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Happy House

by Jane Abbott · English · Gutenberg #32053 · 379,503 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Happy House

Author: Jane Abbott


        
Release date: April 19, 2010 [eBook #32053]
                Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32053

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAPPY HOUSE ***




Produced by Al Haines









HAPPY HOUSE


BY

JANE D. ABBOTT


AUTHOR OF "KEINETH" AND "LARKSPUR"





GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS ---- NEW YORK


Made in the United States of America




COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY




TO MARTHA

THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I.  THE LETTER
     II.  WEBB
    III.  HAPPY HOUSE
     IV.  AUNT MILLY
      V.  BIRD'S-NEST
     VI.  IN THE ORCHARD
    VII.  AUNT MILLY'S STORY
   VIII.  B'LINDY'S TRIUMPH
     IX.  DAVY'S CLUB
      X.  THE HIRED MAN
     XI.  MOONSHINE AND FAIRIES
    XII.  LIZ
   XIII.  THE FOURTH OF JULY
    XIV.  MRS. EATON CALLS
     XV.  GUNS AND STRING BEANS
    XVI.  PETER LENDS A HAND
   XVII.  NANCY PLANS A PARTY
  XVIII.  THE PARTY
    XIX.  THE MASTER
     XX.  A PICNIC
    XXI.  DAVY'S GIFT
   XXII.  REAL LEAVITTS AND OTHERS
  XXIII.  WHAT THE CHIMNEY HELD
   XXIV.  PETER
    XXV.  NANCY'S CONFESSION
   XXVI.  EUGENE STANDBRIDGE LEAVITT
  XXVII.  ARCHIE EATON RETURNS
 XXVIII.  A LETTER FROM THE MASTER
   XXIX.  BARRY




HAPPY HOUSE


CHAPTER I

THE LETTER

Through the stillness of a drowsy June day broke the intoning of the
library bell, chiming the hour.

Three heads lifted quickly to listen.  Three pairs of eyes met, the
same thought flashed through three minds.

"Won't we miss that bell, though?  I've seen grads when they've come
back stand perfectly still and listen to it with their eyes all weepy
looking.  That's the way we'll feel by and by," one of them said slowly.

"And the chimes used to make me dreadfully homesick!  Don't those frosh
days seem ages ago?"

The third girl slammed the lid of the trunk that occupied the centre of
the disordered room.  She crossed to the window.

Over the stretch of green between the dormitory and the campus many
people were slowly walking.  Their fluffy dresses, their gay parasols,
the aimlessness of their wandering steps marked them as visitors.  The
girl in the window frowned as she watched them.

"I always hate it when the campus fills up with gawking, staring
people!  It ought to be kept--sacred--just for us!"

One of the three laughed merrily in answer.

"How selfish that sounds, Claire!  Haven't all those people come to see
one of us graduate?  This is their day--ours is past."  She stopped
short.  "Did you see Thelma King's sister at the class-day exercises?
She's a _peach_!  She's going to enter next fall.  She's a leader in
everything at the High where she goes.  She'll make a good college
girl; you could see the right spirit in her face.  How I envy her!
It's dreadful when you think of new ones--coming--taking our places!  I
wish I was just beginning my Freshman year--I'd even be willing to
endure Freshman math."

The third of the group who had been sitting on, the floor staring out
over the tree tops with the dreamy gravity of one who--as long ago as
yesterday--graduated from the great University, suddenly interrupted.

"Dear girls, cease your whining!  What do those pieces of sheepskin
reposing somewhere in the mess on yonder bureau stand for?  Remember
what that man said yesterday--how we mustn't think this Commencement is
the end of anything--it's just the beginning.  Why, this new world
that's been born out of the frightful war is full of work for our
trained minds and hands!  We mustn't look back for a minute--we must
look ahead!"  Thrilled by her own words she leveled a reproachful
glance upon her two companions.

Claire sighed.  "I never could get the inspiration from things that you
always seem to, Anne.  I guess I'm not built right!  I couldn't make
myself listen to _half_ that man said.  I can't think of anything right
now but what a job it's going to be getting everything into that trunk.
Mother was heartless not to stay over and do it for me!"

"Never mind, Claire, we'll help you.  Of course you and I can't see
things in the big, grand way that Anne can because she's found herself
and we haven't.  But when our work _does_ come we'll do it!  It may not
be off in Siberia or China or Africa--like Anne's--but, wherever it is,
I guess our Alma Mater won't be ashamed of us!"  The girl's eyes
softened with the passionate tenderness of the new graduate for her
University.

Back in the freshman days a curious chance had drawn these three
together.  Then, for four years, years of hopeful effort, aspirations
and youthful problems, the currents of their young lives had
intermingled closely; now each must go its way.  The moment brought the
pang that comes to youth at such a parting.  Their bonds were something
closer than friendship.  Behind them were months of the sweetest
intimacy that youth can know--ahead were the lives they must live apart
out in a world that cared nothing for college ideals and inspirations,
where each must find her "work" and do it, so that "her Alma Mater
might be proud!"

Statistics, even in a university, would be dull if, now and then, Fate
did not play a trick with them.  Upon the roster of the class of
Nineteen-nineteen had been entered two names: "Anne Leavitt, Los
Angeles, California; Anne Leavitt, New York City."

When one thinks that in the great world war there was an army of,
approximately, seventy-five thousand Smiths alone, and a whole division
of John Smiths, one need not marvel that two Anne Leavitts came that
October day to the old University.  Doubtless, in those first trying
days, they passed one another often and did not know, but a week later,
when Professor Nevin in First Year French, read slowly from his little
leather book: "Miss Anne Leavitt," two girls jumped to their feet and
in astonishment, faced one another.

"_I_ am Anne Leavitt!" spoke the larger of the two.

"And _I_ am Anne Leavitt, too!" laughed the smaller.

A snicker ran around the room.  Professor Nevin frowned and
stared--first at his little worn book and then at the two offending
young women.  Of course he was powerless to undo what had been done
years before!  And as he scowled, across the classroom one Anne Leavitt
smiled at the other.  When the hour ended the recitation they walked
away arm in arm, laughing over the ridiculous situation.

At the Library steps they were joined by another girl from the French
class.  She had run in her eagerness to overtake them.

"Are you _really_ both Anne Leavitts?" she asked breathlessly.

They assured her solemnly that they were and that they didn't know just
what to do about it--old Professor Nevin had been so funny and upset.
They all three laughed again over it all.  And there in the golden
warmth of that October day began the friendship of these three--for the
third girl was Claire Wallace.

The students in the University found countless ways of distinguishing
between the two Anne Leavitts.  One was tall and grave with a
meditative look in her deep-set eyes; the other, a head shorter, had a
lightness about her like an April day, reddish curly hair and an
upturned nose.  One Anne Leavitt had never been called anything but
Anne, the other, since her baby days, had been Nancy.  The more
intimate of the college girls called them Big Anne and Little Anne.
The professors, dignified perforce, read from their rolls, "Miss Anne
Leavitt, California--Miss Anne Leavitt, New York."

In name only were the two girls alike.  Anne had been born with the
legendary "silver spoon" and its mythical fortune.  When her father and
mother died a friend of her father's, as guardian, had continued the
well-regulated indulgence that had marked her childhood.  Because she
possessed an iron will and early acquired a seriousness and dignity
beyond her years, she was always a leader in each of the boarding
schools to which she progressed.  Whatever Anne wanted to do she always
did, and yet, in spite of it, she had reached her college days
unspoiled, setting her strong will only for the best and obsessed with
a passionate longing for a service that would mean self-sacrifice.

She thought now she had found it!  Two weeks from this very day she,
would sail for a far-off village in Siberia to teach the peasant
children there and bring to the pitiful captivity of Russian ignorance
the enlightenment of American ideals.  So big and wonderful seemed the
adventure that, girl-like, she had paid little heed to the small
details.  Nancy and Claire Wallace worried more than she!

"You'll never get enough to eat and how will you ever keep your clothes
clean," sighed Claire, who loved pretty frocks.

"And we can't send you things, either, for they'd never reach you--some
of those awful Bolshevists would be sure to steal them!"

Madame Breshkovsky, the little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution,
had made several visits to the University, and Anne, with the others,
had listened over and over to her vivid, heartrending stories of the
suffering needs of the children of the real Russia.  It had been after
such an evening that Anne had given herself to the cause.  So that,
when Nancy and Claire fretted excitedly over the hardships and dangers
of the undertaking, she had only looked at them with the question in
her grave, dark eyes: "What matters it if perhaps Anne Leavitt does
lack a few clothes and food and some silly luxuries if she is doing a
little, little bit to help her fellowmen?"

Nancy Leavitt, like the beloved Topsy, had just "growed up."  To her
chums, in her own spirited way, she had once described how: "Ever since
I can remember there were always just Dad and I.  When he wanted to go
anywhere he used to pick me up like a piece of baggage and off we went.
Half the time I didn't go to the same school two years in succession.
And he used to teach me, too.  Oh, how homesick I was when I came
here--without him.  We're just like pals!"

Nancy's physical well-being had been watched over by nurses of almost
every race and color.  She knew a little Hindoo and from the old Hindoo
"ayah" she had caught bits of Hindoo mysticism.  She had romped and
rolled with Japanese babies; she had lived on a ranch in Mexico until
bandits had driven them away; she had trudged along behind her father
over miles of trail in Alaska.  And the only place she had ever called
"home" was a tiny flat in New York, where her father kept the pretty
furniture that Nancy's mother had bought when a bride.  Back to this
they would come after long intervals, for a little respite from their
wanderings, and for Nancy the homecoming was always an excitingly happy
one from the moment she ran down to Mrs. Finnegan's door for the key to
the lugging out again of the two little trunks, which meant a sudden
departure for some distant land.

College had brought a great change into this gypsy life and a grief at
the separation from her "Dad."  But as the weeks had passed her letters
to him read less and less like a wail of homesickness, and were filled
more and more with the college happenings and whole passages devoted to
girlish descriptions of her new friends.

For the last two years her father had been overseas as senior newspaper
correspondent with the American Expeditionary Force, and it would be
weeks before he could return.  That thought added now to the lonely
ache in Nancy's heart as she stared at her chums and wondered what it
would seem like to live day after day without seeing them!

These three had trod together up the Paths of Learning until they were
passing now the Gateway of Life; and yet, right at that moment, all of
them, even Anne, felt childishly lonely and homesick for the shelter of
the University they were leaving.

That was why the chiming of the Library clock, that had marked the
passage of happy time for more than one generation of youth, brought a
shadow across each of the three young faces.

A little wistfulness crept into Nancy's voice.  "Your life's all cut
out for you, Anne.  It's positively thrilling!  Though I'd make an
awful mess out of any such undertaking.  And Claire has her family.
I'll just go to New York and get the key from Mother Finnegan and work
like mad on the 'Child.'  I want to finish it before Dad comes home.  I
shall send it, then, to Theodore Hoffman himself--I might as well hitch
my wagon to the tiptoppest star--or whatever it is you do!  Of course
it isn't as grand as going to Russia, but I'm going to work, and some
day, maybe, I'll be famous all over the world!"

"Little Anne Leavitt, the great dramatist!" murmured Big Anne fondly.

Claire Wallace, confronting nothing more serious than the squeezing of
her belongings into the huge trunk, was stirred with envy.  Nancy had
her "Child"--not a youngster but a growing pile of manuscript, Anne had
her "crusade" among the unfortunate children of Siberia--she had
nothing ahead but to join her family at their summer home, an estate
that covered hundreds of acres on Long Island.

"I wish you'd come home with me, first, Nancy!  You heard mother say
how much she wanted you to come and we will have a beautiful time and
then you can see Barry."

Nancy frowned sternly.  She had several reasons for frowning--she
thought.  Of course she would really like to go to Merrycliffe with
Claire; she loved to frolic, and the last term had been a pretty hard
grind, but her whole future depended upon her finishing her play and
Claire simply must _not_ coax her!  Then the other reason was Barry.
Barry was Claire's brother recently returned from long service in
France, decorated by each of the allied countries.  Toward him Nancy
and Anne, quite secretly, felt an unreasonable and growing dislike.
Neither of them had ever laid eyes on him but, ignoring the injustice,
based their antipathy solely on the fact that "Claire talks of nothing
but Barry until you feel like shutting your ears!"

Nancy had, more than once, declared that "she could just see him
strutting around with all his medals, letting everyone make a lion of
him, and she loathed handsome men, anyway--they lacked character" and
Anne said "_her_ heart went out to those boys whose every minute in the
trenches had been an unrecognized and unrecorded act of heroism."  Of
course they both carefully kept their real feelings from little Claire,
who was too dear to them to ever hurt in any way, so that, when she
talked "Barry," if they were only politely attentive, in her proud
enthusiasm, she never noticed.

Now Nancy, instead of saying truthfully that "_she_ wasn't going to
spend her summer helping make a parlor pet out of the 'lion,'" simply
shook her head and frowned.

"Claire, don't tease me!  Of course I know how nice it would be to swim
and dance and play tennis and all sorts of things, but I must work!"
and she finished with the decided tone that was like Anne's.

Claire looked unhappy.  "_I_ don't want to go and dance and swim and
play around, though it is nice, but I can't write and I can't go to
Russia, so I'll just _have_ to go and do what the others in my crowd
all do, and I suppose you'll think I'm a butterfly when I'm _really_
perfectly miserable!"

Nancy controlled a smile.  "Bless you, we won't think you're anything
but just the apple of our eyes.  The world needs butterflies to keep it
beautiful and gay.  Your adventure, Claire, is waiting for you, maybe,
around the corner.  That's what Mother Finnegan is always saying!  And
after my 'Child' is finished I promise I'll come and play with you!"

Claire was only a little cheered.

"But Barry may not be there, then.  Mother says he's dreadfully
restless.  He may be gone now!"

A knock at the door saved Nancy from an answer.

It was old Noah, the porter.  He held a letter in his hand.

"It's fer Mis' Anne Leavitt and I'm blessed if I know which one of yez
so, I sez, I'll jes' take it to the two of yez and let you toss up fer
it!"

It was not unusual for the two girls to find their mail confused.  They
generally distinguished by the handwriting or the postmarks.  But now
they both stared at the letter they took from Noah's hand.

It was addressed in a fine, old-fashioned handwriting.

"_I_ can't recognize it," exclaimed one Anne Leavitt.

"I'm sure _I_ never saw it before!" cried the other.

"Isn't this exciting?  Let me see the postmark.  F-r-e-e-d-o-m!"
spelled Nancy.  "I never heard of it," she declared.

"I believe it's mine!  I have some relatives--or did have--a great aunt
or something, who lived near a place like that way up on North Hero
Island.  I'd forgotten all about them.  Open it, Claire, and let's see
what it is."'

"You never told _us_ about any aunt on any North Hero Island!  It
sounds like a romance, Anne," accused Nancy, who thought she knew
everything about her friend.

Anne laughed.  "I don't wonder you think so.  I just barely remember
father speaking of her.  Read it, Claire!"

Claire had seized the letter and opened it.  "It is signed 'Your loving
aunt.'  Isn't it the most ridiculous mystery?  Why _couldn't_ it have
been something else besides an aunt!"

"Well, I'm awfully afraid it _is_ for me.  We never could _both_ have
aunts on North Hero Island.  Go on, blessed child--I'm prepared for the
worst!"

Claire rose dramatically.


"My dear Niece," she read, adding: "I want you to _know_, Anne, that
she honors you by spelling that with a capital."  "Of later years it
has been a matter of deep regret to me that though the same blood runs
in our veins we are like strangers, and that you have been allowed to
grow to womanhood without knowing the home of your forefathers on this
historic island.  It is for that reason that now, after considerable
debate with my conscience, I am writing to you at your college address
which I have obtained through a chance article in an Albany newspaper
('that was the Senior Play write-up,' interrupted Nancy, excitedly) to
urge you to avail yourself of the earliest opportunity to visit me in
the old home.

"I feel the burden and responsibility of my increasing years, and I
know that soon I will be called to that land where our forefathers have
gone before us.  You are, I believe, my nearest of kin--the family, as
you must know, is dying out and I would have preferred that you had
been a boy--I will tell you frankly that I am considering changing my
will and that upon your visit depends whether or not you will be my
beneficiary.  I would wish to leave the home and my worldly wealth--the
wealth of the past Leavitts, to a Leavitt, but before I can do so to
the satisfaction of my own conscience, I must know that you are a
Leavitt and that you have been brought up with a true knowledge and
respect for what being a Leavitt demands of you,

"I await your reply with anxiety.  Your visit will give me pleasure and
I assure you that you will learn to love the spot on which, for so many
generations, your ancestors have lived."

"Your Loving Aunt,
  "SABRINA LEAVITT."


"Well, I'll be----"  In all her college vocabulary Anne could not find
the word to express her feelings.

"Isn't that rapturous?  A great-aunt and a fortune!  And will you
_please_ tell me why she had to debate with her conscience?" cried
Claire.

Nancy was gleeful over Anne's wrath.

"I'm glad she's yours, Annie darling!  Dad always said the whole world
was _my_ only kin, but I never ran against anyone who wanted to look me
over before she left me a fortune!  Who ever heard of North Hero Island
and where in goodness is it?"

"I remember, now, that her name was awfully queer--Aunt Sa-something or
other, and North Hero Island isn't _utterly_ unknown, Nancy, to the
can't even remember!  I wish it had happened to Lake Champlain.  I saw
it once on a road-map when I was touring last fall with Professor and
Mrs. Scott, and Professor Scott said it was a locality picturesquely
historic--I remember."

Claire turned the letter over and over.

"I think it's all awfully thrilling!  An aunt you can't even remember!
I wish it had happened to me!  It would be something so different.
It's just like a story.  But what a _lot_ she does think of her
forefathers!"

"Well, the Leavitts are a very old family and they are a New England
family, too, although I was born in California," interrupted Anne with
a dignity that would have gladdened the great-aunt's heart.

Nancy was again provoked to merriment.

"Dad always said that the only other Leavitt _he_ knew was a
cow-puncher!  He could lick anyone on the plains."

Anne ignored this.  She was frowning in deep thought.

"The tiresome part is that--if I _don't_ go--if I tell her about going
to Russia--she may write to my guardian!"

All three were struck dumb at the thought.  Anne had not consulted her
guardian before she had impulsively enlisted her services in Madame
Breshkovsky's cause.  Because she was three months past twenty-one,
legally he could not interfere, but being so newly of age she had not
had the courage to meet his protest.  So she had simply written that
she was planning a long trip with friends and would tell him of the
details when they had been completed.  A letter lay now in her desk
which she intended to mail the day before she sailed.  It would be too
late, then, for him to interfere.  If her conscience troubled her a
little about this plan, she told herself that the cause justified her
action.

And now this Aunt Sa-something might upset everything!

"I wish I could remember more about those relatives up there--father
and mother used to laugh whenever they mentioned the old place.  I
always imagined they were dreadfully poor!  She must be a terrible old
lady--you can sort of tell by the tone of her letter.  Oh, dear!"

"What will you do?" echoed Claire, still thinking it a much more
attractive adventure than Russia.

"I have it!" cried Anne.  "_You_ shall go in my place, Nancy!"

"_I_!  I should say not!  Are you stark crazy, Anne Leavitt?"

Anne seized her excitedly by the shoulder.  "You could do it as easy as
anything in the world, Nancy.  She's never laid eyes on me and I know
my father never wrote to her.  You'll only have to go there for three
or four weeks----"

"And pose as a real Leavitt when I'm a Leavitt that just belongs to
Dad!  Well, I won't do it!" replied Nancy, stubbornly.

"Nan-cy, please listen!  You wouldn't have to do or say a thing--she'd
just take it for granted.  And you could always make some excuse to go
away if----"

"If it looked as though I was going to be found out!  Why, it'd be like
living on a volcano.  And I'd be sure to always say the wrong thing!"

"But you could _try_ it," implored Anne.  "It would make everything
simple and you'd be doing _your_ bit, then, for Madame Breshkovsky!
Think of all she told us of the suffering in Russia.  Surely you could
do a little thing now to help!  And if Aunt _did_ like you and left me
her money, it would _really_ be you and we'd give it to the cause!"

"It'd be acting a lie," broke in Nancy.

"Oh, not exactly, Nancy, for you really are Anne Leavitt and, anyway,
it's just as though you were my other half.  Way back I know we are
related.  If you don't love me well enough to help me out now--well,
I'm disappointed.  I'll never forget it!"

Poor Nancy, mindful of the long separation that lay before her and her
friend, cried out in protest.

"Oh, Anne, _don't_ say that!"

Claire, her eyes brilliant with excitement, chimed in:

"Nancy, it's a hope-to-die adventure.  Maybe you could make up no end
of stories and plays out of the things that happen up there!  And,
anyway, you can finish the 'Child' and come to Merrycliffe that much
sooner!"

Claire had advanced the most appealing argument.  North Hero Island
certainly sounded more inspiring than a stuffy flat in Harlem with six
small Finnegans one floor below.  And it was an adventure.  Anne
hastened to take advantage of the yielding she saw in Nancy's face.

"You can stay here with me until I have to go to New York, and we can
look up trains and I can tell you all about my forefathers, though I
really don't know a single thing.  But she won't expect you to
know--don't you remember she wrote that she regretted my being brought
up without knowing the home of my forefathers.  And if you just act as
though you wanted more than anything else in the world to learn all
about the Leavitts, she'll just love it and she'll tell you everything
you _have_ to know!"

"It's the most _thrilling_ romance," sighed Claire, enviously.

"Sounds more to _me_ like a conspiracy, and can't they put people in
jail for doing things like that?" demanded Nancy.

"Oh, Nancy, you're _so_ literal--as if she would, way up there on an
island next to nowhere!  And anyway, think of the boys who perjured
themselves to get into the service.  Wasn't that justified?"

Nancy, being in an unpleasant mood, started to ask what _that_ had to
do with _her_ pretending to be an Anne Leavitt who she wasn't, when Big
Anne went on in a hurt tone:

"Well, we won't talk about it any more!  I'll have to give up going to
Russia and my whole life will be spoiled.  And I _am_ disappointed--I
thought our friendship meant something to you, Nancy."

"_Anne_!  There isn't a _thing_ I wouldn't do for you!  You're next
dearest to Dad.  For you I'll go to--Freedom or any old place.  I'll do
my best to be you to the dot and I'll pay homage to your forefathers
and will ask not a penny of the legacy--if you get it!  It shall all be
for the cause!"

Anne read no irony in her tone.  Her dignity flown, she caught her
friend in a strangling hug.  "Oh, Nancy, you _darling_, will you?  I'll
never forget it!  We'll write to her right away--or you will.  From
this _very_ minute you are Anne Leavitt!"

"I wish I could go, too," put in Claire.  "Perhaps I can coax Barry to
motor up that way."

"Don't you _dare_!" cried Nancy in consternation.  "It would spoil it
all.  I'll write to you every day every thing that happens.  Goodness,
if I'm as scared when I face your Aunt Sa-something as I am right now
when I think about it, she'll know at a glance that I'm just an
everyday Leavitt and not the child of her forefathers!"

"Hark!"  Claire lifted a silencing finger.  "The seniors are singing."

The lines they loved drifted to them.

  "Lift the chorus, speed it onward,
  Loud her praises tell!"


"Let's join them."  Suddenly Claire caught a hand of each.  "_Girls_,
think of it--what it _means_--it's the last time--_it's all over_!"
Her pretty face was tragic.

Big Anne, with a vision of Russia in her heart, set her lips resolutely.

"Don't look _back_--look _ahead_!" she cried, grandly.

But in Nancy's mind as, her arms linked with her chums', she hurried
off to join the other Seniors in their last sing, the troubling
question echoed: "To what?"




CHAPTER II

WEBB

A clatter of departing hoofs, a swirl of dust--and Nancy was left alone
on the hot railroad platform of North Hero.  Her heart had seemed to
fix itself in one painful lump in her throat.  She was so very, very
close to facing her adventure!

"If you please, can you tell me in what way I can reach Freedom?"  Her
faltering voice halted the telegraph operator as he was about to turn
the corner of the station.

"Freedom?  Well, now, old Webb had ought 'a been here for the train.
Isn't often Webb misses seein' the engine come in!  Just you go in and
sit down, Miss, he'll come along," and scarcely had the encouraging
words passed the man's lips than a rickety, three-seated,
canopied-topped wagon, marked "Freedom Stage" turned the corner.

"_Hey_, Webb, here's a lady passenger goin' along with you to Freedom!
And did you think the express would wait fer you?"

Webb and his dusty, rusty and rickety wagon was a welcome sight to poor
Nancy.  It had already seemed to her that her journey was endless and
that Freedom must be in the farthest corner of the world.  For the
first few hours she had been absorbed by her grief at parting with
Anne.  But a night in a funny little hotel in Burlington had given her
time to reflect upon her undertaking and it had assumed terrible
proportions in her eyes.  The courage and confidence she had felt with
her chums, back in the room in the dormitory, deserted her now.

"Goin' to Freedom you say, Miss?" the man Webb asked, a great curiosity
in his eyes.  "Wal, you jes' come along with me!  Had an order for
Tobiases and it set me late, but we'll git thar.  Climb up here, Miss,"
and with a flourishing aside of his reins he made room for her on the
dusty seat he occupied.

Nancy handed him her big bag and climbed easily over the wheel into the
seat he had indicated.  Then with a loud "get-ap" and a flourish of his
whip they rumbled off on the last leg of Nancy's journey.

"Ain't ever been to Freedom before?" he asked as they turned the corner
of the maple-shaded street of the little town, and the horses settled
down into a steady trot.  "Reckon not or old Webb 'ud have known
ye--ain't any folks come and go on this here island thet _I_ don't
know," he added with pride, dropping his reins for a better study of
his passenger.

The air was fragrant with spring odors, the great trees met in a
quivery archway overhead, the meadow lands they passed were richly
green; Nancy's failing spirits began to soar!  She threw a little smile
toward the old man.

"I've never been in Freedom before--though I'm a Leavitt," she ventured.

Her words had the desired effect.  The man straightened with interest.

"Wal, bless me, are ye one o' Miss Sabriny's folks?  And a-goin' to
Happy House when ye ain't ever seen it?"

Nancy nodded.  "I'm Anne Leavitt," she answered carefully.  "And I have
never seen my Aunt Sabrina.  So I have come up from college for a
little visit.  And I think _everything_ is lovely," she finished,
drawing a long breath, "though, goodness knows, I thought I'd never get
here!"

She was uncomfortably conscious that the old man was regarding her with
open concern.

"Funny, no one ain't heard a word about it!  So ye're Miss Sabriny's
great-niece and a-comin' to Happy House from your school fer a visit!"

"Why, yes, why not?"

"Wal, I was jes' thinkin' you'd never _seen_ Happy House.  And I guess
most folks in Freedom's forgotten Miss Sabriny hed any folks
much--count of the trouble!"

"Oh, _what_ trouble, please, Mr. Webb?"

The old man shook his reins vigorously against the horses' backs.

"Webb, you're an old fool--an old, dodderin' fool!  Of course this here
trouble was a long spell ago, Miss, and don't belong to Leavitts young
like you.  I s'pose it want much, anyways, and I guess Miss Sabriny
herself's forgotten it else you wouldn't be a comin' to Happy House!
I'm an old man, missy, and thar ain't been much in Freedom as I don't
know about, but an old un'd ought 'a know 'nough to keep his tongue in
his head.  Only--you come to Webb if anything bothers you and you
needn't call me _Mr_. Webb, either, for though I'm one of Freedom's
leadin' cit-zuns and they'd never be a Memorial Day or any kind of
Fourth of July doin's in Freedom without _me_--nobody calls me Mister
Webb and you jus' come to me----"

Nancy, forgetful now of the pleasant things about her, frowned.

"You're very nice to me, Webb, and I'm glad to have made a friend so
soon!  I think the trouble _has_ been forgotten.  Anyway, I'm only
going to stay a little while."

"And a good thing it'll be fur Miss Milly, too."

"Miss Milly----" asked Nancy.

"It ain't no easy life fur her livin' with Miss Sabriny holdin' the
sword of wrath over her poor head, and there's lots of folks think Miss
Milly'd be a heap happier in the old graveyard than in Happy House,
'lowin' as how both feet are in the grave anyway.  But this ain't no
cheerful talk to hand out to you, Miss, only I cal'late you'll make
Miss Milly a heap happier--shut up the way she is."

"How far are we from Freedom?" asked Nancy, abruptly, thinking as she
did so that, if they were a very long way, she would have an
opportunity to learn from her garrulous friend all she needed to know!

"Two mile from the turn yonder by the oak," the old man answered.

For a few moments both maintained a deep silence.  Nancy, her thoughts
in a tumult, was wondering what question she would ask first--there was
so much she wanted to know--the "trouble," "Miss Milly and the sword of
wrath" or what he meant by "Happy House."  The last post stirred her
curiosity; then, too, it did not seem just nice to pry from this old
man.

"Why do they call the Leavitt place 'Happy House'?"

"Wal, I guess it ain't because it's exactly _happy_, and some sez mebbe
as how it's been a curse!  Folks comes here to Freedom and looks at the
old place and there's somethin' printed about it in a little book they
sell up at Tobiases in Nor' Hero, only I ain't much on the readin'.
B'lindy Guest knows the story by heart, and she can tell you more'n I
can."

"Oh, _please_, Webb, I can't make head or tail out of what you are
saying," laughed Nancy pleadingly.  "Who _called_ it Happy House first?"

"B'lindy sez the book sez that it was the first Anne Leavitt as come to
Nor' Hero called it Happy House and they hed one of these here mantels
made out o' marble over in London and fetched across with the letters
right in it spellin' Happy House!  And she helped fix it up with her
own hands she'd kind o' set such store by the idee, right thar in the
settin' room and the very next day she slipped off sudden like and died
like a poor little flower.  And there ain't been much happiness in
Happy House from them days since!  B'lindy knows the hul story; jes'
'sits written."

"Oh, how _thrilling_!" cried Nancy, breathing very fast.  She had an
uncontrollable desire to halt Webb and the Freedom stage right on the
spot in order to write to Claire Wallace.  But at that moment, around
the turn by the old oak galloped a horse and rider.  Because it was the
first living creature Nancy had seen since leaving North Hero, she was
startled.

"_Hey_ there, Webb," the rider cried, whirling out of the path of the
old wagon.

And Webb called back in cheery greeting: "_Hey_, Pete!"

Through the cloud of dust Nancy had caught a glimpse of a pair of merry
eyes set deep in a face as brown as the dark shirt the man wore.
Turning impulsively in her seat she noticed, with an unexplainable
sense of pleasure, that the bare head of the rider was exceptionally
well shaped and covered with short curly hair.  Then, to her sudden
discomfiture, the rider wheeled directly in the road and pulled his
horse up short.

It was, of course, because he was the first real person she had seen on
this big lonely Island that prompted her to nod ever so slightly in
response to his friendly wave!  Then she turned discreetly back to Webb.

"Who is he?" she asked, in what she tried to make an indifferent tone.

"Peter Hyde an' as nice a young fellar as ever come to Freedom!  Ain't
been here much more'n a week and knows everybody.  He's old man
Judson's hired man and he's goin' to make somethin' of that ten-acre
strip of Judson's some day or my name ain't Cyrenus Webb!"

"_Judson's hired man_!" cried Nancy, chagrined.  What _would_ Anne
think of her--to have recognized, even in the slightest degree, the
impertinence of this fellow!  Her face burned at the thought.

"Seems to have a lot of learnin' but he's awful simple like and a
hustler.  Nobody knows whereabouts he come from--jes' dropped by out of
some advertisement old Judson put in the papers up Burlington way."

"Tell me more about Freedom," broke in Nancy with dignity.  "Is it a
very old place?"

"Wal, it's jest as old as this Island, though I ain't much on readin'
or dates.  Folks on Nor' Hero's pretty proud of the hul Island and
B'lindy sez as how it's printed that folks settled here long 'fore
anyone, exceptin' the Indians, ever heard of Manhattan Island whar New
York is.  Used to be French first round here but they didn't stay long,
and then the English come down 'fore the Revolution and the Leavitts
with them, I guess.  This here Island's named fur Ethan Allen, you
know, and folks sez old Jonathan, thet works up at Happy House, is a
connection of his.  All the folks round here's related some way or
other to them pi'neers and I guess if we hed to put up a fight now we'd
do it jest as brave as them Green Mountain Boys!  The old smithy's been
standin' on the four corners for nigh onto one hundred years and the
meetin' house facin' the commons, B'lindy sez, is older than the
smithy.  And up the Leavitt road thar's a tablet these here Daughters
of somethin' or other from Montpelier put up for some pi'neers that
died fightin' the Indians while their women folks set off in boats for
the mainland.  I heard B'lindy tell that at the last social down at the
meetin' house.  I cal'late some of them pi'neers were Leavitts, at
that, fur it want long before that the pretty lady came who hed the
name built in the mantel.  B'lindy knows--she can tell jes' what day
the pretty lady come and the very room she died in.  B'lindy was born
in the old house and she and Miss Sabriny growed up like sisters though
B'lindy's a good sight younger and spryer like than Miss Sabriny!"

From the warmth of his tone Nancy guessed that there was a weak spot in
Webb's heart for B'lindy.

"Tell me more about B'lindy," she asked, softly.

"Wal, if you jus' take a bit of advice from an old man you be _purty_
nice to B'lindy!  Folks sez that Miss Sabriny's high and mightier than
the worst Leavitt, and they're a mighty proud lot, but I jus' got a
notion that the only person who runs Miss Sabriny is B'lindy and I sort
o' think she runs the hul of Happy House!  And now here I am a
gossipin' so with a pretty passenger that I clean furgot to leave off
that chicken wire for Jenkins.  _Whoa_, there, whoa, I say!"

Nancy guessed that the cluster of housetops she glimpsed ahead, almost
hidden by the great elms and maples, was Freedom.  She stared at them
reflectively.  Through Webb she seemed suddenly to feel that she had
known the little tragedies and joys of Freedom all her life.  She was
not a bit afraid now to meet Aunt Sabrina or this Miss Milly or
B'lindy.  And she was eager to see the old, old house and the spot
where Leavitts had been massacred as they protected their women!  After
all, it was going to be very pleasant--this playing at being one of the
old Leavitts!  She wished Webb would hurry.

When Farmer Jenkins followed Webb to the wheel of the wagon, Nancy knew
that Webb had lingered to tell of her coming.  She met the farmer's
open stare with a pleasant little smile so that, an hour later, he
"opined" to the thin, bent-shouldered woman who shared his name and
labors, that "if that young gal wouldn't set things stirrin' pretty
lively up at Happy House, he'd miss his guess!"

As they approached the outlying houses of the village Webb assumed an
important air.  "This here's Freedom, Missy, and I'm proud to do the
honors for Miss Sabriny's niece!  It's not big as places go but its
record can't be beat sence Ethan Allen's day.  Webb knows, fer I
marched away with the boys in blue back in '61, though I was a
bare-footed youngster, long 'bout fourteen, and couldn't do nothin'
more useful than beat a drum.  And thar's our service flag, Missy, and
every last one of the six of 'em's come through hul--thanks be to God!
And thar's the hotel by the post-office and cross here's the school
house which I helped build the winter they wa'n't no call fur the
stage.  This is the Common and thet's the meetin' house, as anyone
could see, fur it ain't a line different from the meetin' houses over
at Bend and Cliffsdale and Nor' Hero and all over Vermont, I guess.
Funny how they never wanted only one kind o' meetin' houses!  And
here's the old smithy lookin' like it was older than B'lindy 'lowed,
and here's whar we turn to go up the Leavitt road.  Seein' how you're
sort of a special passenger I'll go right along up to Happy House,
though it ain't my custum!"

Nancy was tremendously excited.  She stared to right and left at the
little old frame and stone houses set squarely in grass-grown yards
flanked by flowerbeds, all abloom, and each wearing, because of tightly
closed blinds, an appearance of utter desertion.  On the wooden "stoop"
of the place Webb had dignified by calling a "hotel" were lounging a
few men who had scarcely stirred when Webb in salutation had flourished
his whip at them.  The Commons, hot in the June sun, was deserted save
for a few chickens pecking around in the long grass.  The green
shutters of the meeting house were tightly closed, too.  From the
gaping door of the smithy came not a sound.  Even the great branches of
the trees scarcely stirred.  Over everything brooded a peaceful quiet.

"Oh, how delicious," thought Nancy.  "How very, very old everything is.
_How_ I shall love it!"  She leaned forward to catch a first glimpse of
Happy House.

"Back by the smithy thar's old Dan'l Hopworth's place.  Shame to have
it on Miss Sabriny's road only I 'low most as long as the Leavitts been
here thar's been some of the no-good Hopworths!  Poor old Dan'l's 'bout
as shiftless as any o' them, B'lindy sez, and his grandchillern ain't
any better.  And that thar leads down to old man Judson's.  His ten
acre piece runs right up to Miss Sabriny's.  And _thar's_ Happy House."

Through the giant elms Nancy caught her first glimpse of the vine
covered old stone walls.  Her first feeling was of disappointment; in
the square lines of the house there was little claim to beauty.  But
its ugliness was softened by the wonderful trees that arched over its
roof; the gray of its walls and the tightly blinded windows gave a
stirring hint of mystery.

The door, built squarely in the middle of the house, opened almost
directly upon a stone-flagged path that led in a straight line to the
road.  There was something sternly formidable about it; Nancy, staring
at it with a rapidly beating heart, wondered, when it opened, what
might lie in store for her beyond it!

Webb, with much ado, was swinging her big bag over the wheel.

"Wal, we're makin' history, I guess, with another little Anne Leavitt
comin' to Happy House!  Them horses'll stand and I'll jus' carry this
bag up fer you.  Come along, Missy, and remember what Webb tells ye--ye
make up to B'lindy!"

Nancy followed him up the path to the door.  To herself she was
whispering, over the quaking of her heart:

"Well, good-by Nancy Leavitt--you're _Anne_ now and don't you forget it
for one single minute!"




CHAPTER III

HAPPY HOUSE

In the long, dim, high-ceilinged hall of Happy House Nancy felt very
small and very much afraid.  Though Miss Sabrina was standing very
close to her it seemed as though her voice came from a long way off.
It was a cold voice, and although Miss Sabrina was without doubt trying
to be gracious, there was no warmth in her greeting.  She was very
tall, with a long Roman nose that gave her entire appearance a
forbidding look.

Following her, Nancy stumbled up the long stairs and down an upper hall
to a door where Miss Sabrina stopped.

"This is the guest room," she explained, as she opened the door.

Someone had opened one of the blinds so here there was more light.
Nancy, looking about, thought that it was the most dreadfully tidy room
she had ever seen.  It had a starched look--the heavy lace curtains at
the window were so stiff that they could have stood quite alone without
pole or ring; the stiff-backed cushioned chairs were covered with stiff
linen "tidies," edged with stiff lace; the bureau and washstand were
likewise protected and a newly starched and ruffled strip, of a sister
pattern, protected the wall behind the bowl.

"I think you'll find it comfortable--here.  There is a pleasant land
breeze at night and it is quiet," Miss Sabrina was saying.

"_Quiet_!" thought Nancy.  Was there any noise anywhere on the whole
Island?  She gave herself a little mental shake.  She must say
_something_ to this very tall, very stately woman--she was
uncomfortably conscious that a pair of cold gray eyes was closely
scrutinizing her.

"Oh, I shall love it," she cried with an enthusiasm she did not feel.
"And it is so nice in you--to want me!"

The gray eyes kindled for a moment.

"I wanted you to know us--and to know Happy House.  In spite of all
that has happened you _are_ a Leavitt and I felt that it was wrong that
you should have grown up to womanhood out of touch with the traditions
of your forefathers.  We are one of the oldest families on this
Island--Leavitts have always been foremost in making the history of the
state from the days when they fought side by side with Ethan Allen.
Any one of them would have laid down his life for the honor of his name
and his country.  You will want to wash, Anne--the roads are dusty.
And no family in all Vermont is held in higher esteem than the Leavitts
since the first Leavitt came down from Montreal and settled here in the
wilderness.  Put on a cooler dress, if you wish, and then come down to
the dining-room.  We always eat dinner at twelve-thirty, but B'lindy
has kept something warm.  Yes, if you are a true Leavitt you will soon
grow to revere the family pride and honor for which we Leavitts live!"
And with stately steps, as measured as her words, Miss Sabrina withdrew
from the room.

"_Whe-w_!  Can you just _beat_ it!" Nancy flung at the closed door.
She turned a complete circle, taking in with one sweeping glance the
heavy walnut furniture, dark and uninviting against the ugly wallpaper
and the equally ugly though spotlessly clean carpet; then threw out
both hands despairingly.

"Well, Nancy, you _are_ in for it--forefathers and everything--family
pride and honor!" she finished with a groan.  "So be a sport!"  And
taking herself thus sternly in hand she went to the wash bowl and fell
to scrubbing off the dust as Miss Sabrina had bidden her.

The clean, cool water and a change of dress restored her confidence.
At least Aunt Sabrina had accepted her without a question--_that_
ordeal was over.  Everything would go easier now.  As she opened the
door there came up from below a tempting smell of hot food--Nancy
suddenly remembered that she had not eaten a crumb since her hasty,
early breakfast in Burlington.

The dining-room was as dim and cool as the rest of the house and as
quiet.  Miss Sabrina herself placed a steaming omelette at Nancy's
place.  Then she sat down stiffly at the other end of the table.  The
omelette was very good; Nancy relished, too, eating it from a plate of
rare old blue and white china; her quick eyes took in with one
appraising glance the beautiful lines of the old mohogany highboy and
the spindle-legged chairs which one of the "forefathers" must have
brought over from England, years and years ago.

"The meat pie was cold so B'lindy beat up an omelette," Miss Sabrina
was saying.  "I guess you must be hungry, Anne."

And then, because there had been the slightest tremble in the older
woman's voice Nancy realized, in a flash, that Miss Sabrina was as
nervous as she!  Of course she had dreaded the coming of this strange
grand-niece whom she had invited to Happy House merely from her sense
of duty to Leavitt traditions.  In her relief Nancy wanted more than
anything to laugh loudly--instead she flashed a warm smile and said
coaxingly:

"I wish you'd call me Nancy!  Everyone does and it sounds--oh, jollier."

But Miss Sabrina's long face grew longer.  She shook her head
disapprovingly.  "We've never called Anne Leavitts anything but Anne
since the first one and I guess in every generation there's been _one_
Anne Leavitt!  My mother gave the name to an older sister who died when
she was a baby.  My own name is Sabrina Anne.  Eat the strawberries!
Jonathan says they're the last from the garden."

Rebuked Nancy bent her head over the fruit.  "I am ashamed to know so
little--of my family!  You will forgive me, won't you, when I seem
ignorant?  I _do_ want to learn."  And she said this with all her
heart, for unless she could either get Aunt Sabrina quickly away from
the beloved subject of family or learn something about them, she was
sure to make some dreadful blunder.

Making little patterns on the tablecloth with the end of one thin
finger, Miss Sabrina cleared her throat twice, as though she wanted to
say something and found it difficult to speak.  Her eyes, as she
levelled them upon Nancy, turned steely gray with cold little glints in
their depths.

"As I wrote to you, I believe, I struggled--for a long time--with my
conscience before I took the unwarranted step of inviting you to Happy
House.  Now I must make one command.  Never, while you are here, are
you to mention the name of your father or grandfather--and I likewise
will refrain from so doing!"  She stood up stiffly as she finished her
singular words.

Nancy had lifted a round strawberry to her lips.  She was so startled
that the hand that guided it dropped suddenly and the berry rolled over
the cloth, leaving a tiny red trail across the white surface.

Was there ever anything in the world as strange as this?  Why shouldn't
she mention Anne's father or her grandfather?  To be sure, as all she
knew about them was the little Anne had told her during the last two
weeks, she was not likely to want to say much about them--nevertheless
she was immensely curious.  Why _should_ Miss Sabrina make such a
singular command and _why_ should she be so agitated?

Nancy knew she must say something in reply.  "I--I'll be glad to do
just--what you want me to do!" she stammered.  "I just want to--make
you like me--if I can."

Nancy said this so humbly and so sincerely that it won a smile from
Miss Sabrina.  Nancy did not know, of course, that the old woman had
been trying hungrily to find something in Nancy's face that was "like a
Leavitt!"  And as Nancy had spoken she had suddenly seen an expression
cross the young face that, she said to herself, was "all Leavitt!"  So
her voice was more kindly and she laid an affectionate hand upon the
girl's shoulder.

"I am sure I shall grow very fond of you, my dear.  Now I must leave
you to amuse yourself--this is my rest hour.  Make yourself at home and
go about as you please!"

Nancy did not move until the last sound of her aunt's footstep died
away.  A door shut, then the house was perfectly still.  She drew a
long, quivery breath.

"Thank goodness--she _does_ have to rest!  Nancy Leavitt, how are you
ever going to stand all that pomposity--for days and days.  Wouldn't it
be _funny_ if I took to talking to myself in this dreadful stillness?
Happy House--_Happy_, indeed."

It was not at all difficult for Nancy to know what each room, opening
from the long hall, was or what it looked like.  The parlor opened from
one side, the sitting-room from the other; the dining-room was behind
the sitting-room and the kitchen in a wing beyond that.  The parlor
with its old mahogany and walnut furniture, its faded pictures and ugly
carpeting was, of course, just like the sitting-room, except that, to
give it more of a homey air, in the sitting-room there were some waxed
flowers under a glass, a huge old Bible on the marble-topped table, a
bunch of peacock feathers in a corner and crocheted tidies on the
horsehair chairs--and the old mantel that had come from England, Webb
had said, was in the "sittin'-room."

She tip-toed through the hall and opened the door on the right.
Accustomed now to the prevailing dimness, her eyes swept immediately to
the old fireplace.  The marble mantel stood out in all its purity
against the dark wall; age had given a mellow lustre to its glossy
surface.  Nancy, remembering Webb's story about that Anne Leavitt who,
ages ago had placed it there, went to it and touched it reverently.
"H-a-p-p-y H-o-u-s-e," she spelled softly, her finger tracing the
letters graven into the marble.  Doubtless it had come across the sea
on one of those slow-sailing ships of long ago--that other Anne Leavitt
had waited impatiently months and months for it!

Had that Anne Leavitt, like poor old Aunt Sabrina, worried and fussed
over Leavitt traditions?  Of course not--she had _made_ them.

A curiosity seized Nancy to find B'lindy.  Webb had said she knew
everything.  She must be somewhere beyond that last closed door in the
long hallway--the omelette had come from that direction.

Under Nancy's pressure the door opened into a pantry and beyond, in a
big, sunny kitchen, shiny in its spotlessness, stood B'lindy before a
table, putting the last touches to a pie.  She turned at the sound of
Nancy's step.  Nancy paused in the doorway.

"May I come in?" she asked.  "Are you B'lindy?"  She imitated Webb's
abbreviation.

"Yes," the woman at the table answered shortly.  "And you're the
niece."  She gave Nancy a long, steady look.  "Ain't a bit like a
Leavitt's I can see!  Miss Sabriny would have you come, I hope you'll
like it."

"The hateful creature," thought Nancy.  Why couldn't _some one_ in
Happy House act natural and kind and jolly?

Like Miss Sabrina, B'lindy was tall and almost as old; her forbidding
manner came not from a Roman nose but from heavy brows that frowned
down over deep-set eyes--eyes that pierced in their keenness.  Like
Miss Sabrina she had a certain dignity, too, which seemed to set her
apart from her fellow creatures--the result, no doubt, as Nancy
thought, of having been born in the Leavitt household.

"Of course I'm going to love it.  It's so--so quiet!  And that omelette
you made me was delicious.  I was dreadfully hungry.  And oh, there is
so much I want to know about Happy House.  Webb told me--coming
here--that you knew everything.  I've just gone in and looked at the
old fireplace.  Tell me all about that Anne Leavitt."

Nancy's coaxing tone covered the fire that was within her heart.  To
herself she was saying: "The old iceberg--I'll thaw her out now or
never!"

B'lindy set her pie down; her voice warmed a little.  She rested her
hands on her hips and assumed what Webb would have called her "speakin'
air."

"Well, now, if it's _pryin'_ B'lindy Guest don't know nothin', but if
it's hist'ry--Webb's just about right.  Justin Leavitt brought Anne
Leavitt down from Montreal 'slong ago as 1740, when there was first a
settlement up to Isle la Motte.  He bought most this whole Island, I
guess, from the Indians and when they wanted a home Anne Leavitt laid
her finger on this very spot we're sittin' on.  Justin built the house
out of the stone they dug from the Island itself.  And she planned that
there mantel--just set her heart on it and it seems how a Leavitt could
have anything--anyways they hed it made in England and brought over
here jest's she planned with Happy House spelled on it all carved like
'tis now.  And she helped put it up with her own little hands.  The
house's been changed a lot sence but no one's ever touched that mantel!"

"And then she died," put in Nancy, breathlessly.

"Yes--she was just nothin' more'n a child and delicate at that and
wa'n't built to stand them pi'neer hardships, hidin' from the Indians
and eatin' corn and roots and the like when she was used to food as
good as the king's, for noble blood she had--the book over at North
Hero says so!  She just seemed to live 'til that there mantel come and
she saw it with her very own eyes.  She was brave as any man and she
hung on spite of everything 'til she'd got that done and then jest 'sif
she was tuckered out she laid down and died!"

"In what room, B'lindy?"

"What's now the guest room--so the book says."  B'lindy ignored Nancy's
stifled, "Oh, goodness me!"  "That next year the Indians attacked all
the settlers and Justin Leavitt and his brother Remembrance was killed
along with a half-dozen other pi'neers beatin' back the red men while
Robert's wife and the other women folk escaped in an open boat across
the lake and Robert's wife hid little Justin under her cape.  Then
Happy House was empty 'til little Justin growed up and came back."

"And had the Indians gone then?"

"No, but they were friendly like and a good thing it was for they'd
never been worse en'mies than the Yorkers was then.  I guess Ethan
Allen, and his Green Mountain Boys slept right here many a time, for
there wasn't much they did fightin' the Yorkers without consultin' a
Leavitt!  But here I am rattlin' on and the oven waitin' for them pies."

"Oh, B'lindy--it's like a wonderful story!  Will you show me the book
that tells all about it?  I'm so glad my name is Anne, too.  If you're
busy I'll run out and look at the garden--and find Jonathan.  Webb told
me about him, too."

Nancy's spirits were soaring; instinctively she felt that she had won
B'lindy!  It was a good beginning.  She opened the great oak door and
stepped out upon the path.  At one time the grounds of Happy House must
have been pretentious--they were quaintly beautiful now in their age
and half-neglect.  Flowering perennials had crept out from their old
beds and had spread unchecked around among the giant trunks of the
trees so that from hedge to hedge there was a riot of color.

Among the gay blossoms Nancy picked her way, skirting the walls of the
house to discover what might lie beyond.  In the back she found
Jonathan pottering among some raspberry bushes that bordered the
flagged walk.  He was very bent and very old and very wrinkled; his
eyes twitched and blinked as he lifted his head to look at her.

"Good afternoon!  I am Anne Leavitt," Nancy called blithely.  He was
such a perfect part of the old, old garden that she loved him on the
spot.

"Wal, wal--little Anne Leavitt," and he nodded and blinked at her.

"I wish you'd call me Nancy," Nancy ventured.  "Everyone does, and I
don't seem nearly big enough to be Anne.  I love your flowers and oh,
what a lot of berries you are going to have!"

The old man straightened his shoulders--at least he tried to!  His
flowers were his children.

"In my younger days this here garden was the show of the Island," he
answered proudly.  "Folks come from all round to look at it!
Thirty-two kinds of posies and that want countin' the hollyhocks that
grew like trees--taller'n I am.  And vines and berries and vegetables.
But I can't work like I used to, and Miss Sabriny don't like anyone but
me to touch things.  So things have to go abit.  Miss Nancy, huh!  Ye
_are_ a little thing."  But his smile was kindly.  "And I hope ye bring
some sunshine to Happy House."

Suddenly Nancy exclaimed: "Oh--the lake!  I didn't realize how close we
were to it."

Beyond the raspberry patch and the kitchen garden stretched an old
orchard.  Through the trees Nancy had glimpsed the sapphire blue of
Lake Champlain.

"Is that orchard ours?" she asked Jonathan.

"That it is.  I helped my father plant those thar trees myself and
they're the best bearin' on the hul of Nor' Hero!"

Nancy stood irresolute.  She wanted to explore further--to run out
among the apple trees to the very cliff of the lake.  But she was
bursting to write to Claire--there was already so much to tell her.

So with one long, lingering look she retraced her steps back to the
house.  As she passed slowly under the trees she was startled by the
movement of a single slat in one of the upstairs blinds.  And
instinctively she knew that an eye peeped at her from behind it.

Miss Milly--it must, of course, be the "poor Miss Milly" of whom Webb
had spoken!

Nancy closed the front door softly behind her that it might not disturb
Miss Sabrina's hour of rest.  Then she tiptoed up the long stairway.
It took but a moment's calculating to decide which door led to the room
where the blind had opened.  She stopped before it and tapped gently
with one knuckle.

"Come in," a voice answered.

Opening the door, Nancy walked into a room the counterpart of her own,
except that a couch was drawn before the blinded windows.  And against
it half-lay a frail little woman with snow-white hair and tired eyes,
shadowing a face that still held a trace of youth.

As Nancy hesitated on the threshold a voice singularly sweet called to
her:

"Come in, my dear!  I am your Aunt Milly."




CHAPTER IV

AUNT MILLY

"So this is Anne Leavitt!"

But Aunt Milly did not say it at all like Aunt Sabrina, or even
crisply, like B'lindy's "so _you're_ the niece," but with a warm,
little trill in her voice that made Nancy feel as though she was very,
very glad to have her there!

Two frail little hands caught Nancy's and squeezed them in such a human
way that Nancy leaned over impulsively and kissed Miss Milly on her
cheek.

"I am so very glad to know you."  Aunt Milly dashed a tear away from
her cheek.  "I've counted the hours--after Sabrina told me you were
coming.  To-day I lay here listening for Webb and then must have fallen
asleep, so that when you really came I didn't know it.  Wasn't that
silly?  Sit right down, dear--no, not in that old chair, it's so
uncomfortable--pull up that rocker.  Let me get a good look at you!"

Nancy did not even dread Miss Milly's "good look"--she was so
delightfully human!  She pulled the rocker close to the lounge and
stretched out in it with a happy little sigh.

"I thought _I'd_ never get here!  It seems as though this is way off in
the corner of the world.  And I'm just tired enough to find the--the
_quiet_ downright restful."

Aunt Milly laughed.  "I've been worrying over the 'quiet.'  It's so
dreadfully quiet here--for young folks.  I was afraid it would make you
homesick.  Now tell me all about your trip and your Commencement.  I've
been going over in my mind just what your Commencement must have been
like--ever since Sabrina told me we had a niece who was a Senior in
college.  It must be wonderful!" she finished, with just the tiniest
bit of a sigh.

Suddenly Nancy realized that here was someone hungry to know all that
was going on in the world outside of North Hero--not the world of men
and women, but her girl's world--that world that had ended Commencement
Day.  She told a few little things about Senior Week, then, a little
homesick for all that had just been left behind, she rattled off one
recollection after another with an enthusiasm that kindled an answering
fire in Miss Milly's eyes.

"I can't _bear_ to think it's all over--except that life itself is one
grand adventure and probably, after a little, I'll look back on the
school days and think how empty they were of--real things!"  Then
Nancy, looking down at the frail white hand that clasped her own,
thought with a sort of shock that life was scarcely an adventure for
poor Miss Milly.  But Miss Milly answered contentedly.  "I love to hear
all about it.  I'm glad you had it, my dear.  I hope you'll come in and
talk with me often--it's like sunshine hearing your young voice!"

"Oh, I shall _like_ to.  You won't think I'm dreadful, will you, if I
tell you that Aunt Sabrina frightens me awfully and so does
B'lindy--just a little.  But you don't seem a bit like them."

Miss Milly laughed outright--a laugh that had a silver tinkle in it.
"No, I suppose I'm not--a bit like them."

"So when I'm so frightened I don't know what to do I shall come
straight to you.  And, please, Aunt Milly, will _you_ call me Nancy?
No one has ever called me anything but that and it makes me feel--like
someone else--when they call me Anne.  Aunt Sabrina was horrified when
I asked her."

"Yes--she would be!  Of course I shall call you Nancy--or anything that
you wish!  I can't be much company for you, dear, tied to this couch,
but you can bring a great deal of happiness to me."

A wistful gleam in Aunt Milly's eyes made Nancy lean over and kiss her
again.  At that moment the door opened and Aunt Sabrina walked in.
Then it seemed to Nancy as though a shadow crossed Miss Milly's face.
The glow in her eyes died completely.  She seemed to shrink back among
the cushions.

"Oh, you have met our niece," Aunt Sabrina said in her cold voice and
with no curiosity as to how it had happened.

Nancy looked at Aunt Milly and Aunt Milly's glance seemed to say:
"Please don't tell her I peeked through the blinds."  Aloud she
answered meekly: "I told her we were glad she had come!"

Aunt Sabrina nodded as though to approve such action.  Her eyes turned
around the room.

"Is there anything you want done?  B'lindy's washed the other covers
for your cushions, but they aren't dry enough to iron.  The color
didn't run a bit--they'll be more sensible than those white ones, for
they won't be needing washing all the time, and B'lindy has enough to
do!"

"Oh, yes, they'll be more sensible," Miss Milly agreed wearily.  "No, I
don't want anything."

There were two or three moments of silence.  Aunt Sabrina went about
the room straightening a picture here, a "tidy" there.  Nancy watched
her with angry eyes--what _was_ there about her that had killed that
precious glow in poor little Miss Milly?

She rose abruptly.  "May I go to my room?  I want to write a letter."
Miss Sabrina said, "Why, of course, Anne," and Miss Milly flashed a
little ghost of a smile that entreated: "You see what life is like for
me, so please, _please_ come again."

Upon Nancy's face, as she closed her own door behind her, was a mixture
of relief, indignation and apprehension.  And a little of each of these
emotions crept into the lines of the letter that--to give vent to all
that was bursting within her--she dashed off to Claire.

"---- You'd just better believe that if I had that precious darling,
Anne Leavitt, back in our beloved tower room I'd tell her that all the
fortunes in the world and all the suffering Russians wouldn't hire me
to spend one more day with her 'family.'

"And yet, Claire, darling, it's so _dreadful_ that it's funny.  I just
wonder that I haven't been scared _pink!_  Can you picture your little
Nancy surrounded by mahogany, so old that it fairly screams at you,
that it was brought over on the _Mayflower_ and walls as high as the
Library tower (please subtract poetical license) and just oodles of
Leavitt traditions--though I'll admit, just being a plain human mortal,
I don't know yet quite _what_ the Leavitt traditions are, but believe
me, I expect to, very soon, for Aunt Sabrina talks of nothing else!

"Of course, sweet child, you can't make head or tail to all my
jibberish, so I'll write lucid English now.  The Island is wonderfully
beautiful, everything about it seems different from any other part of
the world--the trees are bigger and the grass is greener and every now
and then you catch a glimpse of Lake Champlain as blue as Anne's
sapphire ring and hazy purple mountains beyond.  And the whole place is
brimming with all kinds of historical stories.

"They call this house Happy House.  It was named that by the first Anne
Leavitt, and she had a mantel made in England with the letters carved
on it, and the day after it was put up she died in the very room I'm
writing in!  Isn't that tragic and exciting?  I can't make a story out
of that, though, for it's been all written up in a book they sell at
North Hero.

"The house is big and built of stone that was quarried on the Island,
and it's all covered with vines and is beautiful--outside.  It has
trees all around it that meet overhead like a canopy, and instead of a
regular garden in beds the ground's all covered with tiger lilies and
Sweet William and phlox and lots of flowers I don't know the name of,
that look as though they'd spilled out over their gardens and grew
everywhere.  And there's a darling old gardener who is a descendant of
Ethan Allen.

"In fact, everyone I've seen is old and, Webb said, is descended from
'somebody or other.'

"But the inside of the house--oh, horrors!  I don't believe a ray of
sunshine has gotten into it since the year one, and if it did, it would
be shut out mighty fast.  Dad would go wild with delight over the old
furniture, and the dishes are beautiful, but the wallpaper looks like
green lobsters crawling all around, and you walk on brown-red roses as
big as cabbages.  Does it torture my artistic soul?  Oh, ye gods!  And
my own room!  No wonder that other Anne Leavitt died!  I never saw so
many tidies in my life--I shall never draw a happy breath among them.
Oh, I can shut my eyes, right now and see the dear old tower room--you
sitting in the middle of the bed (unmade, of course), playing your uke,
Anne digging at her French Four on the window seat along with the fudge
dishes which I forgot to wash, and a week's muss all around us.  Oh,
Claire, _weren't_ we happy, though?  And to think it's all over.

"Aunt Sabrina is very handsome and very Leavitty.  I think Anne, in her
manner, when we've done something she doesn't approve of, is like her
Aunt Sabrina.  She's very tall and parts her hair straight in the
middle and has the longest, straightest nose and a way of talking to
you that makes you feel like an atom.  B'lindy, who is the
woman-of-all-work around Happy House, but Somebody, just you believe,
is very much like Aunt Sabrina and looks at you as if she could see the
littlest thought way back in your mind.  And, of course, with me acting
a part and feeling as guilty as can be, you can imagine that I don't
enjoy B'lindy's searching glance!  However, I asked her some questions
about the Leavitts and it warmed her up a little.

"But there is an Aunt Milly that Anne didn't seem to know about and,
Claire, _she_ is human--the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, timidest
little thing.  You can't tell, looking at her, whether she is old or
not, but being my great-aunt--or Anne's--I suppose she is.  But she is
an invalid and evidently can't walk.  There's something about her that
makes you feel dreadfully sorry for her and like taking care of her,
and I sort of imagine that for some reason or other Aunt Sabrina treats
her horridly.  When Aunt Sabrina comes into the room, poor Aunt Milly
acts scared to death.

"Just how I'll come out of it all I can't guess.  I've got to keep my
head and see the thing through for Anne's sake.  But--so far--I don't
like it a bit.  It was easy enough planning it all with Anne back in
college, but somehow, now that I'm here, I feel so underhanded,
deceiving these people.  And Miss Sabrina talks so much about the
Leavitt honor that it makes me feel like thirty cents.  There is a lot
of mystery about the place, but I feel as though I had no right to try
and find it out, though I'll admit I'm dreadfully curious.  I rode over
from North Hero with the funniest old man--his name is Webb and he said
he was one of Freedom's 'first citizens.'  Modest--yes.  Well, with a
very little encouragement he would have poured out the entire Leavitt
history, only it didn't seem nice to let him talk.  But he spoke about
a 'Leavitt trouble,' and he said something about Miss Milly being
'happier in the grave.'  Isn't that interesting?  And the very
strangest thing of all is that Aunt Sabrina has forbidden me to ever
_mention_ my father--or Anne's father and grandfather!  Of course Anne
will want to know all about it, and maybe it is my duty to find out
why!  Anyway, if the chance comes to me, well, I won't shut my ears.

"Speaking of Webb and riding over from North Hero, Claire, I did the
most dreadful thing, and if I tell you, you must swear that you won't
ever tell Anne, though goodness knows when either of us will see dear
old Anne again.  We'd driven along for miles and hadn't seen a
soul--even the cows in the pastures weren't moving--when suddenly,
around a corner, dashed a man on horseback.  He went by us like a
flash, but I could tell even with all the dust, that he rode well and
was very handsome and sort of different from--well, Webb, and the
people you'd _expect_ to see on North Hero Island.  I was curious--you
know, I always am--and I turned around.  And what do you think he
did--he wheeled that horse around and stopped dead still to stare at
us, and caught me turning, of course, though I was just curious because
he seemed different.  And that isn't all--he had the nerve to wave his
hand and here's the confession!  _I nodded back to him!_  I always am
so impulsive and it seemed so good to see someone that was young.  And
he did have the grandest eyes even through the dust.  But here's the
worst--I asked Webb who he was, and Webb said he was '_Judson's hired
man!_'  Oh, Claire, what would Anne have said!

"Well, of course, the fellow had his nerve, and if I ever see him again
I shall show him his place and make him understand that I am a
dignified, unapproachable young person.

"Oh, Claire, dearest, I wish I was with you at Merrycliffe.  You don't
know how lucky you are to have a jolly home and a jolly mother who
knows how to love!  That's the trouble here--they act as though it was
a crime to show a spark of affection.  Aunt Milly comes the nearest to
it, but I don't believe the others _know_ what love is.

"Write to me often, for it will help keep up my courage, and I will
keep you posted as to all that happens to poor me--especially about the
hired man.  I can't wait to see him.

"Once your happy and now your perfectly miserable used-to-be Nancy.

"To be known for the present as,

"ANNE LEAVITT."




CHAPTER V

BIRD'S-NEST

"Joshua Leavitt was Justin's son and he married Abigail Clark over at
Isle Le Motte, and they had three sons, Joshua and John and Jacob, all
upright, settled young men.  Let me see, it was either John or Jacob
was killed in the war of 1812, wasn't it, B'lindy?"

Nancy's mind was working faster than the knitting needles in her
fingers.  For three days now she had sat very close to Aunt Sabrina,
learning "all about the Leavitts."

"It's lucky I have a good head for history," she said to herself,
nodding to show Aunt Sabrina that she was deeply interested in these
Joshuas and Johns and Jacobs.  "If I'm here long enough she _may_ get
down to the present generation!  Joshua--John--Jacob," she repeated
softly.

"Dear me, where _is_ B'lindy?  My memory isn't as good as it used to
be.  I'm growing to be an old woman.  But the Bible in there tells how
either John or Jacob fell at Fort Niagara.  The Leavitts have always
been brave men--and men of honor!"

At this point Nancy, quite involuntarily, dropped a stitch.  The sudden
color that flushed her cheeks escaped Aunt Sabrina's notice, for
B'lindy's voice came suddenly through the open door.

"Miss Sabriny, if Jon'than don't get that cornstarch from Eaton's there
won't be no cornstarch puddin' for dinner.  He's worse than no good
round the house and a body takes more steps huntin' him than doin' all
his chores for him!"

Nancy sprang to her feet.  "Oh, _please_ let me find him!  I--I'd love
to walk around a bit, too.  I'll speak very sternly, B'lindy--you just
see if he doesn't go at once!"  Tossing her red wool into the cushion
of the old rocker she had been occupying, Nancy was off before the
astonished B'lindy or Aunt Sabrina could utter a protest.

She found Jonathan at his everlasting digging.  Nancy shook him
playfully by the arm.  Jonathan could not guess that her eyes were
bright because, for a few moments at least, she had escaped from the
oppressiveness of Aunt Sabrina and her ancestors; his old heart warmed
to her infectious smile.

"B'lindy's as cross as can _be_!  She must have the cornstarch at
_once_!  I hate cornstarch pudding worse than poison, but you must
hurry as fast as you can, and _please_ go by the lilac side of the
house, because Miss Sabrina is sitting over on the hollyhock porch
talking ancestors and I want her to think that it's taking me forever
to find you!"

"Cornstarch!  Bless my boots!"  A hundred wrinkles crossed the weather
beaten old face.  "I'll go off to Eaton's fast's ever I can, Missy."

"Nice Jonathan," and picking a posy, Nancy stuck it into the buttonhole
of the gardener's sweater.  "And _I'm_ going fast's ever I can,
straight out to the lake."

With a wave of her hand she flew down the path through the row of old
apple trees.  She wanted to shout and to sing, but as that might
startle the entire island, she indulged in a joyous handspring instead!

"Of course, Anne, darling, if _you_ could see me you'd look
shocked--you'd say, 'Nancy Leavitt, when _are_ you going to grow up!'
But, Annie, if growing up and up and up is going to be to grow like
your Aunt Sabrina, sitting all the day long dwelling on the glories
that are past and gone--never--never--_never_!"  The girl flung her
arms out toward the blue waters of the lake.  "If I had a wish I'd wish
that I could swim straight out across you--to those purple
mountains--over there!"

It was very still in the orchard; cool, too, for the hot June sun only
penetrated in spots the outspreading branches of the old trees.
Gradually the tumult of longing in Nancy's mind quieted; a sense of
delicious quiet inspired her.

"It's heavenly here--just as though I was all alone in the world."  She
turned slowly around.  Not a glimpse of any habitation could be seen,
the rows of trees hid even Happy House.  And beyond was the stretch of
sparkling water, with its rim of hazy, purple hills.

Nancy ran to the apple tree nearest the cliff.  It was very old, its
branches grew close to the ground.  In a moment she had climbed them
and had perched herself comfortably upon one with her back resting
against another.

"It must be nice to be a bird," she mused, touching lightly the glossy
leaves about her.  "Playing in tree-tops and when you're bored to
death, simply flying off without so much as an excuse!  Or a
wood-nymph," wistfully.  Then her drooping shoulder suddenly
straightened, under the stimulation of an idea.  She sprang to the
ground.  "Oh, _rapture_!" she cried, and raced back toward Happy House.

Half an hour later Jonathan, having made peace with B'lindy, found her
in the old carriage house.  Two shiny nails protruding from her teeth
and a hammer in her hands betrayed that she had found his tool-box.
Her face, through smudges of dust, wore a look of determination.

"You've come just in time to help me, Jonathan.  I must get the top of
_this_ box off and fasten it to _that_ box--so it'll open and shut.
Then you must find a piece of leather for hinges and some oil cloth.  I
think that you have everything on earth hidden in this place--except
carriages!"

Because, with Jonathan, it had been love at first sight, he obeyed with
only a "well, well, Missy."  With the boards of one box he made a snug
door for the other box and he found, hidden away, some precious leather
that could be cut into strips for hinges, and a square of oil cloth and
canvas, too.  There were more nails in the tool-box, and though old
Jonathan guarded that tool-box like a treasure-chest, he'd give Nancy
anything it held!

They labored feverishly, and within an hour Nancy declared their work
done.

"Now come with me, Jonathan, and I'll show you my secret."  She lifted
the box and started toward the orchard, Jonathan trudging after her.

When they reached the last tree near the cliff Nancy set her burden
down.  She turned to her companion with a solemn face.

"Jonathan, no one is going to know this secret but you and me!  I am a
dramatist.  You don't look as though you knew what that was, but it is
something that it's very, _very_ hard to be, and I shall have to
work--like everything!  Right up on the branch of that tree is where
I'm going to work.  I want you to take those nails I put in your pocket
and fasten this box securely to the trunk of the tree.  Then I'm going
to keep all my things right in it and fasten it with this padlock
I--borrowed--from your tool-box.  It'll be just like a nest--and I'll
steal out here and work and work and then, some day, when I'm famous,
all the newspapers will print a story telling how I wrote my first play
in an apple tree and that it was a secret between you and me, and
they'll want _your_ picture!  Now, right here, Jonathan.  I'll hold it
and you nail it tight."

Jonathan _didn't_ know what a dramatist was, but he did know that his
"little Missy," perched on the old branch, was as pretty as any bird
and her eyes as bright as the sunshine that filtered through the leaves
of the tree.

"Oh, that's just fine," cried Nancy, springing to the ground to survey
their work.  "It's as safe as can be and you've helped me a _lot_, you
dear old thing, you.  Now we must hurry home or B'lindy's dinner will
be cold and remember, cross your heart, this is a solemn, solemn
secret!"

She drew her fingers across his worn, gray sweater, and he nodded in
acceptance of the mysterious sign.  And as he followed her back through
the orchard to the house something within his breast seemed to sing the
way it did each spring when he found the first crocus peeping up
through the frosty earth.

Nancy found it difficult to keep from bolting through her dinner.  But
a tiny sense of guilt at having left "Joshua and Jacob" so abruptly
made her very attentive to Aunt Sabrina's long story of how the blue
china was first brought to Happy House.

Scarcely had Miss Sabrina's door closed upon her for her hour of rest,
however, than Nancy flew to her own room.  She gathered up her precious
paper and pencils, a knife and a worn manuscript case, a few favorite
books and a tattered dictionary, and started out on tip-toe through the
hall toward the stairs.  But, though her step was light, its sound
caught a certain patient ear nearby.

"Nancy!  Oh, Nancy!"

Nancy remembered, then, remorsefully, that not once that day had she
run in to see poor little Aunt Milly.  With her treasures in her arms
she went straight to her.  In the smile that greeted her from the couch
by the window, there was not one sign to indicate that Aunt Milly had
been waiting the whole long morning for her to come.

"I've been so busy," explained Nancy, dropping her load.  "I have a
mind to tell you, Aunt Milly.  I meant it to be a secret, only Jonathan
knows, because he had to help me.  And I'd like _you_ to know, too.
Anyway, a secret's more fun when more of us know it!  You see, I'd
gotten as far as Jacob in my lessons on Leavitts, and then Aunt Sabrina
couldn't remember whether it was he or his brother that was killed in
the war of 1812, and B'lindy rudely interrupted just because she had no
corn starch!  Oh, Aunt Milly, I'm dreadful, but I couldn't have stood
it another _minute_--I could have hugged B'lindy and her pudding!  Why,
I've sat for three days straight in a horrible stiff chair listening to
musty, dusty tales, and I wanted to scream!  So I said _I'd_ find
Jonathan and I bolted--and I _stayed_ away!  And out in the orchard,
right close to the bank, the grandest idea came to me.  To fix a nest!
And Jonathan helped me.  We made a little box, all waterproof, and
nailed it to the tree to keep my things in--these," indicating the pile
at her feet.  "And I'm going to hide there--and work!  And that's
another secret.  I'm writing a play!  I wrote two in college and the
English professor said they were unusual and the Senior class gave one.
And I have a _real_ one, almost done.  _Now_ you know the secret."

"Oh, _Nancy_!" said Aunt Milly softly, two bright spots of color on her
cheeks.

"You see I can steal out there and sit on that comfy branch and think
I'm all alone in the world.  Such beautiful thoughts will come to me!
It'll be like a bird's nest."

"Oh, Nancy," Aunt Milly said again, with a tragic look in her eyes that
the youthful Nancy could not read.  "I wish I could see you there--just
once!  Are the trees big, dear?  And is the grass real green?"  There
was a little tremble in the sweet voice.  "Seems to me it used to be
ploughed up 'round the apple trees."

Over Nancy rushed the heartbreaking thought that poor Miss Milly had
not seen the orchard for years and years.  She threw both arms about
the frail form.  With a torrent of words she pictured the raspberry
patch, old Jonathan's lettuce and radishes and beets and beans and
slender cornstalks working up through the soft earth, and the giant
apple trees beyond, the lake "just like diamonds sprinkled over
sapphire blue velvet" and the purple hills in the background.  And all
the while she talked, Nancy felt little quivers passing through the
form she held.

"It--isn't--_fair_!" she ended, enigmatically.  She sat still for a
moment, staring at Miss Milly.  With her bright color Aunt Milly didn't
look at all like a helpless invalid.  "Maybe----" began Nancy, then
stopped short.  She rose abruptly to her feet.  "I've got an idea that
beats my bird's-nest all to pieces!  I can't tell you now because you'd
be frightened to death, but it's going to be wonderful!  Let me hide
this truck under your couch and now be very, very good until I come
back.  I must find B'lindy at once."

Nancy, fired by her sudden purpose, interrupted B'lindy in the last of
her "drying up" and demanded to know where she could find Mr. Webb.
When B'lindy "'lowed she wa'n't his keeper, but he's most al'las
hangin' 'round the smithy or Eaton's or the post-office or the hotel,
'cept when you wanted him, and then he wa'n't hangin' 'round nowhere,"
Nancy started off down the path, bareheaded.

Fortune favored her, for Mr. Webb was "hangin' round the smithy and
very delighted to see Miss Anne!"  He had been wondering a lot about
the coming of the girl to Happy House.  "Somethin' sure to come of it,"
he had reflected again and again.

Of course, he assured Nancy, he'd do anything he could for her.  And
Nancy was sure they might find all that they needed right there in the
smithy.

"It must be very comfortable and have some springs--and be safe, too.
And if you can find some wheels with rubber tires--off an old baby
carriage, they'll run more smoothly.  And the seat must be big enough
for a lady--but she's a _small_ lady!"

Jonathan thought he "caught her idee.  Old Mrs. King, over at North
Hero, couldn't walk a step 'count of rheumatism, and she had a rig-up
such as Nancy was describing."  Yes, Timothy Hopkins at the smithy had
most every kind of a thing about and he'd see what he could do, and
Miss Anne could run down in the morning, early, before the stage
started for North Hero.

"And, Webb," Nancy levelled her sweetest smile, "don't even _try_ to
think whom it's for--it's a secret."




CHAPTER VI

IN THE ORCHARD

Until Webb could finish the task that Nancy had assigned to him, Nancy
curbing her impatience, had to return to the study of "Joshua, Jacob
and John."

"It was John that was killed in the war of 1812, and now we have
progressed to the next generation of Samuel and Ezekiel," she wrote to
Claire.  "But let me tell you that just as soon as Webb finishes the
'rig-up' (that is what he calls my perfectly beautiful idea) I'm not
going to have a minute to spend on any of the old ancestors.  Won't it
be wonderful to see Aunt Milly's face when she knows about it?  _Think_
of it, Claire--how we love to frolic all around this good old earth,
and how awful it would be to be tied to a couch all your days--and in
_such_ a room!"

"After to-day my letters will be just scraps and you can picture your
Nancy working madly in her tree-top!

"So far all is safe, and I'm really beginning to feel as though I was a
real Leavitt and not walking around in Anne's shoes, especially when I
am with Aunt Milly.  But it's terribly hard not to talk about Dad and
you and Anne, and I have to hold my lips together lots of times to keep
from bursting out with something.  I suppose it's good training for
me--Miss Sykes used to tell me my impulsiveness would be my ruin some
day.

"I have seen the hired man!  Yesterday, when I went out to my nest, I
deliberately walked around the edge of the orchard.  I saw a lot of
tumble-down sheds and things over on a rise of ground that I supposed
was Judson's, and of course the lot in between was the ten-acre strip
that Webb told me about.  I couldn't _see_ that it was any better than
any other part of the country around here.  And while I was staring,
suddenly something moved, and there was that creature with a hoe
standing at the other end of the lot.  And he waved his hand!  Says I,
'Nancy Leavitt, this is your chance,' and I tossed my head so hard that
my neck truly cracked, and I stalked off back to the orchard.  It was
good enough for him.

"Oh, oh, oh, Webb has come!  He's taken the rig-up around the lilac
side (for strategic reasons, I have divided the grounds of Happy House)
and out to the carriage barn.  Now I shall tackle B'lindy and make
ready for the blessed hour of rest.

"Adieu, dearest Claire, pray for your old pal."

The winning of B'lindy to her plan was not as easy as Webb had been.
It had been a "bad" morning for B'lindy; the fire would not draw well,
she had forgotten to "set" her bread, and Judson's cat had gotten into
the cream.  Nancy's arguments fell on deaf ears.

"I guess what's well enough's well enough," at last she threw over her
shoulder.  "Milly Leavitt's laid on that couch twenty years and it
ain't likely she'll lay there many more, and there ain't no use
meddlin' with what's what!"

"But, B'lindy, no one has ever tried this!  It's so easy.  Wait until
you see how nice and safe Webb has made the chair.  It's wonderful!  It
would be wicked to keep her shut up there when we could take her out!
Think of it, B'lindy, all _we_ have and poor little Aunt Milly!  Why,
it might make her well!  I really know of such a case.  It was a woman
who had tried every medicine she knew of and it was just happiness she
needed!  If Aunt Milly could get out there in the sunshine and--and see
things, _she_ might get well, too.  Anyway, she could laugh!"

B'lindy laid down her egg-beater.  It was a sign of yielding.

"I guess nobody's _tried_ happiness on Milly Leavitt!"

"We'll take her together, B'lindy.  You may go with me to her room and
see her face when she knows!"

"I told Miss Sabriny that there was no tellin' _what'd_ happen in Happy
House if she brought a young thing like you here," was B'lindy's way of
assent.  With an uplifted arm she warded off what threatened to be a
hug.

"Go 'way, Anne Leavitt, or there won't be no dinner!  And this is
_your_ doin's, remember."

True to her promise, Nancy waited until the last dinner dish was dried;
then she and B'lindy, very like culprits, tip-toed to Miss Milly's
room.  Aunt Milly wore a look of expectancy, which changed to wonder
when she saw B'lindy.  And one glance at Nancy's eager face told her
that something very, very different was about to happen!

In a whisper Nancy commanded her to peep out and "just see what you'll
see."  And Miss Milly, in a flutter, _did_ peep out, and saw Jonathan
below, with a curiously contrived chair on wheels.

"It's for you--Webb made it," declared Nancy.  "And you're not to get
excited, because that might spoil everything.  We're going to take you
to the orchard!"

"Oh, _Nancy_!"  Something caught in poor Miss Milly's throat.

"You must do just what I tell you.  Take this shawl, though it's warmer
out there than it is in here.  I'm very strong and I shall carry you
right down in my arms, and you must cling tight to my neck."

Poor Miss Milly commenced to tremble violently.  "Nancy--I'm afraid!
I--I--It's so long--maybe I'd better--maybe it isn't--_right_!"

"Oh, Aunt Milly, darling, how could it be wrong to be happy!  Just
_try_ it!  Think of the sunshine and the birds and the nice smells and
all Jonathan's growing things!  And B'lindy is going along, too, to
help.  _Try_ it, Aunt Milly!"

Aunt Milly's eyes filled with tears, then she commenced to laugh
softly.  "Maybe it'll be the only time!  I'd love--once more----"  She
let Nancy lift her slowly.  "I'm too heavy, dear," she protested.

"_Heavy_----" thought Nancy.  The pitifully frail form was as nothing
in her clasp.  "I haven't played forward on our basket-ball team for
four years for nothing, Aunt Milly!  March on, B'lindy.  Now--very
still."

It was a strange procession that moved off through the garden toward
the orchard.  Jonathan led the way, B'lindy wheeled the chair and Nancy
frisked along, first one side, then the other, picking posies here and
there until Aunt Milly's lap was quite full.  And Miss Milly sat very
still with her hands clasped tight together and a look of ecstasy in
her eyes, as though she was beholding a new and beautiful world!  Every
step forward brought an added wonder.  She had forgotten the world was
like this.

"_Oh-h!_" she whispered rapturously when a robin trilled from a nearby
tree.  "_Oh-h!_" she cried again when she caught a glimpse of the lake.

But when they reached the cliff it was Nancy's turn to exclaim.  For
there in her tree had been built the cosiest of rustic seats.

"_How lovely!_" she cried, springing into it.  "It just fits."  She
shook her finger at old Jonathan.  "_You_ made this for me, you dear
old thing!"

But Jonathan, wishing mightily that he had, had to admit that he
"didn't know a blame thing 'bout it!"

"Then it was Webb.  He wanted to surprise me, too, as well as Aunt
Milly.  Only--how did he know about my tree?  Isn't it _nice_?  It's as
comfy as can be."

When Nancy joyously declared that everybody and everything was lovely,
somehow B'lindy and Jonathan and Aunt Milly felt so, too!  B'lindy, at
Nancy's bidding, sat down upon the grass close to the chair, and
Jonathan, too rheumatic to follow her example, leaned against the tree
trunk and stared at Nancy with adoring eyes.

"At first I was going to keep my nest a secret, just between Jonathan
and me.  But it'll be much nicer to have all of us know about it.  We
can have such nice times here.  We can do so many things.  B'lindy, can
you knit?"

B'lindy said she could not, though she could crochet.

"Then I'm going to teach you and Aunt Milly both.  You can knit socks
for the children in Europe, though you must begin on washcloths.
Jonathan--I don't suppose there's any use trying to teach you--you must
keep us supplied with flowers because Aunt Milly can't have enough--you
see there are so many years she has to make up.  And sometimes I'll
read to you and sometimes I'll work.  We'll come here every
afternoon--shall we?"

B'lindy and Jonathan and Aunt Milly nodded their heads.  B'lindy,
watching Miss Milly's face, was beginning to think that there might be
some sense in Nancy's prescription of happiness.

And if in her heart Nancy smothered any wistful longing as she glanced
at the locked treasure-box, she forgot it when she, too, watched Aunt
Milly.

It was Jonathan who suddenly noticed that the sun was creeping over
toward the west and that he'd "better be at the lettuce."

"Goodness to gracious," cried B'lindy, scrambling to her feet with a
considerable creaking of joints.  "Anne Leavitt, my day's work ain't
half done!"

On the way back through the orchard Miss Milly kept tight hold of
Nancy's hand, giving it an occasional squeeze.

"I could die happy--now," she whispered.

At the turn of the path beyond the raspberry patch the culprits were
confronted by Miss Sabrina.  It was a very angry Aunt Sabrina, whose
one glance shadowed every bit of sunshine.  Even Nancy, the ringleader
of the plot, felt her knees give way in fright.

"What are you all about?" Miss Sabrina demanded in a voice cold with
anger.  "Go about your work, Jonathan Allen.  B'lindy, you wheel that
ridiculous chair back to wherever you got it from!  And you, Milly
Leavitt, how _dare_ you meddle with the ways of God?"

Everyone seemed to obey Miss Sabrina without a word of protest.
Jonathan faded out of sight, B'lindy disappeared toward the kitchen
with the chair and Nancy, followed by Miss Sabrina, carried the
trembling Miss Milly back to her couch.

"Anne, you go out now!" Miss Sabrina jerked her head toward the door.

"I'll have a thing or two to say to Milly.  She made her bed--it's the
will of our Lord she should lie in it!"

Nancy hesitated one moment, but something in Aunt Milly's frightened
glance seemed to say, "Go away!"  So she went out and closed the door
upon the two sisters.

Alone in her own room a storm of anger shook her.  "I _hate_ her!" she
cried out to the ugly walls.  "I _hate_ her!  She's--just--_stone_!"

"I'm _glad_ I'm not a real Leavitt!  We were _so_ happy!"

Then, really frightened, Nancy listened intently to catch some word
from the other room.




CHAPTER VII

AUNT MILLY'S STORY

When Nancy could stand the interval of quiet no longer, she went back
to Miss Milly's door.  She did not even knock.  So sure was she of
finding a crushed and heartbroken Aunt Milly within that she stood
dumbfounded before the little creature who sat bolt upright upon the
couch.

"Come in, my dear--and close the door!"

Everything about Miss Milly seemed to say that "the worm has turned."
There was a glow on her face different from that it had worn out in the
orchard; it seemed to come from some fire within.

"Open every blind in the room, Nancy," she commanded in a tone that was
new for Aunt Milly.  "I might as well get what light I can in here.
Now come and sit beside me."

For a moment Aunt Milly patted Nancy's hand and said nothing.  Then she
gave a little sigh.

"I can't _tell_ you, Nancy, I can't even _begin_ to tell you, what
you've done for me--taking me out there!  If I never go again, I've had
it once.  And it's sort of stiffened something inside of me!"

She fell silent again.  Nancy was wishing that she could have heard
what had passed between Aunt Sabrina and Miss Milly that had left Miss
Milly so defiant!

Aunt Milly seemed to read her thought.

"She was dreadfully angry and it was partly because she was
frightened--really frightened.  You see, Nancy, sister Sabrina thinks
things must always go just so and that it's almost wicked to
try--different things.  She says--I've made my bed!"

"What _does_ she mean, Aunt Milly?"

"It's a long story, dear."

"I'd like to hear it, Aunt Milly."

"I suppose you ought to know--someone else may tell you, old Webb or
B'lindy, or even Sabrina, though she'd rather die first!  I think I
used to be something like you, Nancy, or I would have been, if it
hadn't been for--the trouble!"

"Will it make you unhappy to tell it, Aunt Milly?"

"No, child.  I used to lie here by the hour and think things over and
over, but after awhile I got so things sort of blurred--I suppose I
grew resigned and all the fight inside of me died.  There never was
much.  You see Sabrina brought me up and she was as stern then as she
is now.  Our father was like that, too.  My mother died when I was a
baby."

"When father died Sabrina had the care of me.  I suppose she tried to
bring me up well; she was very strict and--never seemed to understand!
And when I was quite young I began to dream of getting away from the
Islands.  I wanted to go away to school somewhere and learn to do
something--I did not much care what--that would keep me out in the
world.  Finally I decided that I wanted to study music and then,
sometime, teach it.  It wasn't much to want, was it, dear?  But
goodness me, when I went to Sabrina with my plan she was terribly
angry.  You might have thought I had suggested something wicked!  She
simply _couldn't_ understand!  There was enough money for us both to
live on and she said I was selfish and inconsiderate to want to go
away.  She talked a great deal about the Leavitt position and being a
lady and learning contentment, and the more she talked the more
restless and discontented I grew!  And the more I dreamed of what
waited out in the world beyond these little Islands.

"After a long while, Nancy, I made up my mind to go, anyway!  It was
not easy to do, because I'm not very brave, and the trouble we'd had
sort of made me hate to take any step that might make a break between
Sabrina and me.  But I had to do it.  I simply couldn't seem to face a
life here.  That's hard for you to believe, isn't it, dear?  But I
_was_ a different creature, then.  Well, one night I packed some
clothes and slipped away.  I walked to North Hero and caught the train
for Burlington.  I was going from there to--to New York."

Breathlessly, Nancy whispered, "What happened then?"

"The train was wrecked outside of Burlington!"

"_Oh_--Aunt Milly!"

"I was terribly hurt.  I lay for weeks in a hospital in Burlington and
they didn't know whether I'd live or die!  I wish----" she stopped
short.  "No, I don't!  I'm _glad_ I didn't die.  Then they brought me
home--like this!"

"Poor, poor little Aunt Milly!"

"But, listen, child--that isn't half all.  It seems that on the same
train was a young man from North Hero whom I had always known--and
liked.  But Aunt Sabrina had never approved of him, and long before she
had forbidden his coming here.  I did see him sometimes, though--I
loved company and he was entertaining.  There had never been more than
a pleasant friendship between us, and I had not dreamed that he was
going to Burlington on that train.  He was killed.  And when I came
back from the hospital the story was on every tongue that I had been
running away with Charlie Prince!"

"Oh, I was hurt in every part of me--my body and my soul and my mind!
My precious dreams had crumbled forever and ever.  And I had to face
that dreadful scandal!  Not that I ever saw a soul--Sabrina took care
of _that_!  She kept me shut up as though I had the plague.  But
through her reproachful eyes I was made to see the accusations of every
man, woman and child on the Hero Islands.  And I couldn't _make_ her
believe it wasn't so!  She simply wouldn't talk about it.  She went
around with that dreadful look, day after day, and when she'd say
anything at all, it was about how I had brought shame to the Leavitt
name.  And after awhile I began to feel as though I _had_ done
something--more than just run away to study music.  She made me
understand that the only way I could atone for it all was by burying
myself within these four walls."

"Then _that's_ what she means by 'making your bed.'"

"Yes, dear, I was so crushed that I came to believe she was right.  God
knew that all I had wanted when I went away was a right to my own way
of living, but His ways are inscrutable and His Will has to be done!
Sabrina called it the sword of wrath and the justice of the Almighty,
and it didn't make much difference to me _what_ it was called--I was
here.  That's my story, dear, that's the way I've lived until--to-day.
But you've changed it.  Something inside of me that I thought was
dead--isn't dead at all!  Do you know what I told Sabrina?  I told her
I didn't _care_ what she thought, that I guessed when a woman was forty
years old and over she could decide things for herself and if just
going out there in the orchard was wicked, then I'd go on being
_wickeder_!  That's what I told her.  Dear, dear, you should have seen
her face!"

"Hurrah, hurrah, Aunt Milly!"

"Poor Sabrina, I never spoke like that in my life to her!  I've always
been so--_afraid_, until to-day!  I don't know what she'll do now.  You
must not blame her too much, Nancy dear, it's the Leavitt trouble that
has made her what she is--it shadowed all our lives!"

"Aunt Milly, what was the Leavitt trouble?"

Aunt Milly looked distressed.  "Then you _don't_ know?  I shouldn't
have spoken of it!  I promised Sabrina I wouldn't speak to you--about
it."

"But, Aunt Milly, I have a--a right to know, haven't I?  Even Webb
hinted about it, and it makes me feel as though I was--well, on the
outside of things, to be kept in ignorance."

Miss Milly regarded her for a moment.  "I _told_ Sabrina that you
wouldn't know!  But may be you ought to.  Somehow, telling things, too,
makes them seem not so dreadful!  I believe we Leavitts lock troubles
away too much--don't air them enough, maybe.  Sabrina thinks it's as
dreadful now as it was the day it happened.  It was about our brother.
He was a year older than Sabrina.  He wasn't at all like her, though,
nor like my father.  He was gay and handsome, and high-spirited and
dreadfully extravagant.  When I was very small I used to be frightened
at the quarrels between him and my father--and they were always over
money.

"One night--he had come home just before supper after being away for a
week, no one knew where, and my father was very angry about that--they
had a quarrel that seemed more bitter than any other.  Besides, there
was a thunder-storm that made it seem worse.  I had been sent to bed,
but the lightning had frightened me, and I had crept downstairs to the
sitting-room.  I opened the door.  They were all three--for Sabrina
always sided with my father--talking so loudly they did not hear me.
My father's face frightened me more than the lightning and my brother's
had turned dead white.  I think my father had just offered him some
money, for his wallet was in his hand and on the floor lay a bill, as
though my brother had thrown it back.  I began to cry and ran back to
my room, more frightened by them than by the storm.  And I lay there in
my bed for hours, waiting for something to happen!"

"About midnight one dreadful bolt of lightning struck the house.  It
shattered the chimney all to pieces on the outside and inside, filled
the sitting-room with dust and pieces of mortar, cracked the mantel and
moved it an inch and a half from the wall.  But no one thought much of
all that, because something far more dreadful had happened!  My brother
was gone and my father's wallet, the one I had seen in his hand, was
missing.  He remembered laying it on the mantel and my brother and
Sabrina had seen him do it.  It had contained over a thousand dollars
in bank notes.  The next day my father found out that my brother had
taken the early train out of North Hero.  I was too young to understand
much about it, but I used to pray, first, that my brother would come
back and tell them he _didn't_ take the wallet and then I'd pray that
he'd never, never come back, so that they couldn't put him in prison."

"That must have been Anne's grandfather," Nancy was thinking.

"He did come back, three weeks later," Miss Milly went on, "and there
was a scene much worse than the night of the storm.  They forgot I was
in the room.  My father accused my brother of stealing the wallet and
refused to let him say a word.  'I want no lies added to your other
sins,' was what he said--I can hear him now.  And my brother looked as
though something had struck him.  Then my father told him that if he'd
take himself off and never darken the doors of Happy House again, nor
communicate with his family in any way, the matter would be dropped
forever--for the sake of the Leavitt name.  My brother stood there for
a moment; I remember, I wanted to run to him!  Oh, I've wished I
_had_--so often!  But I was afraid of Sabrina--and my father.  And then
my brother turned and walked out of the room--and out of the
door--and--down the path--and----"

Poor Miss Milly, worn out by the excitement of the day, began to cry
softly.

Nancy had to jerk herself to break the spell of the story.  Her face
wrinkled in a frown.  "It--is--dreadful, isn't it, Aunt Milly?  I don't
mean his spending money and running debts and things, I
mean--your--your father's horrid--_mercilessness_!  Why, the courts
don't treat the worst criminals like that!  And they call it Leavitt
pride--and honor!  _I_ call it injustice.  I wish you _had_ just run up
and kissed him, then.  It might have made everything so different!"

"So _that's_ why I can't speak of Anne's father or grandfather," Nancy
was thinking back of her frown.  "And that's why Anne knew so little
about her aunts!"  Then aloud: "I'm glad you told me, Aunt Milly.
It'll help us--be pals.  We'll have other afternoons--like to-day--out
in the sunshine.  But now you must rest.  And I'll get ready to face
Aunt Sabrina!"

"She'll be dreadfully cross," sighed Miss Milly, with the glow all gone
from her face.

"I'm not a bit afraid," and Nancy meant it, for within her breast
smouldered such righteous indignation at Miss Sabrina and her precious
ancestors that she welcomed the challenge.

Dressing hurriedly for supper Nancy's eye caught the letter to Claire
lying on her bureau.  It seemed to her as though hours and hours had
passed since she had so flippantly bade Claire "pray for me!"

She wanted to open the letter and dash off another page to tell Claire
of all that had happened and how the "mystery" was a mystery no longer.
Then, with the envelope in her hand, she remembered that it concerned
Aunt's grandfather and that, perhaps, _she_ had no right to tell!  But
she did open the sheet and scribble across the top: "All sorts of
things have happened since I wrote this, and I may be back with you any
moment.  I can't tell you yet all about it, but I can say this, that I
hate Happy House and I'm glad as can be that I'm only a pretend
Real-Leavitt!  Everybody isn't horrid, though, that nice old Webb built
the cosiest seat up in my tree and surprised me."

In exactly twenty minutes, by the hands of her small watch, she must
meet Miss Sabrina!  Anyway, she could tell her just what she thought
about the whole thing, for, without any doubt she'd be sent away!  But
there was Aunt Milly--she had promised Aunt Milly that there would be
more afternoons in the orchard.  Somehow she must fix that.

"I know," she waved her brush in mid-air, "I'll get Belinda!"




CHAPTER VIII

B'LINDY'S TRIUMPH

No great general of war ever mapped out a plan of attack more carefully
than Nancy laid hers!  First she begged B'lindy to let her pick over
the raspberries for supper.  While doing this in the chummiest sort of
way, it was very easy to tell B'lindy that she had eaten lots of raised
biscuits but never any raised biscuits like she'd had at Happy House!

The last raspberry in the glass dish, Nancy in departing, whispered
with a little laugh; "Weren't you dreadfully frightened this afternoon
when you saw Aunt Sabrina?  O! of course you weren't--Webb told me you
were the only one who could really make Aunt Sabrina do anything, but,
goodness, _I_ was!"  Which was balm to B'lindy's injured pride; as the
afternoon wore on B'lindy had been growing more and more indignant
because she had not "stood on her two feet and spoke up to Sabriny
Leavitt" instead of "turning tail like old Jonathan!"

Throughout the supper, by eating very fast, Nancy managed to conceal
her nervousness and expectancy.  Aunt Sabrina sat stiffly and looked
very tired and very old and, somehow, by a twist of her lips managed to
make Nancy understand that she, Nancy, was in deep disgrace and that in
due time sentence of punishment would be passed.  Between B'lindy and
her mistress not a word was exchanged; B'lindy's head was tossed high
and there was an air of "sniffing" about her that, if it had not all
been so tragic, would have made the entire situation funny.

"Oh, what a _place_--what _funny_ people!" cried Nancy to the stars as
she leaned that night far out of her window.  "How can I _stand_ it!
And why does not something happen quickly?  It's just _like_ Aunt
Sabrina not to say a word and to keep me on pins and needles!  That's
the same way she treated Aunt Milly and that poor boy--years ago!"
Thereupon Nancy let her fancy wander back to the "gay-spirited,
extravagant" brother and his story--Anne's grandfather.  Had _he_
cared, she wondered, had he died longing to see again the old Island
home, or had it been a blessing--casting him out in the wide world.  He
must have met fortune somewhere, for Anne's father had been wealthy.
Dear Anne--Nancy picked out the star that was farthest in the East and
addressed it reverently.  "If you can see Anne and she can see you will
you tell her that she mustn't feel cross at the mess I've made of
things.  I tried to be careful but I'm me and, anyway, all the
ignorance of her blessed peasants isn't any worse than the pride and
narrowness of her own relatives!  Good-night, dearest Anne, for the
last time I go to sleep in my prison walls--to-morrow I die!"

However, the June sunshine of the next morning restored much of Nancy's
courage.  She made quick note of a few good signs, and best of these
was when she surprised B'lindy vigorously tacking a cushion upon Miss
Milly's chair.  B'lindy did not see Nancy and Nancy tip-toed away with
a smile.

Then, too, the glow was back in Miss Milly's face, and when Nancy ran
into her room, her hands full of roses, Miss Milly greeted her eagerly.

"I think the sun is shining to-day just for me," she laughed, waving
her hand to the windows from which the blinds had been drawn.

"And _I_ think," and Nancy cocked her head knowingly, "that B'lindy
will force an attack with the enemy about mid-day!"

Nancy was right in her prediction.  At dinner B'lindy, clad in her
customary checked gingham apron, served them veal stew and delicious
fluffy dumplings, but after the shortcake she appeared without it, and
with a broad-brimmed hat pinned well down over her sharp features.

Nancy checked an exclamation; Miss Sabrina's lips twisted ever so
slightly, though not a word came from them.

B'lindy assumed an added note of defiance by placing her hands on her
hips.  "I guess the dishes can wait 'til the cool of the afternoon,"
she said, trying to make her tone casual.  "I'm goin' to take Miss
Milly for her airin'."

One might have thought that there was nothing out of the ordinary in
B'lindy's announcement, beyond perhaps, the leaving of the dinner
dishes, but a tense moment followed, when one pair of steely eyes bored
into another pair, just as hard.  And Nancy, a little frightened,
realized, with a sort of breathlessness, that she, was witnessing the
invisible conflict of two strong wills.  One must weaken--and she
dropped her eyes, for she was swept by a moment's pity.

It was Miss Sabrina's that weakened!  The tenseness was broken when she
rose hurriedly from her chair.

"Then it's on your own head, B'lindy Guest," she cried shrilly, "I've
done my duty as I saw it!  She's better left alone."

B'lindy, triumphant, threw after her, with a snort; "Duty's duty and
_I_ know that's well as you, but I guess no one's tried the
perscription of happiness for Milly Leavitt and mebbe it ain't too
late!"

Nancy was torn between a wild desire to hug B'lindy and to say a nice
word to Aunt Sabrina, departing majestically from the room.  But she
did neither--for both women, at that moment, looked very forbidding.
Instead, as the door closed behind Miss Sabrina, she drew a long
breath.  "Suspended sentence," she said, solemnly.

Then, at B'lindy's "What's that?" she laughed back: "The victor's
wreath shall adorn your brow, my worthy ally.  While you prepare the
chariot I shall make haste to tell Aunt Milly that all's well with the
world!  _Don't_ look at me like that, B'lindy Guest, I'm not
crazy--yet!"

But B'lindy "'lowed" she was, for Nancy seized her by the shoulders and
kissed first one cheek and then the other, and uttered the perfectly
incomprehensible--to B'lindy--remark; "Webb was right!"




CHAPTER IX

DAVY'S CLUB

"The next thing we do is to s'lute the flag of our country.  Now, one,
two, three--after me!"

The shrill command floated up to Nancy in her tree-top.

She had just snuggled back against her seat with a long sigh of
contentment.  The door of her treasure-box stood open and beside her
were the sheets of her neglected manuscript.  She had stolen out for an
hour's uninterrupted work.

"How _heavenly_ quiet," she had been saying to the rustling leaves.
"_Now_ I am going to work and make up for lost time."  Everything at
Happy House seemed to be back on what Nancy called a "peace-basis."  "I
must go down to the village and tell Webb what a dear he was to make
this seat," she had thought, as she climbed into it.

Then, just as her inspired pencil had written "Act 4" across the top of
a clean sheet, had come the strange words, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Well, I _never_!"  Nancy peeped all around.  The sound came apparently
from under the cliff.  "Who _is_ it?  And how could _anyone_ get there."

The voice--a boy's--was rattling on in a succession of sharp commands.
Nancy crept toward the edge and peeped over.  There, to her amazement,
on a strip of sand beach in an indentation of the shore, marched and
counter-marched a small boy, quite alone.  He was a funny, snub-nosed,
tousled headed boy in ragged blouse and blue jeans--and, clearly, very
much in earnest, for a deep scowl wrinkled his freckled face.

"At-ten-shun!  Shoulder arms--right face--forward, march."  Three feet
length of bare-footed manliness stepped briskly across the sand.  "Step
up, you Dick Snead," and a domineering arm swept out toward an
imaginary lagger in the rear.

"Was there _ever_ anything so funny?" giggled Nancy, crouching in the
tall grass at the top of the cliff.  "And what is it?  Fairies don't
come in over-alls, and I don't think they ever liked military drill,
either."

She loosened a stone and let it roll down the bank.  Startled, the
youngster lifted his glance to the top of the bank.

"Hello," called Nancy.

A heavy scowl answered her friendly greeting.

"What are you doing?"

"I ain't doin' nothin'."  It was clear that Nancy's interruption was
unwelcome.  "Least I ain't doin' nothin' that's hurtin'."

"Of course not!  It sounded nice.  I didn't even know there was a beach
down there!  How did you ever get down?"

The boy grew crafty--the haste with which he answered said plainly that
he did not _want_ Nancy to know how.

"Girls can't get down--it's awful dang'rous!"

"Then won't you come up?"

The boy considered this.  He had guessed that this must be the "girl up
at the Happy House."  She seemed friendly and not at all disposed to
"chase a feller away."  And if he climbed up to her, then there would
be no danger of her discovering the way down to the beach.

"All right, I'll come up."  He disappeared for a moment in the tangle
of growth that fringed the foot of the cliff to bob up close at Nancy's
side.

"My goodness--it's just as though you came up by magic," she cried.
"It _must_ be dang'rous.  I'm Nancy Leavitt.  Who are you?"

The boy gave Nancy a suspicious look.

"Mebbe you'll tell!" he muttered, doubtingly.

"Oh, no, I _wouldn't_!  Besides, what can I tell?  And I can't even
guess who you are because you see I don't know anyone in Freedom."

"I'm Davy Hopworth."

"Of course, I remember,--"  But Nancy stopped short for what she
remembered was how Webb had called them the "no-good Hopworths."

"And that there's my club," finished Davy, gravely.  "Only the other
fellers couldn't sneak away today."

"I--understand," Nancy nodded, hugging her knees with her arms.  "What
a jolly place to meet.  It's so--so secret."

Davy grinned.  "You bet.  That's a pirate's cove.  I guess mebbe
there's a treasure buried there.  All us boys knows where to get down,
too."

"I'm so glad you let me know your secret!  I won't tell a soul!  I
think your club's very jolly, too."

Davy, won by Nancy's disarming friendliness, produced from a ragged
pocket a dirty piece of paper and handed it to her.

"Them's the Rules," he said, briefly.

At the top was printed "Cove Culb."  And below were the rules: 1. No
swaring.  2. No back talk.  3. No smokin nothin.  4. No lis.  5. No
steling birds eggs.  6.  No hurtin dume anmals.  7. Eviry boys goter no
how to swim and lick eviry boy thats an enmy to the culb.  8. To kil
pirats.  9. To fite for ar contry.

While Nancy was trying to control her lips so that she could say
something, Davy added proudly, "I wrote 'em."

"They're--splendid!  But _why_ in the world should the other boys have
to sneak away?"

"Liz says folks don't think a Hopworth's good 'nough.  I guess no one
thinks a feller oughta have any fun, either.  Liz don't.  I wait 'til
she cleans the meetin' house--ev'ry Monday and after there's socials
and things.  We sneak.  Jim and Dick get a lickin' if they get caught,"
Davy explained without the slightest embarrassment.

Nancy's indignation was sincere.  "What a _shame_!  I wish I was a boy,
I'd join your club in a moment.  Why, you can do so many things down
there--drill and--swim, can't you?  And have jolly fires and roast
potatoes and weiners and corn?"

"Gee--I wish you were a boy."

"Why, can't I join anyway?" cried Nancy, inspired.  "Some clubs have
honorary members who do nice things for them.  Can't I?"

Davy did not know what an "honorary member" was, and an instinct
trained to suspicion warned him now.

"Girls ain't any fun."

"Oh, some girls aren't, I know!  But I'm a lot like a boy.  I can swim
half a mile--I've done it!  I can play ball, too and--and--why I won a
medal for a high pole-vault!  I'll bet I can beat you right now in a
race!"

Davy regarded her with wide eyes.

"Bet you can't!"

Nancy sprang to her feet.

"Let's race from--here--to that big elm way down there."  She indicated
with her finger a giant elm in the "ten-acre strip."

"How you goin' to get over that stone fence?"  And Davy pointed out the
low stretch of stones that marked the dividing line between the orchard
and the ten-acre strip.

"Oh, _that_!  That's easy!"

Plainly Davy's respect was growing.  He danced first on one foot and
then on the other.  "You are a sport.  If you can beat I'll let you
join the club.  I'll count!  One--two--three!"

They were off over the stubby grass.  Nancy, longer-limbed, caught the
lead.  She vaulted the fence with agile ease.  But Davy soon caught up
to her and in the last few yards passed her.  Laughing, breathless,
Nancy reached the tree and clung to it.

"Hurray," came from behind them.

There, approaching them, was the "hired man."  He had seemingly sprung
from nowhere.

Flushed and disheveled by the race, an intruder on the enemy's own
ground, Nancy was at a disarming disadvantage.  Besides, Davy greeted
the newcomer rapturously.

"Say, she's as good's a boy.  She's goin' to join the club!" he
announced, with triumph.  "As honery member," he added.

Peter Hyde held out a brown hand.

"Congratulations!  And to the club, too!"

Nancy was conscious that he was staring at her in a perplexed way.  Her
cheeks already red from running took on an added color under his
glance.  But there was a friendliness in his, eyes that won, her in
spite of her resolve to avenge at every opportunity her injured dignity.

"I'd have won," she retorted laughingly, "if it hadn't been
for--these," and she swished her white skirts.  "But I don't care as
long as Davy says I may join the club.  Meetings whenever Liz cleans
the meeting-house," she repeated.

"And she can swim and she can play ball and says we can make fires and
things," cried Davy to Peter Hyde.

"Then you won't need me anymore?"

"You can be a honery member, too.  She says they do nice things for
clubs."

Peter Hyde put an arm across Davy's shoulder.  "I think we could do a
lot of nice things for Davy and his club," he said, directly to Nancy.
"Seems to me there's energy and enthusiasm here that's being sort of
wasted.  What do you say--shall we be honery members?"

Nancy nodded.  "I swear to keep all the rules."

Davy hopped with joy.  "Wait 'til I tell the fellers.  I guess you'll
see 'em round, even if they do get a lickin'!  But, say," he stopped
short, inspired by a sudden thought, "mebbe now Mis' Leavitt's niece
b'longs they won't _have_ to sneak!"

Peter Hyde walked back with Nancy and Davy as far as the stone wall.
From, the corner of her eye Nancy was, quite against her will, admiring
the straight figure whose strength was only made more evident by the
rough working clothes.

"He seems _nice_--for a hired man," she was thinking, all the while she
was answering Davy's boyish questions.

And more than once, as he watched Nancy, that first perplexing look
came back into Peter Hyde's eyes.

"Why, she _isn't_ a kid, after all!"




CHAPTER X

THE HIRED MAN

"Claire, darling--

"It's after ten o'clock at night and here on North Hero that's like
four in the morning in New York, but I can't wait another minute to
write to you.  The _funniest_ thing has happened--only I'll save it for
the end of my letter.

"I haven't written to you since that letter with the crazy postscript,
like a nightcap, on it.  Well, instead of being deported from Happy
House, bag and baggage, I seem to become more of a fixture, each day.
And each day, Claire Wallace, I grow more and _more_ to think I belong
here.  Just so often I have to shake myself and say 'don't
forget--you're pretending.'  And, I scarcely dare write this--I believe
they are all growing a _little_, wee bit fond of me--the real me.  Of
course Webb loved me at first sight and so did old Jonathan--_he's_ a
dear!  And precious little Aunt Milly, who is getting the prettiest
pink in her cheeks and can laugh now, truly laugh, and is as proud as
can be over her first washcloth, she wants me with her all the time.  I
can tell by the way she looks at me.  And I am really growing
embarrassed, to say nothing of fat, with the good things B'lindy cooks
and if you knew B'lindy, you'd understand that that is _her_ way of
showing sentiment.  But as to Aunt Sabrina--I am not so sure!

"Things have changed since I wrote to you--there was an awful clashing
of wills in Happy House and Aunt Sabrina came out on the bottom and
since then she has an air of 'having washed her hands of me.'  And
she's stopped the lessons on Leavitts, too, just when we'd gotten to
Ezekiel.  But I've learned more than she wanted me to--I've found out
about the mystery, as I wrote before, only I can't explain until our
own Anne says I may--because it's about her grandfather!

"I believe in my last letter I said, too, that I hated Happy House.
Well, I don't believe I do.  It's a funny place--just when you think
its dismal and prisony you see something you just love--like one of
Jonathan's rose ramblers, all pinky, climbing up an old gray tree
trunk.  I can't explain it, there's a sort of an appeal about the whole
place that's spooky, as though it was something human and--wanted me!
Isn't that a silly notion, especially when I'm just here acting Anne's
part so that she can go off to Russia?

"And this whole village is just like Happy House--it is proudly
clinging to what it has been in the past and defying the advance of the
new things of the present.  When I walk along the main street (and only
street) of the village I stare at the shutup houses, for, bless me, no
one would dream of opening any blinds, and I wonder if there's a
marble-topped table in every one of those best-parlors and a family
Bible on every table filled with pages of ancestors.  I suppose I'm
wickedly disrespectful--when I see my dear Dad, and oh, how I want,
want, want to see him--I shall tell him that now I know he didn't bring
me up right.

"I am a 'honery' member of a club--and now I'm approaching the exciting
part of my letter.  It is called Cove's Club and has rules that forbid
my swearing, talking back, smoking, lying, stealing bird's eggs,
hurting dumb animals, and that make me fight (and lick) every enemy to
the club (which, alas, seem to be mostly mothers) kill pirates and
defend my country.  Isn't that heavenly?  It meets whenever Liz
Hopworth has to clean the 'meetin' house' which is always on Mondays
and after there's a social.  And to attend the meetings you have to
slide down thirty feet of bank to what is known around here as Falling
Water Cove, though I don't believe water ever fell there.  Anyway, it
is a historic spot for reasons besides the club--one is that it was
from there Robert Leavitt and the women of the household, with little
Justine, escaped when Freedom was attacked by the Indians and it was
there, one dark night, Ethan Allen himself landed in a boat for a
secret conference with Jacob Leavitt before an attack upon the Yorkers.
(90 plus in American History.)

"And the members of the Club are (please read slowly) Me, Davy
Hopworth, Dick Snead, Jim Davis, Kirk Brown and Peter Hyde--the hired
man.

"Peter Hyde and I are the 'honery' members."

"I can hear you, Claire.  'That is just like you, Nancy Leavitt--swear
you're going to do one thing and doing another.'  Yes, darling, it is
like me, I'll admit!  But this time it's different.  I really did
intend to be very haughty and distant each time I saw the man but--I
couldn't.  Could you, if you had just been running a race which
included vaulting a stone wall?  I had to run the race to win Davy's
respect and I had to jump the wall--well, to show I could!  And of
course I never dreamed the creature was anywhere around.  But he sprang
up from the earth, I believe, and was there at the finish.  And could
_you_ look haughty with every hair pin dropping out of your head?

"And, anyway, afterwards, he explained something that has made
everything different, but that comes later in my story.

"Today it rained for the first time since I've been in North Hero.  A
sort of steady pitter-patter, not the kind of a downpour that makes you
hug shelter, but a splashy sort you long to run out in with your face
turned up.  All morning long I sat with the aunts (Aunt Milly was so
disappointed when she saw the rain that I brought her down to the
hollyhock porch and made her all comfy there) and I simply couldn't
stand it all afternoon so, after lunch, I stole away.  Now Happy House
is divided (thank goodness) into two parts, so if the aunts are on one
side it is easy to slip out of the other.  I put on my slicker and cap
and slipped away.  I frisked around in the rain drops for awhile, then,
I started toward the orchard to see if my water-proof box was
water-proof.  And as I walked down the path I heard the sound of
hammering from the direction of my Nest.  'A-ha,' says I, 'I will
surprise nice Mr. Webb at his work!'  So I crept up on tiptoe.  And,
oh, Claire, it wasn't Mr. Webb _at all--it was Peter Hyde_!  There he
was with a hammer and a saw and some nails in a funny apron he had tied
around him working away with the rain spattering through the leaves
right into his face.

"I was so surprised I thought I'd run back, but just at that moment he
saw me.  And of course, the way I always do when I shouldn't, I began
to laugh.  And he laughed, too, though he _was_ embarrassed.

"I am sure he didn't want me to find out that he had made the seat.
But for a hired man he met the situation with ease.  He simply asked me
to stand there while he drove one more nail; then, he said, his work
would be complete.  When he'd finished he held out his hand and invited
me to climb into the nest.  All this with the rain spattering on us!
Of course I had to tell him that it was perfectly lovely and had been
such a jolly surprise and that I had thought Webb had made it.  And now
comes the funny part.  He explained in a sort of sheepish way that he
thought _I was a little girl_!  Jonathan had told him that Miss
Sabrina's little niece was coming to Happy House.  When he caught a
glimpse of me in the stage (he dared to say this) he thought I looked
like a 'jolly sort of a kid.'  Then that very afternoon he saw me turn
a handspring in the orchard--and climb the tree!  He said he got to
thinking what a sort of dull place Happy House would be for any
youngster, and that it would be fun for him to do some little thing to
make it jollier for her.  He admitted, to use his own words, that he
was flabbergasted to find that I wasn't a kid after all!  I'm glad, in
a 'close-up' I _do_ look my years!

"But can't you see that that explains _everything_ and that he _wasn't_
impertinent, after all?

"Of course, living in cities all my life, I've always had an impression
that hired men were just big, clumsy, dirty looking creatures who ate
with knives and always smelled horsey.  This Peter Hyde isn't that way
at all.  He's tanned copper-color but his face and hands look clean and
except for his clothes, he doesn't look much different from any one
else.  And now that he knows I am quite grown-up (at least in years) he
treats me very nicely.

"We're going to do all sorts of nice things for Davy Hopworth, who is a
very nice, bright youngster, but, just because he's a Hopworth, the
other boys get punished for playing with him and that makes both Peter
Hyde and me indignant.

"Isn't the world funny, Claire, how the sins of the fathers and the
grandfathers are visited upon the children--at least in places like
this?  Of course my beloved Finnegans are too busy just keeping the
present generation going, to think much about the past, and the world
they live in rushes too fast to stop to think that Timmy Finnegan,
maybe's, going to rob a bank because his great-great-grandfather, over
in County Cork, ran off with a pig.

"It is too late in the evening to philosophize, and I mustn't let my
wick burn too low or Aunt Sabrina will know I'm using the midnight oil.
Don't be cross, dear Claire, if you don't hear from me every day;
although you might suppose that up here I'd have a great deal of
leisure time, somehow each day seems to bring something unexpected.
And as I said on page 2 of this voluminous letter, I am growing fond of
Happy House and there is a sort of fascination about everything here.
Dear Anne, with her noble dreams, never longed to bring about the
reforms that I do!  One is to throw out the dreadful waxed flowers and
peacock feathers and old grasses from Happy House and fill the vases
with fresh flowers.  Another is to sweep through the whole blessed
village and open every blind and let in today!

"And then when I'm bursting with my longing to make the whole world
better, I'm suddenly reminded that I'm just a little next-to-nothing
that can't even remember to act grown-up, masquerading in our Anne's
shoes and daring to find flaws in Miss Sabrina Leavitt with all the
noble heritage of Leavitt tradition flowing in her veins.

"Good night, littlest pal, I wish I could be with you long enough for a
good, long gossip.  But, by and by--"




CHAPTER XI

MOONSHINE AND FAIRIES

  "Good-evening, yellow Buttercups
  Good-evening, daisies white,
  Tell me, have you met the Moon-Queen
  On this pretty night?"


The little singer made a sweeping courtesy.

"How d'you do, Miss Buttercup?  Do come here now and meet Mrs. Moon!"
With a gesture of exaggerated elegance she led an imaginary Buttercup
out to a pool of silver where the bright moonlight slanted through the
branches of an apple tree.

"Now, everybody, bow to Mrs. Moon," and the fairy-hostess bent to the
ground.  Then she snapped her fingers.  "On with the music," she cried.
Like a spirit she danced off over the grass, now scarcely more than a
shadow among the shadows, now full in the moonlight, bending, swaying,
leaping, arms outstretched, face lifted.

But the frolic of the fairies in the moonlight came to a sad end, for a
human hand reached out from behind a tree-trunk and caught the
make-believe hostess of Mrs. Moon by one thin arm.

"Lemme go!" cried the child, shrilly.

Nancy, awakened by the moonlight streaming across the rose-cabbages of
her carpeting, had been lured out into the night.  Halting at the
raspberry patch she had heard the little singer.  Cautiously, lest
indeed she disturb fairies at their revels she had crept into the
orchard.  From a hiding place she had watched the child's mad dance.

"Sh-h!  I am the Moon-Queen!  Let me dance with you!"  Releasing the
little wriggling body Nancy threw off her slippers.  "Come!"  Waving
her hand she danced down through the apple trees, singing:

  In their dress of yellow gold,
    In their petals white,
  I can see the fairy folk
    Gathered here to-night!


From the shadow the child watched her, sullenly, suspiciously.  But
with her loosened hair falling down over her pink dressing gown, Nancy
herself looked an eerie little sprite; in a moment the child's alarm
vanished.  Of course she _knew_ that this must be Miss Sabriny
Leavitt's niece, but it was fun, anyway, to pretend that she _was_ the
Moon-Queen!  And she must be very, very nice not to have "chased" her
at once!  And she might stop dancing, too, any moment!  So out she ran
to join Nancy, with hands outstretched, and together they capered and
danced around among the old trees until, quite out of breath, Nancy
fell upon the soft grass.

"Oh, goodness me, what _fun_!  Now come here, Miss Fairy, and tell me
who you are?  _Are_ you a fairy come from the Village of Tall Grass in
yonder field?"

The child, completely won, dropped at Nancy's feet.

"I'm Nonie Hopworth."

"Oh-h!"  Nancy was genuinely surprised.  "Are you Davy's sister?"

The child nodded.  "Yep."  She regarded Nancy closely.  "You're
_different_, aren't you?"

Nancy caught her meaning.  "Yes, I'm different--at least, I'm not
exactly like----"

"Miss Sabriny or--or B'lindy.  _She'd_ have chased me!  That's why I
come here to play at night.  Anyway, it's easier to pretend at night.
Do you ever pretend, Miss?"

"Call me Nancy, do!  Of course, I pretend, often!  I love to."

"Ain't it fun--I mean isn't!  I forgot.  I play it 'most all the time."

Nancy looked curiously at the strange little figure, almost wraithlike
in the dim light.  It was hard to believe that the winsome creature
could belong in Freedom--and to the "no-good" Hopworths.

There was grace in every movement of the thin little body not in the
least concealed by the worn, soiled, out-grown dress.  Two dark,
burning, eager, questioning eyes told of a spirit that lived above and
beyond the sordid, colorless monotony of a life with old Dan'l Hopworth
and Liz, who "didn't believe a feller oughta have any fun!"

"What do you pretend, Miss Nancy?"

Nancy laughed and rubbed the soles of her bare feet.

"Well, once I pretended I was the Moon-Queen and I scratched my poor
feet dreadfully.  What do you pretend?"

Nonie rocked back on her heels.

"Oh, lots and lots of different things.  My every-day game is Rosemary.
She's my make-believe chum.  She lives down in the haunted house on the
North Hero road, only when I pretend, of course, the house isn't
haunted.  And it's got lovely glass things from the ceiling for candles
and they sparkle like rainbows and diamonds.  Rosemary and I play games
and we--we read and tell each other stories and sometimes she helps me
with the work, when Liz ain't around.  Only Rosemary don't believe in
fairies.  She says that's baby, so when she's away I pretend fairy."

"When the moon shines----"

"Oh, yes, it's nicer then.  And you can't play-fairy round our house
because there ain't--there are _not_--any flowers.  So I come
here--there are such lots of pretty shadows--and nice smells.  I
pretend all the flowers come out from the garden and have a party.
It's fun having the flowers, 'cause you can just _tell_ how they'll
act.  You know a tulip's going to be awful tall and proud and bow--like
this!  And a rose'll act shy, and a buttercup's pert.  And a daisy's
'shamed 'cause her dress ain't better--I mean isn't.  And a dandelion's
awful bold.  And a daffy-down-dilly--oh, _they're_ jolly!"

"How perfectly delightful!  Tell me more, Nonie.  I believe you have a
witch for a fairy grandmother!"

Nonie giggled.  "That's 'nother of my games.  I've had that for a long
time.  She's coming some day and touch me with a wand and make me into
a beautiful lady.  And I'll go out and step into my carriage and a
footman all shiny and white will say: 'To her Majesty's!'  And I'll sit
in the best parlor and drink chocolate and real whipped cream from cups
with pink roses on 'em, and a page will say: '_Do_ have another piece
of cake, your ladyship,' and--and I'll say, 'I couldn't hold another
mouthful, thanks, I've had five!'"

Nancy and Nonie laughed together.  Then Nonie sighed.

"Do any dreams ever come true?  I mean the kind of things you sit and
think about and want?"

"Maybe, if you dream hard enough, Nonie," Nancy answered, soberly.

"'Course I know _some_ of the things I pretend can't come true but
maybe some will.  Miss Denny told me they might.  Only she said I'd
have to make 'em.  She's my teacher.  I love her.  I guess you're most
as nice as she is.  She gives me books and tells me when I say bad
grammar.  She says we must just think beautiful things and then put
them into the right words--but it's hard!  I forget awful easy.  She
don't--I mean, she does _not_--think I'm queer.  Liz calls me 'loony!'"

"Oh, _no_--Nonie," protested Nancy, "Liz just can't understand."

"But _you_ do, don't you?  Miss Denny did, too."  Nonie was silent for
a moment.  "After I've learned a lot more I want to go out in the world
with Davy and make a fortune.  I don't know just how--but I want to do
grand things.  There's some places, ain't there--aren't there--that's
so big folks wouldn't know we were Hopworths?  Davy says he wants to go
to sea and Liz says he'll come to no good end like Pa, but mebbe I can
take him with me."  She sighed.  "It's awful long off 'til I grow up,
though, I'm only twelve."

Then Nonie added slowly, as though she was sharing a secret: "There's
one more thing I pretend.  After I go to bed I shut my eyes tight and
pretend that a beautiful lady with hair all gold and eyes that twinkle
like stars and smile at you, comes and sits by my bed and takes hold of
my hand and pats it and then kisses me, sort of on my forehead, and
says: 'Good night, sweetness,' like that, in a voice that's soft like
music and not a bit of the holler-kind!"  Nonie gave a little sigh of
rapture.  "It's nice, you see, to have a make-believe mother like that!
I s'pose a real one wouldn't have time.  Anyways, Liz says she'd like
to _see_ a real mother do more for young 'uns than she does!"

Nancy blinked a sudden rush of tears from her eyes.  She felt that she
had seen bared the very soul of a child--a soul hungry for kindness and
for love.  She reached out and took one of the small hands in her own.

"Nonie--let's you and I play lots together.  I can give you books, too.
We'll read them together.  You can come to Happy House often in the
daytime."

Nonie shook her head doubtfully.

"Liz won't let me.  She says there ain't--there isn't--no use my going
off and leaving my work.  She says school's bad enough!"

"Does Liz--punish--you much?"

"She chases Davy and me with the broom sometimes.  And she scolds, too,
but we don't mind, 'cause she's scolding all the time.  I wish she
would whip us--or lock us up--or--or send us to bed!  It'd be like
other kids, then."

The strangeness of a child longing for punishments that would make her
life seem like other childrens' shocked Nancy!  She looked at the thin
body--was poverty starving the physical being while neglect starved the
spirit?

"I'll talk to Liz myself.  We'll see what I can coax her to do," Nancy
declared resolutely.  "We'll be chums, Nonie."

"Oh, then I won't have to play 'bout Rosemary!  So, you _are_ as nice
as Miss Denny.  You don't know her, do you?  But she'll come back in
the fall and sometime, I guess, she'll be Mr. Peter's dearest."

"What _do_ you mean, Nonie," demanded Nancy.

"Well, Mr. Peter's the _nicest_ man I know 'cause he's awful--nice to
Davy and me, and Miss Denny's the nicest _lady_ and so she'll be his
dearest!  He don't--he doesn't--know her yet but he will in the fall
and so will you."

"I may not," Nancy answered, rather coldly, "so your Miss Denny may
have your Mr. Peter all to herself.  And now something tells me it's
time for fairies to be in bed!  If you'll hand me my slippers I'll
dance with you to the gate--only we must be very, very still or we'll
waken B'lindy!"

From the gate of Happy House Nancy watched the child's figure disappear
in the shadows of the road.  In a very little while she would be
crawling into her deserted bed, pulling the clothes up over her head
and pretending that a mother's hand was caressing her to sleep and a
voice that never "hollered" was whispering "goodnight."

"Blessed child," thought Nancy, "her fairy godmother has given her one
gift that even Liz can't take away from her--imagination!"




CHAPTER XII

LIZ

Old Jonathan, returning from his daily trip to the postoffice, brought
home the news that "there'd be doin's on Fourth of July 'count of the
soldier boys--that Webb'd said it'd got to be a Fourth that not a child
in Freedom'd forget!"  And B'lindy had retorted that "it wa'nt likely,
I guess, if Webb got up the doin's anyone _would_--they'd be doin's no
one _could_ forget!"

But Nancy's interest in the coming event gave way with a quickly
smothered exclamation of delight when Jonathan drew from an inside
pocket a square, bluish envelope with a foreign postmark, redirected in
Mrs. Finnegan's most careful handwriting.

"And here's another," he added, bringing forth a letter from Claire.

"You're a _dear_," cried Nancy, hugging her treasures.  "If you'll take
this pan of peas, Jonathan, I'll run off and read them!"

B'lindy watched Nancy disappear toward the orchard with mingled
amazement and disapproval.  "There never was a letter _I_ got I'd set
by my work for!  _That's_ a young one for you!"

Out in her Bird's-nest Nancy held up the two envelopes.  "I'll save you
'til last, Daddy," she whispered, kissing the handwriting she loved.

Claire's letter was short and yet so like her that Nancy could have
believed her friend was there with her--talking to her.

"I'm perfectly miserable, and I can't let mother guess--she tries to
make everything so jolly for me.  But I'm just plain homesick for
college and you girls.  The summer isn't a bit what I'd planned.  Barry
went away before I got home.  Mother thought he'd come back but he
didn't, and the maddening thing is she won't tell me where he is.  She
said Barry was 'getting settled.'  Isn't that absurd?  I suppose he's
gone off to the Canadian Rockies or maybe to Japan.  But I don't see
why mother has to make a secret of it!  The war's changed all the men I
know--none of them seem as nice.  They're so restless and act so old.
But then, I'm restless, too, and feel as old as the hills.  For
heaven's sake, Nancy, hurry up and do your duty by Anne's relatives and
come here to me--I need you!"

"Funny Claire," laughed Nancy, talking aloud in the way she had learned
at Happy House.  "She's always trying to make herself think she's
miserable.  But Barry _is_ a pill!  Now, Daddy mine!"

Because she must make her moment of joy last as long as possible, she
spread out each page; she peeped into the envelope to be certain that
she had them all; she touched ever so lightly the penned lines; she
even sniffed joyously at the paper in a vain hope of detecting the
familiar odor of Havana tobacco.

The letter had been three weeks on its way.  And it was in answer to
one Nancy had written to him from college, soon after Anne's plans to
go to.  Russia had been completed.

"* * * * That is fine in Anne, but it seems to me, that in the
enthusiasm of her youth she's overlooking opportunities for service
closer at hand.  These problems over here are so tremendous--they, need
a tried mind and the wisdom of years.  You know, my dear, if you want
to do things to make this world better you can generally find them
waiting for you in your very own corner!  Wherever you look you will
see the destruction of prejudice, ignorance, selfishness and pride--you
don't have to go to Russia to find it!

"In a few weeks my baby will be graduated.  I cannot picture you grown
up.  Perhaps you will never seem so to your Dad.  I feel as though
these months that I have spent over here away from you must have made
many changes in my girl--they have cheated me of a great deal of joy in
your development.  But I hope that the dignities you have acquired have
not changed the dear, kind, joyous heart of you!

"You tell me you have decided upon a 'career,' but you will not tell me
what--little torment!  Is it something in which I can help?  If it is
useful and honorable, my child, it will bring you happiness, whatever
it is.  I hope it is a hard one, too, the more you have to work the
more satisfaction you will enjoy.

"Now for good news.  My work over here is done.  As soon as I can get
passage I will sail for home, I can't think of anything else.  I
thought I'd spend my unexpected holiday nosing around in the places
where I've always wanted to go--but I can't.  I'm too impatient to
enjoy anything.  So I shall camp on the doorstep of the G. H. Q. Office
until word of my sailing comes.  I suppose you are at the apartment
under Mrs. Finnegan's loving eye.  When I return we'll run off to the
seashore or mountains for a few weeks."

"Dear, dear thoughtful Daddy--nice, old, _preachy_ Daddy--with your
sugar-coated sermons in little pellets, all easy to swallow!" cried
Nancy, laughing, then suddenly a sob choked her, another and then
another.

"It's almost _dreadful_ to have Daddy have just me.  What if he is
disappointed when he sees me!  What if he is--angry--at what I've done!"

For the first time this possibility crossed her mind {134} leaving a
terrible fear.  Impulsive Nancy had often displeased her father, but
always the most trivial offence had troubled her deeply.  Her father
had such an aversion to the smallest departure from truth!  And wasn't
she really acting a lie?

For the next few moments poor Nancy sorely needed the support of Anne's
convincing arguments!  Remorse of the most torturing kind swept her.

And she had dared to judge Miss Sabrina's standards of honor and
justice!

"I'll go away," she cried, aloud.  "I'll go straight back to Mrs.
Finnegan's where I belong."

But this determination, soothing at it was, brought added problems.
Nancy's brow wrinkled with a deep frown of perplexity.  It would not be
fair to Anne to just run away--she'd have to give some explanation to
Miss Sabrina and Miss Milly and B'lindy, and even Webb.  And just now,
in her present mood, anything but the absolute truth seemed abhorrent
to her.

Then she thought of Aunt Milly--dear little Aunt Milly.  She was a
different creature now from the pale little woman Nancy had first seen
on the couch in the darkened room.  Each day, when she did not go to
the orchard, she spent in the sitting room or on the hollyhock porch,
knitting and helping in little household tasks.  And Nancy knew by the
wistful glance that met hers when she came and went, how Aunt Milly
hungered for her company.  Nancy had told herself that it was because
she was young and that she seemed, perhaps, like what Aunt Milly had
wanted to be--before the dreadful accident.

What _would_ Aunt Milly's life be if she went suddenly out of it?

There was Davy, too, and all she had planned to start for the Club and
Nonie--

What must Nonie think?  She had let a whole day go by and had not seen
Liz!

Nancy re-read her father's letter.  "If you want to do things to make
this world better you can generally find them waiting for you in your
very own corner!"  Funny--that Daddy should have written just that!
Nancy folded her letter with a sigh of relief.  "Of course, there's
work right here and maybe--I'd be a coward to run away--just now.  The
wrong was done when I came!"

The logic was youthful, but then Nancy, despite the dignity of
graduation was very youthful, too.  Her mind made up she looked very
resolute.  She'd go and call upon Liz that very afternoon.

However, she must know more concerning the Hopworth's before she braved
Liz on her own ground.  So she sought out the all-wise B'lindy.

B'lindy was most generous with her information.

"I guess the Hopworths ain't any concern of yours, Miss Anne.  The
Leavitts al'las visited mostly with good folks like the Allens and the
Chamberlains and the Fiskes over in South Hero, and the Hills up to
Isle Le Motte and the Eatons and Todds, here to Freedom.  Time was when
the best come to Happy House--Miss Sabriny's mother liked company--but
not trash like the Hopworth's!"

"But _why_ are they trash, B'lindy?  What do they do?  Webb says
they're an old family, that they've been here as long as the Leavitts."

B'lindy snorted.  "Webb's tongue's tied in the middle and wags both
ends and I guess most of the time at the wrong end!  Mebbe they are
old--you can't kill off folks same's you can a strain of cattle.  They
don't do nothin', Miss Anne, that's it--they don't do nothin'.  They're
just shiftless, no-good folks.  Old Dan'l don't work--never did, and
his pa before him.  And that Eric--he was worst of all!"

"Who was Eric?" begged Nancy.

"Old Dan'l's son and as bad a boy as ever tormented a neighborhood.
But no one knew he'd be anything but no-good, and he wasn't.  Ran off
to sea.  Folks never heard much 'bout him, but they knew they wouldn't
hear anything good, anyway.  Then, sudden-like, he turns up with two
young 'uns.  Brought 'em to old Dan'l to keep.  One was a girl and the
other, a baby in his arms, was a boy."

Freedom folks had never lost their enjoyment in this episode of Eric
Hopworth's adventurous life.  B'lindy, happy now in her tale, made the
most of it.

"I guess there were a lot of stories 'bout them young uns, but old
Dan'l never made a sign 'bout which was true.  And Eric Hopworth went
off's suddenly as he come, leavin' those two more Hopworth's for old
Dan'l to feed and bring up, and for the folks 'round here to watch,
unless they wanted all their apples stolen and their chickens killed!
Mis' Tubbs told Mis' Sniggs that she _see_ a marriage certificate and
that the mother'd been one of them actor-women down in New York and she
thought like's not the woman died when the boy was born.  Mis' Jenkins
sez _she'd_ heard other stories over in North Hero!  Anyways old
Dan'l's as close-mouthed as a stature!"

"And who's Liz?" asked Nancy.

"Old Dan'l's half-sister.  He brought her over from Bend after the
young 'uns came, to do for 'em."

Nancy mused for a moment.  There was not much use in telling B'lindy
that she was going to call upon Liz--it would take days and days of
argument to overcome the heritage of prejudice in B'lindy's mind.
Perhaps, for the present, she had better keep Nonie in the orchard.

It had not needed B'lindy's description for Nancy to recognize the
Hopworth dwelling, if by such a name could be called the four
weather-beaten walls hanging crazily together as though by a last nail.
A litter of debris cluttered the bare ground around the house and
between the shed and the unused barn.  Back of the shed an old man
slouched in the sun.

The door sagged on its one hinge, partly open.  When Nancy knocked a
gaunt, slatternly woman, in the room within, turned with a scowl.

As Nancy's eyes, sweeping over the dirty, crowded room, came back to
the hard face before her, she sickened at the thought of little Nonie,
with her "dreams," growing in this environment.  Then, as Liz' scowl
gave place to a sullen indifference, Nancy realized that the most
marked thing about the woman was a resigned hopelessness.

Nancy, choosing her words carefully, introduced herself.  As Liz'
unfriendliness discouraged any advances, Nancy plunged straight to the
point.  She had taken a fancy to the children, she explained--would
Miss Hopworth permit Nonie and sometimes Davy, to come often to Happy
House?  She, Nancy, found it a little lonesome at Happy House and she
would enjoy their company.

Liz dropped a pan with a bang.  "I'll tell you just's I tell her--there
ain't goin' to be any more traipsing 'way from her work all the time
like with the schoolmar'm either to Happy House nor nowhere.  All them
notions is settin' the girl loony goin' on with her lies and things
'bout things bein' differunt.  She'll stay _right_ to home!"

And to prevent further argument Liz' head bent meaningly toward the
door.

But at that moment a shadow crossed it.  Mrs. Sniggs, very gingerly,
thrust a head inside.  Under her arm she carried a kettle.  Once in a
while old Dan'l mended the village kettles.

"How d'do," snapped Liz.

But Mrs. Sniggs, with an uplift of her nose that said plainly: "I don't
even _see_ you," put her kettle near the door without a word and turned
to depart.  At which Liz, in a loud tone, exclaimed: "Most _certainly_,
Miss Leavitt, we're _delighted_!  Our Nonie can visit you up to Happy
House real often!"

Liz knew and Nancy knew, by the tell-tale shadow that lingered across
the threshold that Mrs. Sniggs had heard; Nancy blessed the good
fortune that had brought the woman there at that moment!

Walking homeward, her mind full of plans of all she wanted to do for
Nonie and Davy, Nancy with a shudder recalled the Hopworth home--and
Liz.  Something in the tired eyes haunted her.  "Maybe," she thought
with a pang of pity, "maybe she's as--starved--as Nonie!"




CHAPTER XIII

THE FOURTH OF JULY

B'lindy had said, truly, that "she guessed if Webb got up the Fourth of
July doin's they'd be doin's no one'd forget!"

Webb's "doin's" took the form of a parade--a parade in which the very
young and the very old should take part.  At its head Webb himself
would march, with the two recently returned soldiers, one on each side.
The young people would come in costumes depicting the characters of the
men associated with the Island history.

"Mrs. Eaton wants you to help her dress the children, Anne," Miss
Sabrina had announced, the day before the Fourth.  "She asked me to ask
you to be at the meeting-house at 9 o'clock.

"Oh, I'd love to," Nancy had responded eagerly.

"It is very nice of her, I am sure," Miss Sabrina had added.  "She
_wants_ to be pleasant."  And a hint of apology in Miss Sabrina's voice
made Nancy suddenly think that perhaps Mrs. Eaton was not _always_
pleasant.

She remembered that B'lindy had added the Eaton name to the list of
acquaintances possible to a Leavitt.

The very air of that Fourth of July morning was a-tingle with
excitement.  When Nancy turned into the village street it seemed to her
filled with people, all in Sunday-best and holiday spirits.  The green
in front of the meeting-house was alive with eager, tumbling youngsters.

Mrs. Eaton, a large woman with what Nancy called a prune mouth and
watery blue eyes, greeted Nancy effusively.  Nancy was a "_dear_"--she
said it with a rising squeak--to help her!  There wasn't a great deal
to do--the little dears were going to wear white caps and capes and
represent a band of peace; the girls would carry wreaths of white
syringa.  _She'd_ thought of it all herself--two days before.

"I'm _so_ glad to be rushed to _death_," she explained, patting down a
small cap on a small head.  "Of _course_ you know my Archie is _still_
in Germany!"

Nancy had not known it, nor, indeed, anything about Archie, but she
nodded sympathetically.

"Cyrus Eaton says I'm a _wonder_--just a wonder!  But I _suppose_ I
ought to be thankful my Archie's come through without losing any of his
arms or legs!  Now, my _dear_, if you'll fix the _rest_ of these
children I'll run down and look at the Indian Chiefs.  _Bless_ me, I
don't know _what_ Webb'd do without me.  But _then_, I'm glad to do
it--it keeps my _mind_ off Archie."  She panted off with a patronizing
smile that took in Nancy and the group of staring youngsters.

To Nancy, whose life had been spent mostly in the big cities of the
world, this glimpse of village life was a novel experience.  She loved
it--the spontaneous gaiety of it all, the round-eyed children that
crowded to her, noisily clamoring to have their "things" put on.  The
notes of a bugle floated up the street.  Fire crackers popped off with
the regularity of machine-gun fire.  From every side came loud, eager
voices.  She was glad she was a part of it all.  As she finished
arranging its cap, she patted each head, just as Mrs. Eaton had done,
but in Nancy's smile there was something that had not been in Mrs.
Eaton's, so she invariably won a quick smile in response.

Suddenly Nancy spied Nonie and Davy, hand in hand, watching the other
children from a little distance.  Their childish longing betrayed
itself in the unwonted way their hands clung together, in the
wistfulness of their faces.  Nancy hailed them.

"Come along--hurry!" she cried.  They ran eagerly to her.  Nancy seized
a cape and a cap.

"Dast we?" asked Davy, very gravely.

"Why, of _course_.  Quick--take this cap, Davy.  Here, Nonie, is a
wreath.  Now--stand here--in this line!"  She placed them between two
other children.  "All of you--faces forward!  Be ready for the signal.
Right foot--don't forget."

Mrs. Eaton bustled up.  "Everything _ready_, my dear?  It's perfectly
_beautiful_--just beautiful!" in breathless staccato.  "I wish my
Archie could see it!  I'm actually _inspired_!"  Her red, moist face
suggested that she had made a mistake in her choice of words.  She ran
around the group of children, standing in ragged file, impatiently
awaiting the signal to start.  "The little _dears_--just like a
beautiful band of peace!"  Suddenly she stared and her face flushed a
darker red.  "Nonie Hopworth, how _dared_ you come here!"

Nonie's lips quivered and her eyes went imploringly to Nancy.  Davy
tossed his head defiantly.  Neither answered.

"_I_ called them, Mrs. Eaton."

Now there was no "my dear" on Mrs. Eaton's tongue.  It clicked sharply
against her teeth.  She was too outraged, too, to pick her words.

"Get right away!"  She seized Davy by the shoulder.  "Little
good-for-nothings!  This is a patriotic celebration and we don't want
any Hopworth's in it!"

Nancy's eyes blazed.  "_Oh_, Mrs. Eaton!  _Don't_--they're just
children!  They----"

"_You're_ a stranger here in Freedom, Miss Leavitt--I'll be pleased if
you'll let _me_ manage this!  I say it's an _insult_ to our heroes to
have Eric Hopworth's young 'uns here--an insult to Freedom's noble
history!"  The ruffles on her bosom heaved in her anger.  "What'd Eric
Hopworth do for his country!  When I think of my Archie----"  What she
might have thought did not find expression, because of the pins she was
tearing roughly from Nonie's cape and thrusting between her teeth.  "Go
off now," she panted between the shining row.  "Go off where you came
from!"

Then, almost simultaneously with the approach of a dishevelled Indian
hollering between cupped hands that "p'rade's goin' start," came Webb's
warning whistle from down the street.  Mrs. Eaton straightened to an
appropriate dignity of bearing.  She made a waving motion of her arm
toward her little dears that ignored Nancy, standing back, dumb with
the cruelty of it all.

But Nonie's crestfallen face stung Nancy to sudden action.  While the
band of peace fluttered wildly back to its position, Nancy, with an arm
about each, moved with the children toward the church.  She moved
quickly, too, for a sudden inspiration had seized her.  She remembered
three flags on standards in the Sunday-school room.  She bade Davy get
them.

"Do _just_ what I tell you," she commanded.  "The _cat_!" she threw
over her shoulder.

All Freedom was too intent upon catching a first glimpse of Webb's host
moving up the village street to notice the strange sight of Nancy and
her companions racing through the back yards and fields that skirted
the main thoroughfare.  A long tear in Nancy's skirt testified to the
speed with which she had climbed all obstacles.  Such was the fire in
her soul that she could have climbed a mountain!

In the shade of a wide maple tree, B'lindy, resplendent in fresh
gingham and her good-as-new-last-year's-hat, watched Webb's "doin's"
with a heart that fluttered with pride.  No town in the whole Island
could turn out more folks!  But, then, no town on the Island had a
prouder history!

With his badges glittering on the faded blue coat, Webb marched at the
head of his "p'rade" in his uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic.
On either side of him stepped the recently returned soldiers, their
young-old faces turned straight ahead, their worn tunics attesting to
other lines of march through other village streets.  Behind them were
the three soldier boys who had not "gone across."  In pure enjoyment of
the occasion they had forgotten the resentment against fate that they
had cherished.  A group of boys and girls in Indian costume portrayed
that epoch of Freedom's history.  One great warrior brandished a
tomahawk that had been dug up in a nearby field and was now kept in a
suitable setting at the post-office.  Close at their heels followed
four staid Puritan men, broad white collars pinned over Sunday coats.
Ethan Allen and his brother Ira, beloved heroes of the little Islands,
were there in character.  Two lanky lads wore the uniform of 1861.
Mrs. Eaton's "band of peace" in straggling lines, brought up the rear.

Greeted from each side by lusty cheers, through a cloud of dust, to the
tap-a-tap-tap of three proud drummers, the pageant moved down the
street.  It had been Webb's plan that the "p'rade" should halt before
the stoop of the hotel, where Mr. Todd, the postmaster, in a collar
much too high and a coat much too tight, waited to give an address of
welcome.  But as Webb's eyes roved with pardonable pride over the
fringe of spectators on each side of the line of march, they suddenly
spied an unexpected sight.  On the stepping block in front of the
school house stood Nancy, her white skirts blowing, with Nonie and Davy
on each side.  And each held, proudly upright, an American flag.

It was a pretty sight--the colors of the flags fluttering over the
three bare heads, the young faces tilted earnestly forward.  Webb saw
in it a friendly effort on Miss Anne's part to add to the success of
his "doin's."  So as the line of march approached the stepping-block,
he solemnly saluted the three.

Advancing, the returned soldiers also saluted, stiffly.  The drummers
lost a beat in order to wave their drumsticks.  The Indians gaily
brandished their clubs, the Puritans nodded, the "boys in blue" mimiced
their heroes of the hour with a stiff bending and jerking of their
right arms.

But then and there Mrs. Eaton fell back from her position at the head
of the "band of peace."  Nancy, wickedly watching from the corner of a
perfectly innocent appearing eye, saw her give a gasp as she stepped
aside.

Nonie and Davy, exalted into an ecstasy of joy over the part they had
finally played in the celebration, stared in amazement at Nancy's
suppressed peals of laughter, to which she gave way only when the last
wee dove of peace had trailed off toward the hotel.  And not only Davy
and Nonie stared; from out of the spectators came Peter Hyde.

"I have cooked my goose--now," giggled Nancy, wiping her eyes and
holding out a hand.  "She was _so_ funny!  But I have outraged
Freedom's noble history!"  Nancy twisted her lips to resemble Mrs.
Eaton's.

"If you'll let me help you down we might hurry and hear some of the
Honorable Jeremiah Todd's oration," suggested Peter Hyde.

Nancy jumped lightly to the ground.  "I wouldn't _dare_," she answered.
"Mrs. Eaton only waits to tear me limb from limb!  I saw it in her
pallid eye.  You don't _know_ what I've done!  Davy, you and Nonie
carry these flags carefully back to the Sunday-school.  And what do you
say--in celebration of this day--to a swim--this afternoon, at the
Cove!"

They exclaimed their approval of the suggestion.  Nonie lingered.

"Do you know what I pretended then?" she asked, affectionately gripping
Nancy's arm.  "I pretended I was Joan of Arc, all in white, riding on a
big horse with bugles, calling to my army.  Miss Denny read to me all
about it.  Oh, it was grand!"  She sighed, because the moment had
passed.  Davy pranced impatiently.

"Oh, come 'long--stop yer actin' lies!"  Then, to Nancy, with a
questioning look that said such fortune seemed too good to be true:
"'_Honest?_'  'Bout the swimmin'."

Nancy nodded mysteriously.  "Honest to goodness--at three bells!"

She watched the children scamper away, then turned eyes dark with
indignation to Peter Hyde.

"How can _anyone_ be cruel to children?" she cried.  "How can anyone
hurt them?"

Peter did not know what she was talking about, but he agreed with all
his heart.

"Kids--and dogs and cats and--little things," he added.  "I shot a
rabbit once when I was fifteen, and when I went up to get it, it was
still breathing, and looked so pitiful and small--I couldn't help but
feel that it hadn't had a chance 'gainst a fellow like me.  I had to
kill it then.  That was enough for me!  I haven't shot--any sort of
living things--like _that_--since!"

His step shortened to Nancy's and together they turned their backs upon
Jeremiah's cheering audience and walked slowly homeward.  Her mind
concerned with the children, Nancy told Peter all that had happened--of
finding Nonie in the orchard, of the child's "pretend" games, of her
call upon Liz.  Then she concluded with an account of the incident of
the morning mimicing, comically, Mrs. Eaton's outraged manner.

"As if it would hurt her or her Archie or--or anyone else in this old
place to make two youngsters happy," Nancy exclaimed, disgustedly.
"I'm going to do everything I can, while I'm at Happy House, to make up
to them," she finished.

Peter assured her that he wanted to help.  How much the desire was
inspired by sympathy for Nonie and Davy or by the winning picture Nancy
made, her rebel strands of red-brown hair blowing across her flushed
cheeks, no one could say.  And when at the gate of Happy House they
separated, Peter promising to be on hand at the Cove at four o'clock,
Nancy watched him swing down the road with a pleasant sense of
comradeship.




CHAPTER XIV

MRS. EATON CALLS

"Oh, shades of Odysseus," muttered Nancy.  From the swing on the
hollyhock porch she had spied Mrs. Eaton coming up the flagged path to
the front door.

As she sat idly swinging, Nancy had been trying over the deeply
emotional lines that Berthé, the much-suffering heroine of her dear
play, should say when the villain proved to be her lover in disguise.
A chance glance through the syringas had acquainted her with the
alarming fact that an avenging enemy approached.

It was the day after the Fourth of July.  As yet not a word had come to
Happy House concerning Nancy's part in the celebration.

There was not time for Nancy to escape; however, it was not likely that
Miss Sabrina would take such a guest out to the porch.  Nancy heard her
greet the newcomer, then their steps approached the sitting-room.  The
swing was at the other end of the porch.  Nancy, hugging her knees,
could not be seen from the sitting-room windows and, anyway, the blinds
had been shut to keep out the hot morning sun.  Through their slats
Nancy heard Mrs. Eaton's effusive greetings.

"I might as well hear what the cat tells," Nancy concluded.  The fate
of the proverbial eavesdropper did not alarm her in the least; she felt
the resignation, of a child that knows he faces punishment.

Mrs. Eaton spent several moments explaining, how often she "had had a
_mind_ to drop in for a little chat."

"But I am a _different_ woman with my Archie away!  Cyrus says he don't
_know_ how I bear up so well.  _You_ don't know, of course, a mother's
feelings!"  Did Nancy imagine that she heard a rustling, as though Aunt
Sabrina had suddenly straightened in her chair?  "And _I_ said to Cyrus
that _he_ don't even know a mother's feeling that's raised a boy right
from the _cradle_!"

Miss Sabrina inquired politely as to the last word of Archie, and, with
satisfied pride, the mother recounted Archie's description of the
difficulties that had confronted the Allied occupancy of the
Rhinelands.  Archie's mother truly believed that Archie alone bore that
tremendous responsibility.

"And Archie and me are as _like_ as two peas," she added.

It was, of course, only a matter of a few moments before Mrs. Eaton led
up to the event of the day before.  Nancy caught the crisp change in
the woman's voice.  The story gained much in her telling--of Nancy's
impertinence in forcing the Hopworth young 'uns among her "little
dears," then how she had, though fully aware of her, Mrs. Eaton's,
explicit orders, flaunted Eric Hopworth's brood in the face of every
respectable man, woman and child of Freedom--actually desecrating the
very flags she had--_taken_--out of the Sunday-school room.

The story was interrupted by many sighs and sniffs.

"Of course _everybody_ on this Island that knows me and my Archie,
Cyrus says, will _feel_ for me.  I might as well as _not_ of been
slapped in the face.  And I said to Cyrus, "_I_ think Miss Leavitt
ought to _know_--she's taken that girl there!"  And Cyrus and I _both_
said that of _course_ no one would be surprised, seeing she's _that_
branch of your family where I suppose--you'll _forgive_ me for speaking
right out _plain_, you can expect almost _any_ kind of actions!"

Nancy swung her feet down out of the hammock.  "The cat," she breathed,
straightening.  She could see that stinging shaft plunge straight into
poor Aunt Sabrina's heart and turn!  She held her breath for Aunt
Sabrina's answer.

Miss Sabrina's voice was cold and her words measured.  "I am very sorry
this has happened, Mrs. Eaton.  But I am sure my niece did not dream of
impertinence.  She has not been here long enough to know of our
prejudices!"

"_Bully!_" Nancy, said, almost aloud.  "_That's_ a time when breeding
shows!"

Mrs. Eaton was plainly annoyed at Miss Sabrina's defence.  Her voice
took on a crisper edge.  "She's been here long _enough_ to pick up with
Judson's hired _man_!  _Your_ notions may be different from _mine_,
Miss Leavitt, but _I_ wouldn't 'low any girl of _mine_ to go swimming
at Cove's Hole with the Hopworth young 'uns!  Dick Snead told his
mother and his mother told my Cousin 'Manthy.  Ain't there any _better_
folks she can take up with on this Island than a hired man _and_ the
Hopworths?"  Her shrill inflection seemed to say, "There--I have you
_now_!"

Nancy's feet beat a war-dance.  She wanted to rush in to her own
defence--had Dick Snead told his mother and his mother told Cousin
'Manthy that she had swam forty strokes under water?  Discretion,
however, bade her use caution.

A rustling indicated that the caller, her errand accomplished, had
risen to go.  She shot her last tiny, poisoned arrow.  "Of _course_ I
said to Cyrus _all_ of us on the Island know all that poor Miss
Leavitt's _had_ to stand, what with her brother and _then_ her sister!
And _that's_ why, I said to Cyrus, Miss Leavitt _ought_ to know about
these goings on, or else something _else_ would come down on your poor
head!  I must run along, now, 'Manthy came in to watch my jam.  That
Carroll girl I got over at Greenfield isn't worth her keep--you have to
watch her _every_ moment!"

All the pride of generations of Leavitts must have come to Miss
Sabrina's rescue at that moment!  She met the final thrust with calm
dignity.

"My niece is only making me a very short visit, Mrs. Eaton.  It is
hardly worth while for me to interfere with her conduct."

Nancy was struck dumb with amazement.  What did Aunt Sabrina mean--that
_this_ silly little affair ended her stay at Happy House?  What _would_
Anne think?  Oh, _what_ a mess she had made of everything!  Of course
she had expected that something might happen any moment; after one day
had safely passed, she had always thought it might be the next; had she
not told Anne that she was certain to make some dreadful blunder?  But
it was a shame to go away in disgrace when she had not really done
anything, after all!

Indignation of the most righteous sort began slowly to master Nancy's
consternation.  Well, if she did have to go she would allow herself,
just once, the sweet satisfaction of telling Miss Sabrina what she
thought of the Leavitts and their sense of honor!  She rushed headlong
into the sitting-room.

"I heard what that--that creature said," she blurted out.  "I don't
_know _why God makes women like that!  What would you _think_, Aunt
Sabrina, if you'd seen her take a whip and lash those children across
their bare bodies?  And that wouldn't have been as bad as what she
really _did_ do, for those hurts would have healed, and the way she
hurt their spirits wouldn't _ever_ heal!  She is cruelly unjust--and
unkind!"

Poor Miss Sabrina looked very old and very tired--far too tired to meet
this impetuous attack!  Something in the unyieldingness of her
expression drove Nancy to utter abandon.

"Oh, I suppose I'll have--to go away!  But I'm glad--everything is all
wrong at Happy House.  There's no happiness here--at all.
Fath--someone I love used to tell me that happiness comes to you as you
_give_ happiness, and that's what's the matter here--you don't give
happiness!  You live--apart--and you just wrap yourself round with the
traditions of the Leavitts and all that--tommyrot!  I'm glad I'm
not--a--I'm glad I'm the--the other branch.  I guess the golden rule is
better than any family honor and that it doesn't matter at _all_ what
all the people who are dead and gone've done--it's what the people who
are _living_ are doing--that counts!"

Breathless from her outburst and frightened by its daring, Nancy burst
into tears and rushed from the room.

In the aftermath of calm that followed the storm, Nancy woefully faced
the consequences of what she had done.  How silly it would all sound to
Anne when she heard it!  Anne would tell her, of course, what _she_
would have done--but then, Anne had always been able to control every
word and every action.

Nancy, staring about at the four walls of her room in very much the
same way she had done that first day of her coming to Happy House,
realized that they were not so ugly, after all.  Their height gave a
sense of coolness and space; the branches of an old cherry tree brushed
her windows; from below came all sorts of sweet smells out of
Jonathan's garden; the incessant twittering of birds and the humming of
insects made the summer air teem with busy, happy life.  It was
pleasant, she sighed--much pleasanter than a flat in Harlem in July!

"Well, I won't pack until I get my dishonorable discharge, and I can't
get away until Webb's stage goes, anyway!  I'll take Miss Milly once
more to the orchard."

Miss Milly went to the orchard so often now that it had become a part
of almost every day's routine, and it was no longer necessary that
B'lindy and Jonathan should make up the party, though they went more
often than not.  This day Aunt Milly declared everything particularly
nice, but she thought it was because she and Nancy were alone--she
could not know that Nancy had been doing her best to make it an
afternoon Aunt Milly would never forget--"because it's probably the
last!"

They lingered in the orchard until almost supper-time.  Then Nancy
sought the kitchen.  She liked to drop in on B'lindy, help her in some
small way in the preparation of the evening meal, and chat at the same
time.  She was astounded, now, to find Aunt Sabrina, with a very red
face, bending over the kitchen stove.

B'lindy, sitting very straight in the chair by the window, gave the
explanation--resentfully.

"'Pears to be hash ain't good enough for supper.  Had it all fixed for
the cookin' and I guess it's fair 'nough for anyone to eat and I can't
abide left-overs hangin' 'round.  But Miss S'briny says the supper
to-night's got to be extry nice and Miss Anne's got to have waffles and
_she'll_ cook 'em herself, seein' how old B'lindy that's cooked 'em
nigh onto fifty years, can't cook 'em _good_ 'nough for Miss Anne!"

Miss Sabrina's face was bent over the waffles--Nancy could not see it.
The moment was too solemn to permit her to so much as smile.  She said
very gravely, almost reprovingly:

"You _know_, B'lindy, that you _can't_ make waffles as good as Aunt
Sabrina can and I've been hungry for days for waffles!"

Nancy knew that, after that night, waffles would always mean something
more to her than merely a concoction of food stuffs particularly dear
to her palate--they'd mean the momentary triumph of reason and justice,
the defeat of the Mrs. Eaton-kind, and the pitiful attempt of a very
old and a very proud woman to "give happiness."




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 a

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