medicine she knew of and it was just happiness she needed! If Aunt Milly could get out there in the sunshine and—and see things, she might get well, too. Anyway, she could laugh!"
B'lindy laid down her egg-beater. It was a sign of yielding.
"I guess nobody's tried happiness on Milly Leavitt!"
"We'll take her together, B'lindy. You may go with me to her room and see her face when she knows!"
"I told Miss Sabriny that there was no tellin' what'd happen in Happy House if she brought a young thing like you here," was B'lindy's way of assent. With an uplifted arm she warded off what threatened to be a hug.
"Go 'way, Anne Leavitt, or there won't be no dinner! And this is your doin's, remember."
True to her promise, Nancy waited until the last dinner dish was dried; then she and B'lindy, very like culprits, tip-toed to Miss Milly's room. Aunt Milly wore a look of expectancy, which changed to wonder when she saw B'lindy. And one glance at Nancy's eager face told her that something very, very different was about to happen!
In a whisper Nancy commanded her to peep out and "just see what you'll see." And Miss Milly, in a flutter, did peep out, and saw Jonathan below, with a curiously contrived chair on wheels.
"It's for you—Webb made it," declared Nancy. "And you're not to get excited, because that might spoil everything. We're going to take you to the orchard!"
"Oh, Nancy!" Something caught in poor Miss Milly's throat.
"You must do just what I tell you. Take this shawl, though it's warmer out there than it is in here. I'm very strong and I shall carry you right down in my arms, and you must cling tight to my neck."
Poor Miss Milly commenced to tremble violently. "Nancy—I'm afraid! I—I—It's so long—maybe I'd better—maybe it isn't—right!"
"Oh, Aunt Milly, darling, how could it be wrong to be happy! Just try it! Think of the sunshine and the birds and the nice smells and all Jonathan's growing things! And B'lindy is going along, too, to help. Try it, Aunt Milly!"
Aunt Milly's eyes filled with tears, then she commenced to laugh softly. "Maybe it'll be the only time! I'd love—once more——" She let Nancy lift her slowly. "I'm too heavy, dear," she protested.
"Heavy——" thought Nancy. The pitifully frail form was as nothing in her clasp. "I haven't played forward on our basket-ball team for four years for nothing, Aunt Milly! March on, B'lindy. Now—very still."
It was a strange procession that moved off through the garden toward the orchard. Jonathan led the way, B'lindy wheeled the chair and Nancy frisked along, first one side, then the other, picking posies here and there until Aunt Milly's lap was quite full. And Miss Milly sat very still with her hands clasped tight together and a look of ecstasy in her eyes, as though she was beholding a new and beautiful world! Every step forward brought an added wonder. She had forgotten the world was like this.
"Oh-h!" she whispered rapturously when a robin trilled from a nearby tree. "Oh-h!" she cried again when she caught a glimpse of the lake.
But when they reached the cliff it was Nancy's turn to exclaim. For there in her tree had been built the cosiest of rustic seats.
"How lovely!" she cried, springing into it. "It just fits." She shook her finger at old Jonathan. "You made this for me, you dear old thing!"
But Jonathan, wishing mightily that he had, had to admit that he "didn't know a blame thing 'bout it!"
"Then it was Webb. He wanted to surprise me, too, as well as Aunt Milly. Only—how did he know about my tree? Isn't it nice? It's as comfy as can be."
When Nancy joyously declared that everybody and everything was lovely, somehow B'lindy and Jonathan and Aunt Milly felt so, too! B'lindy, at Nancy's bidding, sat down upon the grass close to the chair, and Jonathan, too rheumatic to follow her example, leaned against the tree trunk and stared at Nancy with adoring eyes.
"At first I was going to keep my nest a secret, just between Jonathan and me. But it'll be much nicer to have all of us know about it. We can have such nice times here. We can do so many things. B'lindy, can you knit?"
B'lindy said she could not, though she could crochet.
"Then I'm going to teach you and Aunt Milly both. You can knit socks for the children in Europe, though you must begin on washcloths. Jonathan—I don't suppose there's any use trying to teach you—you must keep us supplied with flowers because Aunt Milly can't have enough—you see there are so many years she has to make up. And sometimes I'll read to you and sometimes I'll work. We'll come here every afternoon—shall we?"
B'lindy and Jonathan and Aunt Milly nodded their heads. B'lindy, watching Miss Milly's face, was beginning to think that there might be some sense in Nancy's prescription of happiness.
And if in her heart Nancy smothered any wistful longing as she glanced at the locked treasure-box, she forgot it when she, too, watched Aunt Milly.
It was Jonathan who suddenly noticed that the sun was creeping over toward the west and that he'd "better be at the lettuce."
"Goodness to gracious," cried B'lindy, scrambling to her feet with a considerable creaking of joints. "Anne Leavitt, my day's work ain't half done!"
On the way back through the orchard Miss Milly kept tight hold of Nancy's hand, giving it an occasional squeeze.
"I could die happy—now," she whispered.
At the turn of the path beyond the raspberry patch the culprits were confronted by Miss Sabrina. It was a very angry Aunt Sabrina, whose one glance shadowed every bit of sunshine. Even Nancy, the ringleader of the plot, felt her knees give way in fright.
"What are you all about?" Miss Sabrina demanded in a voice cold with anger. "Go about your work, Jonathan Allen. B'lindy, you wheel that ridiculous chair back to wherever you got it from! And you, Milly Leavitt, how dare you meddle with the ways of God?"
Everyone seemed to obey Miss Sabrina without a word of protest. Jonathan faded out of sight, B'lindy disappeared toward the kitchen with the chair and Nancy, followed by Miss Sabrina, carried the trembling Miss Milly back to her couch.
"Anne, you go out now!" Miss Sabrina jerked her head toward the door.
"I'll have a thing or two to say to Milly. She made her bed—it's the will of our Lord she should lie in it!"
Nancy hesitated one moment, but something in Aunt Milly's frightened glance seemed to say, "Go away!" So she went out and closed the door upon the two sisters.
Alone in her own room a storm of anger shook her. "I hate her!" she cried out to the ugly walls. "I hate her! She's—just—stone!"
"I'm glad I'm not a real Leavitt! We were so happy!"
Then, really frightened, Nancy listened intently to catch some word from the other room.
CHAPTER VII
AUNT MILLY'S STORY
When Nancy could stand the interval of quiet no longer, she went back to Miss Milly's door. She did not even knock. So sure was she of finding a crushed and heartbroken Aunt Milly within that she stood dumbfounded before the little creature who sat bolt upright upon the couch.
"Come in, my dear—and close the door!"
Everything about Miss Milly seemed to say that "the worm has turned." There was a glow on her face different from that it had worn out in the orchard; it seemed to come from some fire within.
"Open every blind in the room, Nancy," she commanded in a tone that was new for Aunt Milly. "I might as well get what light I can in here. Now come and sit beside me."
For a moment Aunt Milly patted Nancy's hand and said nothing. Then she gave a little sigh.
"I can't tell you, Nancy, I can't even begin to tell you, what you've done for me—taking me out there! If I never go again, I've had it once. And it's sort of stiffened something inside of me!"
She fell silent again. Nancy was wishing that she could have heard what had passed between Aunt Sabrina and Miss Milly that had left Miss Milly so defiant!
Aunt Milly seemed to read her thought.
"She was dreadfully angry and it was partly because she was frightened—really frightened. You see, Nancy, sister Sabrina thinks things must always go just so and that it's almost wicked to try—different things. She says—I've made my bed!"
"What does she mean, Aunt Milly?"
"It's a long story, dear."
"I'd like to hear it, Aunt Milly."
"I suppose you ought to know—someone else may tell you, old Webb or B'lindy, or even Sabrina, though she'd rather die first! I think I used to be something like you, Nancy, or I would have been, if it hadn't been for—the trouble!"
"Will it make you unhappy to tell it, Aunt Milly?"
"No, child. I used to lie here by the hour and think things over and over, but after awhile I got so things sort of blurred—I suppose I grew resigned and all the fight inside of me died. There never was much. You see Sabrina brought me up and she was as stern then as she is now. Our father was like that, too. My mother died when I was a baby."
"When father died Sabrina had the care of me. I suppose she tried to bring me up well; she was very strict and—never seemed to understand! And when I was quite young I began to dream of getting away from the Islands. I wanted to go away to school somewhere and learn to do something—I did not much care what—that would keep me out in the world. Finally I decided that I wanted to study music and then, sometime, teach it. It wasn't much to want, was it, dear? But goodness me, when I went to Sabrina with my plan she was terribly angry. You might have thought I had suggested something wicked! She simply couldn't understand! There was enough money for us both to live on and she said I was selfish and inconsiderate to want to go away. She talked a great deal about the Leavitt position and being a lady and learning contentment, and the more she talked the more restless and discontented I grew! And the more I dreamed of what waited out in the world beyond these little Islands.
"After a long while, Nancy, I made up my mind to go, anyway! It was not easy to do, because I'm not very brave, and the trouble we'd had sort of made me hate to take any step that might make a break between Sabrina and me. But I had to do it. I simply couldn't seem to face a life here. That's hard for you to believe, isn't it, dear? But I was a different creature, then. Well, one night I packed some clothes and slipped away. I walked to North Hero and caught the train for Burlington. I was going from there to—to New York."
Breathlessly, Nancy whispered, "What happened then?"
"The train was wrecked outside of Burlington!"
"Oh—Aunt Milly!"
"I was terribly hurt. I lay for weeks in a hospital in Burlington and they didn't know whether I'd live or die! I wish——" she stopped short. "No, I don't! I'm glad I didn't die. Then they brought me home—like this!"
"Poor, poor little Aunt Milly!"
"But, listen, child—that isn't half all. It seems that on the same train was a young man from North Hero whom I had always known—and liked. But Aunt Sabrina had never approved of him, and long before she had forbidden his coming here. I did see him sometimes, though—I loved company and he was entertaining. There had never been more than a pleasant friendship between us, and I had not dreamed that he was going to Burlington on that train. He was killed. And when I came back from the hospital the story was on every tongue that I had been running away with Charlie Prince!"
"Oh, I was hurt in every part of me—my body and my soul and my mind! My precious dreams had crumbled forever and ever. And I had to face that dreadful scandal! Not that I ever saw a soul—Sabrina took care of that! She kept me shut up as though I had the plague. But through her reproachful eyes I was made to see the accusations of every man, woman and child on the Hero Islands. And I couldn't make her believe it wasn't so! She simply wouldn't talk about it. She went around with that dreadful look, day after day, and when she'd say anything at all, it was about how I had brought shame to the Leavitt name. And after awhile I began to feel as though I had done something—more than just run away to study music. She made me understand that the only way I could atone for it all was by burying myself within these four walls."
"Then that's what she means by 'making your bed.'"
"Yes, dear, I was so crushed that I came to believe she was right. God knew that all I had wanted when I went away was a right to my own way of living, but His ways are inscrutable and His Will has to be done! Sabrina called it the sword of wrath and the justice of the Almighty, and it didn't make much difference to me what it was called—I was here. That's my story, dear, that's the way I've lived until—to-day. But you've changed it. Something inside of me that I thought was dead—isn't dead at all! Do you know what I told Sabrina? I told her I didn't care what she thought, that I guessed when a woman was forty years old and over she could decide things for herself and if just going out there in the orchard was wicked, then I'd go on being wickeder! That's what I told her. Dear, dear, you should have seen her face!"
"Hurrah, hurrah, Aunt Milly!"
"Poor Sabrina, I never spoke like that in my life to her! I've always been so—afraid, until to-day! I don't know what she'll do now. You must not blame her too much, Nancy dear, it's the Leavitt trouble that has made her what she is—it shadowed all our lives!"
"Aunt Milly, what was the Leavitt trouble?"
Aunt Milly looked distressed. "Then you don't know? I shouldn't have spoken of it! I promised Sabrina I wouldn't speak to you—about it."
"But, Aunt Milly, I have a—a right to know, haven't I? Even Webb hinted about it, and it makes me feel as though I was—well, on the outside of things, to be kept in ignorance."
Miss Milly regarded her for a moment. "I told Sabrina that you wouldn't know! But may be you ought to. Somehow, telling things, too, makes them seem not so dreadful! I believe we Leavitts lock troubles away too much—don't air them enough, maybe. Sabrina thinks it's as dreadful now as it was the day it happened. It was about our brother. He was a year older than Sabrina. He wasn't at all like her, though, nor like my father. He was gay and handsome, and high-spirited and dreadfully extravagant. When I was very small I used to be frightened at the quarrels between him and my father—and they were always over money.
"One night—he had come home just before supper after being away for a week, no one knew where, and my father was very angry about that—they had a quarrel that seemed more bitter than any other. Besides, there was a thunder-storm that made it seem worse. I had been sent to bed, but the lightning had frightened me, and I had crept downstairs to the sitting-room. I opened the door. They were all three—for Sabrina always sided with my father—talking so loudly they did not hear me. My father's face frightened me more than the lightning and my brother's had turned dead white. I think my father had just offered him some money, for his wallet was in his hand and on the floor lay a bill, as though my brother had thrown it back. I began to cry and ran back to my room, more frightened by them than by the storm. And I lay there in my bed for hours, waiting for something to happen!"
"About midnight one dreadful bolt of lightning struck the house. It shattered the chimney all to pieces on the outside and inside, filled the sitting-room with dust and pieces of mortar, cracked the mantel and moved it an inch and a half from the wall. But no one thought much of all that, because something far more dreadful had happened! My brother was gone and my father's wallet, the one I had seen in his hand, was missing. He remembered laying it on the mantel and my brother and Sabrina had seen him do it. It had contained over a thousand dollars in bank notes. The next day my father found out that my brother had taken the early train out of North Hero. I was too young to understand much about it, but I used to pray, first, that my brother would come back and tell them he didn't take the wallet and then I'd pray that he'd never, never come back, so that they couldn't put him in prison."
"That must have been Anne's grandfather," Nancy was thinking.
"He did come back, three weeks later," Miss Milly went on, "and there was a scene much worse than the night of the storm. They forgot I was in the room. My father accused my brother of stealing the wallet and refused to let him say a word. 'I want no lies added to your other sins,' was what he said—I can hear him now. And my brother looked as though something had struck him. Then my father told him that if he'd take himself off and never darken the doors of Happy House again, nor communicate with his family in any way, the matter would be dropped forever—for the sake of the Leavitt name. My brother stood there for a moment; I remember, I wanted to run to him! Oh, I've wished I had—so often! But I was afraid of Sabrina—and my father. And then my brother turned and walked out of the room—and out of the door—and—down the path—and——"
Poor Miss Milly, worn out by the excitement of the day, began to cry softly.
Nancy had to jerk herself to break the spell of the story. Her face wrinkled in a frown. "It—is—dreadful, isn't it, Aunt Milly? I don't mean his spending money and running debts and things, I mean—your—your father's horrid—mercilessness! Why, the courts don't treat the worst criminals like that! And they call it Leavitt pride—and honor! I call it injustice. I wish you had just run up and kissed him, then. It might have made everything so different!"
"So that's why I can't speak of Anne's father or grandfather," Nancy was thinking back of her frown. "And that's why Anne knew so little about her aunts!" Then aloud: "I'm glad you told me, Aunt Milly. It'll help us—be pals. We'll have other afternoons—like to-day—out in the sunshine. But now you must rest. And I'll get ready to face Aunt Sabrina!"
"She'll be dreadfully cross," sighed Miss Milly, with the glow all gone from her face.
"I'm not a bit afraid," and Nancy meant it, for within her breast smouldered such righteous indignation at Miss Sabrina and her precious ancestors that she welcomed the challenge.
Dressing hurriedly for supper Nancy's eye caught the letter to Claire lying on her bureau. It seemed to her as though hours and hours had passed since she had so flippantly bade Claire "pray for me!"
She wanted to open the letter and dash off another page to tell Claire of all that had happened and how the "mystery" was a mystery no longer. Then, with the envelope in her hand, she remembered that it concerned Aunt's grandfather and that, perhaps, she had no right to tell! But she did open the sheet and scribble across the top: "All sorts of things have happened since I wrote this, and I may be back with you any moment. I can't tell you yet all about it, but I can say this, that I hate Happy House and I'm glad as can be that I'm only a pretend Real-Leavitt! Everybody isn't horrid, though, that nice old Webb built the cosiest seat up in my tree and surprised me."
In exactly twenty minutes, by the hands of her small watch, she must meet Miss Sabrina! Anyway, she could tell her just what she thought about the whole thing, for, without any doubt she'd be sent away! But there was Aunt Milly—she had promised Aunt Milly that there would be more afternoons in the orchard. Somehow she must fix that.
"I know," she waved her brush in mid-air, "I'll get Belinda!"
CHAPTER VIII
B'LINDY'S TRIUMPH
No great general of war ever mapped out a plan of attack more carefully than Nancy laid hers! First she begged B'lindy to let her pick over the raspberries for supper. While doing this in the chummiest sort of way, it was very easy to tell B'lindy that she had eaten lots of raised biscuits but never any raised biscuits like she'd had at Happy House!
The last raspberry in the glass dish, Nancy in departing, whispered with a little laugh; "Weren't you dreadfully frightened this afternoon when you saw Aunt Sabrina? O! of course you weren't—Webb told me you were the only one who could really make Aunt Sabrina do anything, but, goodness, I was!" Which was balm to B'lindy's injured pride; as the afternoon wore on B'lindy had been growing more and more indignant because she had not "stood on her two feet and spoke up to Sabriny Leavitt" instead of "turning tail like old Jonathan!"
Throughout the supper, by eating very fast, Nancy managed to conceal her nervousness and expectancy. Aunt Sabrina sat stiffly and looked very tired and very old and, somehow, by a twist of her lips managed to make Nancy understand that she, Nancy, was in deep disgrace and that in due time sentence of punishment would be passed. Between B'lindy and her mistress not a word was exchanged; B'lindy's head was tossed high and there was an air of "sniffing" about her that, if it had not all been so tragic, would have made the entire situation funny.
"Oh, what a place—what funny people!" cried Nancy to the stars as she leaned that night far out of her window. "How can I stand it! And why does not something happen quickly? It's just like Aunt Sabrina not to say a word and to keep me on pins and needles! That's the same way she treated Aunt Milly and that poor boy—years ago!" Thereupon Nancy let her fancy wander back to the "gay-spirited, extravagant" brother and his story—Anne's grandfather. Had he cared, she wondered, had he died longing to see again the old Island home, or had it been a blessing—casting him out in the wide world. He must have met fortune somewhere, for Anne's father had been wealthy. Dear Anne—Nancy picked out the star that was farthest in the East and addressed it reverently. "If you can see Anne and she can see you will you tell her that she mustn't feel cross at the mess I've made of things. I tried to be careful but I'm me and, anyway, all the ignorance of her blessed peasants isn't any worse than the pride and narrowness of her own relatives! Good-night, dearest Anne, for the last time I go to sleep in my prison walls—to-morrow I die!"
However, the June sunshine of the next morning restored much of Nancy's courage. She made quick note of a few good signs, and best of these was when she surprised B'lindy vigorously tacking a cushion upon Miss Milly's chair. B'lindy did not see Nancy and Nancy tip-toed away with a smile.
Then, too, the glow was back in Miss Milly's face, and when Nancy ran into her room, her hands full of roses, Miss Milly greeted her eagerly.
"I think the sun is shining to-day just for me," she laughed, waving her hand to the windows from which the blinds had been drawn.
"And I think," and Nancy cocked her head knowingly, "that B'lindy will force an attack with the enemy about mid-day!"
Nancy was right in her prediction. At dinner B'lindy, clad in her customary checked gingham apron, served them veal stew and delicious fluffy dumplings, but after the shortcake she appeared without it, and with a broad-brimmed hat pinned well down over her sharp features.
Nancy checked an exclamation; Miss Sabrina's lips twisted ever so slightly, though not a word came from them.
B'lindy assumed an added note of defiance by placing her hands on her hips. "I guess the dishes can wait 'til the cool of the afternoon," she said, trying to make her tone casual. "I'm goin' to take Miss Milly for her airin'."
One might have thought that there was nothing out of the ordinary in B'lindy's announcement, beyond perhaps, the leaving of the dinner dishes, but a tense moment followed, when one pair of steely eyes bored into another pair, just as hard. And Nancy, a little frightened, realized, with a sort of breathlessness, that she, was witnessing the invisible conflict of two strong wills. One must weaken—and she dropped her eyes, for she was swept by a moment's pity.
It was Miss Sabrina's that weakened! The tenseness was broken when she rose hurriedly from her chair.
"Then it's on your own head, B'lindy Guest," she cried shrilly, "I've done my duty as I saw it! She's better left alone."
B'lindy, triumphant, threw after her, with a snort; "Duty's duty and I know that's well as you, but I guess no one's tried the perscription of happiness for Milly Leavitt and mebbe it ain't too late!"
Nancy was torn between a wild desire to hug B'lindy and to say a nice word to Aunt Sabrina, departing majestically from the room. But she did neither—for both women, at that moment, looked very forbidding. Instead, as the door closed behind Miss Sabrina, she drew a long breath. "Suspended sentence," she said, solemnly.
Then, at B'lindy's "What's that?" she laughed back: "The victor's wreath shall adorn your brow, my worthy ally. While you prepare the chariot I shall make haste to tell Aunt Milly that all's well with the world! Don't look at me like that, B'lindy Guest, I'm not crazy—yet!"
But B'lindy "'lowed" she was, for Nancy seized her by the shoulders and kissed first one cheek and then the other, and uttered the perfectly incomprehensible—to B'lindy—remark; "Webb was right!"
CHAPTER IX
DAVY'S CLUB
"The next thing we do is to s'lute the flag of our country. Now, one, two, three—after me!"
The shrill command floated up to Nancy in her tree-top.
She had just snuggled back against her seat with a long sigh of contentment. The door of her treasure-box stood open and beside her were the sheets of her neglected manuscript. She had stolen out for an hour's uninterrupted work.
"How heavenly quiet," she had been saying to the rustling leaves. "Now I am going to work and make up for lost time." Everything at Happy House seemed to be back on what Nancy called a "peace-basis." "I must go down to the village and tell Webb what a dear he was to make this seat," she had thought, as she climbed into it.
Then, just as her inspired pencil had written "Act 4" across the top of a clean sheet, had come the strange words, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Well, I never!" Nancy peeped all around. The sound came apparently from under the cliff. "Who is it? And how could anyone get there."
The voice—a boy's—was rattling on in a succession of sharp commands. Nancy crept toward the edge and peeped over. There, to her amazement, on a strip of sand beach in an indentation of the shore, marched and counter-marched a small boy, quite alone. He was a funny, snub-nosed, tousled headed boy in ragged blouse and blue jeans—and, clearly, very much in earnest, for a deep scowl wrinkled his freckled face.
"At-ten-shun! Shoulder arms—right face—forward, march." Three feet length of bare-footed manliness stepped briskly across the sand. "Step up, you Dick Snead," and a domineering arm swept out toward an imaginary lagger in the rear.
"Was there ever anything so funny?" giggled Nancy, crouching in the tall grass at the top of the cliff. "And what is it? Fairies don't come in over-alls, and I don't think they ever liked military drill, either."
She loosened a stone and let it roll down the bank. Startled, the youngster lifted his glance to the top of the bank.
"Hello," called Nancy.
A heavy scowl answered her friendly greeting.
"What are you doing?"
"I ain't doin' nothin'." It was clear that Nancy's interruption was unwelcome. "Least I ain't doin' nothin' that's hurtin'."
"Of course not! It sounded nice. I didn't even know there was a beach down there! How did you ever get down?"
The boy grew crafty—the haste with which he answered said plainly that he did not want Nancy to know how.
"Girls can't get down—it's awful dang'rous!"
"Then won't you come up?"
The boy considered this. He had guessed that this must be the "girl up at the Happy House." She seemed friendly and not at all disposed to "chase a feller away." And if he climbed up to her, then there would be no danger of her discovering the way down to the beach.
"All right, I'll come up." He disappeared for a moment in the tangle of growth that fringed the foot of the cliff to bob up close at Nancy's side.
"My goodness—it's just as though you came up by magic," she cried. "It must be dang'rous. I'm Nancy Leavitt. Who are you?"
The boy gave Nancy a suspicious look.
"Mebbe you'll tell!" he muttered, doubtingly.
"Oh, no, I wouldn't! Besides, what can I tell? And I can't even guess who you are because you see I don't know anyone in Freedom."
"I'm Davy Hopworth."
"Of course, I remember,—" But Nancy stopped short for what she remembered was how Webb had called them the "no-good Hopworths."
"And that there's my club," finished Davy, gravely. "Only the other fellers couldn't sneak away today."
"I—understand," Nancy nodded, hugging her knees with her arms. "What a jolly place to meet. It's so—so secret."
Davy grinned. "You bet. That's a pirate's cove. I guess mebbe there's a treasure buried there. All us boys knows where to get down, too."
"I'm so glad you let me know your secret! I won't tell a soul! I think your club's very jolly, too."
Davy, won by Nancy's disarming friendliness, produced from a ragged pocket a dirty piece of paper and handed it to her.
"Them's the Rules," he said, briefly.
At the top was printed "Cove Culb." And below were the rules: 1. No swaring. 2. No back talk. 3. No smokin nothin. 4. No lis. 5. No steling birds eggs. 6. No hurtin dume anmals. 7. Eviry boys goter no how to swim and lick eviry boy thats an enmy to the culb. 8. To kil pirats. 9. To fite for ar contry.
While Nancy was trying to control her lips so that she could say something, Davy added proudly, "I wrote 'em."
"They're—splendid! But why in the world should the other boys have to sneak away?"
"Liz says folks don't think a Hopworth's good 'nough. I guess no one thinks a feller oughta have any fun, either. Liz don't. I wait 'til she cleans the meetin' house—ev'ry Monday and after there's socials and things. We sneak. Jim and Dick get a lickin' if they get caught," Davy explained without the slightest embarrassment.
Nancy's indignation was sincere. "What a shame! I wish I was a boy, I'd join your club in a moment. Why, you can do so many things down there—drill and—swim, can't you? And have jolly fires and roast potatoes and weiners and corn?"
"Gee—I wish you were a boy."
"Why, can't I join anyway?" cried Nancy, inspired. "Some clubs have honorary members who do nice things for them. Can't I?"
Davy did not know what an "honorary member" was, and an instinct trained to suspicion warned him now.
"Girls ain't any fun."
"Oh, some girls aren't, I know! But I'm a lot like a boy. I can swim half a mile—I've done it! I can play ball, too and—and—why I won a medal for a high pole-vault! I'll bet I can beat you right now in a race!"
Davy regarded her with wide eyes.
"Bet you can't!"
Nancy sprang to her feet.
"Let's race from—here—to that big elm way down there." She indicated with her finger a giant elm in the "ten-acre strip."
"How you goin' to get over that stone fence?" And Davy pointed out the low stretch of stones that marked the dividing line between the orchard and the ten-acre strip.
"Oh, that! That's easy!"
Plainly Davy's respect was growing. He danced first on one foot and then on the other. "You are a sport. If you can beat I'll let you join the club. I'll count! One—two—three!"
They were off over the stubby grass. Nancy, longer-limbed, caught the lead. She vaulted the fence with agile ease. But Davy soon caught up to her and in the last few yards passed her. Laughing, breathless, Nancy reached the tree and clung to it.
"Hurray," came from behind them.
There, approaching them, was the "hired man." He had seemingly sprung from nowhere.
Flushed and disheveled by the race, an intruder on the enemy's own ground, Nancy was at a disarming disadvantage. Besides, Davy greeted the newcomer rapturously.
"Say, she's as good's a boy. She's goin' to join the club!" he announced, with triumph. "As honery member," he added.
Peter Hyde held out a brown hand.
"Congratulations! And to the club, too!"
Nancy was conscious that he was staring at her in a perplexed way. Her cheeks already red from running took on an added color under his glance. But there was a friendliness in his, eyes that won, her in spite of her resolve to avenge at every opportunity her injured dignity.
"I'd have won," she retorted laughingly, "if it hadn't been for—these," and she swished her white skirts. "But I don't care as long as Davy says I may join the club. Meetings whenever Liz cleans the meeting-house," she repeated.
"And she can swim and she can play ball and says we can make fires and things," cried Davy to Peter Hyde.
"Then you won't need me anymore?"
"You can be a honery member, too. She says they do nice things for clubs."
Peter Hyde put an arm across Davy's shoulder. "I think we could do a lot of nice things for Davy and his club," he said, directly to Nancy. "Seems to me there's energy and enthusiasm here that's being sort of wasted. What do you say—shall we be honery members?"
Nancy nodded. "I swear to keep all the rules."
Davy hopped with joy. "Wait 'til I tell the fellers. I guess you'll see 'em round, even if they do get a lickin'! But, say," he stopped short, inspired by a sudden thought, "mebbe now Mis' Leavitt's niece b'longs they won't have to sneak!"
Peter Hyde walked back with Nancy and Davy as far as the stone wall. From, the corner of her eye Nancy was, quite against her will, admiring the straight figure whose strength was only made more evident by the rough working clothes.
"He seems nice—for a hired man," she was thinking, all the while she was answering Davy's boyish questions.
And more than once, as he watched Nancy, that first perplexing look came back into Peter Hyde's eyes.
"Why, she isn't a kid, after all!"
CHAPTER X
THE HIRED MAN
"Claire, darling—
"It's after ten o'clock at night and here on North Hero that's like four in the morning in New York, but I can't wait another minute to write to you. The funniest thing has happened—only I'll save it for the end of my letter.
"I haven't written to you since that letter with the crazy postscript, like a nightcap, on it. Well, instead of being deported from Happy House, bag and baggage, I seem to become more of a fixture, each day. And each day, Claire Wallace, I grow more and more to think I belong here. Just so often I have to shake myself and say 'don't forget—you're pretending.' And, I scarcely dare write this—I believe they are all growing a little, wee bit fond of me—the real me. Of course Webb loved me at first sight and so did old Jonathan—he's a dear! And precious little Aunt Milly, who is getting the prettiest pink in her cheeks and can laugh now, truly laugh, and is as proud as can be over her first washcloth, she wants me with her all the time. I can tell by the way she looks at me. And I am really growing embarrassed, to say nothing of fat, with the good things B'lindy cooks and if you knew B'lindy, you'd understand that that is her way of showing sentiment. But as to Aunt Sabrina—I am not so sure!
"Things have changed since I wrote to you—there was an awful clashing of wills in Happy House and Aunt Sabrina came out on the bottom and since then she has an air of 'having washed her hands of me.' And she's stopped the lessons on Leavitts, too, just when we'd gotten to Ezekiel. But I've learned more than she wanted me to—I've found out about the mystery, as I wrote before, only I can't explain until our own Anne says I may—because it's about her grandfather!
"I believe in my last letter I said, too, that I hated Happy House. Well, I don't believe I do. It's a funny place—just when you think its dismal and prisony you see something you just love—like one of Jonathan's rose ramblers, all pinky, climbing up an old gray tree trunk. I can't explain it, there's a sort of an appeal about the whole place that's spooky, as though it was something human and—wanted me! Isn't that a silly notion, especially when I'm just here acting Anne's part so that she can go off to Russia?
"And this whole village is just like Happy House—it is proudly clinging to what it has been in the past and defying the advance of the new things of the present. When I walk along the main street (and only street) of the village I stare at the shutup houses, for, bless me, no one would dream of opening any blinds, and I wonder if there's a marble-topped table in every one of those best-parlors and a family Bible on every table filled with pages of ancestors. I suppose I'm wickedly disrespectful—when I see my dear Dad, and oh, how I want, want, want to see him—I shall tell him that now I know he didn't bring me up right.
"I am a 'honery' member of a club—and now I'm approaching the exciting part of my letter. It is called Cove's Club and has rules that forbid my swearing, talking back, smoking, lying, stealing bird's eggs, hurting dumb animals, and that make me fight (and lick) every enemy to the club (which, alas, seem to be mostly mothers) kill pirates and defend my country. Isn't that heavenly? It meets whenever Liz Hopworth has to clean the 'meetin' house' which is always on Mondays and after there's a social. And to attend the meetings you have to slide down thirty feet of bank to what is known around here as Falling Water Cove, though I don't believe water ever fell there. Anyway, it is a historic spot for reasons besides the club—one is that it was from there Robert Leavitt and the women of the household, with little Justine, escaped when Freedom was attacked by the Indians and it was there, one dark night, Ethan Allen himself landed in a boat for a secret conference with Jacob Leavitt before an attack upon the Yorkers. (90 plus in American History.)
"And the members of the Club are (please read slowly) Me, Davy Hopworth, Dick Snead, Jim Davis, Kirk Brown and Peter Hyde—the hired man.
"Peter Hyde and I are the 'honery' members."
"I can hear you, Claire. 'That is just like you, Nancy Leavitt—swear you're going to do one thing and doing another.' Yes, darling, it is like me, I'll admit! But this time it's different. I really did intend to be very haughty and distant each time I saw the man but—I couldn't. Could you, if you had just been running a race which included vaulting a stone wall? I had to run the race to win Davy's respect and I had to jump the wall—well, to show I could! And of course I never dreamed the creature was anywhere around. But he sprang up from the earth, I believe, and was there at the finish. And could you look haughty with every hair pin dropping out of your head?
"And, anyway, afterwards, he explained something that has made everything different, but that comes later in my story.
"Today it rained for the first time since I've been in North Hero. A sort of steady pitter-patter, not the kind of a downpour that makes you hug shelter, but a splashy sort you long to run out in with your face turned up. All morning long I sat with the aunts (Aunt Milly was so disappointed when she saw the rain that I brought her down to the hollyhock porch and made her all comfy there) and I simply couldn't stand it all afternoon so, after lunch, I stole away. Now Happy House is divided (thank goodness) into two parts, so if the aunts are on one side it is easy to slip out of the other. I put on my slicker and cap and slipped away. I frisked around in the rain drops for awhile, then, I started toward the orchard to see if my water-proof box was water-proof. And as I walked down the path I heard the sound of hammering from the direction of my Nest. 'A-ha,' says I, 'I will surprise nice Mr. Webb at his work!' So I crept up on tiptoe. And, oh, Claire, it wasn't Mr. Webb at all—it was Peter Hyde! There he was with a hammer and a saw and some nails in a funny apron he had tied around him working away with the rain spattering through the leaves right into his face.
"I was so surprised I thought I'd run back, but just at that moment he saw me. And of course, the way I always do when I shouldn't, I began to laugh. And he laughed, too, though he was embarrassed.
"I am sure he didn't want me to find out that he had made the seat. But for a hired man he met the situation with ease. He simply asked me to stand there while he drove one more nail; then, he said, his work would be complete. When he'd finished he held out his hand and invited me to climb into the nest. All this with the rain spattering on us! Of course I had to tell him that it was perfectly lovely and had been such a jolly surprise and that I had thought Webb had made it. And now comes the funny part. He explained in a sort of sheepish way that he thought I was a little girl! Jonathan had told him that Miss Sabrina's little niece was coming to Happy House. When he caught a glimpse of me in the stage (he dared to say this) he thought I looked like a 'jolly sort of a kid.' Then that very afternoon he saw me turn a handspring in the orchard—and climb the tree! He said he got to thinking what a sort of dull place Happy House would be for any youngster, and that it would be fun for him to do some little thing to make it jollier for her. He admitted, to use his own words, that he was flabbergasted to find that I wasn't a kid after all! I'm glad, in a 'close-up' I do look my years!
"But can't you see that that explains everything and that he wasn't impertinent, after all?
"Of course, living in cities all my life, I've always had an impression that hired men were just big, clumsy, dirty looking creatures who ate with knives and always smelled horsey. This Peter Hyde isn't that way at all. He's tanned copper-color but his face and hands look clean and except for his clothes, he doesn't look much different from any one else. And now that he knows I am quite grown-up (at least in years) he treats me very nicely.
"We're going to do all sorts of nice things for Davy Hopworth, who is a very nice, bright youngster, but, just because he's a Hopworth, the other boys get punished for playing with him and that makes both Peter Hyde and me indignant.
"Isn't the world funny, Claire, how the sins of the fathers and the grandfathers are visited upon the children—at least in places like this? Of course my beloved Finnegans are too busy just keeping the present generation going, to think much about the past, and the world they live in rushes too fast to stop to think that Timmy Finnegan, maybe's, going to rob a bank because his great-great-grandfather, over in County Cork, ran off with a pig.
"It is too late in the evening to philosophize, and I mustn't let my wick burn too low or Aunt Sabrina will know I'm using the midnight oil. Don't be cross, dear Claire, if you don't hear from me every day; although you might suppose that up here I'd have a great deal of leisure time, somehow each day seems to bring something unexpected. And as I said on page 2 of this voluminous letter, I am growing fond of Happy House and there is a sort of fascination about everything here. Dear Anne, with her noble dreams, never longed to bring about the reforms that I do! One is to throw out the dreadful waxed flowers and peacock feathers and old grasses from Happy House and fill the vases with fresh flowers. Another is to sweep through the whole blessed village and open every blind and let in today!
"And then when I'm bursting with my longing to make the whole world better, I'm suddenly reminded that I'm just a little next-to-nothing that can't even remember to act grown-up, masquerading in our Anne's shoes and daring to find flaws in Miss Sabrina Leavitt with all the noble heritage of Leavitt tradition flowing in her veins.
"Good night, littlest pal, I wish I could be with you long enough for a good, long gossip. But, by and by—"