CHAPTER XV
GUNS AND STRING BEANS
"Claire darling—
"Almost two weeks since I wrote to you. Will you love me any more?
"As I write I am all alone on the edge of a very little pool of light reflected from my little lamp that was only intended to see me into bed and not to burn half the night through while I write to my pal.
"Is this summer night as perfect where you are, Claire? (Tush—you've probably been playing tennis and dancing and flirting until you are too exhausted to care about anything except the breakfast bell disturbing you.) But up here it's wonderful! The sky is blue-black velvet, all studded with stars that seem suspended—they are so very close. And the air just caresses you! And there are the sweetest smells, grassy and earthy and all fragrant of roses. There are queer little noises, too—as though the night was full of fairy creatures. And I heard a whip-or-will! And a screech-owl, way, way off.
"Since I wrote to you last I have 'put my foot in it' again! Terribly! It's too long a story to write to you—there isn't nearly oil enough for that—but I skated over the thin ice and reached safety—in other words, I am still here! And, Nancy, I know, now, even Aunt Sabrina is beginning to like me! Do you know why? Because I lost my head and told her what I thought was the matter with her and Happy House and I don't suppose anyone dared to tell her that before. (I called her Leavitt traditions tommy-rot.) And I think she enjoyed the sensation! Anyway, she seems to treat me now like Somebody and she said something the other day about how lovely the autumns were on the Island, as though she took it for granted I'd be here then!
"Claire, what if I can never get away? Did I dream, when I took Anne's shoes (to speak in figures) and put them on, where they'd lead me? And sometimes I think that I will not see the end of the trail for a long time. I'm not crazy to see it, either, for it must end in Disaster!
"I am beginning to understand these people, too. I—in my usual way, judged them too quickly! One must know their history to know them—know what a splendid background they have. Aunt Sabrina has taken up Ezekiel where she left off and tells me stories about the Champlain Valley. Of course, I know she is doing it, because I called the Leavitt glories 'tommy-rot' and when I read, in B'lindy's book (gotten up, of course, to bait tourists) what these Islanders have done, I feel cheap and small and insignificant beside all these people who have such heroic grandfathers and great grandfathers.
"I suppose, all over the world, Island people must be different from people whose lands lie directly contingent with other lands and people. The very waters that shut away these precious Hero Islands wash their lives back upon themselves—they live in—they can't help it. The world that rushes on so fast for us, living in the big cities, scarcely stirs them here! These folks talk about Ethan Allen and Remembrance Baker as though it was only yesterday they walked down under the elms of the village street! They all eat off from very old china and sit in very old chairs—precious because some hero dear to the Island has sat in them!
"(All of this is not original with me—The Hired Man said it.)
"So just as I finished grandly saying to Aunt Sabrina that it didn't matter at all what the people, who are dead and gone, have done, I'm beginning to see—like a picture opened before my eyes—that it does matter—quite a little! They, these dead and gone people, leave us what they have done; if it's bad, we have to pay for it, some way or other—if it's noble, we have to be worthy of it! That philosophy is all mine and not the Hired Man's.
"There are a great many things about the aforesaid Hired Man (I never think of him as that) that perplex me. He is a great big riddle. He is more interesting than any one I ever met before. I wish you were here so we could talk him over the way we used to the Knights of the Pink Parlor. That he is good looking is not what seems so queer, because I suppose there are good-looking hired men as well as good-looking street car conductors or undertakers. He is so understandable—he is like you and Anne and Dad. And he knows so much about everything! He must have gone to college—he talks just like a college man. But once when I hinted he smiled and told me that he was 'still a student in the college of Experience, where after all one could learn more than at even the great universities.'
"He is Mysterious. After I've been with him I plan it all out—what he must have been and why he fell to the level of this sort of work; then the next time I see him he says something that makes me change all my ideas. I am sure he is concealing something—he simply will not say one word about himself! I don't believe it's anything as bad as murder or forgery or—anything like that, because he has such honest eyes, and they look right straight through you. It's probably some sorrow or—or disappointment. Sometimes his eyes look very tired, as though they had seen some terrible tragedy, though mostly always they're just jolly.
"He's wonderful with Nonie and Davy—they adore him. He thinks of so many nice things for them to do. He says once he was a scoutmaster in the Boy Scouts. I think he almost gave something away then, for, after he said it, he looked so funny and wouldn't say another word.
"He treats me as though I was another boy just a little older than Davy. And after the silly men we knew in college it's a relief to find anyone like Peter Hyde, even though he is a hired man. I suppose it's because he's probably had a hard time—has had to make his way, he's had all the nonsense knocked out of him! I am sure, if one could teach him to dance and then set him down in the middle of your mother's living-room you'd all go crazy over him. Now isn't that some Hired Man? Dear me, I spend more time wondering about him! Then I laugh at myself. Do you remember the Russian who came to college last year—how we all thought he must be a Russian prince and then we found out he'd been born on the Lower East Side?"
There were other doubts concerning Peter Hyde that Nancy did not confide to Claire. For the past two years and more, in Nancy's honest soul, all men between twenty-one and forty were divided into two classes; those who had gone over to France and those who had not. If Peter Hyde had gone there was nothing in any act or word that signified it; if he had not gone, why not? Was that what he was hiding?
She had resorted, feeling very contemptible as she did so, to little traps to draw him out, but he had invariably escaped them—sometimes changing the subject abruptly, other times openly laughing and saying nothing. Very much against her will she felt growing within her a contempt for him; almost a dislike of his personal appearance, so obviously healthy and able to have fought for his country! And yet, loyalty had kept her from confiding this to Claire.
A sense of fairness, too, urged her to give Peter the benefit of the doubt until she knew. "I'll just ask him," she decided resolutely. "I'll ask him right out—the very first chance I get!"
The opportunity to learn the truth had come on the very afternoon following the night she had written to Claire. Nonie and Davy had not appeared for a swim, so Peter had suggested a walk. He wanted Nancy to go over, with him, the new work he had started on the Judson ten-acre piece, the improvements in the barns, the rotary gardens.
It was the first time that Peter Hyde had talked much about his work. Nancy, who would have said turnips grew on bushes, for all she knew, found herself, under his instruction, suddenly absorbed in the scientific growing of beans and corn and potatoes; in the making of one strip of garden produce three different food products in rotation; in irrigation and drainage; in sanitary stables and electrically lighted chicken houses.
"You know there's poetry in these growing things," Peter cried, waving his hand out over the tender stalks of corn. "You get all the Art you want! Can you find anywhere a more wonderful picture than that waving field of oats—pale green against that sky? And in a few weeks it'll be yellow. See that lettuce green, too. And music—you can stand in a field of corn when the wind is blowing a little and you will hear a symphony!"
Nancy, surprised, watched his glowing face with interest Here was indeed a new side of the Hired Man! He went on:
"And business, say, there's a practical side to this farming that ought to satisfy any man. Wits, science, strategy, instinct, plain common-sense—it's all as necessary right here as in the biggest business concern in the world. And if a fellow wants a fight—well, he has it when he goes up against Mother Earth. We're used to thinking of her as kindly, generous, lavishing her favors! I've had another picture—she's worse than a Czar! She's exacting, she's moody, she's undependable, at times. I suppose she does it to try out her children—but anyway, the farmer has to fight every minute!"
He stopped suddenly. "I'm boring you to death, maybe!" He laughed apologetically. "It's always been a hobby of mine—this working with the earth. I never thought I'd do anything with it—until the war! Then I realized how much a nation's prosperity depends upon how its soil is used. And that's where our government's been short-sighted. They haven't paid enough attention to the small farmers. Of course, they try out some good things and publish bulletins, but the farmers ought to know how, by certain scientific changes, the productiveness of the land can be doubled! Take Judson, here. He's been farming this whole place just the way his grandfather did before him! He's read about new-fangled things, but he's afraid to try them—he doesn't know how to begin! Think how many Judsons there are all over the world! So I'm trying to show him by actually working out some experiments I've tested. If it's a success, if his account at the bank at North Hero shows it at the end of the season—why, there isn't anything Judson will be afraid to try. And think what it would mean to this country if it had a million farmers like Judson! And see how easily they can be shown!"
Nancy's face was alight with enthusiasm. With her vivid imagination she pictured a glorious army of Peter Hydes going out over the land, rescuing the poor farmers, putting new weapons into their hands!
"It's wonderful! And it's—brave!" she added, "because it isn't as if you went off with a whole lot of others with bands and flags flying!"
She was suddenly struck with remorse that she had, in her heart, so wronged Peter Hyde! She had thought him a slacker when he had shouldered the harder task! Something in the earnestness still reflected on his face made her own her guilt.
"I can't be glad enough you've told me all this! I didn't know! I never lived in the country. I just thought things to eat grew up any old way. And all this time I have been thinking horrid things about you because I thought you hadn't gone to war! I thought, maybe, you were way off up here to escape the feeling everyone had for slackers! You can imagine, now, when I see what you really are doing, how ashamed I feel! Will you forgive me?"
Peter's frank amusement made Nancy feel very uncomfortable and small. But then she deserved it! He held out his hand as a sign of his forgiveness. There was still laughter in his eyes as he regarded her.
"I suppose that was very natural! Most of the young fellows you know must have gone over!" he said, seriously enough.
She wanted very much to tell him of her father—how he had followed the men over the top; how he had worked day after day getting the stories back to the people at home and spent night after night tracing the "missing," or writing letters for the boys who never got further back than the first dressing-stations and who wanted mothers and fathers and sweethearts to know that they'd had their chance and had made the most of it! But she couldn't, for she was supposed to be Anne and Anne's father had died when she was a little girl.
She told him of a few of the college men she had known, who had gone, eagerly, at the first call.
"They didn't even want to wait to get commissions! They just wanted to fight!"
The revelation of Peter Hyde made her think of Claire's brother. She told him about Claire and Anne—she called Anne, vaguely, "another girl." "Claire's a darling and we just love her, but we can't abide her brother! Of course it's not reasonable, because we've never laid eyes on him, but we've heard enough from Claire to know just what he's like. I suppose the war made a few like him—he was brave enough over there and lucky to have all his recommendations recognized, but it made him so conceited! He came back here and just strutted around, everywhere. Claire says her mother's friends used to have teas for him—he'd go to them and speak and show his medals! Claire was mad over him. She was so disappointed because I came here instead of going to Merrycliffe. But I couldn't see myself spending my time petting her beloved Lion! I knew I'd be rude and say just what I thought."
Nancy and Peter were sitting upon the stump of a tree near the cliff. Peter suddenly rose and walked to the edge—his back square to Nancy. After a moment he turned.
"Thought I heard something down there," he explained, at her questioning glance. "Don't blame you for disliking that sort—like Claire's brother! They're a rummy kind! I had a friend a lot like him. But—maybe, it wasn't all his fault—about the teas and things! Maybe his mother got 'em started and he didn't want to hurt her!"
It was like Peter Hyde, so gentle with children and animals, to stand up now for even Barry Wallace's kind.
"You're just like Dad," Nancy cried warmly, then stopped, a little frightened. But of course Peter had not been in Freedom long enough to know anything about the Leavitts.
He bowed with great ceremony, one hand over his heart.
"If Dad's like daughter, I thank you for the compliment. Now, if you will linger longer with me I'd like to show you Mrs. Sally and her babies. Sally is my experimental pig. I've built a piggery for her with a plunge and a sunken garden, and if you don't declare that Sally enjoys such improved surroundings, I'll know my whole summer's work's a failure."
Nancy walked over the rough ground toward the barns with a light heart. She had a delightful sense of being "pals" with this new Peter Hyde—who, while the Barry Wallaces were swaggering around with their medals, was up here in an out-of-the-way corner of the nation, fighting a new sort of a fight! He actually wanted her approval of his new piggery!
CHAPTER XVI
PETER LENDS A HAND
It was quite natural that Nancy should take her problems to Peter Hyde.
More correctly, she did not take them—Peter Hyde discovered them when, a few days later, he found Nancy alone in her Bird's-nest, completely surrounded by sheets of paper, a frown wrinkling her entire face, furiously chewing one end of her pencil.
There had, of course, to be some explanation of the manuscript. Nancy told him of the play she was writing, how she had really come to North Hero to finish it!
"I thought I'd have hours and hours to work. And I was so glad when I found this hiding place. I've been here, now, weeks and weeks, and have done scarcely a thing!"
"Is it because the Muse will not come?" asked Peter, eying the scattered sheets with awe.
"Oh, it would come—if it had a chance! My head's just bursting with things I want to write and I dream about them in my sleep. But—it sounds silly—I'm so busy. Maybe the things I do don't seem important but I just can't escape them."
She made room for Peter on the seat beside her. Then she told him of Aunt Milly; of that first trip to the orchard, how it had been the beginning of a new life for the little woman.
"I bring her downstairs every day now, right after breakfast, and she's one of the family. I'm going to coax Webb to make another sort of a chair; one she can wheel herself—I've seen them. She's learned to knit beautifully; she's so proud because she's working on a sock for the Belgian children—she says it's the first time she's ever felt useful! She helps B'lindy, too. It makes you want to cry to see how happy she is. But with all her independence she wants me all the time. When I start to leave her there's something in the way she looks at me that is just as though she reached out and caught me by the hand!"
Nancy described, too, how B'lindy was constantly finding little tasks for her that would keep her in the kitchen or on the back porch within sound of her voice.
"You see talking's the joy of B'lindy's life and my ears are new—they haven't heard all the things she has to say. Just when I think I can escape she begins telling me of the cake her mother baked for Miss Sabrina's mother the day the Governor of Vermont came to Happy House—or something like that!"
Anxious that Peter should understand everything Nancy made a vivid word-picture of Miss Sabrina and of the difficulties she had had in winning her. "I believe she's fond of me now, but she just doesn't know how to show it! She's never displayed one bit of affection in her whole life, I'm sure. She's stone. But sometime she's going to break—I'm doing my best to make her! I know she enjoys having dear little Aunt Milly around, but do you think she'd say so? Goodness no. But there's a lot of good in Aunt Sabrina and I'm bound to know it all, so I make it my duty to sit with her just so long each day while she tells me about the Leavitts and the other families of this Island. And there is something heroic about them all!
"So here I am, just tingling to finish the last act of my play and not a moment to myself! If it isn't precious Aunt Milly or Aunt Sabrina or B'lindy or even dear old Jonathan, it's Nonie or Davy or——"
"Or me," finished Peter Hyde, glancing significantly at the neglected work. "Your hands are full!"
Nancy went on earnestly. "And it all seems so worth while! Look at Nonie—she's a different creature already. I don't believe she pretends as much, either—her little body is catching up with her spirit. And Davy doesn't hang his head when he looks at you!"
Peter Hyde could understand her feeling toward the children. They had planned together to bring something more into those two starved young lives. Like Nancy, he was delighted at the results already apparent. It was work too worth while to be abandoned—for anything.
"Nonie fairly eats up the books I give her but she always wants to read them with me—it's so that she can ask questions. And the questions she asks! Every new thing she learns she immediately adapts to her own life. We've begun 'Little Women' and of course she plays Amy! Poor little flower, sometimes I think of old Dan'l and Liz and wonder from where on earth the child got her gift. And what a precious blessing it is to her!"
Recalling Davy's contempt for his sister's "actin' lies," they both laughed.
"How could anyone think bad things of Davy," cried Nancy, indignantly. "He's the soul of truth and honor! But up here he won't have a chance."
"Oh, yes, he will!" Peter contradicted. "If I'm any good reading character in a ten-year-old he'll make a chance. He's a leader, now. Look at the way the other boys follow his slightest suggestion!"
Davy's "club" was flourishing. The attractions that Peter and Nancy had added to its program had made it boom. Several new "fellars" had come in. The meetings were even more frequent than Liz cleaned the meeting-house, and now, because it had become known that Miss Sabrina's niece was a member of the club, no lickings awaited the members upon their return, rather impatient mothers eager to hear "what that girl at Happy House was up to now." There was some talk about turning the club into a Boy Scout troop; Mr. Peter had promised to organize them and train them.
"Oh, dear," Nancy sighed, perplexed and torn, "it's like having a dream you've dreamed crumble all to pieces! I wanted to have my play done before my—I mean, I wanted to finish it up here and then send it straight to Theodore Hoffman himself. Of course you don't know him. He's one of the greatest dramatists and play producers in the world. I know it's daring in me and maybe he won't even give a minute to my little insignificant effort, but—whatever he may say, I'll know it is the best criticism I can get!"
To Nancy's surprise Peter displayed a considerable knowledge of plays and actors, critics and producers. He could see her problem, too—how she was torn between the claims of Happy House and her beloved work.
Nancy was grateful for his sympathy and because he did not laugh at her. But of course, why should anyone who could find music in waving corn not understand her own dreams!
Peter's face looked very much as though he was tackling some problem of drainage—or a new incubator.
"When you get right down to plain facts, it's a question of conserving time. You're wasting it—somewhere. I believe you can double up a bit. Let Aunt Milly listen to Belinda, and teach Aunt Milly to help Nonie. I'll take care of Davy. You say Aunt Milly likes to feel she's useful—if you start her she can help Nonie a lot and Nonie'll give her something to think about, too."
Nancy considered this with brightening eyes. "I believe you're right! I've just been selfish, trying to do everything myself just because I loved to, and stupid—to think no one else could do it! Of course Aunt Milly can read with Nonie—and play with her, too. I'll begin this very day. I'll have a school here in the orchard and Nonie and B'lindy and Aunt Milly shall come. It'll be the funniest school you ever heard of," Nancy laughed. "I'll teach B'lindy the joy of seeing Hopworth 'young 'uns' eat her best molasses cookies!"
Nancy's face showed that she was mentally leaping far ahead in her plans. Peter felt that he had been left out.
"Let me be the head taskmaster or whatever you call it. You'll doubtless need a strong hand now and then. Anyway, you don't know how much it helps my work mixing a little fun with it!"
Now that her problems were straightening Nancy felt very kindly and gracious and happy.
"Of course, you may come to the orchard—whenever you want! Oh, you have helped me so much," she cried, with a smile that brought a sudden gleam in Peter Hyde's eyes. "Now, if you'll give me a hand putting these pages together, I'll run in and prepare Aunt Milly and B'lindy."
Following along the lines of Peter's suggestion, Nancy's "school" developed rapidly. She covered sheet after sheet of paper with "schedules" and finally to her satisfaction, blocked off every waking moment of her pupils' day. Aunt Milly fell heartily in with her plans; she was proud to know that she could help. The books for Nonie that Nancy had spirited to Happy House were as fascinating to her as to Nonie.
After the first day Aunt Milly thought of a great many new "lessons" they could begin for Nonie. With the promise that after awhile she could make for herself a "pinky" dress, like Nancy's, Aunt Milly taught her to hem and seam and tuck. At the same time Nonie learned that it was quite as bad to wear a torn, soiled dress as to say "him and me" or "I ain't."
"You're wonderful, Aunt Milly," Nancy had declared, after this innovation in the school. "I never would have thought of it, myself." She laughed, ruefully. "I'd better study with Nonie, I guess, and learn to mend, myself."
Nancy had told Aunt Milly, too, of Nonie's pretend-mother. Perhaps that was why Aunt Milly's voice was very sweet and tender as she and Nonie talked and played and read together. Nonie liked to wheel the chair; she began to look forward to bolder excursions beyond the gate to the village.
B'lindy, in her heart still a little distrustful that "no good could come from encouragin' them Hopworths," nevertheless found countless excuses to join the little group under the apple trees, sometimes bringing some hideous lace crocheting that had been years in the making but would some day—if B'lindy lived long enough to complete it—cover a bed. Sometimes she brought a basket of goodies and other times came empty-handed and just sat idle with a softened look in her old eyes as they rested on the purple rim of mountains across the water.
"I guess it makes a body work better for restin' a spell," she said, after one of these intervals.
But with the success of Nancy's new plans were two little clouds—small at first but growing with each day. One was the realization that very soon her work for these dear people could go on without her. And though in one breath she told herself that this was fortunate, because her stay at Happy House must end with her father's return, in the next she was swept with a sharp jealousy that, after she had gone, Aunt Milly and B'lindy and Nonie and Davy would still gather under the apple tree.
Since the afternoon Peter Hyde had found her with the manuscript she had not laid eyes upon him!
A sense of hurt at his neglect did not grow less when she learned from old Jonathan, after one or two questions, that he had gone over to Plattsburg; rather it gave way to a resentment that Peter, considering what good chums they had grown to be and the "school" and everything, should have gone off on any such trip without one word of parting!
"He'll see how well we can get along without him," she had declared to herself after the third day. After all he probably was hiding something; this sudden disappearance must have some connection with it.
His comradeship had grown very pleasant, she admitted, but, she told herself, it belonged to the real Anne Leavitt, like Aunt Milly and Nonie and the others, he must drop out of her life when she left Happy House.
So that he might not even be missed by Davy and his cronies, Nancy devoted one entire afternoon to teaching the boys of the club how to build a fire without matches. When, after repeated and discouraging failures, the last one had joyfully succeeded, Nancy had promised to teach them to wig-wag at the very next meeting.
When Nancy returned to the house, flushed and tired from the hours on the beach, old Jonathan, at the door, presented her with a half-blown rose, its stem thrust through a folded sheet of paper.
"Mr. Peter, over to Judson's, asked me to give it t'you."
With a certain set of the college men and girls Nancy had been very popular; more than once pretty tributes of flowers had come to her. She had accepted them rather indifferently, had kept them with dutiful care in water and had pasted the cards that had come with them in her remembrance book. But this gift was different; it was quaint—and so pretty!
"If you will meet me at seven in the orchard I will tell you a surprise that will tickle you to pieces," Peter Hyde had scrawled across the paper.
"How—funny!" laughed Nancy, reading and re-reading the lines. "What can it be?"
If Nancy had asked herself why she sang as she dressed for supper she would have thought, truthfully, that it was because she was ravenously hungry and B'lindy's supper smelled very good; and she chose to wear, from her slender wardrobe, a pink organdy, because it would be cool—not that she even dreamed, for a moment, of doing such a silly thing as going to the orchard at seven o'clock, to meet Peter Hyde!
A dozen times, during the evening meal, she resolved that Peter Hyde's surprise could wait. He presumed, indeed, to think that, after he had absented himself for so long without one little word of explanation, she would go running at the crook of his little finger!
However, she put the pink rose in her belt and occasionally slipped it out to smell of it. It was the most beautiful rose she had ever seen—she must ask Jonathan its variety.
At five minutes of seven she picked up her knitting and sat resolutely down between her aunts on the hollyhock porch. Just as Aunt Sabrina was telling her how, back in 1776, Robert Leavitt had dined with Benedict Arnold on the flagship of his little Champlain fleet, two days before its engagement with the British, the old clock within the house struck seven. With her breath caught in her throat Nancy counted sixty, twice—then suddenly sprang to her feet and rushed off the veranda.
"Why, Nancy—dear," cried Aunt Milly, startled.
"Humph," grunted Aunt Sabrina, clicking her needles faster than ever.
Peter was in the orchard. He had been there since quarter of seven. He was disappointed at the coolness of Nancy's greeting; it seemed to him that he had been gone for ages, and he had, during his absence, quite foolishly, been looking forward to this meeting.
He had hoped, too, that she might wear the rose.
"One guess where I've been," he commanded lightly, as he held out his hand to assist her into the tree.
"Dear me, how can I tell? Buying plows or pigs or——"
Nancy tried to make her tone seem airily indifferent, when all the time she was really consumed with curiosity and a desire, too, to tell him how splendidly her work was going.
"I have seen Theodore Hoffman!"
"What?"
"Don't look as though you thought I'd gone mad. He's human. I happened to hear that he was staying at Bluff Point, so I went over to see the gentleman."
Nancy's eyes did say that she thought he had gone quite out of his mind!
"How did you dare?"
"I know a fellow that knows him. He was very nice—as I said, he's human, terribly human. You should see him playing tennis!"
"What—what did you say to him?"
"I told him I had a little friend who was soon to become one of the greatest playwrights in the world and——"
"Peter!" Nancy lifted an imploring finger. "Honest, what did you say? And why——" she was suddenly abashed. He had done this for her.
Peter kept his tone light.
"You see I did have some pig business over that way, so it was easy enough to do a favor for a little pal at the same time. Hoffman was very nice—he's going to be around up here for some weeks and promised me he would drive over here. Now it's up to you to have the manuscript ready."
"Oh, Peter, I'm frightened! You're a darling! I shall always bless pigs! Of course I'll have it done—I'll work night and day. I'll go straight back to the house now." She jumped to the ground. In her haste she forgot the poor rose she had hidden behind her.
Peter, crestfallen at her sudden flight, found it, however. He smiled, whimsically, as he held it in the palm of his hand.
"Nice little kid," he said, as he had said once before, then he put the rose carefully into his pocket.
CHAPTER XVII
NANCY PLANS A PARTY
"What are you doing, Nonie?"
Pencil poised in mid-air; Nancy leaned down from her Nest where she had been working. Aunt Milly was nodding in her chair, her finger and thumb between the pages of "Sarah Crewe," from which she had been reading until she had succumbed to the drowsy sounds of the summer air. Nonie had been tiptoeing back and forth across the grass making funny, little, inarticulate sounds in her throat.
"I'm playing party," Nonie stopped under the apple tree and lifted a thoughtful face to Nancy. "When I grow up I shall have ten children and have parties all the time. There'll be harps and violins and drums and lots and lots to eat. And I shall wear velvet, with a long train, and carry a big fan." She sighed. "Do you always have to be beautiful to do beautiful things?"
"Just doing beautiful things makes you seem beautiful," explained Nancy.
Nonie was not satisfied. "B'lindy makes beautiful cakes and pies but she isn't beautiful. And Jonathan puts seeds in the ground that grow into pretty flowers but—he's ugly! Could I do beautiful things and—look like this?" She spread out her shabby skirts.
Behind the troubled gaze Nancy caught the gleam of a vision.
"You can—you can! Nonie, no one can ever take your dreams away from you!"
"Not even Liz," echoed Nonie, bitterly.
A few days before a tragedy had touched Nonie's life. From out of nowhere there had wandered into her affections a hungry-eyed, maltese cat with two small babies. Nonie had mothered them passionately, tenderly. She had hidden scraps of food from her own meagre portions to feed them; she had fitted a box with old rags and had concealed it beneath the loose plankings of the shed. Then, mother cat, satisfied that her babies were in good hands, had disappeared.
"Even kittens can't have mothers," Nonie had thought, perplexed over the ways of the world. "Never mind, darlings, Nonie will love you," and she had kissed each small puss as a pledge of her devotion.
But a week later she found both kittens lying stiff and cold behind the shed. At her passionate outburst, Liz had told her that "she wa'nt a goin' to have any cats under foot!"
Nonie had taken her sorrow to the Bird's-Nest and Nancy and Aunt Milly had managed to soothe her. But she would not forgive Liz.
"If that mother should ever come back how could I face her," she had asked very seriously. "She'd know it was my fault—because I left them! I wish—I wish babies never had to be left—without mothers!" Thereupon had taken shape the determination in Nonie's heart to some day have ten children whom she would never, never leave—not for a moment!
"Don't forget the fairy godmother, Nonie, and her wand. Some day she'll turn your old dress into gold cloth and put a crown upon your head." Nancy made her tone light; she could not bear to see the shadow on the child's face. She jumped down from the tree.
"I've just thought of the loveliest plan! Nonie, let's have a party at Happy House!"
"A real party?"
"Yes, a real party—with lots and lots to eat! It's too warm for velvet, but how would you like to wear a white dress of mine that's dreadfully small for me? I'm sure Aunt Milly's clever fingers can fix it over. B'lindy shall make a cake—like the Governor had, and Aunt Sabrina shall get out all the old silver and linen."
Nonie's face said plainly that she could not believe her ears!
"Honest?" she whispered, glancing toward Aunt Milly.
"Well——" Nancy laughed. "Of course, we'll have to consult Aunt Sabrina and Aunt Milly and B'lindy. Suppose we cough very loudly—then Aunt Milly will waken!"
An hour earlier, as Nancy sat in the Nest making notes here and there upon her manuscript, the thought of the party had not entered her head. But once there, it grew rapidly. Besides, her heart was very light; she wanted everyone else to celebrate with her—her play was done! She had worked day and night; the tiny shadows under her eyes told that. But in her exultation any physical weariness was forgotten.
In the still hours of the night before she had dashed off a sleepy line to Claire..... "The Gypsy Sweetheart is done. Darling, pray for me! My fate lies in those pages. I may soon be with you at Merrycliffe—that is, if you still want me."
The last line was an afterthought. That day a curious letter had come from Claire, perplexing to Nancy because Claire's usual complaining tone had given place to mysterious rejoicing. "I can't tell you anything, Nancy, because I promised I wouldn't, but some day you're going to know. I'm the most wildly happy girl in the world," and beyond that the maddening creature had written nothing. "I believe she's engaged," thought Nancy, indignant and hurt, too, that Claire should let any such thing come into her life without some hint to her dearest friends.
After repeated coughing Aunt Milly wakened with a start and tried to look as though she had not been asleep. Nancy told her of the party they wanted to have at Happy House. She had a way of telling it that made it seem very simple and easy. After one frightened gasp, Aunt Milly promised to help win Aunt Sabrina's and B'lindy's approval.
Nothing, perhaps, so marked the amazing changes in Happy House worked by Nancy's stay than the eagerness with which B'lindy, and even Miss Sabrina, accepted the suggestion of the "party."
They sat with Nancy and Aunt Milly on the hollyhock porch after supper excitedly making plans; at least B'lindy and Aunt Milly were excited; Aunt Sabrina had moments of alarm—it had been so very long since they had entertained anyone!
"Do let me plan the whole thing," begged Nancy. "I'm good at such things. I always had charge of all the class stunts. Ever since I've been here I've pictured how wonderfully this old house would open up for entertaining. We'll have flowers in all the rooms—heaps and heaps of them. But let's serve out under the trees!"
B'lindy and Miss Sabrina were horrified at such an idea. When guests had come before to Happy House they had eaten in dignified manner from the dining-room table.
"But your garden is so lovely," Nancy cried. She made a vivid picture of how it would look on the day of the party. Her enthusiasm won her point; even Aunt Sabrina's doubt had to yield before her youthful determination.
So it was agreed that ice-cream and cake—like the Governor had had—should be passed from tables set under the old trees, and in the dining-room there would be punch in the old punch bowl that had, in years gone by, honored many a distinguished gathering under the old roof. And Nancy should have her "heaps" of flowers everywhere.
"Maybe we'd better keep the sitting-room closed," suggested Miss Sabrina, faintly. She was too proud to tell them that she could not bear the thought of curious eyes staring at the mantel with its ragged crack, everlasting reminder of the storm that marked the falling of the shadow over Happy House.
But Nancy would not listen even to this—flowers everywhere and doors and windows open, everywhere.
When Nancy had declared that everyone in Freedom must be invited—even the Hopworths and Peter Hyde, Miss Sabrina had made her last protest.
"The Leavitts, Anne——" she had begun.
"Oh, bless the Leavitts," Nancy had laughingly broken in, "dear Aunt Sabrina, don't you see that it's your chance to show that—that catty Mrs. Eaton, who's just a common storekeeper's wife and's only been here on North Hero one and one-half generations, that you, Sabrina Leavitt, are not going to be told by her what you should do and what you shouldn't do!"
Miss Sabrina had not forgotten what she had suffered from Mrs. Eaton's cruel tongue; Nancy's impetuous argument carried convincing weight. So Nancy triumphantly added to her list, Mr. Daniel Hopworth, Miss (Elizabeth or Eliza, she wondered) Hopworth, Miss Nonie Hopworth and Master David Hopworth.
For the next few days such a bustle followed that Nancy wondered why she had not thought of it before! While B'lindy opened shutters and swept and dusted and aired, the sunshine poured into corners of the old house that had never seen it before. Miss Sabrina unlocked old chests and sorted out and polished old silver and washed and pressed old linen of exquisite fineness. Aunt Milly made over the white dress for Nonie. Nancy wrote the invitations, in Miss Sabrina's name, and despatched them by Webb to what B'lindy called "Tom, Dick and Harry" in Freedom.
Nancy, herself, invited Webb.
"I'll tell you a secret about this party, Webb! I want everyone in Freedom to know that Happy House is a happy house; I want them to see how wonderful Aunt Milly is and that she wouldn't be happier in her grave! I want them to see the old mantel and the lovely rooms. And I want them to know that the Hopworth's are invited!"
"Wal, I guess Freedom folks never saw the like before at Happy House, leastways not sence the old missus was alive," the old man had excitedly answered. "You bet old Webb'll be thar!" Nancy knew that as each invitation was delivered at each door there would go with it an excited account of the strange "sociable" that could include the Hopworths, and his added opinion that "thet gal'd sartin'ly started things happenin' at Happy House."
The smithy's son was engaged to help Jonathan cut the grass, weed the gardens and clip the borders, under Nancy's direction. So that, while amazing changes were going on within the house, changes equally startling were transforming the garden. Old Jonathan straightened more than once to view with pride the results of their work.
"This garden used to be the pride of the Island," he muttered, seeing in its restored trimness something of its old-time beauty. "But it's young hands that's needed."
"It's beautiful, now," Nancy had declared. "It's the loveliest garden I ever saw, Jonathan," and she thought of Nonie's quaint words: "Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!" Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful, and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected in the expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them.
"That's life," reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing. "It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or not beautiful!"
They had worked late; the long shadows of the afternoon danced in lacy patterns over the gray walls of the house. Nancy, watching them, thought of that first disappointment she had felt upon viewing Happy House. Then it had seemed an ugly pile of stones, severely lined. Now it was more like a breathing Thing. It had sheltered and seen shaped so many lives; it held a future, too; it must stand protectingly for others after Aunt Milly and Aunt Sabrina had gone!
It had, now, with its blinds fastened back, an awakened, expectant look, as of eyes suddenly opened after a long, long sleep.
Then into Nancy's happy meditations flashed the disturbing thought that nothing about the garden or the house belonged in any way to her!
"It's just like me to forget," she declared aloud, shouldering her hoe and turning toward the carriage barn. "And like me to get fond of it all!"
"Anyway, Nonie'll have her party, and even if there isn't a harp and a velvet train there'll be lots to eat or B'lindy's name isn't B'lindy. I wonder," and Nancy addressed the distant outline of the Judson's barns, "how Peter Hyde'll ever act at a tea-party!"