Two days later Jean and her father, Carol and Douglas, arrived at Halcyon Lake. They stopped at Hurricane first to restore Douglas to his chum; and then the other travellers went on to Huairarwee and received an enthusiastic welcome. A bevy of eager girls clustered around the carriage as it stopped. Carol sprang down, to be caught and fairly smothered by her classmates. Jean made a joyful swoop over the wheel and into the arms of Cecily and Frances, who held her so tight that Betty and Stella had to embrace the whole trio. The instant that her battle maids released her, Nanno was upon her, winding her chubby little arms and legs around her long lost guardian, while Jean hugged the rosy dumpling of a mavourneen. Such a babel of merry voices, as Carol and Jean were escorted in triumph to their tents! Such a rattling of tongues, as the news of Chipmunk Lodge was poured out!
“You dear old Joan of Arc! I thought I’d never get you back!” said Cecily, drawing Jean down on a cot and squeezing her anew.
“I thought I’d never get back to you, you dear old St. Cecilia!” returned Jean. “Oh dear! I want to hug everybody all over again!”
“Cece, you’re the grabbiest thing that ever lived!” cried Betty. “Go ’way! Give the rest of us a chance!”
“It’s my turn,” said Stella. “I’ve something to tell you, Jean. I have a mother, now!”
“And I have a sister!” said Cecily.
Jean stared from one to the other. “Stella! You don’t mean—!”
“Yes, I do!” said Stella, with a joyous little laugh. “I’m going to live with Mrs. Brook—with Mother!”
“Stella! How perfectly glo-o-orious!” Jean sprang up and nearly throttled the happy girl. “Are you going to live with her always? Won’t you really have to go back to the farm any more?”
“No, I won’t ever have to go back. Pa don’t want me,” answered Stella.
“And we do want her,” said Cecily. “She’ll be my sister, and keep Mammykins company while I’m at school. Isn’t it the loveliest thing!”
“Oh, Stella! I’m so glad!” cried Jean. “I couldn’t bear to think of your going back! My, isn’t everything turning out like a regular fairy-story! You’re Cecily’s sister, and Douglas is my brother! Isn’t it just too beautiful!” She whirled Stella around the tent in a mad tarantella as an outlet for her delight. “I must tell Carol this minute!” she exclaimed, as they stopped for breath.
“Whoa! Don’t gallop away!” said Frances. “Carol’s known about it for ever so long.”
“But we kept it a secret, to surprise you when you came back,” Stella explained. “Oh, Jean, you don’t know what it means to me! You girls all have mothers, and lovely homes—you don’t know how it feels to have nothing at all! And now I’m going to have a mother again, and a sister, and the loveliest home that ever was—and everything!”
Here the dinner horn sounded. Stella hurried to her tent to smooth her tumbled hair, and Cecily to the bungalow, to give a finishing touch to the goldenrod and autumn leaves decorating the table.
“Now we’ll tell you the rest of the secret,” said Betty to Jean. “After Mrs. Brook decided to take Stella, Carol and Eunice got up a plan that all of us girls should club together and pay for her dresses and things till she’s able to earn her own living. So we’re all going to join and raise a fund. But Stella doesn’t know that yet.”
“Those big girls are getting good at last!” remarked Frances. “It’s because they’ve had me for an example, all summer.”
“Let’s make them all honorary members of the order!” cried Jean. “Jolly! jolly! Now I know what’ll be our Silver Sword work next winter! Let’s raise money for the fund! Let’s earn enough to give Stella music lessons! Carol says she has a splendid ear.”
“Hooray!” cried Frances. “We’ll give a play a month! Won’t we have a winter of larks!”
“Won’t I have a busy time as treasurer!” laughed Betty.
A second peremptory toot of the horn sent the three girls scurrying to the bungalow. “We’re to have dinner in the kitchen,” said Betty. “Jean, you must promise solemnly, on your golden shield, not even to peep into the living-room.”
Jean’s curiosity burned at a white heat as she took her place at the table in the cozy kitchen. The campers were to say good-by to Halcyon next morning, and a farewell dinner party was now given, with Mr. Lennox as the guest of honor.
“Joan of Arc,” said Cecily, as the ducks came sizzling from the oven, “you’re not to have Blanche for your room-mate next winter, after all! Miss Carlton wants her to room with Adela. She thinks there’ll be less skylarking.”
“And I’m to room with Betsy in the Orioles’ Nest!” said Frances. “Miss Carlton thinks I’ll be a good influence for her!”
“Miss Carlton wants me to keep Frisk in order!” Betty corrected.
“Then, Cece, you’ve got to room with me!” Jean broke in.
“That’s just what I’m going to do,” said Cecily. “We’re to have Castle Afterglow.”
“Oh, St. Cecilia! How perfect!” cried Jean. “Won’t we have fun! You must come home with me over Sundays. I’m to go home every other Sunday. Dear old bouncing Blanche! She’ll be a good, solid weight to tie Adela to! She’ll steady the White Mouse if anything will!” And all four girls went off into ripples of happy laughter.
“Now, Motherling, tell us,—have we been good daughters all summer?” asked Eunice, at dessert.
“The best daughters in the world,” answered Mrs. Brook. “I shall be lonely for you all next winter.”
“Then will you take us back again next summer, if we can come?”
“With all my heart I will! Next summer and every summer this camp will be ready for you.”
“Three cheers!” cried Nancy. “I’m coming, with the camp baby under my arm!”
Carol rapped on the table. “Camp Huairarwee, stop eating apple pie, and take a vote,” said she. “I move that we all try our best to come back next summer. Somebody please second the motion.”
“I second it!” responded every one of her eighteen fellow-boarders.
“The motion is eighteenth-ed,” Carol announced. “All in favor of a jolly summer next year, signify it by saying ‘Ay’!”
“Ay!” burst forth unanimously, and Cecily clapped her hands in delight.
“Daddy!” Jean called to her father, at the other end of the table, “Can’t we come to Halcyon next summer? There’s the dearest little mite of a camp standing empty right next door to Huairarwee. We could rent that!”
“But it won’t hold all of you, Jean,” said Cecily. “Your father and mother and Douglas can stay there, but you’ll have to live with us.”
“When our daughters settle things for us, there’s nothing left to be said,” Mr. Lennox observed to Mrs. Brook.
“Fräulein and Miss Hamersley must come and chaperone us again,” said Eunice.
“You’re a handful, but I’m ready,” replied Miss Hamersley.
“Not I! Not if you are to be lost in forests and on mountains again,” laughed Fräulein, shaking her head at Jean and Carol. “I see my hair grow gray already!”
“Nobody else sees it,” said Carol. “That one little contrary-minded shall be kidnapped by me and brought! You’re just the right size to be tucked into a suit-case, Bunny, liebchen!”
“Carolchen, ven vill you learn to be respectful!” said the little teacher. “Ach, wohl! I suppose I haff to come, to take care of my two storm-children.”
Dinner over, Jean was invited to show her father through the labyrinth, and to remain in it till summoned. In half an hour Mrs. Brook called the exiles back, sent Mr. Lennox to the bungalow, and took Jean to the battle maids’ tent. There, spread out on her cot, Jean found a white satin robe, and on Cecily’s a cloak of ruby-colored velvet.
“Why—what’s that?” she cried. “That looks like the dress Eunice wore when she acted Juliet! And that—that’s the cloak Carol had for Romeo!” The finery carried her back to the evening at Hazelhurst when the older girls had acted Romeo and Juliet, but how had it been spirited into camp!
Mrs. Brook would tell no secrets, but she took Jean in hand, and—presto, change! Instead of a lassie in a corduroy mountain suit, there stood a royal personage, robed in shimmering white satin, her velvet cloak falling from her shoulders, her court train sweeping the floor. Cheeks rosy with excitement, blue eyes laughing and dancing, dusky hair flowing loose over her mantle—the Queen of the Silver Sword came forth from her tent to find awaiting her a merry dark-eyed maid of honor, in an antique gown as yellow as a daffodil. Frances took the ends of the regal train, and Jean was conducted to the bungalow. As they stepped upon the veranda the door was opened for them by two porters whose extraordinary attire made Jean stop short in amazement. One was an Indian, through whose war-paint she recognized Jack’s features. He was wrapped in a gorgeous red blanket, and his superb hen-feather war-bonnet proclaimed him a chief of renown. The other was a frontiersman of Colonial times. He leaned, not on crutches, but on his rifle, and he wore fringed leggings and jacket, and a coonskin cap, which he doffed as the queen entered her palace.
A palace it was indeed! The walls were tapestried with evergreens and autumnal foliage, and adorned with golden shields crossed by silver swords. Two rows of court ladies were waiting to receive her majesty, and they made a dazzling array, for more than one trunkful of costumes—the relics of Hazelhurst tableaux and theatricals—had lately arrived in camp. Jean saw medieval dames, oriental princesses, and European peasants. Nancy and Marion, in their pale green and peach-colored satins, with tall pointed head-dresses, might have presided at tournaments as “queens of love and beauty.” Helen and Dorothy were charming as Pocahontas and Minnehaha; Eunice seemed to have stepped out of the pages of Shakespeare, for she was a fair and stately Portia, in red silk cap and gown; and pretty Rose Hamilton was the fairy queen Titania, surrounded by attendant elves, all with spangled robes and gauzy wings.
Jean’s bewildered eyes roamed over the sea of color, and down the hall of state, to the dais that had been raised at the farther end. There she saw a floral throne covered with goldenrod and purple asters. To the left of the throne stood the princesses of the Scroll and the Treasure—Cecily in rose pink, Betty in forget-me-not blue. Carol waited on the right, and she had become a dryad of the forest. Her robe of creamy yellow was trimmed with ruddy Virginia creeper and clusters of rowan berries; she held a sickle and a sheaf of corn, and on her head was a garland of bright maple leaves.
Suddenly, from the bower of evergreens around the piano, sounded the march from Lohengrin. Cecily and Betty came down between the ranks of courtiers and bowed before their sovereign.
“Oh, girls, it’s just like fairy-land!” Jean whispered. “But what does it all mean?”
“It’s just a welcome home for you and Carol,” replied Betty. “We planned it all as soon as we got back from Chipmunk Lodge.” And Cecily said, “May it please your Majesty to advance and take your throne!”
With her maid of honor bearing her train, and the princesses following, the queen walked slowly up to the dais. Carol stepped forward to meet the procession. Bowing low, she took Jean by the hand and led her to the throne.
“Carolie, you look perfectly beautiful!” whispered Jean.
“It is your Majesty who is beautiful!” Carol responded. “You are every inch a queen!” Then she addressed the courtiers:
“When my young sister, Springtime, held sway over the land,” said she, “the Queen of the Silver Sword was raised to the throne. Since then she has valiantly fought to better the world, and her good sword Caritas has been drawn whenever she has found a wrong to right. But, though Spring and Summer have said farewell, her Majesty is still a queen uncrowned. Now I, Autumn, have come. I have turned the forests to gold, and made them ready for the coronation day. And you, fair ladies of the court, are here to pledge your fealty to the Silver Sword, to pay homage to the queen, and to present her with her crown and scepter.”
Autumn drew back, and up came Stella, all in white, her cloud-like veil dotted with tiny stars. She bore on a cushion a circlet of frosted silver; and as she knelt before the throne Cecily and Betty took the crown, held it a moment aloft for all to see, then laid it on the head of the young queen. There it gleamed, on the soft dark hair, and where it rose to a point above the broad forehead were a shining “C” and “V.” Then Cecily placed in her hand a gilded scepter.
“Long live the Queen!” Clear and full the chorus rang out.
Jean’s glowing face was all the reward her subjects asked, but she rose and spoke:
“Ladies of the court, and you, my battle maids—” Then impulsively she threw wide her arms as if she would embrace them all. “Oh, girls!” she cried, “I can’t make a speech! But I thank you millions and billions and trillions of times! I never dreamed we’d have a real silver crown for our order! Oh, it’s all too beautiful and lovely! I ought to be the best queen that ever lived, with such a crown and such subjects. But I don’t deserve it one bit—I haven’t done anything at all! I know who ought to be crowned—Carol ought! She saved Douglas’s life, and she’s nursed him all these weeks, and just done everything for everybody!” Autumn was shaking her head and her sickle in vehement denial, but Jean went on: “She ought to belong to the order, anyhow. She’d make a splendid adviser—she always knows how to set things straight. Mayn’t I have her for my chief councillor, or grand vizier or something?”
“You may and you should have her,” said Mr. Lennox, who stood near the dais. “‘In days of old, when battle maids were bold,’ the Germanic tribes had their Alruna women who foretold the future, and, I’ve no doubt, gave the chiefs excellent advice. Your Majesty’s humble and obedient father suggests that you appoint Miss Carol your Alruna Maid!”
“That’s a splendid idea!” exclaimed Jean. “Kneel down, Carolie!” Autumn knelt before the throne. Jean lifted the leafy garland, and replacing it on the flowing chestnut hair, proclaimed Carol the Alruna of the Silver Sword.
The Alruna kissed the royal hand; and then such a clapping as burst forth, within the palace and outside, too!
“Long live the Alruna Maid!” shouted a manly voice. There was Court looking in at an open window. At another were Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton.
“Spies! spies!” cried the courtiers, but they welcomed the spies indoors, in time to see the camp baby do homage to the queen. Nanno, in a scarlet Mother Hubbard cloak, came running up to the dais, which she mounted with a hop. Then, measuring herself with one hand on top of her black curls, she recited in her tuneful brogue:
“A little mavourneen am I,
I’m only dest so high!
But when I’m as old as you,
I’ll be a battle maid too!”
“You darling baby, indeed you shall be a battle maid, too!” said Jean, gathering Mavourneen up to a place beside her on the throne.
The assembled ladies then approached and kissed the royal hand; after which up came Court, with the frontiersman and the redskin warrior. Court was in his hunting suit, and equipped with rifle and cartridge-belt. “Your Majesty,” said he, “allow me to present the famous scout, Natty Bumpo, whom they used to call Deerslayer, and now call Hawkeye; and also the young chief, Uncas, the last of the Mohicans. I hope you’ll excuse Hawkeye and me for coming just as we are. We’ve been out all day after venison for your Majesty’s banquet. Uncas is the only one who has had time to put on his dress suit.”
“Heap much beautiful squaw here! Big chief like queen’s scalp best!” observed Uncas, gazing with admiration at the silver circlet.
“You shan’t have my crown, nor my scalp either!” laughed Jean. “You’ll protect me, won’t you, Hawkeye?”
“Killdeer never misses,” answered the scout, raising his rifle. “I’m ashamed of Uncas,—he talks like a dog of a Mingo. But then he hasn’t a white man’s gifts. It isn’t in my gifts to know how to speak to a queen, but—Great Cæsar! you look stunning!”
“Your Majesty’s so dazzlingly radiant, it hurts my eyes!” Court declared, and he took his place beside the chief councillor. “Alruna Maid,” he said, “I hope you won’t keep your good advice all for the queen. When I come to New York in my Christmas vacation won’t you give me some good counsel, too?”
“Take care, Court! You’ll have a sermon from your clerical father if he finds you going to an Alruna for counsel,” replied Carol. “And once you told Jean it was your rule to do what you wished, first, and ask advice afterwards.”
“Oh, that all depends on who gives the advice,” said Court. “I never had an Alruna to go to before. Do you ever tell people’s fortunes? I shall want to come and have my fortune told, some day.”
“Oracles never mind people coming to inquire,” the Alruna answered graciously. Then her sunny eyes grew deep and full of mystery. “The veil of the future is lifting,” said she—“just one little corner of it. I see—a legacy! It comes from a great-aunt. And the grandnephew is so fond of using the silver sword that he won’t spend one cent of it upon himself. There—that’s as far as the veil will lift to-day.”
GAZING WITH ADMIRATION AT THE SILVER CIRCLET.
Gay dance music sounded just then from the green bower where Fräulein served as orchestra.
“I hope it’s my good fortune to have the Alruna for my partner,” said Court.
“I fear it is your fate!” she laughed. “Fräulein’s playing my favorite waltz.” A moment more and the hunter and the Alruna were gliding about in the dance, and fantastic couples were revolving merrily all through the palace.
“I can’t dance,” said Hawkeye, regretfully. “I got wounded trying to sarcumvent the Mingoes.”
“Uncas dance with paleface queen,” said the last of the Mohicans. He led her majesty out, while the queen’s father renewed his youth by taking for a partner the princess of the Scroll.
The bungalow had seen many a merry dance that summer, but this was the merriest of all. After every waltz or two-step there was a change of partners, the hunter and the young brave doing their best to dance with every member of the court. The revel ended with the Virginia reel, out under the trees. Douglas watched it from a rustic bench, and when it was over Jean dropped down beside him to rest.
“I’m rather afraid of my sister, now she’s a queen with a crown on!” said the boy. “I feel as if I ought to be down at your feet, instead of sitting beside you.”
“Do I look so very royal?” asked Jean. “Oh, see there!” She pointed to the lake. “There goes a kingfisher!”
“Two of them!” said Douglas, for first one blue-gray bird and then another had arisen chattering from a tree overhanging the water. He raised his rifle. “Shall I shoot?” he asked mischievously. “It brought me good luck last time!”
“No, don’t shoot!” said Jean, laughing. “All the good things came because we saved the halcyon’s life!”
“And two halcyons,” said Douglas, “ought to bring us twice the good luck!”
* * *
The afternoon was wonderfully mild for so late in September. In the slanting rays of the sun the water flashed beguilingly, and Jean was not allowed to rest long on the rustic bench.
“It’s time for our sunset carnival, now!” said Cecily.
“You don’t mean there’s more coming!” exclaimed Jean.
“Oh, yes, there is!” Cecily answered. “This is a three-act play. You and Carol haven’t been out on the lake since the end of July, so we thought—as we’d be all dressed for it—we’d wind up with a water carnival. Come down and see your royal barge.”
Down to the lake tripped the queen and her court. Moored to the dock the royal craft was waiting. A canopy, and plenty of ornamental cheesecloth, had transformed the old camp fishing-boat into a barge which Cleopatra herself need not have scorned. It was draped all in white and crimson; a heap of bright cushions made a throne; a fantastic flag, gay as a Venetian gonfalon, hung over the stern, almost trailing in the water; while to a pole, erected like a mast, wound with crimson and white and flaunting streamers of the same, was secured a large golden shield, with the sword and motto of the order.
“What a beauty of a boat! How did you dress it up?” cried Jean.
“I waved my wand, and it rose out of the lake!” replied the fairy queen Titania.
Jean was made to take her place on the cushion-throne, with Stella at her feet, Frances at the helm, and Cecily and Betty at the oars. A general embarkation followed. Court and Jack launched the rowboats and canoes, and helped the ladies to step aboard without detriment to their finery; and at the last moment Court, with the Alruna, now returning to her role as Autumn, slipped off to the kitchen and came back carrying between them a huge basket of rosy, mellow apples, which they placed as cargo in the Hist-oh-Hist. The fleet was soon on its way up the lake to Fairy Cove. The queen’s barge headed the line. Close in its wake came Uncas and Hawkeye, the scout reclining in the canoe while the Mohican plied the paddle, Nanno sitting cuddled up contentedly between them. Then came the Hist, paddled by the hunter, Autumn in the bow playing her mandolin, for which she had exchanged her sickle, pausing now and then to toss her gifts of apples to others of the masqueraders as they came within range, for the rest of the gay procession gradually closed up and surrounded the royal galley: Titania and her fays, Pocahontas and Minnehaha, Portia and the Queens of Love and Beauty, peasant girls, chivalric dames, and princesses of the Orient.
The clouds were warm with rose and gold as the gay party dropped into Fairy Cove. There the queen and her battle maids let their barge drift, while the others circled around them in a grand review. Carol touched her mandolin and began to sing the boating song, Santa Lucia. The rest took up the melody, and the sunset carnival became a sunset concert, too. While the sky blushed up to the zenith, the sweet young voices rose in song. And when the carnival fleet glided homeward again the oars and paddles rose and fell to the melody of Auld Lang Syne.
Sky and lake seemed to have caught fire together as the keels grated on the sand and the queen and her maidens stepped ashore. But over the dark hills the clouds gloomed violet, and the sun was sinking fast, bringing to an end that summer with its many halcyon days. The whole rainbow company gathered on the beach to see the last of the sunset glory. A flood of light poured over the happy queen. It shone on the princess of the Scroll, as she stood at the queen’s right hand, and turned her fair hair to St. Cecilia’s halo. It played with the Alruna’s flowing curls and made them burn with ruddy gold.
“It’s been such a beautiful summer!” said Jean. “Even the sad part had such a wonderful ending! And to-day—to-day’s the loveliest of all!”
The Alruna stretched out her hand toward the western sky, where a band of clearest blue broke the rose and gold. “See that lake in the sky!” she said. “That’s Halcyon Lake, next year! The future is unfolding before me in the sunset! We are all coming back again—every one, and next summer we shall have with us all the battle maids of the Silver Sword!”
Down dropped the great globe of flame behind the purple clouds; its rays were quenched, and the young sovereign and her court stood in shadow. But again, through a rift, the golden light flashed forth, and the last bright horizontal beams touched Jean’s silver coronet and made it glisten. The Alruna spoke again:
“This is your second coronation, little queen! The sun is crowning you now!”
FINIS