“Miss Hell-e-en! Miss Hell-e-en! Yo’ popovers is done popped over!” came in a wailing shriek from the kitchen.
Helen went so fast her pink bungalow apron looked like a rosy streak. Dr. Wright, fearing some dire calamity had befallen someone and his “first aid to the injured” might be in demand, ran after her. The popovers had popped just right, however, but must be devoured immediately; so luncheon was served as quickly as possible.
“Bring those two chairs from the kitchen, Chloe,” commanded Douglas as she deftly rearranged the table for ten persons instead of eight.
“Now, Miss Douglas, don’t you know ’bout dem cheers in de kitchen? Th’ ain’t got no mo’ seat to ’em dan a rabbit.”
“Bring them anyhow,” laughed Douglas. “I can sit in one and Miss Helen in the other.”
In the confusion of placing family and guests, Douglas forgot all about the bottomless chairs. After everyone was seated she suddenly remembered them with horror.
“Suppose the count got one of them!” It made very little difference about anyone else. But the count! All of that charm and elegance in a chair with no seat!
As soon as grace was said, Bobby, with a shriek of delight, suddenly collapsed and disappeared.
“One chair accounted for!” thought Douglas.
Bobby’s heels were sticking up and he peered saucily through his feet at the astonished company.
“I done got a Goldilocks’ cheer,” he announced. “‘An’ Goldilocks sat, an’ sat, an’ sat, an’ sat ’til she sat the bottom out of the little bar’s cheer.’”
“Bobby, take your seat!” commanded Mr. Carter, trying to look stern.
“I done took it!”
“Get up!”
Easier said than done! Bobby was fast stuck, “I reckon my ’ployer’ll have to op’rate on me,” he said plaintively, “’fo’ I kin eat.”
There was a roar of laughter at this and Dr. Wright, who was sitting between Helen and Bobby, extricated the youngster and then changed chairs with him, whereupon they proceeded to the business of eating popovers and creamed mushrooms and the other good things that Helen had planned for the repast.
Douglas then laughingly told of their predicament in having only eight whole straight chairs in the house and of her intention of sitting on one of the decrepit ones herself and of having Helen sit on the other.
“It is rather like playing ‘Thimble, thimble! Who’s got the thimble?’” she laughed. “I hope whoever has it is comfortable.”
“Don’t all speak at once!” said Lucy. “Of course some of the company’s got it, because home folks would put you out of misery at once.”
Still silence and Douglas was mortally certain the count had it and was too polite to say so.
“He certainly has beautiful manners,” she said to herself, and turning from Lewis, who was endeavoring to monopolize her, she smiled her sweetest on the courteous foreigner. She felt she must make up to him anyhow for telling him his moustache turned up like the Kaiser’s.
“Isn’t it strange, Cousin Robert,” said Lewis to Mr. Carter, “I wrote Douglas I was coming and she never got my letter?”
The count’s manner was a little distrait. Evidently he was trying to hear what Douglas was saying and to listen to the conversation between Lewis and Mr. Carter at the same time.
“Is that so? I am afraid our postman is careless. He seems to get the mail mixed sometimes. Every now and then our letters get left at Grantly.”
“But the ladies up there would send them down, I am sure,” said Mrs. Carter.
“You got my telephone message all right, didn’t you?” Dr. Wright asked Douglas.
“What message?”
“Why, I telephoned Grantly I would be out today!”
“No, they did not deliver it.”
“Perhaps they will send the letter with the message,” suggested the count in an amused tone.
Just then Chloe fell down the steps into the dining-room with a plate of hot popovers, which she adroitly caught before they reached the floor.
“Miss Ellanlouise done sent Sis Tempy down with the news that you alls is gonter hab some comply. They done dis’greed whether they is a-comin’ yesterday or tomorrow.”
“Who is it coming?” laughed Helen.
“They done ’sputed whether it is a doctor or a lywer, an’ they ain’t able t’ agree what his name is, but Miss Ella thinks it is Stites an’ Miss Louise she holds that it is Bright. Both on ’em was a-tryin’ ter listen at the ’phome ter onct so they done got kinder twis’ed like.”
“When was the message sent?” asked Douglas.
“Sis Tempy said Miss Ella said it come of a Chuseday an’ Miss Louise called her back an’ tol’ her not ter pay no ’tention ter Miss Ella, that she knows it come of a Thursday.”
“Why, that must be my message I sent on Wednesday!” exclaimed Dr. Wright. “I am either Lawyer Stites or Dr. Bright.”
“Of course!” and everyone laughed heartily over the mistake of the peculiar old sisters.
“Well, it doesn’t make any real difference since you are here, does it?” asked Helen.
“Not a bit! Being here is what is important to me. Does it make any difference to you?”
Dr. Wright was able to say this in a whisper to Helen. It seemed very difficult for him to have many words in private with this girl, who seemed to him to become more charming every day. Certainly adversity had improved her in his eyes. The character and determination she had shown when once the gravity of her father’s condition had been explained to her were really remarkable in one so young, and one who had up to that time never done a single thing she had not wanted to do. Tête-à-têtes with Helen were made difficult for him by reason of his popularity with the whole Carter family. Mr. Carter had various questions to discuss with him; Mrs. Carter must always tell him her symptoms; Douglas wanted his advice about many things; Nan found him very sympathetic and always had something to confide in him; Lucy, realizing that Helen no longer looked upon him as an enemy to the family, had come over to his camp and now considered him her company just as much as anybody’s and demanded his attention accordingly. Of course Bobby knew he belonged exclusively to him. Was he not his ’ployer?
“Does it make any difference to you?” he repeated.
Helen was on the point of answering him very kindly when Count de Lestis leaned over and engaged her attention.
“Miss Helen, do not forget the promise you made me to come to Weston some morning with your father. There are many things I want to show you. I want your advice, too, about some pantry arrangements I am contemplating. What does mere man know of pantry shelves?”
“Oh, I’d love to come!” exclaimed Helen, and the kind answer she was preparing to give Dr. Wright never was spoken.
That young physician looked at the Hungarian count as though he would cheerfully throttle him. Helen’s advice about pantry shelves, indeed! What business had this foreigner to draw Helen into his household arrangements?
During that luncheon de Lestis managed to antagonize both Lewis Somerville and George Wright. Douglas had smiled entirely too many times on this stranger to suit Lewis, and Helen had been much too eager to pass on the housekeeping arrangements to accord with George’s ideas of United States’ relations with Hungary.
“Why is he not fighting with his country?” each young man asked himself.
Chloe was waiting on the table remarkably well, much to Helen’s gratification. Only once had she fallen down the steps, and, thanks to her teacher’s vigilance, she usually remembered to pass things to the left.
“You must try to show the Count de Lestis how much you have learned,” Helen had told her while she was preparing the lunch; “remember how interested he is in educating colored people.”
Helen, seated at the head of the table, was pouring the tea, Mrs. Carter having resigned her place to her daughter when she resigned herself to be a semi-invalid.
“Hand this to Count de Lestis,” Helen said, having put in sugar to his taste.
“Here’s yo’ C-U-P, CUP of T-E, TEA,” shouted Chloe, as she balanced the cup precariously on the tray.
“Beg pardon!” exclaimed the honored guest in amazement.
“C-U-P, CUP! H-O-T, HOT! T-E, TEA!”
The count took the tea with a puzzled look on his handsome countenance and Chloe fled from the room, not in embarrassment but to impart to Sis Tempy how she had done made Miss Helen proud by showing the count how much she done learned her to spell.
Everybody roared, even Mrs. Carter, who had come to the realization that the most dignified way to treat Chloe was to recognize her as a joke.
“It is this way,” said Helen when she could speak. “You see, I have been trying to teach the poor thing to read and spell. She told me of the wonderful work you are doing,” to the count.
“I am doing?”
“Yes, in your night school at Weston! It made me ashamed to think you, a foreigner, should be doing so much for the colored race, and I doing nothing, so I determined to do what I could with my own servant at least. I can’t tell you how splendid I think it is of you and your secretary to give so much time to the poor country darkies.”
The count flushed a dark red. He seemed actually confused by this girl’s praise.
“All of us think it is fine,” said Nan.
“Speak for yourself!” whispered Lucy. “Mag and I think it is smart Alec of him and we bet he does it ’cause he wants to, not to help the colored people.”
“I beg your pardon! Did you speak to me?” asked the count, recovering himself from the evident confusion into which Helen’s and Nan’s approbration seemed to have plunged him.
“I—I—said—er—I said you and your kind secretary must enjoy the work,” stammered Lucy.
“Do you find they learn easily?” asked Dr. Wright, trying to hide his feelings and wishing he had put in his spare time in altruistic work among the colored brethren.
“The truth of the matter is I do no teaching myself. This night school is a fad of Herz, my secretary.”
“Ah, but I know you do some, because Chloe tells me of how kindly you speak to the darkies,” insisted Helen. “She says you make beautiful talks to them sometimes and they are crazy about you.”
“They exaggerate!” shrugged the count. “They seem a simple, kindly folk, grateful for any crumb of learning.”
“Aren’t there any district schools here for the colored people?” asked George Wright.
“Yes, but no place for the older ones to learn. It is quite pathetic how they yearn for knowledge,—so Herz tells me.”
“Well, my opinion is that too much learning is bad for them,” blurted out Lewis.
“Oh, Lewis!” exclaimed Douglas. “How can you say such a thing? Too much learning can’t be bad for anybody.”
“What I mean is too much and not enough. They get just enough to make them big-headed and not enough to give them any balance.”
murmured Nan.
“Exactly!” said Lewis gratefully. “I don’t want to hold the darky down, but I do think he should be taught very carefully or he will get wrong notions in his head, social equality with the whites and such stuff.”
“I find Americans very strange when one gets them on the subject of social equality,” and de Lestis suddenly seemed very superior and quite conscious of his own station in life. “There is much talk of being democratic but not so much practice. Your Declaration of Independence plainly states that all men shall be free and equal, and still, while you grant the black race freedom, you deny it equality.”
“I reckon you don’t understand the South very well,” answered Lewis, his blue eyes flashing.
“Ah!” was all the count said, but he said it with a toploftical manner that irritated Lewis.
“The colored soldiers are excellent, so I have heard,” put in Douglas, hoping to get the subject changed, if not too abruptly.
“Yes, they are good,” said Lewis, “but that is because they are trained well. That is drinking deep of Nan’s Pierian Spring. I think a military training in colored schools is almost more important than in the white ones. It gives them the kind of balance they don’t get in any other way.”
“Why don’t you give the pupils in your night school some drilling?” asked Helen.
“Thank you for the suggestion!” and the count bowed low over Helen’s hand as they arose from the table at a signal from Mrs. Carter, who began to think the conversation was getting entirely too serious and not at all social. “I shall profit by it immediately and introduce a kind of setting-up exercise at least.”
“Now we’ll find out who had the other busted cheer!” cried Bobby.
It was the count, and his tact and good manners in patiently sitting through the meal on what must have been a rather uncomfortable perch made the females of the party, excepting Lucy, admire him just that much more, but it did not make George Wright and Lewis Somerville think any more highly of the good-looking foreigner.
“He had much better be fighting for his country,” grumbled Lewis to his companion in misery, “even if it would be on the wrong side.” Which was not the proper remark for a soldier in the army of a neutral nation.
The mystery that will never be solved for the human race is why some days must be dark and dreary and why those days sometimes stretch themselves into weeks.
The weather that had been so perfect when our Carters first came to Valhalla had held for a long time. Frosty, crisp autumn mornings that made the blood tingle in one’s veins, followed by warmer days and then cold bracing nights when a fire in the great chimney of the living-room was most acceptable, had become so much the rule that when the exception occurred no one was prepared to accept it.
Morning after morning Nan and Lucy had trudged cheerfully over the fields and through the lane to Grantly Station to catch the early train, enjoying the walk and not minding at all that the quarter of a mile was really three-quarters. Coming home was happy, too. The train reached Grantly by half-past three, the pleasantest time in an autumn afternoon, and the girls would loiter along the road, stopping to eat wild grapes or to crack walnuts or maybe to get some persimmons, delicious and shriveled from the hard frosts. Sometimes Billy and Mag would have the good news for them that the Suttons’ car was to be at Preston and that meant that our girls were to get out at that station and be run home by Billy.
They were great favorites with both Mr. and Mrs. Sutton who encouraged the intimacy with their son and daughter. Suitable companions are not always to be found in rural communities and the coming of the Carters to the neighborhood was recognized by that worthy couple as a great advantage to their children.
“Nan is a charming girl, William,” Mrs. Sutton had said to her husband, “and even if Billy fancies himself to be in love with her it will do him no harm, only good, since she has such good sense and breeding.”
“Of course it will do him good and maybe it is not just fancy on his part. We Suttons have a way of deciding early and sticking to it. Eh, Margaret? I remember you had your hair in a plait and wore quite short skirts when I began to scheme how best to get a permanent seat by you on the train, and here I’ve got it!” and Mr. Sutton gave his portly wife a comfortable hug.
“And Mag is having a splendid time with Lucy,” continued that lady, accepting the hug with a smile. “Lucy is so quick and clever, no one could help liking her. I, for one, am glad the Carters have come.”
“What do you think is the matter with their mother? They always speak of her as an invalid. She looks well enough to me, although of course not robust like one beautiful lady I know.” Mr. Sutton admired his wife so much that the flesh she was taking on just made her that much more beautiful in his eyes. He thought there could not be too much of a good thing.
“Invalid indeed! She is just spoiled and lazy,” declared Mrs. Sutton who was all energy and industry. “She is attractive enough but I should hate to be her daughter.”
“Yes, and I’d hate to be her husband, too!”
The Suttons had been most pleasant and hospitable to their new neighbors, although there could not have been two women brought together so dissimilar as Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Carter considered her mission in life to be as beautiful as possible and also charming. Mrs. Sutton had never had time to think what her mission in life was, she was so busy doing the things it seemed important to do. She was first of all the wife of a successful farmer and that meant eternal vigilance on her part, as the success of a farm depends so much on the management of women. Next she was the mother of two healthy, normal children who must be trained in the way they should go. After that she was an important member of a community where her progressive spirit was needed and appreciated. Her home, Preston, was where the Ladies’ Aid met and worked and kept the little church out of debt; there was headquarters for the Traveling Library; there the Magazine Club read and swapped periodicals. She was president of the Preston Equal Suffrage League, a struggling but valorous band, and now that work of organizations was sorely needed for suffering humanity, this same league was rolling bandages and making comfort kits for the Allies, showing that votes for women was not the only thing it could work for. Truly Mrs. Sutton was a busy and happy woman.
But we are forgetting that the weather seemed destined to become our topic! Certainly the Suttons are a more agreeable subject than the weather our girls were fated to endure. Of course the sun can’t shine all the time and in the natural course of events October days must shorten into November days and they in turn into December, with nights growing longer and longer and days shorter and shorter and both of them colder and colder. Drizzling rains must fall, even if a trusting family has taken its abode in a weather-beaten old house, up a muddy lane that must be walked through to reach the station.
yawned Nan one morning as the alarm went off, warning her it was time to rouse herself and Lucy. Lucy had curled up in a little ball, having gone to bed without quite enough cover. It had turned cold and damp during the night, a heavy rain had kept up for hours and now at six in the morning it was drizzling dismally.
“I don’t see how we can go to town to-day,” sighed Nan, peering out of the window. “It is so dark and gloomy.”
“I reckon the lane will be awfully muddy,” said Lucy, reluctantly uncurling herself, “and I believe I left my rubbers at school that time I took them in when I thought it was going to rain and it didn’t.”
“You’ll have to borrow Helen’s.”
“Gee! Isn’t it cold?” and Lucy drew back the foot she had tentatively poked out of bed. “I wish we could live in a steam-heated house again.”
Valhalla was heated by open fireplaces, drum stoves and the Grace of God, according to Chloe. There was a small stove in the younger girls’ room, but up to this time they had not felt the necessity of having a fire.
It seemed difficult on that rainy morning for everyone to awaken. Chloe’s feet and then her reluctant legs came through the trap-door of her attic room and slowly down the chicken steps leading into the kitchen long after Helen had started the kerosene stove and put on the kettle.
“I ain’t slep’ none,” she declared when Helen remonstrated with her because of her tardiness. “The rain done leaked in on my haid an’ I reckon I’s gonter die er the ammonia.”
“Oh, I fancy not! A little water won’t hurt you,” said Helen, flying around the kitchen like a demented hen trying to scratch up a breakfast for her brood. “Hurry up and set the table, it is so late.”
“Won’t hurt me! Lawsamussy, Miss Helen! Don’t you know that niggers can’t wash they haids in winter time? They do say they wool has deeper roots than what white folks’ hair is got an’ the water what touches they haids dreens plum down inter they brains.”
“Brains, did you say?” said Helen, but her sarcasm was lost on Chloe. “If it leaked on your head why didn’t you move your bed? It leaked on Miss Douglas and me, too, but we moved the bed.”
“Well, I was in a kinder stupid an’ looks like I couldn’t raise han’ or foot.”
“I can well believe it,” muttered Helen. “Please set the table as fast as you can!”
“Helen,” cried Lucy, hurrying into the dining-room, “you’ll have to lend me your rubbers! I left mine in town.”
“Have to?”
“Well, please to!”
“I hate for you to stretch my rubbers all out of shape.”
“Stretch ’em much! Your feet are bigger than mine.”
“That being the case I certainly won’t lend them to be dropped off in the mud.”
“Children! Children!” admonished Douglas, hurrying to breakfast. “What are you quarreling about?”
“Who shall be Cinderella!” drawled Nan. “And it seems a strange subject to dispute about on such a morning. For my part, I wish my feet were a quarter of a mile long and I could take three steps and land at the station.”
“It leaked in our room last night,” said Lucy.
“And ours!” chorused Helen and Douglas.
“Mine, too! But I ain’t a-keerin’,” from Bobby.
“My haid is done soaked up with leaks,” grinned Chloe.
“I really think Miss Ella and Miss Louise should have had the roof mended before we came,” said Douglas.
“Well, tonight we can go to bed with our umbrellas up,” suggested Nan.
“Yes! An’ wake up a corp!” said Chloe dismally, as she handed the certainly not overdone biscuit. “It am sho’ death ter hist a umbrell in the house.”
Nan and Lucy were finally off, forlorn little figures with raincoats and rubbers and dripping umbrellas. Helen’s rubbers were a bit too small, much to that young lady’s satisfaction and to Lucy’s chagrin.
“My feet will slim down some as I grow older, the shoe man told me. I betcher when I am as old as you are my feet will be smaller,” said Lucy as she paddled off with the rubbers pulled on as far as she could get them.
The road was passable until they got within a hundred yards of the station and then they struck a soft stretch of red clay that was the consistency of molasses candy about to be pulled. Nan clambered up an embankment, balancing herself on a very precarious path that hung over the road, but Lucy kept to the middle of the pike.
“I hear the train!” cried Nan. “We must hurry!”
“Hurry, indeed! How can anyone hurry through fudge?” and poor Lucy gave a wail of agony. She was stuck and stuck fast.
“Come on!” begged Nan, but Lucy with an agonized countenance looked at her sister.
“I’m stuck!”
“If I come pull you out, I’ll get stuck, too! What on earth are we to do?”
“Throw me a plank,” wailed Lucy in the tones of a drowning man. Her feet were going in deeper and deeper. Helen’s rubbers were almost submerged and there seemed to be nothing to keep Lucy’s shoes and finally Lucy from going the way of the rubbers.
Nan dropped her books, umbrella and lunch on the bank and pulled a rail from the fence. Lucy clutched it and with a great pull and a sudden lurch which sent Nan backwards into the blackberry bushes, the younger girl came hurtling from what had threatened to become her muddy grave.
The train was whistling, so they had to forego the giggling fit that was upon them and run for the station. The small branch that they must pass before they got there, was swollen beyond recognition, but one stepping-stone obligingly projected above water and with a mighty leap they were over. The accommodating accommodation train reached the station of Grantly before they did, but the kindly engineer and conductor waited patiently while the girls, puffing and panting, raced up the hill.
They had hardly recovered their breath when Billy and Mag boarded the train at Preston.
“Well, if you girls aren’t spunky!” cried Billy admiringly as he sank in the seat by Nan, which Lucy had tactfully vacated, sharing the one with Mag. “Mag and I were betting you couldn’t make it this morning.”
“We just did and that is all,” laughed Nan, recounting the perils of the way.
“And only look at my boots! Did you ever see such sights?” cried Lucy. “Oh, Heavens! One of Helen’s rubbers is gone!”
“That must have happened when I fished you out with the fence rail. I heard a terrible sough but didn’t realize what it meant. They were so much too small for you,” said Nan.
“Small, indeed! They were too big. Their coming off proves they were too big,” insisted Lucy.
“I’m glad your feet didn’t come off too, then,” teased Nan. “At one time I thought they were going to.”
Billy produced a very shady handkerchief from a hip pocket and proceeded to wipe off the girls’ shoes, while he sang the sad song of the Three Flies:
“But what I am worrying about,” he continued when his song had been applauded, “is how you are going to get home. Our car has been put out of commission for the winter. Mag and I had to foot it over the hill this morning, but our path is high and dry, while the road to Grantly is something fierce. If you get off at Preston and go home with us, I’ll get a rig and drive you over.”
“No, indeed, we couldn’t think of it,” objected Nan. “This is only the beginning of winter and we can’t get off at Preston every day and impose on you and your father’s horses to get us home. We shall just have to get some top boots and get through the mud somehow.”
“But you don’t know that stream. If it was high this morning, by afternoon it will be way up. The Misses Grant should have told you what you were to expect. They should have a bridge there, but it seems Miss Ella wants a rustic bridge and Miss Louise thinks a stone bridge would be better, so they go a century with nothing but a ford.”
“Going home I mean to pull another rail off the fence and do some pole vaulting,” declared Lucy. “I hope I can find Helen’s big old rubber I left sticking in the mud.”
“It may stay there until the spring thawing,” said Mag. “You had better stick to the path going home. It is better to stick than get stuck.”
“I wish I had some stilts,” sighed Nan. “They would carry me over like seven league boots.”
“Can you walk on them?” asked Billy.
“Sure! Walking on stilts is my one athletic stunt,” laughed Nan. “I haven’t tried for years but I used to do it with extreme grace.”
That afternoon Billy had a mysterious package that he stowed under the seats in the coach.
“What on earth is that?” demanded Mag.
“Larroes to catch meddlers!”
“Please, Billy!”
“Well, it’s nothing but some fence rails to help Nan and Lucy get home. I’m afraid the Misses Grant will object if they pull down a fence every time they get stuck in the mud.”
The parcel proved to contain two pairs of bright red stilts found at a gentleman’s furnishing store. They had been used to advertise a certain grade of very reliable trousers, of an English cut. Just before the train reached Preston Billy unearthed them and presented Nan and Lucy each with a pair.
“Here are some straps, too, to put on your books to sling them over your shoulders. You can’t walk on stilts and carry things in your hands at the same time. Tie your umbrellas to the stilts! So long!” and Billy fled from the coach before the delighted girls could thank him.
Going home over the muddy road was very different from the walk they had taken that morning. In the first place it had stopped raining and their umbrellas could be closed and tied to the stilts. The air was cold and crisp now and there was a hint of snow. They stopped in the little station long enough to strap their books securely and get their packs on their backs, and then, mounting their steeds, they started on their way rejoicing.
“I wonder if I can walk,” squealed Nan. “It has been years and years since I tried,” and she balanced herself daintily on the great long red legs.
“Of course you can! Once a stilt walker, always a stilt walker!” cried Lucy, starting bravely off.
Nan found the art was not lost and followed her sister down the muddy hill to the branch. Billy was right: it had been high in the morning but was much higher in the afternoon. The one stepping-stone that had kept its nose above water on their trip to town was now completely submerged.
“Ugggh!” exclaimed Lucy. “My legs are floating!” And indeed it was a difficult feat to walk through deep rushing water on stilts. They have a way of floating off unless you put them down with a most determined push and bear your whole weight on them as you step.
“Look at me! I can get through the water if I goose step!” cried Nan.
“Isn’t this the best fun ever? Oh, Nan, I pretty near love Billy for thinking of such a thing. Don’t you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say love exactly.”
“I would! I can’t see the use in beating ’round the bush about such matters. He is certainly the nicest person we know and does more kind things for us.”
“He is nice and I do like him a lot,” confessed Nan.
“Better than the count and Mr. Tom Smith?”
“I don’t see what they have to do with it,” and Nan got rosy from her exertion of goose stepping through the water and up the muddy hill.
“Well, the old count talked about taking a trip with you to the land of dreaming, wherever that is, and Tom Smith took you on fine flying bats, but Billy here, he gets some stilts for you and lets you help yourself through the mud. I say, give me Billy every time!”
“Billy is a nice boy; but Count de Lestis is an elegant, cultured gentleman; and Tom Smith—Tom Smith—he—he——”
“I guess you are right—Tom Smith, Tom Smith he he! But flying machines wouldn’t do much good here in the mud, and stilts will get us over the branch dry shod. There’s Helen’s rubber!” and Lucy adroitly lifted the little muddy shoe out of the mire on the end of one of her stilts and with a skillful twist of the wrist flopped it onto dry ground.
When they reached the top of the hill where the road became better they hid their stilts in the bushes, up close to the fence, carefully covering them with dry leaves and brush.
“Our flamingo legs,” Nan called them. During that winter many times the girls crossed the swollen stream on those red stilts and truly thanked the kind Billy Sutton who had thought of them. They would cache them under the little station, there patiently and safely to await their return.
It was always hard to walk through the water and on one dire occasion when the stream was outdoing itself, having burst all bounds and spread far up on the road, poor Nan goose stepped too far and fell backwards in the water. Fortunately it was on her homeward journey and she could get to Valhalla and change her dripping garments. She came across the following limerick of Frost’s which she gleefully learned, feeling that it suited her case exactly:
It was astonishing how quickly that winter of 1916 and ’17 passed for those sojourners in Valhalla in spite of the fact that they were at times thoroughly uncomfortable. It is not an easy matter for persons, brought up in a modern, steam-heated house with three bath rooms, every form of convenience and plenty of trained servants, to adapt themselves to the simplicity of country life and that in its most primitive state.
Hard as the life was it agreed with them, one and all. Douglas and Bobby walked to school, rain or shine, but their road lay in the uplands where the mud rarely got more than ankle deep. Nan and Lucy had to contend with much more serious conditions, but thanks to their flamingo legs they got by.
The weather wasn’t always bad by any means. There were wonderful clear sparkling days with the ground frozen hard, and then came the snow that meant sleigh rides with the Suttons and grand coasting parties.
Mr. Carter was growing very robust from his labors of stopping up cracks and cutting fire wood. He gradually mended the leaks in the roof; puttied in the window panes; replaced the broken hinges and fastenings to doors and shutters; propped up sagging porch floors; and patched the cracked and fallen plastering.
The Misses Grant viewed his efforts with mingled satisfaction and embarrassment.
“We have intended to do all this for you, Mr. Carter, but Ella was so stubborn about the carpenter. She never would agree to having that new man at Preston, who is really quite capable,” Miss Louise would explain.
“Certainly not! We knew nothing about him and have always employed Dave Trigg——”
“But you know perfectly well that Dave Trigg is doubled up with rheumatism,” snapped Miss Louise.
“Yes, and you know perfectly well, too, that that man at Preston has moved away,” retaliated her tall sister, and so on would they wrangle.
“I enjoy doing it,” Mr. Carter would assure them. “My only fear is that I will get the place in such good order that you will raise our rent.”
Which sally would delight the souls of the ladies who were in danger of agreeing about one more thing, and that was the altogether desirability of the Carters and the especial desirability of Mr. Carter.
Accepting Mrs. Carter at the extremely high valuation of her patient family, they were ever kind and considerate of her. Many were the dainty little dishes they sent to Valhalla from the great house to tempt the palate of their semi-invalid tenant, vying with each other in their attentions.
“An’ she jes’ sets back an’ takes it,” Chloe would mutter. “Mis’ Carter done set back so much that settin’ back come nachel ter her now.
“That’s my ol’ Mis’.”
Chloe and Helen had continued the lessons in reading and writing. The whitewashed kitchen walls bore evidence to much hard work on part of both teacher and pupil. Chloe had learned to cook many simple dishes and to write and spell all she cooked. By slow stages, so slow they were almost imperceptible, the girl was becoming an efficient servant. Her wages were raised to eight dollars a month in spite of the remonstrances of her sister Tempy, who thought she must serve as long as she had before she could make as much.
“Sis Tempy been a-goin’ over ter night school at the count’s ev’y time she gits a chanst but she ain’t ter say larned nothin’.”
Helen and Chloe were engaged in the delectable task of making mince pies for Christmas. Chloe had just electrified Helen by writing on the wall of her own accord: “Reseat fer miCe Pize.”
“What does she learn?” asked Helen, smiling as she deftly rolled the pastry.
“She say they done started a kinder ‘batin’ siety an’ ain’t ter say foolin’ much with readin’ an’ writin’ an’ sich. The secondary ain’t so patient as what you is, an’ he uster git kinder worked up whin the niggers wint ter sleep in school.”
“I fancy that would be trying.”
“They’s drillin’ ’em now an’ they likes that ’cause the secondary done promised them from the count that some day he’ll gib ’em uniforms. Niggers is allus keen on begalia.”
“Does Tempy drill, too?”
“Lawsamussy, no! Women folks jes’ sets an’ watches. Tempy say she done march aroun’ enough fer Miss Ellanlouise, an’ as fer flingin’ broomsticks—she does enough of that ’thout no German gemmun a-showin’ her nothin’ ’bout how ter do it.”
“Do they drill with broomsticks?”
“Yassum, that’s what they tell me, but they do say——”
“Say what?” asked Helen as the colored girl hesitated.
“They don’t say nothin’!”
“You started to tell me something they say about broomsticks.”
“I ain’t started ter tell a thing!” and Chloe shut her mouth very tight and rolled her eyes back in a way she had that made you think she was going to turn herself inside out.
“What do they debate about?” asked Helen amused at Chloe’s sudden reserve.
“They ’spute ’bout the pros an’ cons of racin’.”
“Horse racing?”
“I ain’t so sho’, but from what Sis Tempy done tol’ me it mought be an’ agin it moughtn’t.”
“Does Tempy debate?”
“Sis Tempy! Yi! Yi!” and Chloe went off in peals of laughter. “Sis Tempy can’t argyfy with nothin’ but a rollin’ pin. She done put up a right good argymint only las’ Sunday with her beau, that big slue-footed nigger, Jeemes Hanks.”
“What was the argument about?”
“Jeemes he done say he’s jes’ as good as any white folks an’ some better’n a heap er them. He say his vote don’t count none an’ he ain’t able ter buy no good lan’ jes’ ’cause de white folks won’t sell him none up clost ter they homes,—an’ Sis Tempy ups an’ tells him that his vote ain’t no count ’cause he ain’t no count hisse’f. She tells him that buzzards lays buzzard eggs an’ buzzard eggs hatches out mo’ buzzards; an’ that made him hoppin’ mad ’cause that nigger Jeemes sho’ do set great sto’ by hisse’f.”
“Does James feel that white people ought to sell him land whether they want to or not?”
“’Zactly! He been wantin’ ter buy a strip from Miss Ellanlouise up yander by the clari’, not so fur from the great house. They’s glad enough ter sell some er that rocky lan’ off over by the gravel pit, but they don’t want no niggers fer clost neighbors.”
“And what did Tempy say?”
“She never said nothin’. She jes’ up’n driv him out’n the cabin with the rollin’ pin. She tells him while she’s a-lickin’ him, though, that he’s a-larnin’ his a-b-c’s upside down at the count’s school an’ fer her part she ain’t a-goin’ back.”
“Do you think the count is responsible for James’s nonsense?” asked Helen. “I can’t see how he got such notions from a gentleman like the count.”
“I ain’t a-sayin’! I ain’t a-sayin’!” and once more Chloe’s mouth went shut with a determined click and she rolled her great eyes.
Helen thought no more about it. Darkies were funny creatures, anyhow. Of course it was hard on James Hanks if he wanted to buy good ground and no one would sell it to him, but on the other hand one could hardly expect the Misses Grant to sell off their ancestral acres just to accommodate the slue-footed beau of their cook.
Miss Ella and Louise were entirely unreconstructed as far as the colored people were concerned. They were kind to them when they were ill and helped them in many ways, but they never for an instant lost sight of the fact that they were of an inferior race nor did they let the darkies lose sight of the fact. They were not very popular with their negro neighbors although they were mutually dependent. Grantly had to depend on colored labor and many families among them got their entire living from Grantly.
The medicine chest at the great house furnished castor oil and paregoric for all the sick pickaninnies for miles around; Miss Louise had to make up great jars of her wintergreen ointment so that the aching joints of many an old aunty or uncle might find some ease; while Miss Ella’s willow bark and wild cherry tonic warded off chills and fevers from the mosquito infested districts down in the settlement in the swamps.
The older members of the community of negroes appreciated the real goodness and kindness of the two old ladies and overlooked their overbearing ways, but the younger generation, who cared not for the ointment or tonic, could see nothing but arrogance in the really harmless old spinsters.
Most of the former slaves, who had at one time belonged to Grantly, had passed away. The few who remained were old and feeble and these had many arguments with the younger ones, trying to make them see the real kindness and goodness of Miss Ellanlouise.
“You done got fat on castor ile out’n the chist at Grantly whin you was a sickly baby,” old Uncle Abe Hanks would say to his refractory grandson Jeemes. “An’ you an’ yo’ paw befo’ you was pulled from the grabe by parrygoric from dat same chist, an’ now you set up here an’ say: ‘Down with southe’n ‘ristocrats!’ Humph! You’d better be a-sayin’: ‘Down with the castor ile an’ parrygoric!’ ‘Down with the good strong soup an’ fat back Miss Ellanlouise done sent yo’ ol’ gran’pap las’ winter whin there warn’t hide or har er his own flesh an’ blood come nigh him!’ Yes! They went down all right—down the red lane. You free niggers is got the notion you kin live ’thout the ’ristocrats. Why don’t you go an’ live ’thout ’em then? Nobody ain’t a-holdin’ you. As fer me—gib me ’ristocrats ev’y time!”
“The Count de Lestis is as ’ristocratical as those ol’ tabbies,” the grandson would reply sullenly, “and he doesn’t treat a colored gemman like he was a houn’ dog.”
“’Ristocratical much! That furrener? You ain’t got good sinse, boy. That there pretty little count didn’t even come from Virginny an’ all the ’ristocrats done come from Virginny one time er anudder. I done hear Ol’ Marster say dat time an’ time agin.”
“The count say he gonter sell us all the lan’ we want. An’ he say he gonter fetch over some nice, kind white folks ter live neighbors to us; white folks what is jes’ as good as these white folks ’roun’ here but who ain’t a-gonter hol’ theyselves so proudified like.”
“Yes! I kin see him now tu’nnin’ loose a lot er po’ white Guinnies what will take the bread out’n the mouth er the nigger. Them po’ white furreners kin live on buzzard meat, an’ dey don’ min’ wuckin’ day in an’ day out, an’ if’n dey gits a holt in the lan’ the nigger’ll hab ter go. As fer a-livin’ long side er niggers,—I tell you now, son, that the white folks what don’t min’ a-livin’ long side er niggers is wuss’n niggers, an’ I can’t say no mo’ scurrilous thing about them than that—wuss’n niggers!”
A strong discontent was certainly brewing among the younger generation of negroes. Conversations similar to the one between Uncle Abe Hanks and James were not uncommon in the settlement that lay midway between Grantly and Weston. This settlement was known by the exceedingly appropriate name of Paradise. There were about a dozen cabins there, some of them quite comfortable and neat, others very poor and forlorn.
There was a church, the pride of their simple hearts because it was built of brick; also a ramshackled old building known as “The Club.” This club had originally been a tobacco barn, built, of course, without windows, for the curing of tobacco. In converting it into a club house, windows had been cut in the sides but with no fixed plan. Wherever a member decided it would be nice to have a window, a window was cut. No two were the same size or on the same level. Most of them were more or less on the slant, giving the building the appearance of having survived an earthquake.
In this club house the secret societies met to hold their mysterious rites. Here they had their festivals and bazaars and sometimes, when the effects of protracted meetings had worn off and the ungodly were again to the fore, they would have dances that threatened to bring down the walls and roof of the rickety building. It was whispered through the county that a blind tiger was also operated there but this was not proven. Certainly there was much drunkenness at times in Paradise, considering the state was dry.
Count de Lestis was very popular in Paradise. He always had a kind word for old and young. Then, too, he had work for them and paid them well. His fame spread and actually there was a boom in Paradise. Other negroes in settlements near by were anxious to move to Paradise. Town lots were in demand and the club had a waiting list for membership. The church was full to overflowing when on Sunday Brother Si took his stand in the little pulpit.
Night school at Weston was something new and something to do, so the darkies flocked to it. Herz, the secretary, had his hands full trying to teach the mob that congregated three times a week to sit at the feet of learning. He did get angry occasionally when his pupils, tired out no doubt after a hard day’s work, would fall asleep with audible attestations.
Herz was in such strong contrast to his employer, the count, that he gave Helen and Douglas quite a shock when they first met him. They had walked over to Weston with their father, who had been prevailed upon to take the order for the restoration of the old mansion. Dr. Wright had been consulted as to the advisability of his trying to do this work and had approved of it as being something to occupy his patient without making him nervous. It meant many trips to Weston on the part of Mr. Carter and equally many to Valhalla on the part of the count.
De Lestis had done very little talking about Herz, mentioning him usually rather in the tone of one speaking of a servant, but Helen came to the opinion the moment she looked at him that there was nothing servile about him; on the contrary, he was evidently the more intellectual of the two men. He was a little younger than the count, much taller, with broad spare shoulders and a back as straight as a board. His blue eyes were very near sighted, necessitating the wearing of very thick lenses in his large gold-rimmed spectacles. His hair was yellow and grew straight up on his head like wheat stubble. His brow was broad and high and well shaped. He really was a handsome man except that his mouth was too full lipped and so very red. His English was perfect with no touch of accent as with the count. He said he had been born in Cincinnati and his father was a naturalized American, so even Douglas, the strong pro ally, had to accept him as German in name only.
Weston was a good three miles from Grantly by the road, but much closer if one took a path through the woods, skirting Paradise and approaching the old house from the rear. Truly it had been a grand estate in its day and de Lestis was determined to restore it to its pristine glory. He had owned the place about a year and had accomplished much in that time. The fences and gates were in perfect repair; the fields showed that good farming theories had already been put into practice; the woods, that some knowledge of forestry had been applied, as the undergrowth had been cleared away and useless timber been cut down to give room to valuable trees.
“What a lot of money must have been spent here,” said Douglas, noting the new fencing and well-built barns as they approached the house.
“Yes, de Lestis seems to have unlimited supplies of cash. I fancy he is a man of great wealth,” said Mr. Carter. “I have ordered a Delco light to be installed in his house. He spares no expense in restoring the old place. I was rather opposed to having the new lighting system. It seems such an anomaly in a colonial mansion.”
“But, Daddy, you wouldn’t want the count to grope his way around with tallow dips,” laughed Helen. “I fancy that was what was used when Weston was first built.”
“I’d have him do it rather than ruin the architectural effect of such a wonderful old house; but de Lestis has his own ideas about things and all he wants of me, after all, is to do the work of a contractor. As for Herz,—he has better taste than de Lestis, I believe.”
“Tell us about Herz, Daddy. You never have told us what he is like,” demanded Helen.
“You judge for yourselves,” answered the father.
The truth was that Mr. Carter had not known just what to make of Herz. Clever he was certainly and no underling, as they had gathered from de Lestis.
This was the girls’ first visit to Weston although the count had urged their coming many times. Douglas’s school was dismissed for the Christmas holidays and she felt like a bird out of the cage: two whole weeks of delightful freedom ahead of her!
Teaching had come easy to her and she had conquered Bobby and the other unruly pupils and felt that she was in a way getting on top of her work. The days passed rapidly and her school was in a fine condition, enthusiastic pupils and eager students. Nevertheless it was great to be having a holiday and she meant to make the most of it. She and Helen were planning a trip to Richmond after Christmas to visit Cousin Elizabeth Somerville. Lewis was stationed there with his company and his duties not being so very arduous, he hoped to spend much time with his favorite cousin. Valhalla was very lovely and the girls had grown very fond of it. Their plans for their father were working out and they knew they had done right in taking the place and moving the family to the country, but nevertheless they were looking forward with pleasure to the visit to Richmond and release from all of their duties for a few days.
What glowing girls they were! Robert Carter looked at them with pardonable pride as they tramped through the woods, their cheeks crimson with the exercise in the cold air. How they had shown the “mettle of their pasture” when the time came for them to take hold! He had always known that Douglas had a certain bulldog tenacity that would make her keep her grip no matter what happened, but Helen had astonished him. When something had snapped in his tired brain he had instinctively turned to Douglas as the person to decide for the family welfare, but Helen had shown herself capable far beyond his hopes. He well knew that her part of the work was most difficult, and he saw with wonder her patience with her mother and with the seemingly impossible Chloe.
“I’ll make it all up to them,” he said to himself.
The doctor’s prescription of country life and freedom from care with plenty of occupation for his hands was working wonders. This work he had been doing for de Lestis was not taxing his mind at all, and he suddenly realized that it was not because it was so easy but because his mind was in working order again. He felt his old power coming back to him, the power of concentration, of initiative. Sometimes he would try to lie awake at night just for the pleasure of feeling himself to be well.
His illness had been a blessing in disguise since it had brought out all this latent fineness in his girls. It had somehow made them more beautiful, too, at least they seemed so in the eyes of their doting father.
Approaching Weston from the rear, no one was in sight. Smoke arising from the kitchen chimney gave evidence of a servant’s being somewhere. The yard was in perfect order, with no unsightly ash pile or tin cans to offend the eye. To one side Mr. Carter pointed out the rose garden that the count had taken much care of, spending hundreds of dollars on every known variety that would flourish in that latitude. Beyond were greenhouses and hot beds that furnished lettuce and cauliflower and spinach through the winter for the master’s delicate palate.
“Isn’t it lovely?” gasped Helen. “It must be splendid to be rich.”
Mounting the broad steps leading to the pillared gallery they heard voices speaking in some foreign language, they could not tell whether it was German or not, and then a loud laugh and “Ach Gott!” in the count’s unmistakable baritone. Through the window they saw the two men, de Lestis and Herz, bending over a table spread with papers. Herz was pointing out something to his employer which seemed to delight him, as he was laughing heartily. This was gathered only by one glance, as immediately the Carters passed beyond the angle through which they could view the interior of the room and Mr. Carter knocked on the front door.
The door was not opened for several minutes. Evidently the count employed servants for such tasks and did not believe in opening doors with his own august hands. Helen gave an impatient rat tat again. She was not fond of waiting. The door was opened suddenly and by the count.
“Ah! My good friends!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “I did not expect you until tomorrow, my dear Mr. Carter.”
“I came a day sooner because my daughters could come with me.”
“And what an honor!”
He ushered them into the room where they had viewed him for the moment in passing. There were no papers on the table now and everything was in perfect order. The secretary was standing at attention, awaiting an introduction to the ladies.
He bowed from his waist up, shutting up like a jack-knife. He had not the easy, graceful manners of the count, but seemed much blunter and less polished. One could not fancy his kissing the hand of a lady as the count was famous for doing.
Love at first sight is supposed to happen only in books but it does happen sometimes in real life, and on that frosty day in December it came to pass in the library at Weston, came like a flash of lightning, came without warning and without being wanted. Certainly the secretary had not wanted to stop the work he was engaged in that seemed to be so engrossing; he did not even want to meet these Carter girls but had been forced into it by his employer. What good would it do him to fall in love? He cared not a whit for women, anyhow, despised them in fact. But the little blind god, Cupid, took none of these things into consideration. He simply let fly his dart and as Adolph Herz straightened himself up after making his stiff, jack-knife bow, the arrow hit him square in his heart.
It was a toss of the penny which sister it should be; both of them were lovely, both of them rosy and charming. He looked at Douglas first, however, and never saw Helen at all, at least, seemed not to. He did not take his eyes from Douglas’s face during the entire call.
“Has the lighting system come yet?” asked Mr. Carter. “It should have been here by now.”
“Did you order one?” asked the count. “I understood I was to send the order and have done so. You sent it off, did you not, Herz?”
“Certainly! A week ago!”
“But you told me to order it,” insisted Mr. Carter. “I am sure you did.”
“Why, that is all right, my dear fellow,” said the count very kindly. “If both of them come it will make no difference. I can install one of them in the barn and garage.”
“Oh, but I cannot let you have the expense of both if I was at fault,” and Mr. Carter looked distressed. Was his head not behaving as it should, after all?
“Why, my dear Mr. Carter, it might easily have been my mistake and I cannot have you bothered about it. The expense is trifling. Miss Helen, help me to persuade your father that it is nothing.”
The count’s manner was so kindly and he seemed so anxious to make Mr. Carter feel that if any mistake had been made he, the count, had made it that Helen was deeply grateful. How much she liked this foreign nobleman, anyhow. He was always so gracious, so suave, so elegant. His heart must be tender, his disposition good, or how could he make all of the poor colored people like him so much? Helen was fully aware of the fact that the count was attracted by her, but there had been times when she was sure he was equally taken with Douglas, and certainly his manner to Nan on several occasions had been one of devotion. He always seemed to be coming out on the train with Nan and Lucy, and Lucy had intimated that he had caused Billy Sutton many sad hours by “hogging” the seat by Nan. Could he be a flirt? Helen put the thought from her. She hated a male flirt. Nevertheless she was conscious of the fact that she had a little tiny twinge of jealousy, so tiny that it was only a speck, but it was there.
“It’s Douglas’s hair and Nan’s eyes,” she thought. “I believe he thinks I’m more interesting than they are, though,” and then she took herself to task for a foolish, vain girl. “What difference does it make to me, anyhow? What do we know of this stranger and what is he to us?”
Now the girls gave their attention to the estate, for they were naturally interested in the work their father had undertaken. The workmen were through, carpenters, plasterers and painters, and the place had been turned over to Count de Lestis. Very beautiful it was and one for any owner to be proud of. The spacious hall, with its waxed floor and beautiful stairway with mahogany treads and bannisters, was as fine an example of southern colonial as one could find in the whole of Virginia. The furnishings were in keeping with the general plan of the house, as at Mr. Carter’s suggestion an antique dealer and decorator from Richmond had had his finger in the pie. Much of the furniture had been bought with the house, being old mahogany that had been at Weston for more than a century.
“How lovely it is!” gasped Helen as the doors to the great dining-room were thrown open.
“I am so glad you like it,” whispered the count in a very meaning tone. “I have your father to thank for its being so complete. Never have I seen work carried on so rapidly. I was afraid I would be living in the discomfort of shavings and mortar beds for months to come.”
“Daddy is always like that,” said Helen smiling. Nothing pleased Helen so much as praise of her father. “He can always make workmen work. They say in Richmond that not even plumbers disappoint him. He always turns over his houses on time unless there is something absolutely unforeseen, like a strike or something.”
“I am indeed fortunate in having prevailed upon him to do this for me.”
“But he has enjoyed doing it so much. You see Daddy has not been able to work for so long and I think he had begun to feel that maybe he had lost out, and this proves that he hasn’t. He does not know how to be idle. Why last summer when he was supposed to do nothing but rest he drew the plans and built bird houses for Bobby.”
“Ah, indeed! I am so glad you reminded me of something. Mr. Carter,” he called to that gentleman who was critically examining some electric wiring recently put in ready for the Delco batteries which were on the way, “I want now some plans for bird houses if such trivial work is not beneath you. I want bird houses for every kind of feathered songster that can be attracted and persuaded to live at Weston.”
“How wonderful!” cried Helen and Douglas in chorus. Douglas had been engaged in conversation by the secretary, who was limbering up in an amazing manner. He was most attentive, showing her into every nook and cranny of the old house. He opened sideboards and cabinets to reveal the exquisite finish of the satinwood drawers and shelves; he took down bits of rare old china from the plate rack in the dining-room, explaining the marks on the bottoms. He was so kind that Douglas almost liked him, but not quite.