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The Girls of Hillcrest Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks

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Title: The Girls of Hillcrest Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks

Author: Amy Bell Marlowe


        
Release date: May 16, 2010 [eBook #32401]

Language: English

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THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM

Or

The Secret of the Rocks

by

AMY BELL MARLOWE

Author of
The Oldest of Four, A Little Miss Nobody,
The Girl from Sunset Ranch, Etc.


[Illustration: LUCAS TORE DOWN THE BANK AND WADED RIGHT INTO THE STREAM.
Frontispiece (Page 61.)]







New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1914, by
Grosset & Dunlap

_The Girls of Hillcrest Farm_




CONTENTS

  Chapter                                                     Page
       I. EVERYTHING AT ONCE!                                    1
      II. AUNT JANE PROPOSES                                    10
     III. THE DOCTOR DISPOSES                                   24
      IV. THE PILGRIMAGE                                        37
       V. LUCAS PRITCHETT                                       51
      VI. NEIGHBORS                                             61
     VII. HILLCREST                                             73
    VIII. THE WHISPER IN THE DARK                               85
      IX. MORNING AT HILLCREST                                  96
       X. THE VENTURE                                          109
      XI. AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE                                   126
     XII. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER                               134
    XIII. LYDDY DOESN'T WANT IT                                144
     XIV. THE COLESWORTHS                                      161
      XV. ANOTHER BOARDER                                      171
     XVI. THE BALL KEEPS ROLLING                               184
    XVII. THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER                              192
   XVIII. THE QUEER BOARDER                                    199
     XIX. WIDOW HARRISON'S TROUBLES                            208
      XX. THE TEMPERANCE CLUB AGAIN                            216
     XXI. CAUGHT                                               224
    XXII. THE HIDDEN TREASURE                                  236
   XXIII. THE VENDUE                                           248
    XXIV. PROFESSOR SPINK'S BOTTLES                            258
     XXV. IN THE OLD DOCTOR'S OFFICE                           269
    XXVI. A BLOW-UP                                            276
   XXVII. THEY LOSE A BOARDER                                  283
  XXVIII. THE SECRET REVEALED                                  289
    XXIX. AN AUTOMOBILE RACE                                   298
     XXX. THE HILLCREST COMPANY, LIMITED                       303




THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM




CHAPTER I

EVERYTHING AT ONCE!


Whenever she heard the siren of the ladder-truck, as it swung out of its
station on the neighboring street, Lydia Bray ran to the single window
of the flat that looked out on Trimble Avenue.

They were four flights up. There were twenty-three other families in this
"double-decker." A fire in the house was the oldest Bray girl's nightmare
by night and haunting spectre by day.

Lydia just couldn't get used to these quarters, and they had been here
now three months. The old, quiet home on the edge of town had been so
different. To it she had returned from college so short a time ago to see
her mother die and find their affairs in a state of chaos.

For her father was one of those men who leave everything to the capable
management of their wives. Euphemia, or "'Phemie," was only a schoolgirl,
then, in her junior year at high school; "Lyddy" was a sophomore at
Littleburg when her mother died, and she had never gone back.

She couldn't. There were two very good reasons why her own and even
'Phemie's education had to cease abruptly. Their mother's income, derived
from their grandmother's estate, ceased with her death. They could not
live, let alone pursue education "on the heights," upon Mr. Bray's wages
as overseer in one of the rooms of the hat factory.

"Mother's hundred dollars a month was just the difference between
poverty and comfort," Lyddy had decided, when she took the strings of
the household into her own hands.

"I haven't that hundred dollars a month; father makes but fifteen dollars
weekly; _you_ will have to go to work at something, 'Phemie, and so will
I."

And no longer could they pay twenty-five dollars a month house rent.
Lyddy had first placed her sister with a millinery firm at six dollars
weekly, and had then found this modest tenement about half-way between
her father's factory and 'Phemie's millinery shop, so that it would be
equally handy for both workers.

As for herself, Lyddy wished to obtain some employment that would occupy
only a part of her day, and in this she had been unsuccessful as yet. She
religiously bought a paper every morning, and went through the "help
wanted" columns, answering every one that looked promising. She had tried
many kinds of "work at home for ladies," and canvassing, and the like.
The latter did not pay for shoe-leather, and the "work at home" people
were mostly swindlers. Lyddy was no needle-woman, so she could not make
anything as a seamstress.

She had promised her mother to keep the family together and make a home
for her father. Mr. Bray was not well. For almost two years now the
doctor had been warning him to get out of the factory and into some
other business. The felt-dust was hurting him.

He had come in but the minute before and had at once gone to lie down,
exhausted by his climb up the four flights of stairs. 'Phemie had not yet
returned from work, for it was nearing Easter, despite the rawness of
the days, and the millinery shop was busy until late. They always waited
supper for 'Phemie.

Now, when Lyddy ran to the window at the raucous shriek of the
ladder-truck siren, she hoped she would see her sister turning the corner
into the avenue, where the electric arc-light threw a great circle of
radiance upon the wet walk.

But although there was the usual crowd at the corner, and all seemed
to be in a hurry to-night, Lyddy saw nothing of either her sister or
the ladder-truck. She went back to the kitchen, satisfied that the fire
apparatus had not swung into their street, so the tenement must be safe
for the time being.

She finished laying the table for supper. Once she looked up. There was
that man at the window again!

That is, he _would_ be a man some day, Lyddy told herself. But she
believed, big as he was, he was just a hobbledehoy-boy. He was a boy who,
if one looked at him, just _had_ to smile. And he was always working in
a white apron and brown straw cuff-shields at that window which was a
little above the level of Lyddy's kitchen window.

Lyddy Bray abominated flirting and such silly practises. And although
the boy at the window was really good to look upon--cleanly shaven,
rosy-cheeked, with good eyes set wide apart, and a firm, broad chin--Lyddy
did not like to see him every time she raised her eyes from her own
kitchen tasks.

Often, even on dark days, she drew the shade down so that she should have
more privacy. For sometimes the young man looked idly out of the window
and Lyddy believed that, had she given him any encouragement, he would
have opened his own window and spoken to her.

The place in which he worked was a tall loft building; she believed he
was employed in some sort of chemical laboratory. There were retorts, and
strange glass and copper instruments in partial view upon his bench.

Now, having lighted the gas, Lyddy stepped to the window to pull down
the shade closely and shut the young man out. He was staring with strange
eagerness at her--or, at least, in her direction.

"Master Impudence!" murmured Lyddy.

He flung up his window just as she reached for the shade. But she saw then
that he was looking above her story.

"It's those Smith girls, I declare," thought Lyddy. "Aren't they bold
creatures? And--really--I thought he was too nice a boy----"

That was the girl of it! She was shocked at the thought of having any
clandestine acquaintance with the young man opposite; yet it cheapened him
dreadfully in Lyddy's eyes to see him fall prey to the designing girls
in the flat above. The Smith girls had flaunted their cheap finery in
the faces of Lyddy and 'Phemie Bray ever since the latter had come here
to live.

She did not pull the shade down for a moment. That boy certainly was
acting in a most outrageous manner!

His body was thrust half-way out of the window as he knelt on his bench
among the retorts. She saw several of the delicate glass instruments
overturned by his vigorous motions. She saw his lips open and he seemed
to be shouting something to those in the window above.

"How rude of him," thought the disappointed Lyddy. He had looked to be
_such_ a nice young man.

Again she would have pulled down the shade, but the boy's actions stayed
her hand.

He leaped back from the window and disappeared--for just a moment. Then
he staggered into view, thrust a long and wide plank through his open
window, and, bearing down upon it, shoved hard and fast, thrusting the
novel bridge up to the sill of the window above Lyddy's own.

"What under the sun does that fellow mean to do?" gasped the girl, half
tempted to raise her own window so as to look up the narrow shaft between
the two buildings.

"He never would attempt to cross over to their flat," thought Lyddy. "That
would be quite too--ri--dic--u--lous----"

The youth was adjusting the plank. At first he could not steady it upon
the sill above Lyddy's kitchen window. And how dangerous it would be if
he attempted to "walk the plank."

And then there was a roaring sound above, a glare of light, a crash of
glass and a billow of black smoke suddenly--but only for a moment--filled
the space between the two buildings!

The girl almost fell to the floor. She had always been afraid of fire,
and it had been ever in her mind since they moved into this big tenement
house. And now it had come without her knowing it!

While she thought the young man to be trying to enter into a flirtation
with the girls in the flat above, the house was afire! No wonder so many
people had seemed running at the corner when she looked out of the front
window. The ladder-truck had swung around into the avenue without her
seeing it. Doubtless the street in front of the tenement was choked with
fire-fighting apparatus.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Lyddy, reeling for the moment.

Then she dashed for the bedroom where her father lay. Smoke was sifting
in from the hall through the cracks about the ill-hung door.

"Father! Father!" she gasped.

He lay on the bed, as still as though sleeping. But the noise above should
have aroused him by this time, had her own shrill cry not done so.

Yet he did not move.

Lyddy leaped to the bedside, seizing her father's shoulder with desperate
clutch. She shook his frail body, and the head wagged from side to side on
the pillow in so horrible a way--so lifeless and helpless--that she was
smitten with terror.

Was he dead? He had never been like this before, she was positive.

She tore open his waistcoat and shirt and placed her hand upon his heart.
It was beating--but, oh, how feebly!

And then she heard the flat door opened with a key--'Phemie's key. Her
sister cried:

"Dear me, Lyddy! the hall is full of smoke. It isn't your stove that's
smoking so, I hope? And here's Aunt Jane Hammond come to see us. I met
her on the street, and these four flights of stairs have almost killed
her----Why! what's happened, Lyddy?" the younger girl broke off to ask, as
her sister's pale face appeared at the bedroom door.

"Everything--everything's happened at once, I guess," replied Lyddy,
faintly. "Father's sick--we've got company--and the house is afire!"




CHAPTER II

AUNT JANE PROPOSES


Aunt Jane Hammond stalked into the meagerly furnished parlor, and looked
around. It was the first time she had been to see the Bray girls since
their "come down" in the world.

She was a tall, gaunt woman--their mother's half-sister, and much older
than Mrs. Bray would have been had she lived. Aunt Jane, indeed, had
been married herself when her father, Dr. "Polly" Phelps, had married
his second wife.

"I must--say I--expected to--see some--angels sit--ting a--round--when
I got up here," panted Aunt Jane, grimly, and dropping into the most
comfortable chair. "Couldn't you have got a mite nearer heaven, if you'd
tried, Lyddy Bray?"

"Ye-es," gasped Lyddy. "There's another story on top of this; but it's
afire just now."

"_What?_" shrieked Aunt Jane.

"Do you really mean it, Lyddy?" cried her sister. "And that's what the
smoke means?"

"Well," declared their aunt, "them firemen will have to carry me out,
then. I couldn't walk downstairs again right now, for no money!"

'Phemie ran to the hall door. But when she opened it a great blast of
choking smoke drove in.

"Oh, oh!" she cried. "We can't escape by the stairway. What'll we do? What
_shall_ we do?"

"There's the fire-escape," said Lyddy, trembling so that she could
scarcely stand.

"What?" cried Aunt Jane again. "_Me_ go down one o' them dinky little
ladders--and me with a hole as big as a half-dollar in the back of my
stockin'? I never knowed it till I got started from home; the seam just
gave."

"I'd look nice going down that ladder. I guess not, says Con!" and she
shook her head so vigorously that all the little jet trimmings upon her
bonnet danced and sparkled in the gaslight just as her beadlike, black
eyes snapped and danced.

"We--we're in danger, Lyddy!" cried 'Phemie, tremulously.

"Oh, the boy!" exclaimed Lyddy, and flew to the kitchen, just in time to
see the Smith family sliding down the plank into the laboratory--the two
girls ahead, then Mother Smith, then Johnny Smith, and then the father.
And all while the boy next door held the plank firmly in place against the
window-sill of the burning flat.

Lyddy threw up the window and screamed something to him as the last Smith
passed him and disappeared. She couldn't have told what she said, for the
very life of her; but the young man across the shaft knew what she meant.

He drew back the plank a little way, swung his weight upon the far end
of it, and then let it drop until it was just above the level of her sill.

"Grab it and pull, Miss!" he called across the intervening space.

Lyddy obeyed. There was great confusion in the hall now, and overhead the
fire roared loudly. The firemen were evidently pressing up the congested
stairway with a line or two of hose, and driving the frightened people
back into their tenements. If the fire was confined to the upper floor
of the double-decker there would be really little danger to those below.

But Lyddy was too frightened to realize this last fact. She planted the
end of the plank upon her own sill and saw that it was secure. But it
sloped upward more than a trifle. How would they ever be able to creep up
that inclined plane--and four flights from the bottom of the shaft?

But to her consternation, the young fellow across the way deliberately
stepped out upon the plank, sat down, and slid swiftly across to her.
Lyddy sprang back with a cry, and he came in at the window and stood
before her.

"I don't believe you're in any danger, Miss," he said. "The firemen are on
the roof, and probably up through the halls, too. The fire has burned a
vent through the roof and----Yes! hear the water?"

She could plainly hear the swish of the streams from the hosepipes. Then
the water thundered on the floor above their heads. Almost at once small
streams began to pour through the ceiling.

"Oh, oh!" cried Lyddy. "Right on the supper table!"

A stream fell hissing on the stove. The big boy drew her swiftly out of
the room into her father's bedroom.

"That ceiling will come down," he said, hastily. "I'm sorry--but if you're
insured you'll be all right."

Lyddy at that moment remembered that she had never taken out insurance on
the poor sticks of furniture left from the wreck of their larger home.
Yet, if everything was spoiled----

"What's the matter with him?" asked the young fellow, looking at the bed
where Mr. Bray lay. He had wonderfully sharp eyes, it seemed.

"I don't know--I don't know," moaned Lyddy. "Do you think it is the smoke?
He has been ill a long time--almost too sick to work----"

"Your father?"

"Yes, sir," said the girl.

"I'll get an ambulance, if you say so--and a doctor. Are you afraid to
stay here now? Are you all alone but for him?"

"My sister--and my aunt," gasped Lyddy. "They're in the front room."

"Keep 'em there," said the young man. "Maybe they won't pour so much water
into those front rooms. Look out for the ceilings. You might be hurt if
they came down."

He found the key and unlocked and opened the door from the bedroom to the
hall. The smoke cloud was much thinner. But a torrent of water was pouring
down the stairs, and the shouting and stamping of the firemen above were
louder.

Two black, serpent-like lines of hose encumbered the stairs.

"Take care of yourself," called the young man. "I'll be back in a jiffy
with the doctor," and, bareheaded, and in shirt-sleeves as he was, he
dashed down the dark and smoky stairway.

Lyddy bent over her father again; he was breathing more peacefully, it
seemed. But when she spoke to him he did not answer.

'Phemie ran in, crying. "What is the matter with father?" she demanded,
as she noted his strange silence. Then, without waiting for an answer, she
snapped:

"And Aunt Jane's got her head out of the window scolding at the firemen
in the street because they do not come up and carry her downstairs again."

"Oh, the fire's nearly out, I guess," groaned Lyddy.

Then the girls clutched each other and were stricken speechless as a great
crash sounded from the kitchen. As the young man from the laboratory had
prophesied, the ceiling had fallen.

"And I had the nicest biscuits for supper I ever made," moaned Lyddy.
"They were just as fluffy----"

"Oh, bother your biscuits!" snapped 'Phemie. "Have you had the doctor for
father?"

"I--I've sent for one," replied Lyddy, faintly, suddenly
conscience-stricken by the fact that she had accepted the assistance of
the young stranger, to whom she had never been introduced! "Oh, dear! I
hope he comes soon."

"How long has he been this way, Lyd? Why didn't you send for me?" demanded
the younger sister, clasping her hands and leaning over the unconscious
man.

"Why, he came home from work just as usual. I--I didn't notice that he was
worse," replied the older girl, breathlessly. "He said he'd lie down----"

"You should have called the doctor then."

"Why, dear, I tell you he seemed just the same. He almost always lies down
when he comes home now. You know that."

"Forgive me, Lyddy!" exclaimed 'Phemie, contritely. "Of course you are
just as careful of father as you can be. But--but it's so _awful_ to see
him lie like this."

"He fainted without my knowing a thing about it," moaned Lyddy.

"Oh! if it's only just a faint----"

"He couldn't even have heard the noise upstairs over the fire."

Just then a stream of water descended through the cracked bedroom ceiling,
first upon the back of 'Phemie's neck, and then upon the drugget which
covered the floor.

"Suppose _this_ ceiling falls, too?" wailed Lyddy, wringing her hands.

"I hope not! And we'll have to pay the doctor when he comes, Lyd. Have
you got money enough in your purse?"

"I--I guess so."

"I'll not have any more after this week," broke out 'Phemie, suddenly.
"They told me to-day the rush for Easter would be over Saturday night and
they would have to let me go till next season. Isn't that mean?"

Lydia Bray had sat down upon the edge of their father's bed.

"I guess everything _has_ happened at once," she sighed. "I don't see what
we shall do, 'Phemie."

There came a scream from Aunt Jane. She charged into the bedroom wildly,
the back of her dress all wet and her bonnet dangling over one ear.

"Why, your parlor ceiling is just spouting water, girls!" she cried.

Then she turned to look closely at the man on the bed. "John Bray looks
awful bad, Lyddy. What does the doctor say?"

Before her niece could reply there came a thundering knock at the hall
door.

"The doctor!" cried 'Phemie.

Lyddy feared it was the young stranger returning, and she could only gasp.
What should she say to him if he came in? How introduce him to Aunt Jane?

But the latter lady took affairs into her own hands at this juncture and
went to the door. She unlocked and threw it open. Several helmets and
glistening rubber coats appeared vaguely in the hall.

"Getting wet down here some; aren't you?" asked one of the firemen. "We'll
spread some tarpaulins over your stuff. Fire's out--about."

"And the water's _in_," returned Aunt Jane, tartly. "Nice time to come and
try to save a body's furniture----"

"Get it out of the adjusters. They'll be around," said the fireman, with
a grin.

"How much insurance have you, Lyddy?" demanded the aunt, when the firemen,
after covering the already wet and bedraggled furniture, had clumped
out in their heavy boots.

"Not a penny, Aunt Jane!" cried her niece, wildly. "I never thought of it!"

"Ha! you're not so much like your mother, then, as I thought. _She_ would
never have overlooked such a detail."

"I know it! I know it!" moaned Lyddy.

"Now, you stop that, Aunt Jane!" exclaimed the bolder 'Phemie. "Don't you
hound Lyd. She's done fine--of course she has! But anybody might forget a
thing like insurance."

"Humph!" grunted the old lady. Then she began again:

"And what's the matter with John?"

"It's the shop, Aunt," replied Lyddy. "He cannot stand the work any
longer. I wish he might never go back to that place again."

"And how are you going to live? What's 'Phemie getting a week?"

"Nothing--after this week," returned the younger girl, shortly. "I sha'n't
have any work, and I've only been earning six dollars."

"Humph!" observed Aunt Jane for a second time.

There came a light tap on the door. They could hear it, for the confusion
and shouting in the house had abated. The fire scare was over; but the
floor above was gutted, and a good deal of damage by water had been done
on this floor.

It was a physician, bag in hand. 'Phemie let him in. Lyddy explained how
her father had come home and lain down and she had found him, when the
fire scare began, unconscious on the bed--just as he lay now.

A few questions explained to the physician the condition of Mr. Bray, and
his own observation revealed the condition of the tenement.

"He will be better off at the hospital. You are about wrecked here, I see.
That young man who called me said he would ring up the City Hospital."

The girls were greatly troubled; but Aunt Jane was practical.

"Of course, that's the best place for him," she said. "Why! this flat
isn't fit for a well person to stay in, let alone a sick man, until it
is cleared up. I shall take you girls out with me to my boarding house
for the night. Then--we'll see."

The physician brought Mr. Bray to his senses; but the poor man knew
nothing about the fire, and was too weak to object when they told him
he was to be removed to the hospital for a time.

The ambulance came and the young interne and the driver brought in the
stretcher, covered Mr. Bray with a gray blanket, and took him away. The
interne told the girls they could see their father in the morning and
he, too, said it was mainly exhaustion that had brought about the sudden
attack.

Aunt Jane had been stalking about the sloppy flat--from the ruined kitchen
to the front window.

"Shut and lock that kitchen window, and lock the doors, and we'll go out
and find a lodging," she said, briefly. "You girls can bring a bag for
the night. Mine's at the station hard by; I'm glad I didn't bring it up
here."

It was when Lyddy shut and locked the kitchen window that she remembered
the young man again. The plank had been removed, the laboratory window
was closed, and the place unlighted.

"I guess he has some of the instincts of a gentleman, after all," she told
herself. "He didn't come back to bother me after doing what he could to
help."

Two hours later the Bray girls were seated in their aunt's comfortable
room at a boarding house on a much better block than the one on which the
tenement stood. Aunt Jane had ordered up tea and toast, and was sipping
the one and nibbling the other contentedly before a grate fire.

"This is what I call comfort," declared the old lady, who still kept her
bonnet on--nor would she remove it save to change it for a nightcap when
she went to bed.

"This is what I call comfort. A pleasant room in a house where I have no
responsibilities, and enough noise outside to assure me that I am in a
live town. My goodness me! when Hammond came along and wanted to marry
me, and I knew I could leave Hillcrest and never have to go back----Well,
I just about jumped down that man's throat I was so eager to say 'Yes!'
Marry him? I'd ha' married a Choctaw Injun, if he'd promised to take me
to the city."

"Why, Aunt Jane!" exclaimed Lyddy. "Hillcrest Farm is a beautiful place.
Mother took us there once to see it. Don't you remember, 'Phemie? _She_
loved it, too."

"And I wish she'd had it as a gift from the old doctor," grumbled Aunt
Jane. "But it wasn't to be. It's never been anything but a nuisance to
me, if I _was_ born there."

"Why, the view from the porch is the loveliest I ever saw," said Lyddy.

"And all that romantic pile of rocks at the back of the farm!" exclaimed
'Phemie.

"Ha! what's a view?" demanded the old lady, in her brusk way. "Just dirt
and water. And that's what they say _we're_ made of. I like to study human
bein's, I do; so I'd ruther have my view in town."

"But it's so pretty----"

"Fudge!" snapped Aunt Jane. "I've seen the time, when I was a growin' gal,
and the old doctor was off to see patients, that I've stood on that same
porch at Hillcrest and just _cried_ for the sight of somethin' movin' on
the face of Natur' besides a cow.

"View, indeed!" she pursued, hotly. "If I've got to look at views, I want
plenty of 'life' in 'em; and I want the human figgers to be right up close
in the foreground, too!"

'Phemie laughed. "And I think it would be just _blessed_ to get out of
this noisy, dirty city, and live in a place like Hillcrest. Wouldn't you
like it, Lyd?"

"I'd love it!" declared her sister.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Aunt Jane, sitting bolt upright, and looking
actually startled. "Ain't that a way out, mebbe?"

"What do you mean, Aunt Jane?" asked Lydia, quickly.

"You know how I'm fixed, girls. Hammond left me just money enough so't
I can live as I like to live--and no more. The farm's never been aught
but an expense to me. Cyrus Pritchett is supposed to farm a part of it
on shares; but my share of the crops never pays more'n the taxes and the
repairs to the roofs of the old buildings.

"It'd be a shelter to ye. The furniture stands jest as it did in the old
doctor's day. Ye could move right in--and I expect it would mean a lease
of life to your father.

"A second-hand man wouldn't give ye ten dollars for your stuff in that
flat. It's ruined. Ye couldn't live comfortable there any more. But if
ye wanter go to Hillcrest I'm sure ye air more than welcome to the use of
the place, and perhaps ye might git a bigger share of the crops out of
Cyrus if ye was there, than I've been able to git.

"What d'you say, girls--what d'you say?"




CHAPTER III

THE DOCTOR DISPOSES


The Bray girls scarcely slept a wink that night. Not alone were they
excited by the incidents of the evening, and the sudden illness of
their father; but the possibilities arising out of Aunt Jane Hammond's
suggestion fired the imagination of both Lyddy and 'Phemie.

These sisters were eminently practical girls, and they came of practical
stock--as note the old-fashioned names which their unromantic parents had
put upon them in their helpless infancy.

Yet there is a dignity to "Lydia" and a beauty to "Euphemia" which the
thoughtless may not at once appreciate.

Practical as they were, the thought of going to the old farmhouse to
live--if their father could be moved to it at once--added a zest to their
present situation which almost made their misfortune seem a blessing.

Their furniture was spoiled, as Aunt Jane had said. And father was sick--a
self-evident fact. This sudden ill turn which Mr. Bray had suffered
worried both of his daughters more than any other trouble--indeed, more
than all the others in combination.

Their home was ruined--but, somehow, they would manage to find a shelter.
'Phemie would have no more work in her present position after this week,
and Lyddy had secured no work at all; but fortune must smile upon their
efforts and bring them work in time.

These obstacles seemed small indeed beside the awful thought of their
father's illness. How very, very weak and ill he had looked when he was
carried out of the flat on that stretcher! The girls clung together in
their bed in the lodging house, and whispered about it, far into the night.

"Suppose he never comes out of that hospital?" suggested 'Phemie, in a
trembling voice.

"Oh, 'Phemie! don't!" begged her sister. "He _can't_ be so ill as all
that. It's just a breakdown, as that doctor said. He has overworked.
He--he mustn't ever go back to that hat shop again."

"I know," breathed 'Phemie; "but what _will_ he do?"

"It isn't up to him to do anything--it's up to _us_," declared Lyddy,
with some measure of her confidence returning. "Why, look at us! Two big,
healthy girls, with four capable hands and the average amount of brains.

"I know, as city workers, we are arrant failures," she continued, in a
whisper, for their room was right next to Aunt Jane's, and the partition
was thin.

"Do you suppose we could do better in the country?" asked 'Phemie, slowly.

"And if I am not mistaken the house is full of old, fine furniture,"
observed Lyddy.

"Well!" sighed the younger sister, "we'd be sheltered, anyway. But how
about eating? Lyddy! I have _such_ an appetite."

"She says we can have her share of the crops if we will pay the taxes and
make the necessary repairs."

"Crops! what do you suppose is growing in those fields at this time of
the year?"

"Nothing much. But if we could get out there early we might have a garden
and see to it that Mr. Pritchett planted a proper crop. And we could have
chickens--I'd love that," said Lyddy.

"Oh, goodness, gracious me! Wouldn't we _all_ love it--father, too? But
how can we even get out there, much more live till vegetables and chickens
are ripe, on nothing a week?"

"That--is--what--I--don't--see--yet," admitted Lyddy, slowly.

"It's very kind of Aunt Jane," complained 'Phemie. "But it's just like
opening the door of Heaven to a person who has no wings! We can't even
reach Hillcrest."

"You and I could," said her sister, vigorously.

"How, please?"

"We could walk."

"Why, Lyd! It's fifty miles if it's a step!"

"It's nearer seventy. Takes two hours on the train to the nearest station;
and then you ride up the mountain a long, long way. But we could walk it."

"And be tramps--regular tramps," cried 'Phemie.

"Well, I'd rather be a tramp than a pauper," declared the older sister,
vigorously.

"But poor father!"

"That's just it," agreed Lydia. "Of course, we can do nothing of the kind.
We cannot leave him while he is sick, nor can we take him out there to
Hillcrest if he gets on his feet again----"

"Oh, Lyddy! don't talk that way. He _is_ going to be all right after a
few days' rest."

"I do not think he will ever be well if he goes back to work in that hat
factory. If we could only get him to Hillcrest."

"And there we'd all starve to death in a hurry," grumbled 'Phemie,
punching the hard, little boarding-house pillow. "Oh, dear! what's the use
of talking? There is no way out!"

"There's always a way out--if we think hard enough," returned her sister.

"Wish you'd promulgate one," sniffed 'Phemie.

"I am going to think--and you do the same."

"I'm going to----"

"Snore!" finished 'Phemie. That ended the discussion for the time being.
But Lydia lay awake and racked her tired brain for hours.

The pale light of the raw March morning streaked the window-pane when
Lydia was awakened by her sister hurrying into her clothes for the day's
work at the millinery store. There would be but two days more for her
there.

And then?

It was a serious problem. Lydia had perhaps ten dollars in her reserve
fund. Father might not be paid for his full week if he did not go back to
the shop. His firm was not generous, despite the fact that Mr. Bray had
worked so long for them. A man past forty, who is frequently sick a day
or two at a time, soon wears out the patience of employers, especially
when there is young blood in the firm.

'Phemie would get her week's pay Saturday night. Altogether, Lyddy might
find thirty dollars in her hand with which to face the future for all
three of them!

What could she get for their soaked furniture? These thoughts were with
her while she was dressing.

'Phemie had hurried away after making her sister promise to telephone as
to her father's condition the minute they allowed Lyddy to see him at
the hospital. Aunt Jane was a luxurious lie-abed, and had ordered tea
and toast for nine o'clock. Her oldest niece put on her shabby hat and
coat and went out to the nearest lunch-room, where coffee and rolls were
her breakfast.

Then she walked down to Trimble Avenue and approached the huge,
double-decker where they had lived. Salvage men were already carrying
away the charred fragments of the furniture from the top floor. Lyddy
hoped that, unlike herself, the Smiths and the others up there had been
insured against fire.

She plodded wearily up the four flights and unlocked one of the flat
doors and entered. Two of the salvage men followed her in and removed the
tarpaulins--which had been worse than useless.

"No harm done but a little water, Miss," said one of them, consolingly.
"But you talk up to the adjuster and he'll make it all right."

They all thought, of course, that the Brays' furniture was insured. Lyddy
closed the door and looked over the wrecked flat.

The parlor furniture coverings were all stained, and the carpet's colors
had "run" fearfully. Many of their little keepsakes and "gim-cracks" had
been broken when the tarpaulins were spread.

The bedrooms were in better shape, although the bedding was somewhat wet.
But the kitchen was ruined.

"Of course," thought Lyddy, "there wasn't much to ruin. Everything was
cheap enough. But what a mess to clean up!"

She looked out of the window across the air-shaft. There was the boy!

He nodded and beckoned to her. He had his own window open. Lydia
considered that she had no business to talk with this young man; yet he
had played the "friend in need" the evening before.

"How's your father?" he called, the moment she opened her window.

"I do not know yet. They told me not to come to the hospital until
nine-thirty."

"I guess you're in a mess over there--eh?" he said, with his most boyish
smile.

But Lyddy was not for idle converse. She nodded, thanked him for his
kindness the evening before, and firmly shut the window. She thought
she knew how to keep _that_ young man in his place.

But she hadn't the heart to do anything toward tidying up the flat now.
And how she wished she might not _have_ to do it!

"If we could only take our clothing and the bedding and little things,
and walk out," she murmured, standing in the middle of the little parlor.

To try to "pick up the pieces" here was going to be dreadfully hard.

"I wish some fairy would come along and transport us all to Hillcrest Farm
in the twinkling of an eye," said Lyddy to herself. "I--I'd rather starve
out there than live as we have for the past three months here."

She went to the door of the flat just as somebody tapped gently on the
panel. A poorly dressed Jewish man stood hesitating on the threshold.

"I'm sorry," said Lyddy, hastily; "but we had trouble here last night--a
fire. I can't cook anything, and really haven't a thing to give----"

Her mother had boasted that she had never turned away a beggar hungry from
her door, and the oldest Bray girl always tried to feed the deserving.
The man shook his head eagerly.

"You ain't de idee got, lady," he said. "I know dere vas a fire. I foller
de fires, lady."

"You follow the fires?" returned Lyddy, in wonder.

"Yes, lady. Don'dt you vant to sell de house-holdt furnishings? I pay de
highest mar-r-ket brice for 'em. Yes, lady--I pay cash."

"Why--why----"

"You vas nodt insured--yes?"

"No," admitted Lyddy.

"Den I bay you cash for de goots undt you go undt puy new--ain'dt idt?"

But Lyddy wasn't thinking of buying new furniture--not at all. She opened
the door wider.

"Come in and look," she invited. "What will you pay?"

"Clodings, too?" he asked, shrewdly.

"No, no! We will keep the clothing, bedding and kitchenware, and the like.
Just the furniture."

The man went through the flat quickly, but his bright, beady eyes missed
nothing. Finally he said:

"I gif you fifteen tollar, lady."

"Oh, no! that is too little," gasped Lyddy.

She had begun to figure mentally what it would cost to replace even the
poor little things they had. And yet, if she could get any fair price for
the goods she was almost tempted to sell out.

"Lady! believe me, I make a goot offer," declared the man. "But I must
make it a profit--no?"

"I couldn't sell for so little."

"How much you vant, den?" he asked shrewdly.

"Oh! a great deal more than that. Ten dollars more, at least."

"Twenty-fife tollars!" he cried, wringing his hands. "Belief me, lady, I
shouldt be shtuck!"

His use of English would have amused Lyddy at another time; but the girl's
mind was set upon something more important. If she only _could_ get enough
money together to carry them all to Hillcrest Farm--and to keep them
going for a while!

"Fifteen dollars would not do me much good, I am afraid," the girl said.

"Oh, lady! you could buy a whole new house-furnishings mit so much money
down--undt pay for de rest on de installment."

"No," replied Lyddy, firmly. "I want to get away from here altogether. I
want to get out into the country. My father is sick; we had to send him
to the hospital last night."

The second-hand man shook his head. "You vas a kindt-hearted lady," he
said, with less of his professional whine. "I gif you twenty."

And above that sum Lyddy could not move him. But she would not decide
then and there. She felt that she must see her father, and consult with
'Phemie, and possibly talk to Aunt Jane, too.

"You come here to-morrow morning and I'll tell you," she said, finally.

She locked the flat again and followed the man down the long flights to
the street. It was not far to the hospital and Lyddy did not arrive there
much before the visitors' hour.

The house physician called her into his office before she went up to the
ward in which her father had been placed. Already she was assured that he
was comfortable, so the keenness of her anxiety was allayed.

"What are your circumstances, Miss Bray?" demanded the medical head of
the hospital, bluntly. "I mean your financial circumstances?"

"We--we are poor, sir. And we were burned out last night, and have no
insurance. I do not know what we really shall do--yet."

"You are the house-mother--eh?" he demanded.

"I am the oldest. There are only Euphemia and me, beside poor papa----"

"Well, it's regarding your father I must speak. He's in a bad way. We can
do him little good here, save that he will rest and have nourishing food.
But if he goes back to work again----"

"I know it's bad for him!" cried Lyddy, with clasped hands. "But what
can we do? He _will_ crawl out to the shop as long as they will let him
come----"

"He'll not crawl out for a couple of weeks--I'll see to that," said the
doctor, grimly. "He'll stay here. But beyond that time I cannot promise.
Our public wards are very crowded, and of course, you have no relatives,
nor friends, able to furnish a private room----"

"Oh, no, sir!" gasped Lyddy.

"Nor is _that_ the best for him. He ought to be out of the city
altogether--country air and food--mountain air especially----"

"Hillcrest!" exclaimed Lyddy, aloud.

"What's that?" the doctor snapped at her, quickly.

She told him about the farm--where it was, and all.

"That's a good place for him," replied the physician, coolly. "It's three
or four hundred feet higher above sea-level than the city. It will do
him more good to live in that air than a ton of medicine. And he can go in
two weeks, or so. Good-morning, Miss Bray," and the busy doctor hurried
away to his multitude of duties, having disposed of Mr. Bray's case on
the instant.




CHAPTER IV

THE PILGRIMAGE


Lydia Bray was shocked indeed when they allowed her in the ward to see
her father. A nurse had drawn a screen about the bed, and nodded to her
encouragingly.

The pallor of Mr. Bray's countenance, as he lay there with his eyes
closed, unaware of her presence, frightened the girl. She had never
seen him utterly helpless before. He had managed to get around every day,
even if sometimes he could not go to work.

But now the forces of his system seemed to have suddenly given out. He
had overtaxed Nature, and she was paying him for it.

"Lyddy!" he whispered, when finally his heavy-lidded eyes opened and he
saw her standing beside the cot.

The girl made a brave effort to look and speak cheerfully; and Mr.
Bray's comprehension was so dulled that she carried the matter off very
successfully while she remained.

She spoke cheerfully; she chatted about their last night's experiences;
she even laughed over some of Aunt Jane's sayings--Aunt Jane was always
a source of much amusement to Mr. Bray.

But the nurse had warned her to be brief, and soon she was beckoned away.
She knew he was in good hands at the hospital, and that they would do all
that they could for him. But what the house physician had told her was
uppermost in her mind as she left the institution.

How were they to get to Hillcrest--and live after arriving there?

"If that man paid me twenty dollars for our furniture, I might have fifty
dollars in hand," she thought. "It will cost us something like two dollars
each for our fares. And then there would be the freight and baggage, and
transportation for ourselves up to Hillcrest from the station.

"And how would it do to bring father to an old, unheated house--and so
early in the spring? I guess the doctor didn't think about that.

"And how will we live until it is time for us to go--until father is well
enough to be moved? All our little capital will be eaten up!"

Lyddy's practical sense then came to her aid. Saturday night 'Phemie would
get through at the millinery shop. They must not remain dependent upon
Aunt Jane longer than over Sunday.

"The thing to do," she decided, "is for 'Phemie and me to start for
Hillcrest immediately--on Monday morning at the latest. If one of us has
to come back for father when he can be moved, all right. The cost will not
be so great. Meanwhile we can be getting the old house into shape to
receive him."

She found Aunt Jane sitting before her fire, with a tray of tea and toast
beside her, and her bonnet already set jauntily a-top of her head, the
strings flowing.

"You found that flat in a mess, I'll be bound!" observed Aunt Jane.

Lydia admitted it. She also told her what the second-hand man had offered.

"Twenty dollars?" cried Aunt Jane. "Take it, quick, before he has a change
of heart!"

But when Lyddy told her of what the doctor at the hospital had said about
Mr. Bray, and how they really seemed forced into taking up with the offer
of Hillcrest, the old lady looked and spoke more seriously.

"You're just as welcome to the use of the old house, and all you can make
out of the farm-crop, as you can be. I stick to what I told you last
night. But I dunno whether you can really be comfortable there."

"We'll find out; we'll try it," returned Lyddy, bravely. "Nothing like
trying, Aunt Jane."

"Humph! there's a good many things better than trying, sometimes. You've
got to have sense in your trying. If it was me, I wouldn't go to Hillcrest
for any money you could name!

"But then," she added, "I'm old and you are young. I wish I could sell
the old place for a decent sum; but an abandoned farm on the top of a
mountain, with the railroad station six miles away, ain't the kind of
property that sells easy in the real estate market, lemme tell you!

"Besides, there ain't much of the two hundred acres that's tillable. Them
romantic-looking rocks that 'Phemie was exclaimin' over last night, are
jest a nuisance. Humph! the old doctor used to say there was money going
to waste up there in them rocks, though. I remember hearing him talk about
it once or twice; but jest what he meant I never knew."

"Mineral deposits?" asked Lyddy, hopefully.

"Not wuth anything. Time an' agin there's been college professors and
such, tappin' the rocks all over the farm for 'specimens.' But there ain't
nothing in the line of precious min'rals in that heap of rocks at the
back of Hillcrest Farm--believe me!

"Dr. Polly useter say, however, that there was curative waters there. He
used 'em some in his practise towards the last. But he died suddent, you
know, and nobody ever knew where he got the water--'nless 'twas Jud Spink.
And Jud had run away with a medicine show years before father died.

"Well!" sighed Aunt Jane. "If you can find any way of makin' a livin'
out of Hillcrest Farm, you're welcome to it. And--just as that hospital
doctor says--it may do your father good to live there for a spell. But
_me_--it always give me the fantods, it was that lonesome."

It seemed, as Aunt Jane said, "a way opened." Yet Lyddy Bray could not
see very far ahead. As she told 'Phemie that night, they could get to the
farm, bag and baggage; but how they would exist after their arrival was
a question not so easy to answer.

Lyddy had gone to one of the big grocers and bought and paid for an order
of staple groceries and canned goods which would be delivered at the
railroad station nearest to Hillcrest on Monday morning. Thus all their
possessions could be carted up to the farm at once.

She had spent the afternoon at the flat collecting the clothing, bedding,
and other articles they proposed taking with them. These goods she had
taken out by an expressman and shipped by freight before six o'clock.

In the morning she met the second-hand man at the ruined flat and he paid
her the twenty dollars as promised. And Lyddy was glad to shake the dust
of the Trimble Avenue double-decker from her feet.

As she turned away from the door she heard a quick step behind her and an
eager voice exclaimed:

"I say! I say! You're not moving; are you?"

Lydia was exceedingly disturbed. She knew that boy in the laboratory
window had been watching closely what was going on in the flat. And now
he had _dared_ follow her. She turned upon him a face of pronounced
disapproval.

"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered. "But I hope your father's better?
Nothing's happened to--to him?"

"We are going to take him away from the city--thank you," replied Lyddy,
impersonally.

She noted with satisfaction that he had run out without his cap, and in
his work-apron. He could not follow her far in such a rig through the
public streets, that was sure.

"I--I'm awful sorry to have you go," he said, stammeringly. "But I hope
it will be beneficial to your father. I--I---- You see, my own father
is none too well and we have often talked of his living out of town
somewhere--not so far but that I could run out for the week-end, you know."

Lyddy merely nodded. She would not encourage him by a single word.

"Well--I wish you all kinds of luck!" exclaimed the young fellow, finally,
holding out his hand.

"Thank you," returned the very proper Lyddy, and failed to see his
proffered hand, turning promptly and walking away, not even vouchsafing
him a backward look when she turned the corner, although she knew very
well that he was still standing, watching her.

"He may be a very nice young man," thought Lyddy; "but, then----"

Sunday the two girls spent a long hour with their father. They found him
prepared for the move in prospect for the family--indeed, he was cheerful
about it. The house physician had evidently taken time to speak to the
invalid about the change he advised.

"Perhaps by fall I shall be my own self again, and we can come back to
town and all go to work. We'll worry along somehow in the country for one
season, I am sure," said Mr. Bray.

But that was what troubled Lyddy more than anything else. They were all
so vague as to what they should do at Hillcrest--how they would be able
to live there!

Father said something about when he used to have a garden in their
backyard, and how nice the fresh vegetables were; and how mother had once
kept hens. But Lyddy could not see yet how they were to have either a
garden or poultry.

They were all three enthusiastic--to each other. And the father was sure
that in a fortnight he would be well enough to travel alone to Hillcrest;
they must not worry about him. Aunt Jane was to remain in town all that
time, and she promised to report frequently to the girls regarding their
father's condition.

"I certainly wish I could help you gals out with money," said the old
lady that evening. "You're the only nieces I've got, and I feel as kindly
towards you as towards anybody in this wide world.

"Maybe we can get a chance to sell the farm. If we can, I'll help you then
with a good, round sum. Now, then! you fix up the old place and make it
look less like the Wrath o' Fate had struck it and maybe some foolish
rich man will come along and want to buy it. If you find a customer, I'll
pay you a right fat commission, girls."

But this was "all in the offing;" the Bray girls were concerned mostly
with their immediate adventures.

To set forth on this pilgrimage to Hillcrest Farm--and alone--was an event
fraught with many possibilities. Both Lyddy and 'Phemie possessed their
share of imagination, despite their practical characters; and despite
the older girl's having gone to college for two years, she, or 'Phemie,
knew little about the world at large.

So they looked forward to Monday morning as the Great Adventure.

It was a moist, sweet morning, even in the city, when they betook
themselves early to the railway station, leaving Aunt Jane luxuriously
sipping tea and nibbling toast in bed--_this_ time with her nightcap on.

March had come in like a lion; but its lamblike qualities were now
manifest and it really did seem as though the breath of spring permeated
the atmosphere--even down here in the smoky, dirty city. The thought
of growing things inspired 'Phemie to stop at a seed store near the
station and squander a few pennies in sweet-peas.

"I know mother used to put them in just as soon as she could dig at all
in the ground," she told her sister.

"I don't believe they'll be a very profitable crop," observed Lyddy.

"My goodness me!" exclaimed 'Phemie, "let's retain a little sentiment,
Lyd! We can't eat 'em--no; but they're sweet and restful to look at. I'm
going to have moon-flowers and morning-glories, too," and she recklessly
expended more pennies for those seeds.

Their train was waiting when they reached the station and the sisters
boarded it in some excitement. 'Phemie's gaiety increased the nearer they
approached to Bridleburg, which was their goal. She was a plump, rosy
girl, with broad, thick plaits of light-brown hair ("molasses-color"
she called it in contempt) which she had begun to "do up" only upon going
to work. She had a quick blue eye, a laughing mouth, rather wide, but
fine; a nose that an enemy--had laughing, good-natured Euphemia Bray
owned one--might have called "slightly snubbed," and her figure was just
coming into womanhood.

Lydia's appearance was entirely different. They did not look much like
sisters, to state the truth.

The older girl was tall, straight as a dart, with a dignity of carriage
beyond her years, dark hair that waved very prettily and required little
dressing, and a clear, colorless complexion. Her eyes were very dark
gray, her nose high and well chiseled, like Aunt Jane's. She was more
of a Phelps. Aunt Jane declared Lyddy resembled Dr. Apollo, or "Polly,"
Phelps more than had either of his own children.

The train passed through a dun and sodden country. The late thaw and the
rains had swept the snow from these lowlands; the unfilled fields were
brown and bare.

Here and there, however, rye and wheat sprouted green and promising,
and in the distance a hedge of water-maples along the river bank seemed
standing in a purple mist, for their young leaves were already pushing
into the light.

"There will be pussy-willows," exclaimed 'Phemie, "and hepaticas in the
woods. Think of _that_, Lyddy Bray!"

"And the house will be as damp as the tomb--and not a stick of wood
cut--and no stoves," returned the older girl.

"Oh, dear, me! you're such an old grump!" ejaculated 'Phemie. "Why try
to cross bridges before you come to them?"

"Lucky for you, Miss, that I _do_ think ahead," retorted Lyddy with some
sharpness.

There was a grade before the train climbed into Bridleburg. Back of the
straggling old town the mountain ridge sloped up, a green and brown wall,
breaking the wind from the north and west, thus partially sheltering the
town. There was what farmers call "early land" about Bridleburg, and some
trucking was carried on.

But the town itself was much behind the times--being one of those
old-fashioned New England settlements left uncontaminated by the mill
interests and not yet awakened by the summer visitor, so rife now in
most of the quiet villages of the six Pilgrim States.

The rambling wooden structure with its long, unroofed platform, which
served Bridleburg as a station, showed plainly what the railroad company
thought of the town. Many villages of less population along the line
boasted modern station buildings, grass plots, and hedges. All that
surrounded Bridleburg's barrack-like depôt was a plaza of bare, rolled
cinders.

On this were drawn up the two 'buses from the rival hotels--the "New
Brick Hotel," built just after the Civil War, and the Eagle House. Their
respective drivers called languidly for customers as the passengers
disembarked from the train.

Most of these were traveling men, or townspeople. It was only mid-forenoon
and Lyddy did not wish to spend either time or money at the local
hostelries, so she shook her head firmly at the 'bus drivers.

"We want to get settled by night at Hillcrest--if we can," she told
'Phemie. "Let's see if your baggage and freight are here, first of all."

She waited until the station agent was at leisure and learned that all
their goods--a small, one-horse load--had arrived.

"You two girls goin' up to the old Polly Phelps house?" ejaculated the
agent, who was a "native son" and knew all about the "old doctor," as Dr.
Apollo Phelps had been known throughout two counties and on both sides
of the mountain ridge.

"Why, it ain't fit for a stray cat to live in, I don't believe--that house
ain't," he added. "More'n twenty year since the old doctor died, and it's
been shut up ever since.

"What! you his grandchildren? Sho! Mis' Bray--I remember. She was the old
doctor's daughter by his secon' wife. Ya-as.

"Well, if I was you, I'd go to Pritchett's house to stop first. Can't
be that the old house is fit to live in, an' Pritchett is your nighest
neighbor."

"Thank you," Lyddy said, quietly. "And can you tell me whom we could get
to transport our goods--and ourselves--to the top of the ridge?"

"Huh? Why! I seen Pritchett's long-laiged boy in town jest now--Lucas
Pritchett. He ain't got away yet," responded the station agent.

"I ventur' to say you'll find him up Market Street a piece--at Birch's
store, or the post-office. This train brung in the mail.

"If he's goin' up light he oughter be willin' to help you out cheap. It's
a six-mile tug, you know; you wouldn't wanter walk it."

He pointed up the mountainside. Far, far toward the summit of the ridge,
nestling in a background of brown and green, was a splash of vivid white.

"That's Pritchett's," vouchsafed the station agent. "If Dr. Polly Phelps'
house had a coat of whitewash you could see it, too--jest to the right
and above Pritchett's. Highest house on the ridge, it is, and a mighty
purty site, to my notion."




CHAPTER V

LUCAS PRITCHETT


The Bray girls walked up the village street, which opened directly out
of the square. It might have been a quarter of a mile in length, the red
brick courthouse facing them at the far end, flanked by the two hotels.
When "court sat" Bridleburg was a livelier town than at present.

On either hand were alternately rows of one, or two-story "blocks" of
stores and offices, or roomy old homesteads set in the midst of their own
wide, terraced lawns.

There were a few pleasant-looking people on the walks and most of these
turned again to look curiously after the Bray girls. Strangers--save in
court week--were a novelty in Bridleburg, that was sure.

Market Street was wide and maple-shaded. Here and there before the stores
were "hitching racks"--long wooden bars with iron rings set every few
feet--to which a few horses, or teams, were hitched. Many of the vehicles
were buckboards, much appreciated in the hill country; but there were
farm wagons, as well. It was for one of these latter the Bray girls were
in search. The station agent had described Lucas Pritchett's rig.

"There it is," gasped the quick-eyed 'Phemie, "Oh, Lyd! _do_ look at those
ponies. They're as ragged-looking as an old cowhide trunk."

"And that wagon," sighed Lyddy. "Shall we ride in it? We'll be a sight
going through the village."

"We'd better wait and see if he'll take us," remarked 'Phemie. "But I
should worry about what people here think of us!"

As she spoke a lanky fellow, with a lean and sallow face, lounged out
of the post-office and across the walk to the heads of the
disreputable-looking ponies. He wore a long snuff-colored overcoat that
might have been in the family for two or three generations, and his
overalls were stuck into the tops of leg-boots.

"That's Lucas--sure," whispered 'Phemie.

But she hung back, just the same, and let her sister do the talking.
And the first effect of Lyddy's speech upon Lucas Pritchett was most
disconcerting.

"Good morning!" Lyddy said, smiling upon the lanky young farmer. "You are
Mr. Lucas Pritchett, I presume?"

He made no audible reply, although his lips moved and they saw his very
prominent Adam's apple rise and fall convulsively. A wave of red suddenly
washed up over his face like a big breaker rolling up a sea-beach; and
each individual freckle at once took on a vividness of aspect that was
fairly startling to the beholder.

"You _are_ Mr. Pritchett?" repeated Lyddy, hearing a sudden half-strangled
giggle from 'Phemie, who was behind her.

"Ya-as--I be," finally acknowledged the bashful Lucas, that Adam's apple
going up and down again like the slide on a trombone.

"You are going home without much of a load; aren't you, Mr. Pritchett?"
pursued Lyddy, with a glance into the empty wagon-body.

"Ya-as--I be," repeated Lucas, with another gulp, trying to look at both
girls at once and succeeding only in looking cross-eyed.

"We are going to be your nearest neighbors, Mr. Pritchett," said Lyddy,
briskly. "Our aunt, Mrs. Hammond, has loaned us Hillcrest to live in and
we have our baggage and some other things at the railway station to be
carted up to the house. Will you take it--and us? And how much will you
charge?"

Lucas just gasped--'Phemie declared afterward, "like a dying fish." This
was altogether too much for Lucas to grasp at once; but he had followed
Lyddy up to a certain point. He held forth a broad, grimed, calloused
palm, and faintly exclaimed:

"You're Mis' Hammon's nieces? Do tell! Maw'll be pleased to see ye--an'
so'll Sairy."

He shook hands solemnly with Lyddy and then with 'Phemie, who flashed him
but a single glance from her laughing eyes. The "Italian sunset effect,"
as 'Phemie dubbed Lucas's blushes, began to fade out of his countenance.

"Can you take us home with you?" asked Lyddy, impatient to settle the
matter.

"I surely can," exclaimed Lucas. "You hop right in."

"No. We want to know what you will charge first--for us and the things
at the depôt?"

"Not a big load; air they?" queried Lucas, doubtfully. "You know the
hill's some steep."

Lyddy enumerated the packages, Lucas checking them off with nods.

"I see," he said. "We kin take 'em all. You hop in----"

But 'Phemie was pulling the skirt of her sister's jacket and Lyddy said:

"No. We have some errands to do. We'll meet you up the street. That is
your way home?" and she indicated the far end of Market Street.

"Ya-as."

"And what will you charge us?"

"Not more'n a dollar, Miss," he said, grinning. "I wouldn't ax ye nothin';
but this is dad's team and when I git a job like this he allus expects
his halvings."

"All right, Mr. Pritchett. We'll pay you a dollar," agreed Lyddy, in her
sedate way. "And we'll meet you up the street."

Lucas unhitched the ponies and stepped into the wagon. When he turned them
and gave them their heads the ragged little beasts showed that they were
a good deal like the proverbial singed cat--far better than they looked.

"I thought you didn't care what people thought of you here?" observed
Lyddy to her sister, as the wagon went rattling down the street. "Yet
it seems you don't wish to ride through Bridleburg in Mr. Pritchett's
wagon."

"My goodness!" gasped 'Phemie, breathless from giggling. "I don't mind
the wagon. But _he's_ a freak, Lyd!"

"Sh!"

"Did you ever see such a face? And those freckles!" went on the girl,
heedless of her sister's admonishing voice.

"Somebody may hear you," urged Lyddy.

"What if?"

"And repeat what you say to him."

"And _that_ should worry me!" returned 'Phemie, gaily. "Oh, dear, Lyd!
don't be a grump. This is all a great, big joke--the people and all. And
Lucas is certainly the capsheaf. Did you ever in your life before even
imagine such a freak?"

But Lyddy would not join in her hilarity.

"These country people may seem peculiar to us, who come fresh from the
city," she said, with some gravity. "But I wonder if we don't appear quite
as 'queer' and 'green' to them as they do to us?"

"We couldn't," gasped 'Phemie. "Hurry on, Lyd. Don't let him overtake us
before we get to the edge of town."

They passed the courthouse and waited for Lucas and the farm wagon on the
outskirts of the village--where the more detached houses gave place to
open fields. No plow had been put into these lower fields as yet; still,
the coming spring had breathed upon the landscape and already the banks by
the wayside were turning green.

'Phemie became enthusiastic at once and before Lucas hove in view,
evidently anxiously looking for them, the younger girl had gathered a
great bunch of early flowers.

"They're mighty purty," commented the young farmer, as the girls climbed
over the wheel with their muddy boots and all.

'Phemie, giggling, took her seat on the other side of him. She had given
one look at the awkwardly arranged load on the wagon-body and at once
became helpless with suppressed laughter. If the girls she had worked
with in the millinery store for the last few months could see them and
their "lares and penates" perched upon this farm wagon, with this son of
Jehu for a driver!

"I reckon you expect to stay a spell?" said Lucas, with a significant
glance from the conglomerate load to Lyddy.

"Yes--we hope to," replied the oldest Bray girl. "Do you think the house
is in very bad shape inside?"

"I dunno. We never go in it, Miss," responded Lucas, shaking his head.
"Mis' Hammon' never left us the key--not to upstairs. Dad's stored cider
and vinegar in the cellar under the east ell for sev'ral years. It's a
better cellar'n we've got.

"An' I dunno what dad'll say," he added, "to your goin' up there to live."

"What's he got to do with it?" asked 'Phemie, quickly.

"Why, we work the farm on shares an' we was calc'latin' to do so this
year."

"Our living in the house doesn't interfere with that arrangement," said
Lyddy, quietly. "Aunt Jane told us all about that. I have a letter from
her for your father."

"Aw--well," commented Lucas, slowly.

The ponies had begun to mount the rise in earnest now. They tugged eagerly
at the load, and trotted on the level stretches as though tireless. Lyddy
commented upon this, and Lucas flushed with delight at her praise.

"They're hill-bred, they be," he said, proudly. "Tackle 'em to a buggy, or
a light cart, an' up hill or down hill means the same to 'em. They won't
break their trot.

"When it comes plowin' time we clip 'em, an' then they don't look so bad
in harness," confided the young fellow. "If--if you like, I'll take you
drivin' over the hills some day--when the roads git settled."

"Thank you," responded Lyddy, non-committally.

But 'Phemie giggled "How nice!" and watched the red flow into the young
fellow's face with wicked appreciation.

The roads certainly had not "settled" after the winter frosts, if this one
they were now climbing was a proper sample. 'Phemie and Lyddy held on with
both hands to the smooth board which served for a seat to the springless
wagon--and they were being bumped about in a most exciting way.

'Phemie began to wonder if Lucas was not quite as much amused by their
unfamiliarity with this method of transportation as she was by his
bashfulness and awkward manners. Lyddy fairly wailed, at last:

"Wha--what a dread--dreadful ro-o-o-ad!" and she seized Lucas suddenly by
the arm nearest to her and frankly held on, while the forward wheel on her
side bounced into the air.

"Oh, this ain't bad for a mountain road," the young farmer declared,
calmly.

"Oh, oh!" squealed 'Phemie, the wheel on her side suddenly sinking into
a deep rut, so that she slid to the extreme end of the board.

"Better ketch holt on me, Miss," advised Lucas, crooking the arm nearest
'Phemie. "You city folks ain't useter this kind of travelin', I can see."

But 'Phemie refused, unwilling to be "beholden" to him, and the very next
moment the ponies clattered over a culvert, through which the brown flood
of a mountain stream spurted in such volume that the pool below the road
was both deep and angry-looking.

There was a washout gullied in the road here. Down went the wheel on
'Phemie's side, and with the lurch the young girl lost her insecure hold
upon the plank.

With a screech she toppled over, plunging sideways from the wagon-seat,
and as the hard-bitted ponies swept on 'Phemie dived into the
foam-streaked pool!




CHAPTER VI

NEIGHBORS


Lucas Pritchett was not as slow as he seemed.

In one motion he drew in the plunging ponies to a dead stop, thrust the
lines into Lyddy's hands, and vaulted over the wheel of the farm wagon.

"Hold 'em!" he commanded, pulling off the long, snuff-colored overcoat.
Flinging it behind him he tore down the bank and, in his high boots, waded
right into the stream.

Poor 'Phemie was beyond her depth, although she rose "right side up" when
she came to the surface. And when Lucas seized her she had sense enough
not to struggle much.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she moaned. "The wa--water is s-so cold!"

"I bet ye it is!" agreed the young fellow, and gathering her right up
into his arms, saturated as her clothing was, he bore her to the bank
and clambered to where Lyddy was doing all she could to hold the restive
ponies.

"Whoa, Spot and Daybright!" commanded the young farmer, soothing the
ponies much quicker than he could his human burden. "Now, Miss, you're
all right----"

"All r-r-right!" gasped 'Phemie, her teeth chattering like castanets.
"I--I'm anything _but_ right!"

"Oh, 'Phemie! you might have been drowned," cried her anxious sister.

"And now I'm likely to be frozen stiff right here in this road. Mrs.
Lot wasn't a circumstance to me. She only turned to salt, while I am
be-be-coming a pillar of ice!"

But Lucas had set her firmly on her feet, and now he snatched up the old
overcoat which had so much amused 'Phemie, and wrapped it about her,
covering her from neck to heel.

"In you go--sit 'twixt your sister and me this time," panted the young
man. "We'll hustle home an' maw'll git you 'twixt blankets in a hurry."

"She'll get her death!" moaned Lyddy, holding the coat close about the wet
girl.

"Look out! We'll travel some now," exclaimed Lucas, leaping in, and having
seized the reins, he shook them over the backs of the ponies and shouted
to them.

The remainder of that ride up the mountain was merely a nightmare for the
girls. Lucas allowed the ponies to lose no time, despite the load they
drew. But haste was imperative.

A ducking in an icy mountain brook at this time of the year might easily
be fraught with serious consequences. Although it was drawing toward noon
and the sun was now shining, there was no great amount of warmth in the
air. Lucas must have felt the keen wind himself, for he was wet, too; but
he neither shivered nor complained.

Luckily they were well up the mountainside when the accident occurred. The
ponies flew around a bend where a grove of trees had shut off the view,
and there lay the Pritchett house and outbuildings, fresh in their coat
of whitewash.

"Maw and Sairy'll see to ye now," cried Lucas, as he neatly clipped the
gatepost with one hub and brought the lathered ponies to an abrupt stop in
the yard beside the porch.

"Hi, Maw!" he added, as a very stout woman appeared in the doorway--quite
filling the opening, in fact. "Hi, Maw! Here's Mis' Hammon's nieces--an'
one of 'em's been in Pounder's Brook!"

"For the land's sake!" gasped the farmer's wife, pulling a pair of
steel-bowed spectacles down from her brows that she might peer through
them at the Bray girls. "Ain't it a mite airly for sech didoes as them?"

"Why, Maw!" sputtered Lucas, growing red again. "She didn't _go_ for to
do it--no, ma'am!"

"Wa-al! I didn't know. City folks is funny. But come in--do! Mis' Hammon's
nieces, d'ye say? Then you must be John Horrocks Bray's gals--ain't ye?"

"We are," said Lyddy, who had quickly climbed out over the wheel and
now eased down the clumsy bundle which was her sister. "Can you stand,
'Phemie?"

"Ye-es," chattered her sister.

"I hope you can take us in for a little while, Mrs. Pritchett," went on
the older girl. "We are going up to Hillcrest to live."

"Take ye in? Sure! An' 'twon't be the first city folks we've harbored,"
declared the lady, chuckling comfortably. "They're beginnin' to come as
thick as spatters in summer to Bridleburg, an' some of 'em git clear up
this way---- For the land's sake! that gal's as wet as sop."

"It--it was wet water I tumbled into," stuttered 'Phemie.

Mrs. Pritchett ushered them into the big, warm kitchen, where the table
was already set for dinner. A young woman--not so _very_ young, either--as
lank and lean as Lucas himself, was busy at the stove. She turned to
stare at the visitors with near-sighted eyes.

"This is my darter, Sairy," said "Maw" Pritchett. "She taught school two
terms to Pounder's school; but it was bad for her eyes. I tell her to git
specs; but she 'lows she's too young for sech things."

"The oculists advise glasses nowadays for very young persons," observed
Lyddy politely, as Sairy Pritchett bobbed her head at them in greeting.

"So I tell her," declared the farmer's wife. "But she won't listen to
reason. Ye know how young gals air!"

This assumption of Sairy's extreme youth, and that Lyddy would understand
her foibles because she was so much older, amused the latter immensely.
Sairy was about thirty-five.

Meanwhile Mrs. Pritchett bustled about with remarkable spryness to make
'Phemie comfortable. There was a warm bedroom right off the kitchen--for
this was an old-fashioned New England farmhouse--and in this the younger
Bray girl took off her wet clothing. Lyddy brought in their bag and
'Phemie managed to make herself dry and tidy--all but her great plaits
of hair--in a very short time.

She would not listen to Mrs. Pritchett's advice that she go to bed. But
she swallowed a bowl of hot tea and then declared herself "as good as new."

The Bray girls had now to tell Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter their
reason for coming to Hillcrest, and what they hoped to do there.

"For the land's sake!" gasped the farmer's wife. "I dunno what Cyrus'll
say to this."

It struck Lyddy that they all seemed to be somewhat in fear of what Mr.
Pritchett might say. He seemed to be a good deal of a "bogie" in the
family.

"We shall not interfere with Mr. Pritchett's original arrangement with
Aunt Jane," exclaimed Lyddy, patiently.

"Well, ye'll hafter talk to Cyrus when he comes in to dinner," said the
farmer's wife. "I dunno how he'll take it."

"_We_ should worry about how he 'takes it,'" commented 'Phemie in Lyddy's
ear. "I guess we've got the keys to Hillcrest and Aunt Jane's permission
to live in the house and make what we can off the place. What more is
there to it?"

But the older Bray girl caught a glimpse of Cyrus Pritchett as he came up
the path from the stables, and she saw that he was nothing at all like
his rotund and jolly wife--not in outward appearance, at least.

The Pritchett children got their extreme height from Cyrus--and their
leanness. He was a grizzled man, whose head stooped forward because he
was so tall, and who looked fiercely on the world from under penthouse
brows.

Every feature of his countenance was grim and forbidding. His cheeks were
gray, with a stubble of grizzled beard upon them. When he came in and was
introduced to the visitors he merely grunted an acknowledgment of their
names and immediately dropped into his seat at the head of the table.

As the others came flocking about the board, Cyrus Pritchett opened his
lips just once, and not until the grace had been uttered did the visitors
understand that it was meant for a reverence before meat.

"For wha' we're 'bout to r'ceive make us tru' grat'ful--pass the butter,
Sairy," and the old man helped himself generously and began at once to
stow the provender away without regard to the need or comfort of the
others about his board.

But Maw Pritchett and her son and daughter seemed to be used to the old
man's way, and they helped each other and the Bray girls with no niggard
hand. Nor did the shuttle of conversation lag.

"Why, I ain't been in the old doctor's house since he died," said Mrs.
Pritchett, reflectively. "Mis' Hammon', she's been up here two or three
times, an' she allus goes up an' looks things over; but I'm too fat for
walkin' up to Hillcrest--I be," concluded the lady, with a chuckle.

She seemed as jolly and full of fun as her husband was morose. Cyrus
Pritchett only glowered on the Bray girls when he looked at them at all.

But Lyddy and 'Phemie joined in the conversation with the rest of the
family. 'Phemie, although she had made so much fun of Lucas at first,
now made amends by declaring him to be a hero--and sticking to it!

"I'd never have got out of that pool if it hadn't been for Lucas," she
repeated; "unless I could have drunk up the water and walked ashore that
way! And o-o-oh! wasn't it cold!"

"Hope you're not going to feel the effects of it later," said her sister,
still anxious.

"I'm all right," assured the confident 'Phemie.

"I dunno as it'll be fit for you gals to stay in the old house to-night,"
urged Mrs. Pritchett. "You'll hafter have some wood cut."

"I'll do that when I take their stuff up to Hillcrest," said Lucas,
eagerly, but flushing again as though stricken with a sudden fever.

"There are no stoves in the house, I suppose?" Lyddy asked, wistfully.

"Bless ye! Dr. Polly wouldn't never have a stove in his house, saving a
cook-stove in the kitchen, an' of course, that's ate up with rust afore
this," exclaimed the farmer's wife. "He said open fireplaces assured every
room its proper ventilation. He didn't believe in these new-fangled ways
of shuttin' up chimbleys. My! but he was powerful sot on fresh air an'
sunshine.

"Onct," pursued Mrs. Pritchett, "he was called to see Mis' Fibbetts--she
that was a widder and lived on 'tother side of the ridge, on the road to
Adams. She had a mis'ry of some kind, and was abed with all the winders
of her room tight closed.

"'Open them winders,' says Dr. Polly to the neighbor what was a-nussin' of
Mis' Fibbetts.

"Next time he come the winders was down again. Dr. Polly warn't no gentle
man, an' he swore hard, he did. He flung up the winders himself, an'
stamped out o' the room.

"It was right keen weather," chuckled Mrs. Pritchett, her double chins
shaking with enjoyment, "and Mis' Fibbetts was scart to death of a leetle
air. Minute Dr. Polly was out o' sight she made the neighbor woman shet
the winders ag'in.

"But when Dr. Polly turned up the ridge road he craned out'n the buggy an'
he seen the winders shet. He jerked his old boss aroun', drove back to the
house, stalked into the sick woman's room, cane in hand, and smashed
every pane of glass in them winders, one after another.

"'Now I reckon ye'll git air enough to cure ye 'fore ye git them mended,'
says he, and marched him out again. An' sure 'nough old Mis' Fibbetts
got well an' lived ten year after. But she never had a good word for Dr.
Polly Phelps, jest the same," chuckled the narrator.

"Well, we'll make out somehow about fires," said Lyddy, cheerfully, "if
Lucas can cut us enough wood to keep them going."

"I sure can," declared the ever-ready youth, and just here Cyrus
Pritchett, having eaten his fill, broke in upon the conversation in a
tone that quite startled Lyddy and 'Phemie Bray.

"I wanter know what ye mean to do up there on the old Polly Phelps
place?" he asked, pushing back his chair, having set down his coffee-cup
noisily, and wiped his cuff across his lips. "I gotta oral contract
with Jane Hammon' to work that farm. It's been in force year arter year
for more'n ten good year. An' that contract ain't to be busted so easy."

"Now, Father!" admonished Mrs. Pritchett; but the old man glared at her
and she at once subsided.

Cyrus Pritchett certainly was a masterful man in his own household. Lucas
dropped his gaze to his plate and his face flamed again. But Sairy turned
actually pale.

Somehow the cross old man did not make Lyddy Bray tremble. She only felt
angry that he should be such a bully in his own home.

"Suppose you read Aunt Jane's letter, Mr. Pritchett," she said, taking
it from her handbag and laying it before the farmer.

The old man grunted and slit the flap of the envelope with his greasy
tableknife. He drew his brows down into even a deeper scowl as he read.

"So she turns her part of the contract over to you two chits of gals; does
she?" said Mr. Pritchett, at last. "Humph! I don't think much of that, now
I tell ye."

"Mr. Pritchett," said Lyddy, firmly, "if you don't care to work the farm
for us on half shares, as you have heretofore with Aunt Jane, pray say
so. I assure you we will not be offended."

"And what'll you do then?" he growled.

"If you refuse to put in a crop for us?"

"Ya-as."

"Get some other neighboring farmer to do so," replied Lyddy, promptly.

"Oh, you will, eh?" growled Cyrus Pritchett, sitting forward and resting
his big hands on his knees, while he glared like an angry dog at the
slight girl before him.

The kitchen was quite still save for his booming voice. The family was
evidently afraid of the old man's outbursts of temper.

But Lyddy Bray's courage rose with her indignation. This cross old farmer
was a mere bully after all, and there was never a bully yet who was not a
moral coward!

"Mr. Pritchett," she told him, calmly, "you cannot frighten me by shouting
at me. I may as well tell you right now that the crops you have raised
for Aunt Jane of late years have not been satisfactory. We expect a
better crop this year, and if you do not wish to put it in, some other
neighbor will.

"This is a good time to decide the matter. What do you say?"




CHAPTER VII

HILLCREST


Mrs. Pritchett and Sairy really were frightened by Lyddy Bray's temerity.
As for Lucas, he still hung his head and would not look at his father.

Cyrus Pritchett had bullied his family so long that to be bearded in his
own house certainly amazed him. He glared at the girl for fully a minute,
without being able to formulate any reply. Then he burst out with:

"You let me ketch any other man on this ridge puttin' a plow inter the
old doctor's land! I've tilled it for years, I tell ye----"

"And you can till it again, Mr. Pritchett," said Lyddy, softly. "You
needn't holler so about it--we all hear you."

The coolness of the girl silenced him.

"So, now it's understood," she went on, smiling at him brightly. "And
we'll try this year to make a little better crop. We really must get
something more out of it than the taxes."

"Jane Hammon' won't buy no fertilizer," growled Mr. Pritchett, put on
the defensive--though he couldn't tell why. "An' ye can't grow corn on
run-down land without potash an' kainit, and the like."

"Well, you shall tell us all about that later," declared Lyddy, "and
we'll see. I understand that you can't get blood from a turnip. We want
to put Hillcrest in better shape--both in and out of the house--and then
there'll be a better chance to sell it."

Cyrus Pritchett's eyes suddenly twinkled with a shrewd light.

"Does Jane Hammon' really want to sell the farm?" he queried.

"If she gets a good offer," replied Lyddy. "That's what we hope to do
while we're at Hillcrest--make the place more valuable and more attractive
to the possible buyer."

"Ha!" grunted Cyrus, sneeringly. "She'll get a fancy price for
Hillcrest--not!"

But that ended the discussion. "Maw" Pritchett looked on in wonder. She
had seen her husband beaten in an argument by a "chit of a girl"--and
really, Cyrus did not seem to be very ugly, or put out about it, either!

He told Lucas to put the ponies to the wagon again, and to take the Bray
girls and their belongings up to Hillcrest; and to see that they were
comfortable for the night before he came back.

This encouraged Mrs. Pritchett, when Lyddy took out her purse to pay for
their entertainment, to declare:

"For the good land, no! We ain't goin' to charge ye for a meal of
vittles--and you gals Dr. Polly Phelps's own grandchildren! B'sides, we
want ye to be neighborly. It's nice for Sairy to have young companions,
too. I tell her she'll git to be a reg'lar old maid if she don't 'sociate
more with gals of her own age."

Sairy bridled and blushed at this. But she wasn't an unkind girl, and
she helped 'Phemie gather their possessions--especially the latter's wet
clothing.

"I'm sure I wish ye joy up there at the old house," said Sairy, with a
shudder. "But ye wouldn't ketch me."

"Catch you doing what?" asked 'Phemie, wonderingly.

"Stayin' in Dr. Phelps's old house over night," explained Sairy.

"Why not?"

The farmer's daughter drew close to 'Phemie's ear and whispered:

"It's ha'nted!"

"_What?_" cried 'Phemie.

"Ghosts," exclaimed Sairy, in a thrilling voice. "All old houses is
ha'nted. And that's been give up to ghosts for years an' years."

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed 'Phemie, clasping her hands and almost dancing in
delight. "Do you mean it's a really, truly haunted house?"

Sairy Pritchett gazed at her with slack jaw and round eyes for a minute.
Then she sniffed.

"Wa-al!" she muttered. "I re'lly thought you was _bright_. But I see ye
ain't got any too much sense, after all," and forthwith refused to say
anything more to 'Phemie.

But the younger Bray girl decided to say nothing about the supposed
ghostly occupants of Hillcrest to her sister--for the present, at least.

There was still half a mile of road to climb to Hillcrest, for the way was
more winding than it had been below; and as the girls viewed the summit
of the ridge behind Aunt Jane's old farm they saw that the heaped-up
rocks were far more rugged than romantic, after all.

"There's two hundred acres of it," Lucas observed, chirruping to the
ponies. "But more'n a hundred is little more'n rocks. And even the timber
growin' among 'em ain't wuth the cuttin'. Ye couldn't draw it out.
There's firewood enough on the place, and a-plenty! But that's 'bout
all--'nless ye wanted to cut fence rails, or posts."

"What are those trees at one side, near the house?" queried Lyddy,
interestedly.

"The old orchard. _There's_ your nearest firewood. Ain't been much fruit
there since I can remember. All run down."

And, indeed, Hillcrest looked to be, as they approached it, a typical
run-down farm. Tall, dry weed-stalks clashed a welcome to them from the
fence corners as the ponies turned into the lane from the public road. The
sun had drawn a veil of cloud across his face and the wind moaned in the
gaunt branches of the beech trees that fringed the lane.

The house was set upon a knoll, with a crumbling, roofed porch around
the front and sides. There were trees, but they were not planted near
enough to the house to break the view on every side but one of the
sloping, green and brown mountainside, falling away in terraced fields,
patches of forest, tablelands of rich, tillable soil, and bush-cluttered
pastures, down into the shadowy valley, through which the river and the
railroad wound.

Behind Hillcrest, beyond the outbuildings, and across the narrow,
poverty-stricken fields, were the battlements of rock, shutting out all
view but that of the sky.

Lonely it was, as Aunt Jane had declared; but to the youthful eyes of the
Bray girls the outlook was beautiful beyond compare!

"Our land jines this farm down yonder a piece," explained Lucas, drawing
in the ponies beside the old house. "Ye ain't got nobody behind ye till
ye git over the top of the ridge. Your line follers the road on this side,
and on the other side of the road is Eben Brewster's stock farm of a
thousand acres--mostly bush-parsture an' rocks, up this a-way."

The girls were but momentarily interested in the outlook, however. It was
the old house itself which their bright eyes scanned more particularly
as they climbed down from the wagon.

There were two wings, or "ells." In the west wing was the kitchen and
evidently both sitting and sleeping rooms, upstairs and down--enough to
serve all their present needs. Aunt Jane had told them that there were,
altogether, twenty-two rooms in the old house.

Lucas hitched his horses and then began to lift down their luggage. Lyddy
led the way to the side door, of which she had the key.

The lower windows were defended by tight board shutters, all about the
house. The old house had been well guarded from the depredations of casual
wayfarers. Had tramps passed this way the possible plunder in the old
house had promised to be too bulky to attract them; and such wanderers
could have slept as warmly in the outbuildings.

Lyddy inserted the key and, after some trouble, for the lock was rusty,
turned it. There was an ancient brass latch, and she lifted it and pushed
the door open.

"My! isn't it dark--and musty," the older sister said, hesitating on the
threshold.

"Welcome to the ghosts of Hillcrest," spoke 'Phemie, in a sepulchral voice.

"Oh, don't!" gasped Lyddy.

She had not been afraid of Cyrus Pritchett, but 'Phemie's irreverence for
the spirits of the old house shocked her.

"All right," laughed the younger girl. "We'll cut out the ghosts, then."

"We most certainly _will_. If I met a ghost here I'd certainly cut him
dead!"

'Phemie went forward boldly and opened the door leading into the big
kitchen. It was gloomy there, too, for the shutters kept out most of the
light. The girls could see, however, that it was a well-furnished room.
They were delighted, too, for this must be their living-room until they
could set the house to rights.

"Dust, dust everywhere," said 'Phemie, making a long mark in it with her
finger on the dresser.

"But _only_ dust. We can get cleaned up here all right by evening. Come!
unhook the shutters and let in the light of day."

The younger girl raised one of the small-paned window sashes, unbolted the
shutter, and pushed both leaves open. The light streamed in and almost
at once Lucas's head appeared.

"How does it look to ye--eh?" he asked, grinning. "Gee! the hearth's all
cleared and somebody's had a fire here."

"It must have been a long time ago," returned Lyddy, noting the crusted
ashes between the andirons.

"Wa-al," said Lucas, slowly. "I'll git to work with the axe an' soon start
ye a fire there, B-r-r-r! it's cold as a dog's nose in there," and he
disappeared again.

But the sunlight and air which soon flooded the room through all the
windows quickly gave the long-shut-up kitchen a new atmosphere.

'Phemie already had on a working dress, having changed at the Pritchett
house after her unfortunate ducking; Lyddy soon laid aside her own better
frock, too.

Then they found their bundle of brooms and brushes, and set to work. There
was a pump on the back porch and a well in the yard. During all these
empty years the leather valve of the pump had rotted away; but Lucas
brought them water from the well.

"I kin git the shoemaker in town to cut ye out a new leather," said the
young farmer. "He's got a pattern. An' I can put it in for ye. The pump'll
be a sight handier than the well for you two gals."

"Now, isn't he a nice boy?" demanded Lyddy of her sister. "And you called
him a freak."

"Don't rub it in, Lyd," snapped 'Phemie. "But it is hard to have to accept
a veritable gawk of a fellow like Lucas--for that's what he _is_!--as a
sure-enough hero."

This was said aside, of course, and while Lucas was doing yeoman's work at
the woodpile. He had brought in a huge backlog, placed it carefully,
laid a forestick and the kindling, and soon blue and yellow flames
were weaving through the well-built structure of the fire. There was a
swinging crane for the kettle and a long bar with hooks upon it, from
which various cooking pots could dangle. Built into the chimney, too,
was a brick oven with a sheet-iron door. The girls thought all these
old-fashioned arrangements delightful, whether they proved convenient, or
not.

They swept and dusted the old kitchen thoroughly, and cleaned the
cupboards and pantry-closet. Then they turned their attention to the
half bedchamber, half sitting-room that opened directly out of the
kitchen. In these two rooms they proposed to live at first--until
their father could join them, at least.

There was an old-time high, four-post bed in this second room. It had been
built long before some smart man had invented springs, and its frame was
laced from side to side, and up and down, like the warp and woof of a
rug, with a "bedrope" long since rotted and moth-eaten.

"My goodness me!" exclaimed 'Phemie, laughing. "That will never hold you
and me, Lyd. We'll just have to stuff that old tick with hay and sleep on
the floor."

But Lucas heard their discussion and again came to their help. Lyddy had
bought a new clothesline when she purchased her food supplies at the city
department store, and the clever Lucas quickly roped the old bedstead.

"That boy certainly is rising by leaps and bounds in my estimation,"
admitted 'Phemie, in a whisper, to her sister.

Then came the problem of the bed. Lyddy had saved their pillows from
the wreck of the flat; but the mattresses had gone with the furniture to
the second-hand man. There might be good feather beds in the farmhouse
attic; Aunt Jane had said something about them, Lyddy believed. But there
was no time to hunt for these now.

"Here is a tick," 'Phemie said again. "What'll we fill it with?"

"Give it to me," volunteered Lucas. "One of the stable lofts is half full
of rye straw. We thrashed some rye on this place last year. It's jest as
good beddin' for humans as it is for cattle, I declare."

"All right," sighed 'Phemie. "We'll bed down like the cows for a while. I
don't see anything better to do."

But really, by sunset, they were nearly to rights and the prospect for a
comfortable first night at Hillcrest was good.

Lucas's huge fire warmed both the kitchen and the bedroom, despite the
fact that the evening promised to be chilly, with the wind mourning about
the old house and rattling the shutters. The girls closed the blinds,
made all cozy, and bade young Pritchett good-night.

Lyddy had paid him the promised dollar for transporting their goods,
and another half-dollar for the work he had done about the house that
afternoon.

"And I'll come up in the mornin' an' bring ye the milk an' eggs maw
promised ye," said Lucas, as he drove away, "and I'll cut ye some more
wood then."

There was already a great heap of sticks beside the hearth, and in the
porch another windrow, sheltered from any possible storm.

"We're in luck to have such good neighbors," sighed Lyddy, as the farm
wagon rattled away.

"My! but we're going to have good times here," declared 'Phemie, coming
into the house after her and closing and locking the door.

"It's a long way off from everybody else," observed the older sister, in
a doubtful tone. "But I don't believe we shall be disturbed."

"Nonsense!" cried 'Phemie. "Let's have supper. I'm starved to death."

She swung the blackened old tea-kettle over the blaze, and moved briskly
about the room laying the cloth, while Lyddy got out crackers and cheese
and opened a tin of meat before she brewed the comforting cup of tea that
both girls wanted.

However, they _were_ alone--half a mile from the nearest habitation--and
if nothing else, they could not help secretly comparing their loneliness
with the tenement in the city from which they had so recently graduated.




CHAPTER VIII

THE WHISPER IN THE DARK


'Phemie was very bold--until something really scared her--and then she
was quite likely to lose her head altogether. Lyddy was timid by nature,
but an emergency forced her courage to high pressure.

They both, however, tried to ignore the fact that they were alone in the
old house, far up on the mountainside, and a considerable distance from
any neighbor.

That was why they chattered so all through supper--and afterward. Neither
girl cared to let silence fall upon the room.

The singing of the kettle on the crane was a blessing. It made music that
drove away "that lonesome feeling." And when it actually bubbled over and
the drip of it fell hissing into the fire, 'Phemie laughed as though it
were a great joke.

"Such a jolly thing as an open fire is, I declare," she said, sitting down
at last in one of the low, splint-bottomed chairs, when the supper dishes
were put away. "I don't blame Grandfather Phelps for refusing to allow
stoves to be put up in his day."

"I fancy it would take a deal of wood to heat the old house in real cold
weather," Lyddy said. "But it _is_ cheerful."

"Woo-oo! woo-oo-oo!" moaned the wind around the corner of the house. A
ghostly hand rattled a shutter. Then a shrill whistle in the chimney
startled them.

At such times the sisters talked all the faster--and louder. It was really
quite remarkable how much they found to say to each other.

They wondered how father was getting along at the hospital, and if Aunt
Jane would surely see him every day or two, and write them. Then they
exchanged comments upon what they had seen of Bridleburg, and finally
fell back upon the Pritchetts as a topic of conversation--and that family
seemed an unfailing source of suggestion until finally 'Phemie jumped
up, declaring:

"What's the use of this, Lyd? Let's go to bed. We're both half scared to
death, but we'll be no worse off in bed----And, b-r-r-r! the fire's going
down."

They banked the fire as Lucas had advised them, put out the lamp, and
retired with the candle to the bedroom. The straw mattress rustled as
though it were full of mice, when the sisters had said their prayers and
climbed into bed. 'Phemie blew out the candle; but she had laid matches
near it on the high stand beside her pillow.

"I hope there _are_ feather beds in the garret," she murmured, drowsily.
"This old straw is _so_ scratchy."

"We'll look to-morrow," Lyddy said. "Aunt Jane said we could make use of
anything we found here. But, my! it's a big house for only three people."

"It is," admitted 'Phemie. "I'd feel a whole lot better if it was full of
folks."

"I have it!" exclaimed Lyddy, suddenly. "We might take boarders."

"Summer boarders?" asked her sister, curiously.

"I--I s'pose so."

"That's a long way ahead. It's winter yet," and 'Phemie snuggled down
into her pillow. "Folks from the city would never want to come to an old
house like this--with so few conveniences in it."

"_We_ like it; don't we?" demanded Lyddy.

"I don't know whether we do yet, or not," replied 'Phemie. "Let's wait
and see."

'Phemie was drowsy, yet somehow she couldn't fall asleep. Usually she
was the first of the two to do so; but to-night Lyddy's deeper breathing
assured the younger sister that she alone was awake in all the great,
empty house.

And Sairy Pritchett had intimated that Hillcrest was haunted!

Now, 'Phemie didn't believe in ghosts--not at all. She would have been
very angry had anyone suggested that there was a superstitious strain in
her character.

Yet, as she lay there beside her sleeping sister she began to hear the
strangest sounds.

It wasn't the wind; nor was it the low crackling of the fire on the
kitchen hearth. She could easily distinguish both of these. Soon, too,
she made out the insistent gnawing of a rat behind the mopboard. That
long-tailed gentleman seemed determined to get in; but 'Phemie was not
afraid of rats. At least, not so long as they kept out of sight.

But there were other noises. Once 'Phemie had all but lost herself in
sleep when--it seemed--a voice spoke directly in her ear. It said:

"_I thought I'd find you here._"

'Phemie started into a sitting posture in the rustling straw bed. She
listened hard.

The voice was silent. The fire was still. The wind had suddenly dropped.
Even the rat had ceased his sapping and mining operations.

What had frightened Mr. Rat away?

He, too, must have heard that mysterious voice. 'Phemie could not believe
she had imagined it.

Was that a rustling sound? Were those distant steps she heard--somewhere
in the house? Did she hear a door creak?

She slipped out of bed, drew on her woollen wrapper and thrust her feet
into slippers. She saw that it was bright moonlight outside, for a pencil
of light came through a chink in one of the shutters.

Lyddy slept as calmly as a baby--and 'Phemie was glad. Of course, it
was all foolishness about ghosts; but she believed there was somebody
prowling about the house.

She lit the candle and after the flame had sputtered a bit and began to
burn clear she carried it into the kitchen. Their little round alarm clock
ticked modestly on the dresser. It was not yet ten o'clock.

"Not the 'witching hour of midnight, when graveyards yawn'--and other
people do, too," thought 'Phemie, giggling nervously. "Surely ghosts
cannot be walking yet."

Indeed, she was quite assured that what she had heard--both the voice
and the footsteps--were very much of the earth, earthy. There was nothing
supernatural in the mysterious sounds.

And it seemed to 'Phemie as though the steps had retreated toward the east
ell--the other wing of the rambling old farmhouse.

What was it Lucas Pritchett had said about his father using the
cellar under the east wing at Hillcrest? Yet, what would bring Cyrus
Pritchett--or anybody else--up here to the vinegar cellar at ten
o'clock at night?

'Phemie grew braver by the minute. She determined to run this mystery
down, and she was quite sure that it would prove to be a very human and
commonplace mystery after all. She opened the door between the kitchen and
the dark side hall by which they had first entered the old house that
afternoon. Although she had never been this way, 'Phemie knew that out of
this square hall opened a long passage leading through the main house
to the east wing.

And she easily found the door giving entrance to this corridor. But she
hesitated when she stood on the threshold, and almost gave up the venture
altogether.

A cold, damp breath rushed out at her--just as though some huge,
subterranean monster lay in wait for her in the darkness--a darkness
so dense that the feeble ray of her candle could only penetrate it a
very little way.

"How foolish of me!" murmured 'Phemie. "I've come so far--I guess I can
see it through."

She certainly did not believe that the steps and voice were inside the
house. The passage was empty before her. She refused to let the rising
tide of trepidation wash away her self-control.

So she stepped in boldly, holding the candle high, and proceeded along
the corridor. There were tightly closed doors on either side, and behind
each door was a mystery. She could not help but feel this. Every door was
a menace to her peace of mind.

"But I will _not_ think of such things," she told herself. "I know if
there _is_ anybody about the house, it is a very human somebody
indeed--and he has no business here at this time of night!"

In her bed-slippers 'Phemie's light feet fell softly on the frayed
oilcloth that carpeted the long hall. Dimly she saw two or three heavy,
ancient pieces of furniture standing about--a tall escritoire with
three paneled mirrors, which reflected herself and her candle dimly; a
long davenport with hungry arms and the dust lying thick upon its
haircloth upholstery; chairs with highly ornate spindles in their
perfectly "straight up and down," uncomfortable-looking backs.

She came to the end of the hall. A door faced her which she was sure
must lead into the east wing. There, Aunt Jane had said, old Dr. Polly
Phelps had had his office, consultation room, and workshop, or laboratory.
'Phemie's hand hesitated on the latch.

Should she venture into the old doctor's rooms? The greater part of his
long and useful life had been spent behind this green-painted door.
'Phemie, of course, had never seen her grandfather; but she had seen
his picture--that of a tall, pink-faced, full-bodied man, his cheeks
and lips cleanly shaven, but with a fringe of silvery beard under his
chin, and long hair.

It seemed to her for a moment as though, if she opened this door, the
apparition of the old doctor, just as he was in his picture, would be
there to face her.

"You little fool!" whispered the shaken 'Phemie to herself. "Go on!"

She lifted the latch. The door seemed to stick. She pressed her knee
against the panel; it did not give at all.

And then she discovered that the door was locked. But the key was there,
and in a moment she turned it creakingly and pushed the door open.

The air in the corridor had been still; but suddenly a strong breeze drew
this green door wide open. The wind rushed past, blew out the candle,
and behind her the other door, which she had left ajar, banged heavily,
echoing and reechoing through the empty house.

'Phemie was startled, but she understood at once the snuffing of her
candle and the closing of the other door. She only hoped Lyddy would
not be frightened by the noise--or by her absence from her side.

"I'll see it through, just the same," declared the girl, her teeth set
firmly on her lower lip. "Ha! driven away by a draught--not I!"

She groped her way into the room and closed the green door. There was a
match upon her candlestick and she again lighted the taper. Quickly the
first room in this east wing suite was revealed to her gaze.

This had been the anteroom, or waiting-room for the old doctor's patients.
There was a door opening on the side porch. A long, old-fashioned settee
stood against one wall, and some splint-bottomed chairs were set stiffly
about the room, while a shaky mahogany table, with one pedestal leg,
occupied the center of the apartment.

'Phemie was more careful of the candle now and shielded the flame with
her hollowed palm as she pushed open the door of the adjoining room.

Here was a big desk with a high top and drop lid, while there were rows
upon rows of drawers underneath. A wide-armed chair stood before the desk,
just as it must have been used by the old doctor. The room was lined to
the ceiling with cases of books and cupboards. Nobody had disturbed the
doctor's possessions after his death. No younger physician had "taken
over" his practice.

'Phemie went near enough to see that the desk, and the cupboards as well,
were locked. There was a long case standing like an overgrown clock-case
in one corner. The candle-light was reflected in the front of this case
as though the door was a mirror.

But when 'Phemie approached it she saw that it was merely a glass door
with a curtain of black cambric hung behind it. She was curious to know
what was in the case. It had no lock and key and she stretched forth a
tentative hand and turned the old-fashioned button which held it closed.

The door seemed fairly to spring open, as though pushed from within,
and, as it swung outward and the flickering candle-light penetrated its
interior, 'Phemie heard a sudden surprising sound.

Somewhere--behind her, above, below, in the air, all about her--was a
sigh! Nay, it was more than a sigh; it was a mighty and unmistakable yawn!

And on the heels of this yawn a voice exclaimed:

"I'm getting mighty tired of this!"

'Phemie flashed her gaze back to the open case. Fear held her by the
throat and choked back the shriek she would have been glad to utter.
For, dangling there in the case, its eyeless skull on a level with her
own face, hung an articulated skeleton; and to 'Phemie Bray's excited
comprehension it seemed as though both the yawn and the apt speech which
followed it, had proceeded from the grinning jaws of the skull!




CHAPTER IX

MORNING AT HILLCREST


The bang of the door, closed by the draught when 'Phemie had opened
the way into the east wing, _had_ aroused Lyddy. She came to herself--to
a consciousness of her strange surroundings--with a sharpness of
apprehension that set every nerve in her body to tingling.

"'Phemie! what is it?" she whispered.

Then, rolling over on the rustling straw mattress, she reached for her
sister's hand. But 'Phemie was not there.

"'Phemie!" Lyddy cried loudly, sitting straight up in bed. She knew she
was alone in the room, and hopped out of bed, shivering. She groped for
her robe and her slippers. Then she sped swiftly into the kitchen.

She knew where the lamp and the match-box were. Quickly she had the lamp
a-light and then swept the big room with a startled glance.

'Phemie had disappeared. The outside door was still locked. It seemed to
Lyddy as though the echoing slam of the door that had awakened her was
still ringing in her ears.

She ran to the hall door and opened it. Dark--and not a sound!

Where could 'Phemie have gone?

The older sister had never known 'Phemie to walk in her sleep. She had no
tricks of somnambulism that Lyddy knew anything about.

And yet the older Bray girl was quite sure her sister had come this way.
The lamplight, when the door was opened wide, illuminated the square
hall quite well. Lyddy ran across it and pushed open the door of the
long corridor.

There was no light in it, yet she could see outlined the huge pieces of
furniture, and the ugly chairs. And at the very moment she opened this
door, the door at the far end was flung wide and a white figure plunged
toward her.

"'Phemie!" screamed the older sister.

"Lyddy!" wailed 'Phemie.

And in a moment they were in each other's arms and Lyddy was dragging
'Phemie across the entrance hall into the lighted kitchen.

"What is it? What _is_ it?" gasped Lyddy.

"Oh, oh, oh!" was all 'Phemie was able to say for the moment; then, as she
realized how really terrified her sister was, she continued her series
of "ohs" while she thought very quickly.

She knew very well what had scared her; but why add to Lyddy's fright? She
could not explain away the voice she had heard. Of course, she knew very
well it had _not_ proceeded from the skeleton. But why terrify Lyddy by
saying anything about that awful thing?

"What scared you so?" repeated Lyddy, shaking her a bit.

"I--I don't know," stammered 'Phemie--and she didn't!

"But why did you get up?"

"I thought I heard something--voices--people talking--steps," gasped
'Phemie, and now her teeth began to chatter so that she could scarcely
speak.

"Foolish girl!" exclaimed Lyddy, rapidly recovering her own self-control.
"You dreamed it. And now you've got a chill, wandering through this old
house. Here! sit down there!"

She drove her into a low chair beside the hearth. She ran for an extra
comforter to wrap around her. She raked the ashes off the coals of the
fire, and set the tea-kettle right down upon the glowing bed.

In a minute it began to steam and gurgle, and Lyddy made her sister an
old-fashioned brew of ginger tea. When the younger girl had swallowed half
a bowlful of the scalding mixture she ceased shaking. And by that time,
too, she had quite recovered her self-control.

"You're a very foolish little girl," declared Lyddy, warningly, "to
get up alone and go wandering about this house. Why, _I_ wouldn't do it
for--for the whole farm!"

"I--I dropped my candle. It went out," said 'Phemie, quietly. "I guess
being in the dark scared me more than anything."

"Now, that's enough. Forget it! We'll go to bed again and see if we can't
get some sleep. Why! it's past eleven."

So the sisters crept into bed again, and lay in each other's arms,
whispering a bit and finally, before either of them knew it, they were
asleep. And neither ghosts, nor whispering voices, nor any other midnight
sounds disturbed their slumbers for the remainder of that first night
at Hillcrest.

They were awake betimes--and without the help of the alarm clock. It was
pretty cold in the two rooms; but they threw kindling on the coals and
soon the flames were playing tag through the interlacing sticks that
'Phemie heaped upon the fire.

The kettle was soon bubbling again, while Lyddy mixed batter cakes. A
little bed of live coals was raked together in front of the main fire
and on this a well greased griddle was set, where the cakes baked to a
tender brown and were skillfully lifted off by 'Phemie and buttered and
sugared.

What if a black coal or two _did_ snap over the cakes? And what if
'Phemie's hair _did_ get smoked and "smelly?" Both girls declared cooking
before an open fire to be great fun. They had yet, however, to learn a
lot about "how our foremothers cooked."

"I don't for the life of me see how they ever used that brick oven," said
Lyddy, pointing to the door in the side of the chimney. "Surely, that hole
in the bricks would never heat from _this_ fire."

"Ask Lucas," advised 'Phemie, and as though in answer to that word, Lucas
himself appeared, bearing offerings of milk, eggs, and new bread.

"Huh!" he said, in a gratified tone, sniffing in the doorway. "I told maw
you two gals wouldn't go hungry. Ye air a sight too clever."

"Thank you, Lucas," said Lyddy, demurely. "Will you have a cup of tea!"

"No'm. I've had my breakfast. It's seven now and I'll go right t' work
cutting wood for ye. That's what ye'll want most, I reckon. And I want to
git ye a pile ready, for it won't be many days before we start plowin',
an' then dad won't hear to me workin' away from home."

Lyddy went out of doors for a moment and spoke to him from the porch.

"Don't do too much trimming in the orchard, Lucas, till I have a look at
the trees. I have a book about the care of an old orchard, and perhaps I
can make something out of this one."

"Plenty of other wood handy, Miss Lyddy," declared the lanky young fellow.
"And it'll be easier to split than apple and peach wood, too."

'Phemie, meanwhile, had said she would run in and find the candle she had
dropped in her fright the night before; but in truth it was more for the
purpose of seeing the east wing of the old house by daylight--and that
skeleton.

"No need for Lyddy to come in here and have a conniption fit, too,"
thought the younger sister, "through coming unexpectedly upon that Thing
in the case.

"And, my gracious! he might just as well have been the author of that
mysterious speech I heard. I should think he _would_ be tired of staying
shut up in that box," pursued the girl, giggling nervously, as she stood
before the open case in which the horrid thing dangled.

Light enough came through the cracks in the closed shutters to reveal to
her the rooms that the old doctor had so long occupied.

'Phemie closed the skeleton case and picked up her candle. Then she
continued her investigation of the suite to the third room. Here were
shelves and work-benches littered with a heterogeneous collection of
bottles, tubes, retorts, filters, and other things of which 'Phemie
did not even know the names or uses.

There was a door, too, that opened directly into the back yard. But this
door was locked and double-bolted. She was sure that the person, or
persons, whom she had heard talking the night before had not been in this
room. When she withdrew from the east wing she locked the green-painted
door as she had found it; but in addition, she removed the key and hid
it where she was sure nobody but herself would be likely to find it.

Later she tackled Lucas.

"I don't suppose you--or any of your folks--were up here last night,
Lucas?" she asked the young farmer, out of her sister's hearing.

"Me, Miss? I should say not!" replied the surprised Lucas.

"But I heard voices around the house."

"Do tell!" exclaimed he.

"Who would be likely to come here at night?"

"Why, I never heard the beat o' that," declared Lucas. "No, ma'am!"

"Sh! don't let my sister hear," whispered 'Phemie. "She heard nothing."

"Air you sure----" began Lucas, but at that the young girl snapped him up
quick enough:

"I am confident I even heard some things they said. They were men. It
sounded as though they spoke over there by the east wing--_or in the
cellar_."

"Ye don't mean it!" exclaimed the wondering Lucas, leading the way slowly
to the cellar-hatch just under the windows of the old doctor's workshop.

This hatch was fastened by a big brass padlock.

"Dad's got the key to that," said Lucas. "Jest like I told you, we have
stored vinegar in it, some. Ain't many barrels left at this time o' year.
Dad sells off as he can during the winter."

"And, of course, your father didn't come up here last night?"

"Shucks! O' course not," replied the young farmer. "Ain't no vinegar buyer
around in this neighborhood now--an' 'specially not at night. Dad ain't
much for goin' out in the evenin', nohow. He does sit up an' read arter
we're all gone to bed sometimes. But it couldn't be dad you heard up
here--no, Miss."

So the puzzle remained a puzzle. However, the Bray girls had so much to
do, and so much to think of that, after all, the mystery of the night
occupied a very small part of 'Phemie's thought.

Lyddy had something--and a very important something, she thought--on her
mind. It had risen naturally out of the talk the girls had had when they
first went to bed the evening before. 'Phemie had wished for a houseful
of company to make Hillcrest less lonely; the older sister had seized
upon the idea as a practical suggestion.

Why not fill the big house--if they could? Why not enter the lists in the
land-wide struggle for summer boarders?

Of course, if Aunt Jane would approve.

First of all, however, Lyddy wanted to see the house--the chambers
upstairs especially; and she proposed to her sister, when their morning's
work was done, that they make a tour of discovery.

"Lead on," 'Phemie replied, eagerly. "I hope we find a softer bed than
that straw mattress--and one that won't tickle so! Aunt Jane said we could
do just as we pleased with things here; didn't she?"

"Within reason," agreed Lyddy. "And that's all very well up to a certain
point, I fancy. But I guess Aunt Jane doesn't expect us to make use of
the whole house. We will probably find this west wing roomy enough for
our needs, even when father comes."

They ventured first up the stairs leading to the rooms in this wing.
There were two nice ones here and a wide hall with windows overlooking
the slope of the mountainside toward Bridleburg. They could see for miles
the winding road up which they had climbed the day before.

"Yes, this wing will do very nicely for _us_," Lyddy said, thinking aloud.
"We can make that room downstairs where we're sleeping, our sitting-room
when it comes warm weather; and that will give us all the rest of the
house----"

"All but the old doctor's offices," suggested 'Phemie, doubtfully. "There
are three of them."

"Well," returned Lyddy, "three and four are seven; and seven from
twenty-two leaves fifteen. Some of the first-floor rooms we'll have to
use as dining and sitting-rooms for the boarders----"

"My goodness me!" exclaimed her sister, again breaking in upon her
ruminations. "You've got the house full of boarders already; have you?
What will Aunt Jane say?"

"That we'll find out. But there ought to be at least twelve rooms to let.
If there's as much furniture and stuff in all as there is in these----"

"But how'll we ever get the boarders? And how'd we cook for 'em over that
open fire? It's ridiculous!" declared 'Phemie.

"_That_ is yet to be proved," returned her sister, unruffled.

They pursued their investigation through the second-floor rooms. There
were eight of them in the main part of the house and two in the east wing
over the old doctor's offices. The last two were only partially furnished
and had been used in their grandfather's day more for "lumber rooms"
than aught else. It was evident that Dr. Phelps had demanded quiet and
freedom in his own particular wing of Hillcrest.

But the eight rooms in the main part of the house on this second floor
were all of good size, well lighted, and completely furnished. Some of
them had probably not been slept in for fifty years, for when the girls'
mother, and even Aunt Jane, were young, Dr. Apollo Phelps's immediate
family was not a large one.

"The furniture is all old-fashioned, it is true," Lyddy said,
reflectively. "There isn't a metal bed in the whole house----"

"And I had just as lief sleep in a coffin as in some of these high-headed
carved walnut bedsteads," declared 'Phemie.

"You don't have to sleep in them," responded her sister, quietly. "But
some people would think it a privilege to do so."

"They can have _my_ share, and no charge," sniffed the younger girl. "That
bed downstairs is bad enough. And what would we do for mattresses? That's
_one_ antique they wouldn't stand for--believe me! Straw beds, indeed!"

"We'll see about that. We might get some cheap elastic-felt mattresses,
one at a time, as we needed them."

"And springs?"

"Some of the bedsteads are roped like the one we sleep on. Others have
old-fashioned spiral springs--and there are no better made to-day. The
rust can be cleaned off and they can be painted."

"I see plainly you're laying out a lot of work for us," sighed 'Phemie.

"Well, we've got to work to live," responded her sister, briskly.

"Ya-as," drawled 'Phemie, in imitation of Lucas Pritchett. "But I don't
want to feel as though I was just living to work!"

"Lazybones!" laughed Lyddy. "You know, if we really got started in this
game----"

"A game; is it? Keeping boarders!"

"Well?"

"I fancy it's downright hard work," quoth 'Phemie.

"But if it makes us independent? If it will keep poor father out of the
shop? If it can be made to support us?" cried Lyddy.

'Phemie flushed suddenly and her eyes sparkled. She seized her more sedate
sister and danced her about the room.

"Oh, I don't care how hard I work if it'll do all that!" she agreed. "Come
on, Lyd! Let's write to Aunt Jane right away."




CHAPTER X

THE VENTURE


But Lyddy Bray never made up her mind in a hurry. Perhaps she was inclined
to err on the side of caution.

Whereas 'Phemie eagerly accepted a new thing, was enthusiastic about it
for a time, and then tired of it unless she got "her second wind," as she
herself laughingly admitted, Lyddy would talk over a project a long time
before she really decided to act upon it.

It was so in this case. Once having seen the vista of possibilities that
Lyddy's plan revealed, the younger girl was eager to plunge into the
summer-boarder project at once. But Lyddy was determined to know just what
they had to work with, and just what they would need, before broaching the
plan to Aunt Jane.

So she insisted upon giving a more than cursory examination to each
of the eight chambers on this second floor. Some of the pieces of old
furniture needed mending; but most of the mending could be done with
a pot of glue and a little ingenuity. Furthermore, a can of prepared
varnish and some linseed oil and alcohol would give most of the well-made
and age-darkened furniture the gloss it needed.

There were old-style stone-china toilet sets in profusion, and plenty of
mirrors, while there was closet room galore. The main lack, as 'Phemie
had pointed out, was in the mattress line.

But when the girls climbed to the garret floor they found one finished
room there--a very good sleeping-room indeed--and on the bedstead in this
room were stacked, one on top of another, at least a dozen feather beds.

Each bed was wrapped in sheets of tarred paper--hermetically sealed from
moths or other insect life.

"Oh, for goodness sake, Lyd!" cried 'Phemie, "let's take one of these to
sleep on. There are pillows, too; but we've got _them_. Say! we can put
one of these beds on top of the straw tick and be in comfort at last."

"All right. But the feather bed would be pretty warm for summer use,"
sighed Lyddy, as she helped her sister lift down one of the
beds--priceless treasures of the old-time housewife.

"Country folk--some of them--sleep on feathers the year 'round,"
proclaimed 'Phemie. "Perhaps your summer boarders can be educated up to
it--or _down_ to it."

"Well, we'll try the 'down' and see how it works," agreed Lyddy. "My!
these feathers are pressed as flat as a pancake. The bed must go out into
the sun and air and be tossed once in a while, so that the air will get
through it, before there'll be any 'life' in these feathers. Now, don't
try to do it all, 'Phemie. I'll help you downstairs with it in a minute.
I just want to look into the big garret while we're up here. Dear me!
isn't it dusty?"

Such an attractive-looking assortment of chests, trunks, old presses,
boxes, chests of drawers, decrepit furniture, and the like as was set
about that garret! There was no end of old clothing hanging from the
rafters, too--a forest of garments that would have delighted an old clo'
man; but----

"Oo! Oo! Ooo!" hooted 'Phemie. "Look at the spider webs. Why, I wouldn't
touch those things for the whole farm. I bet there are fat old spiders up
there as big as silver dollars."

"Well, we can keep away from that corner," said Lyddy, with a shudder. "I
don't want old coats and hats. But I wonder what _is_ in those drawers. We
shall want bed linen if we go into the business of keeping boarders."

She tried to open some of the nearest presses and bureaus, but all were
locked. So, rather dusty and disheveled, they retired to the floor below,
between them managing to carry the feather bed out upon the porch where
the sun could shine upon it.

At noon Lyddy "buzzed" Lucas, as 'Phemie called it, about the way folk in
the neighborhood cooked with an open fire, and especially about the use
of the brick oven that was built into the side of the chimney.

"That air contraption," confessed the young farmer, "ain't much more real
use than a fifth leg on a caow--for a fac'. But old folks used 'em. My
grandmaw did.

"She useter shovel live coals inter the oven an' build a reg'lar fire on
the oven bottom. Arter it was het right up she'd sweep aout the brands
and ashes with long-handled brushes, an' then set the bread, an' pies,
an' Injun puddin' an' the like--sometimes the beanpot, too--on the oven
floor. Ye see, them bricks will hold heat a long time.

"But lemme tell ye," continued Lucas, shaking his head, "it took the _know
how_, I reckon, ter bake stuff right by sech means. My maw never could
do it. She says either her bread would be all crust, or 'twas raw in the
middle.

"But now," pursued Lucas, "these 'ere what they call 'Dutch ovens' ain't
so bad. I kin remember before dad bought maw the stove, she used a Dutch
oven--an' she's got it yet. I know she'd lend it to you gals."

"That's real nice of you, Lucas," said 'Phemie, briskly. "But what is it?"

"Why, it's a big sheet-iron pan with a tight cover. You set it right in
the coals and shovel coals on top of it and all around it. Things bake
purty good in a Dutch oven--ya-as'm! Beans never taste so good to my
notion as they useter when maw baked 'em in the old Dutch oven. An' dad
says they was 'nough sight better when _he_ was a boy an' grandmaw baked
'em in an oven like that one there," and Lucas nodded at the closet in
the chimney that 'Phemie had opened to peer into.

"Ye see, it's the slow, steady heat that don't die down till
mornin'--that's what bakes beans nice," declared this Yankee epicure.

Lucas had a "knack" with the axe, and he cut and piled enough wood to
last the girls at least a fortnight. Lyddy felt as though she could not
afford to hire him more than that one day at present; but he was going
to town next day and he promised to bring back a pump leather and some few
other necessities that the girls needed.

Before he went home Lucas got 'Phemie off to one side and managed to
stammer:

"If you gals air scart--or the like o' that--you jest say so an' I'll keep
watch around here for a night or two, an' see if I kin ketch the fellers
you heard talkin' last night."

"Oh, Lucas! I wouldn't trouble you for the world," returned 'Phemie.

Lucas's countenance was a wonderful lobster-like red, and he was so
bashful that his eyes fairly watered.

"'Twouldn't be no trouble, Miss 'Phemie," he told her. "'Twould be a
pleasure--it re'lly would."

"But what would folks say?" gasped 'Phemie, her eyes dancing. "What would
your sister and mother say?"

"They needn't know a thing about it," declared Lucas, eagerly. "I--I could
slip out o' my winder an' down the shed ruff, an' sneak up here with my
shot-gun."

"Why, Mr. Pritchett! I believe you are in the habit of doing such things.
I am afraid you get out that way often, and the family knows nothing about
it."

"Naw, I don't--only circus days, an' w'en the Wild West show comes,
an'--an' Fourth of July mornin's. But don't you tell; will yer?"

"Cross my heart!" promised 'Phemie, giggling. "But suppose you should
shoot somebody around here with that gun?"

"Sarve 'em aout jest right!" declared the young farmer, boldly. "B'sides,
I'd only load it with rock-salt. 'Twould pepper 'em some."

"Salt and pepper 'em, Lucas," giggled the girl. "And season 'em right, I
expect, for breaking our rest."

"I'll do it!" declared Lucas.

"Don't you dare!" threatened 'Phemie.

"Why--why----"

Lucas was swamped in his own confusion again.

"Not unless I tell you you may," said 'Phemie, smiling on him dazzlingly
once more.

"Wa-al."

"Wait and see if we are disturbed again," spoke the girl, more kindly.
"I really am obliged to you, Lucas; but I couldn't hear of your watching
under our windows these cold nights--and, of course, it wouldn't be proper
for us to let you stay in the house."

"Wa-al," agreed the disappointed youth. "But if ye need me, ye'll let me
know?"

"Sure pop!" she told him, and was only sorry when he was gone that
she could not tell Lyddy all about it, and give her older sister "an
imitation" of Lucas as a cavalier.

The girls wrote the letter to Aunt Jane that evening and the next morning
they watched for the rural mail-carrier, who came along the highroad, past
the end of their lane, before noon.

He brought a letter from Aunt Jane for Lyddy, and he was ready to stop and
gossip with the girls who had so recently come to Hillcrest Farm.

"I'm glad to see some life about the old doctor's house again," declared
the man. "I can remember Dr. Polly--everybody called him that--right
well. He was a queer customer some ways--brusk, and sort of rough. But he
was a good deal like a chestnut burr. His outside was his worst side.
He didn't have no soothing bedside mannerisms; but if a feller was real
_sick_, it was a new lease of life to jest have the old doctor come inter
the room!"

It made the girls happy and proud to have people speak this way of their
grandfather.

"He warn't a man who didn't make enemies," ruminated the mail-carrier.
"He was too strong a man not to be well hated in certain quarters. He
warn't pussy-footed. What he meant he said out square and straight, an'
when he put his foot down he put it down emphatic. Yes, sir!

"But he had a sight more friends than enemies when he died. And lots o'
folks that thought they hated Dr. Polly could look back--when he was dead
and gone--an' see how he'd done 'em many a kind turn unbeknownst to 'em
at the time.

"Why," rambled on the mail-carrier, "I was talkin' to Jud Spink in Birch's
store only las' night. Jud ain't been 'round here for some time before,
an' suthin' started talk about the old doctor. Jud, of course, sailed
inter him."

"Why?" asked 'Phemie, trying to appear interested, while Lyddy swiftly
read her letter.

"Oh, I reckon you two gals--bein' only granddaughters of the old
doctor--never heard much about Jud Spink--Lemuel Judson Spink he calls
hisself now, an' puts a 'professor' in front of his name, too."

"Is he a professor?" asked 'Phemie.

"I dunno. He's been a good many things. Injun doctor--actor--medicine
show fakir--patent medicine pedlar; and now he owns 'Diamond Grits'--the
greatest food on airth, _he_ claims, an' I tell him it's great all right,
for man _an'_ beast!" and the mail-carrier went off into a spasm of
laughter over his own joke.

"Diamond Grits is a breakfast food," chuckled 'Phemie. "Do you s'pose
horses would eat it, too?"

"Mine will," said the mail-carrier. "Jud sent me a case of Grits and I
fed most of it to this critter. Sassige an' buckwheats satisfy me better
of a mornin', an' I dunno as this hoss has re'lly been in as good shape
since I give it the Grits.

"Wa-al, Jud's as rich as cream naow; but the old doctor took him as a boy
out o' the poorhouse."

"And yet you say he talks against grandfather?" asked 'Phemie, rather
curious.

"Ain't it just like folks?" pursued the man, shaking his head. "Yes, sir!
Dr. Polly took Jud Spink inter his fam'bly and might have made suthin' of
him; but Jud ran away with a medicine show----"

"He's made a rich man of himself, you say?" questioned 'Phemie.

"Ya-as," admitted the mail-carrier. "But everybody respected the old
doctor, an' nobody respects Jud Spink--they respect his money.

"Las' night Jud says the old doctor was as close as a clam with the
lockjaw, an' never let go of a dollar till the eagle screamed for marcy.
But he done a sight more good than folks knowed about--till after he
died. An' d'ye know the most important clause in his will, Miss?"

"In grandfather's will?"

"Ya-as. It was the instructions to his execketer to give a receipted
bill to ev'ry patient of his that applied for the same, free gratis for
nothin'! An' lemme tell ye," added the mail-carrier, preparing to drive
on again, "there was some folks on both sides o' this ridge that was
down on the old doctor's books for sums they could never hope to pay."

As he started off 'Phemie called after him, brightly:

"I'm obliged to you for telling me what you have about grandfather."

"Beginning to get interested in neighborhood gossip already; are you?"
said her sister, when 'Phemie joined her, and they walked back up the lane.

"I believe I am getting interested in everything folks can tell us about
grandfather. In his way, Lyddy, Dr. Apollo Phelps must have been a great
man."

"I--I always had an idea he was a little _queer_," confessed Lyddy. "His
name you know, and all----"

"But people really _loved_ him. He helped them. He gave unostentatiously,
and he must have been a very, very good doctor. I--I wonder what Aunt Jane
meant by saying that grandfather used to say there were curative waters on
the farm?"

"I haven't the least idea," replied Lyddy. "Sulphur spring, perhaps--nasty
stuff to drink. But listen here to what Aunt Jane says about father."

"He's better?" cried 'Phemie.

The older girl's tone was troubled. "I can't make out that he is," she
said, slowly, and then she began to read Aunt Jane's disjointed account
of her visit the day before to the hospital:

                     *       *       *       *       *

"I never _do_ like to go to such places, girls; they smell so of ether,
and arniky, and collodion, and a whole lot of other unpleasant things. I
wonder what makes drugs so nasty to smell of?

"But, anyhow, I seen your father. John Bray is a sick man. Maybe he don't
know it himself, but the doctors know it, and you girls ought to know
it. I'm plain-spoken, and there isn't any use in making you believe he is
on the road to recovery when he's going just the other way.

"This head-doctor here, says he has no chance at all in the city. Of
course, for me, if I was sick with anything, from housemaid's knee to
spinal mengetus, going into the country would be my complete finish! But
the doctors say it's different with your father.

"And just as soon as John Bray can ride in a railroad car, I am going to
see that he joins you at Hillcrest."

"Bully!" cried 'Phemie, the optimistic. "Oh, Lyddy! he's bound to get well
up here." For this chanced to be a very beautiful spring day and the girls
were more than ever enamored of the situation.

"I am not so sure," said Lyddy, slowly.

"Don't be a grump!" commanded her sister. "He's just _got_ to get well
up here." But Lyddy wondered afterward if 'Phemie believed what she said
herself!

They finished cleaning thoroughly the two rooms they were at present
occupying and began on the chambers above. Dust and the hateful spiderwebs
certainly had collected in the years the house had been unoccupied; but
the Bray girls were not afraid of hard work. Indeed, they enjoyed it.

Toward evening Lucas and his sister appeared, and the former set to work
to repair the old pump on the porch, while Sairy sat down to "visit" with
the girls of Hillcrest Farm.

"It's goin' to be nice havin' you here, I declare," said Miss Pritchett,
who had arranged two curls on either side of her forehead, which shook
in a very kittenish manner when she laughed and bridled.

"I guess, as maw says, I'm too much with old folks. Fust I know they'll
be puttin' me away in the Home for Indignant Old Maids over there to
Adams--though why 'indignant' I can't for the life of me guess, 'nless
it's because they're indignant over the men's passin' of 'em by!" and
Miss Pritchett giggled and shook her curls, to 'Phemie's vast amusement.

Indeed, the younger Bray girl confessed to her sister, after the visitors
had gone, that Sairy was more fun than Lucas.

"But I'm afraid she's far on the way to the Home for Indigent Spinsters,
and doesn't know it," chuckled 'Phemie. "What a freak she is!"

"That's what you called Lucas--at first," admonished Lyddy. "And they're
both real kind. Lucas wouldn't take a cent for mending the pump, and
Sairy came especially to invite us to the Temperance Club meeting, at
the schoolhouse Saturday night, and to go to church in their carriage
with her and her mother on Sunday."

"Yes; I suppose they _are_ kind," admitted 'Phemie. "And they can't help
being funny."

"Besides," said the wise Lyddy, "if we _do_ try to take boarders we'll
need Lucas's help. We'll have to hire him to go back and forth to town
for us, and depend on him for the outside chores. Why! we'd be like two
marooned sailors on a desert island, up here on Hillcrest, if it wasn't
for Lucas Pritchett!"

The girls spent a few anxious days waiting for Aunt Jane's answer. And
meantime they discussed the project of taking boarders from all its
various angles.

"Of course, we can't get boarders yet awhile," sighed 'Phemie. "It's much
too early in the season."

"Why is it? Aren't _we_ glad to be here at Hillcrest?" demanded Lyddy.

"But see what sort of a place we lived in," said her sister.

"And lots of other people live hived up in the cities just as close, only
in better houses. There isn't much difference between apartment-houses
and tenement-houses except the front entrance!"

"That may be epigrammatical," chuckled 'Phemie, "but you couldn't make
many folks admit it."

"Just the same, there are people who need just this climate we've got here
at this time of year. It will do them as much good as it will father."

"You'd make a regular sanitarium of Hillcrest," cried 'Phemie.

"Well, why not?" retorted Lyddy. "I guess the neighbors wouldn't object."

'Phemie giggled. "Advertise to take folks back to old-fashioned times and
old-fashioned cooking."

"Why not?"

"Sleeping on feather beds; cooking in a brick oven like our
great-great-grandmothers used to do! Open fireplaces. Great!"

"Plain, wholesome food. They won't have to eat out of cans. No extras or
luxuries. We could afford to take them cheap," concluded Lyddy, earnestly.
"And we'll get a big garden planted and feed 'em on vegetables through
the summer."

"Oh, Lyddy, it _sounds_ good," sighed 'Phemie. "But do you suppose Aunt
Jane will consent to it?"

They received Aunt Jane's letter in reply to their own, on Saturday.

                     *       *       *       *       *

"You two girls go ahead and do what you please inside or outside
Hillcrest," she wrote, "only don't disturb the old doctor's stuff in
the lower rooms of the east ell. As long as you don't burn the house
down I don't see that you can do any harm. And if you really think
you can find folks foolish enough to want to live up there on the
ridge, six miles from a lemon, why go ahead and do it. But I tell you
frankly, girls, I'd want to be paid for doing it, and paid high!"

Then the kind, if brusk, old lady went on to tell them where to find many
things packed away that they would need if they _did_ succeed in getting
boarders, including stores of linen, and blankets, and the like, as well
as some good china and old silver, buried in one of the great chests in
the attic.

However, nothing Aunt Jane could write could quench the girls' enthusiasm.
Already Lyddy and 'Phemie had written an advertisement for the city
papers, and five dollars of Lyddy's fast shrinking capital was to be
set aside for putting their desires before the newspaper-reading public.

They could feel then that their new venture was really launched.




CHAPTER XI

AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE


It was scarcely dusk on Saturday when Lucas drove into the side yard
at Hillcrest with the ponies hitched to a double-seated buckboard.
Entertainments begin early in the rural districts.

The ponies had been clipped and looked less like animated cowhide trunks
than they had when the Bray girls had first seen them and their young
master in Bridleburg.

"School teacher came along an' maw made Sairy go with him in his buggy,"
exclaimed Lucas, with a broad grin. "If Sairy don't ketch a feller 'fore
long, an' clamp to him, 'twon't be maw's fault."

Lucas was evidently much impressed by the appearance of Lyddy and 'Phemie
when they locked the side door and climbed into the buckboard. Because of
their mother's recent death the girls had dressed very quietly; but their
black frocks were now very shabby, it was coming warmer weather, and the
only dresses they owned which were fit to wear to an evening function of
any kind were those that they had worn "for best" the year previous.

But the two girls from the city had no idea they would create such a
sensation as they did when Lucas pulled in the ponies with a flourish
and stopped directly before the door of the schoolhouse.

The building was already lighted up and there was quite an assemblage of
young men and boys about the two front entrances. On the girls' porch,
too, a number of the feminine members of the Temperance Club were grouped,
and with them Sairy Pritchett.

Her own arrival with the schoolmaster had been an effective one and she
had waited with the other girls to welcome the newcomers from Hillcrest
Farm, and introduce them to her more particular friends.

But the Bray girls looked as though they were from another sphere. Not
that their frocks were so fanciful in either design or material; but there
was a style about them that made the finery of the other girls look both
cheap and tawdry.

"So _them_ stuck-up things air goin' to live 'round here; be they?"
whispered one rosy-cheeked, buxom farmer's daughter to Sairy
Pritchett--and her whisper carried far. "Well, I tell you right now I
don't like their looks. See that Joe Badger; will you? He's got to
help 'em down out o' Lucas's waggin'; has he? Well, I declare!"

"An' Hen Jackson, too!" cried another girl, shrilly. "They'd let airy one
of us girls fall out on our heads."

"Huh!" said Sairy, airily, "if you can't keep Joe an' Hen from shinin'
around every new gal that comes to the club, I guess you ain't caught 'em
very fast."

"He, he!" giggled another. "Sairy thinks she's hooked the school teacher
all right, and that he won't get away from her."

"Cat!" snapped Miss Pritchett, descending the steps in her most stately
manner to meet her new friends.

"Cat yourself!" returned the other. "I guess you'll show your claws, Miss,
if you have a chance."

Perhaps Sairy did not hear all of this; and surely the Bray girls did
not. Sairy Pritchett was rather proud of counting these city girls as
her particular friends. She welcomed Lydia and Euphemia warmly.

"I hope Lucas didn't try to tip you into the brook again, Miss Bray,"
Sairy giggled to 'Phemie. "Oh, yes! Miss Lydia Bray, Mr. Badger; Mr.
Jackson, Miss Bray. And this is Miss Euphemia, Mr. Badger--_and_ Mr.
Jackson.

"Now, that'll do very well, Joe--and Hen. You go 'tend to your own girls;
we can git on without you."

Sairy deliberately led the newcomers into the schoolhouse by the boys'
entrance, thus ignoring the girls who had roused her ire. She introduced
Lyddy and 'Phemie right and left to such of the young fellows as were not
too bashful.

Sairy suddenly arrived at the conclusion that to pilot the sisters from
Hillcrest about would be "good business." The newcomers attracted the
better class of young bachelors at the club meeting and Sairy--heretofore
something of a "wall flower" on such occasions--found herself the very
centre of the group.

Lyddy and 'Phemie were naturally a little disturbed by the prominent
position in which they were placed by Sairy's manoeuvring; but, of
course, the sisters had been used to going into society, and Lyddy's
experience at college and her natural sedateness of character enabled
her to appear to advantage. As for the younger girl, she was so much
amused by Sairy, and the others, that she quite forgot to feel confused.

Indeed, she found that just by looking at most of these young men, and
smiling, she could throw them into spasms of self-consciousness. They
were almost as bad as Lucas Pritchett, and Lucas was getting to be such a
good friend now that 'Phemie couldn't really enjoy making him feel unhappy.

She was, indeed, particularly nice to him when young Pritchett struggled
to her side after the girls were settled in adjoining seats, half-way up
the aisle on the "girls' side" of the schoolroom.

These young girls and fellows had--most of them--attended the district
school, or were now attending it; therefore, they were used to being
divided according to the sexes, and those boys who actually had not
accompanied their girlfriends to the club meeting, sat by themselves
on the boys' side, while the girls grouped together on the other side
of the house.

There were a few young married couples present, and these matrons made
their husbands sit beside them during the exercises; but for a young man
and young girl to sit together was almost a formal announcement in that
community that they "had intentions!"

All this was quite unsuspected by Lyddy and 'Phemie Bray, and the latter
had no idea of the joy that possessed Lucas Pritchett's soul when she
allowed him to take the seat beside her.

Her sister sat at her other hand, and Sairy was beyond Lyddy. No other
young fellow could get within touch of the city girls, therefore, although
there was doubtless many a swain who would have been glad to do so.

This club, the fundamental idea of which was "temperance," had gradually
developed into something much broader. While it still demanded a
pledge from its members regarding abstinence from alcoholic beverages,
including the bane of the countryside--hard cider--its semimonthly
meetings were mainly of a literary and musical nature.

The reigning school teacher for the current term was supposed to take
the lead in governing the club and pushing forward the local talent.
Mr. Somers was the name of the young man with the bald brow and the
eyeglasses, who was presiding over the welfare of Pounder's District
School. The Bray girls thought he seemed to be an intelligent and
well-mannered young man, if a trifle self-conscious.

And he evidently had an element that was difficult to handle.

Soon after the meeting was called to order it became plain that a group
of boys down in the corner by the desk were much more noisy than was
necessary.

The huge stove, by which the room was overheated, was down there, its
smoke-pipe crossing, in a L-shaped figure, the entire room to the chimney
at one side, and it did seem as though none of those boys could move
without kicking their boots against this stove.

These uncouth noises interfered with the opening address of the teacher
and punctuated the "roll call" by the secretary, who was a small, almost
dwarf-like young man, out of whose mouth rolled the names of the members
in a voice that fairly shook the casements. Such a thunderous tone from
so puny a source was in itself amazing, and convulsed 'Phemie.

"Ain't he got a great voice?" asked Lucas, in a whisper. "He sings bass in
the church choir and sometimes, begum! ye can't hear nawthin' but Elbert
Hooker holler."

"Is _that_ his name?" gasped 'Phemie.

"Yep. Elbert Hooker. 'Yell-bert' the boys call him. He kin sure holler
like a bull!"

And at that very moment, as the bombastic Elbert was subsiding and the
window panes ceased from rattling with the reverberations of his voice,
one of the boys in the corner fell more heavily than before against the
stove--or, it might have been Elbert Hooker's tones had shaken loose the
joints of stovepipe that crossed the schoolroom; however, there was a
yell from those down front, the girls scrambled out of the way, the smoke
began to spurt from between the joints, and it was seen that only the
wires fastened to the ceiling kept the soot-laden lengths of pipe from
falling to the floor.




CHAPTER XII

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER


The soot began sifting down in little clouds; but the sections of pipe had
come apart so gently that no great damage was done immediately. The girls
sitting under the pipe, however, were thrown into a panic, and fairly
climbed over the desks and seats to get out of the way.

Besides, considerable smoke began to issue from the stove. One of the
young scamps to whose mischievousness was due this incident, had thrown
into the fire, just as the pipe broke loose, some woolen garment, or the
like, and it now began to smoulder with a stench and an amount of smoke
that frightened some of the audience.

"Don't you be skeert none," exclaimed Lucas, to 'Phemie and her sister,
and jumping up from his seat himself. "'Taint nothin' but them Buckley
boys and Ike Hewlett. Little scamps----"

"But we don't want to get soot all over us, Lucas!" cried his sister.

"Or be choked by smoke," coughed 'Phemie.

There was indeed a great hullabaloo for a time; but the windows were
opened, the teacher rescued the burning woolen rag from the fire with the
tongs and threw it out of the window, and several of the bigger fellows
swooped down upon the malicious youngsters and bundled them out of the
schoolhouse in a hurry--and in no gentle manner--while others, including
Lucas, stripped off their coats and set to work to repair the stovepipe.

An hour was lost in repairs and airing the schoolhouse, and then everybody
trooped back. Meanwhile, the Bray girls had made many acquaintances among
the young folk.

Mr. Somers, the teacher, was plainly delighted to meet Lyddy--a girl who
had actually spent two years at Littleburg. He was seminary-bred himself,
with an idea of going back to take the divinity course after he had taught
a couple of years.

But it suddenly became apparent to 'Phemie--who was observant--that Sairy
looked upon this interest of the school teacher in Lyddy with "a green
eye."

Mr. Somers, who allowed the boys and young men to repair the damage
created by his pupils while he rested from his labors, sat by Lyddy all
the time until the meeting was called to order once more.

Sairy, who had begun by bridling and looking askance at the two who talked
so easily about things with which she was not conversant, soon tossed
her head and began to talk with others who gathered around. And when
Mr. Somers went to the desk to preside again Sairy was not sitting in
the same row with the Bray girls and left them to their own devices for
the rest of the evening.

Lucas, the faithful, came back to 'Phemie's side, however. Some of the
other girls were laughing at Sairy Pritchett and their taunts fed her ire
with fresh fuel.

She talked very loud and laughed very much between the numbers of the
program, and indeed was not always quiet while the entertainment itself
was in progress. This she did as though to show the company in general
that she neither cared for the schoolmaster's attentions nor that she
considered her friendship with the Bray girls of any importance.

Of course, the girls with whom she had wrangled on the schoolhouse steps
were delighted with what they considered Sairy's "let-down." If a girl
really came to an evening party with a young man, he was supposed to
"stick" and to show interest in no other girl during the evening.

When the intermission came Mr. Somers deliberately took a seat again
beside Lyddy.

"Well, I never!" shrilled Sairy. "Some folks are as bold as brass. Humph!"

Now, as it happened, both Lyddy and the school teacher were quite ignorant
of the stir they were creating. The green-eyed monster roared right
in their ears without either of them being the wiser. Lyddy was only
sorry that Sairy Pritchett proved to be such a loud-talking and rather
unladylike person.

But 'Phemie, who was younger, and observant, soon saw what was the
matter. She wished to warn Lyddy, but did not know how to do so. And, of
course, she knew her sister and the school teacher were talking of
quite impersonal things.

These girls expected everybody to be of their own calibre. 'Phemie had
seen the same class of girls in her experience in the millinery shop.
But it was quite impossible for Lyddy to understand such people, her
experience with young girls at school and college not having prepared her
for the outlook on life which these country girls had.

'Phemie turned to Lucas--who stuck to her like a limpet to a rock--for
help.

"Lucas," she said, "you have been very kind to bring us here; but I want
to ask you to take us home early; will you?"

"What's the matter--ye ain't sick; be you?" demanded the anxious young
farmer.

"No. But your sister is," said 'Phemie, unable to treat the matter with
entire seriousness.

"Sairy?"

"Yes."

"What's the matter with _her_?" grunted Lucas.

"Don't you _see_?" exclaimed 'Phemie, in an undertone.

"By cracky!" laughed Lucas. "Ye mean because teacher's forgot she's on
airth?"

"Yes," snapped 'Phemie. "You know Lyddy doesn't care anything about that
Mr. Somers. But she has to be polite."

"Why--why----"

"Will you take us home ahead of them all?" demanded the girl. "Then your
sister can have the schoolmaster."

"By cracky! is that it?" queried Lucas. "Why--if you say so. I'll do just
like you want me to, Miss 'Phemie."

"You are a good boy, Lucas--and I hope you won't be silly," said 'Phemie.
"We like you, but we have been brought up to have boy friends who don't
play at being grown up," added 'Phemie, as earnestly as she had ever
spoken in her life. "We like to have _friends_, not _beaux_. Won't you
be our friend, Lucas?"

She said this so low that nobody else could hear it but young Pritchett;
but so emphatically that the tears came to her eyes. Lucas gaped at her
for a moment; then he seemed to understand.

"I get yer, 'Phemie," he declared, with emphasis, "an' you kin bank on
me. Sairy's foolish--maw's made her so, I s'pose. But I ain't as big a
fool as I look."

"You don't look like a fool, Lucas," said 'Phemie, faintly.

"You've been brought up different from us folks," pursued the young
farmer. "And I can see that we look mighty silly to you gals from the
city. But I'll play fair. You let me be your friend, 'Phemie."

The young girl had to wink hard to keep back the tears. There was "good
stuff" in this young farmer, and she was sorry she had ever--even in
secret--made fun of him.

"Lucas, you are a good boy," she repeated, "and we both like you. You'll
get us away from here and let Sairy have her chance at the schoolmaster?"

"You bet!" he said. "Though I don't care about Sairy. She's old enough to
know better," he added, with the usual brother's callousness regarding
his sister.

"She feels neglected and will naturally be mad at Lyddy," 'Phemie said.
"But if we slip out during some recitation or song, it won't be noticed
much."

"All right," agreed Lucas. "I'll go out ahead and unhitch the ponies and
get their blankets off. You gals can come along in about five minutes.
Now! Mayme Lowry is going to read the 'Club Chronicles'--that's a sort of
history of neighborhood doin's since the last meetin'. She hits on most
ev'rybody, and they will all wanter hear. We'll git aout quiet like."

So, when Miss Lowry arose to read her manuscript, Lucas left his seat and
'Phemie whispered to Lyddy:

"Get your coat, dear. I want to go home. Lucas has gone out to get the
team."

"Why--what's the matter, child?" demanded the older sister, anxiously.

"Nothing. Only I want to go."

"We-ell--if you must----"

"Don't say anything more, but come on," commanded 'Phemie.

They arose together and tiptoed out. If Sairy saw them she made no sign,
nor did anybody bar their escape.

Lucas had got his team into the road. "Here ye be!" he said, cheerfully.

"But--but how about Sairy?" cried the puzzled Lyddy.

"Oh, she'll ride home with the school teacher," declared Lucas, chuckling.

"But I really am surprised at you, 'Phemie," said the older sister.
"It seems rather discourteous to leave before the entertainment was
over--unless you are ill?"

"I'm sorry," said the younger girl, demurely. "But I got _so_ nervous."

"I know," whispered Lyddy. "Some of those awful recitations _were_ trying."

And 'Phemie had to giggle at that; but she made no further explanation.

The ponies drew them swiftly over the mountain road and under the white
light of a misty moon they quickly turned into the lane leading to
Hillcrest. As the team dropped to a walk, 'Phemie suddenly leaned forward
and clutched the driver's arm.

"Look yonder, Lucas!" she whispered. "There, by the corner of the house."

"Whoa!" muttered Lucas, and brought the horses to a halt.

The girls and Lucas all saw the two figures. They wavered for a moment
and then one hurried behind the high stone wall between the yard and the
old orchard. The other crossed the front yard boldly toward the highroad.

"They came from the direction of the east wing," whispered 'Phemie.

"Who do you suppose they are?" asked Lyddy, more placidly. "Somebody who
tried to call on us?"

"That there feller," said Lucas, slowly, his voice shaking oddly, as he
pointed with his whip after the man who just then gained the highroad,
"that there feller is Lem Judson Spink--I know his long hair and
broad-brimmed hat."

"What?" cried 'Phemie. "The man who lived here at Hillcrest when he was
a boy?"

"So they say," admitted Lucas. "Dad knew him. They went to school
together. He's a rich man now."

"But what could he possibly want up here?" queried Lyddy, as the ponies
went on. "And who was the other man?"

"I--I dunno who he was," blurted out Lucas, still much disturbed in voice
and appearance.

But after the girls had disembarked, and bidden Lucas good night, and the
young farmer had driven away, 'Phemie said to her sister, as the latter
was unlocking the door of the farmhouse:

"_I_ know who that other man was."

"What other man?"

"The one who ran behind the stone wall."

"Why, who was it, 'Phemie?" queried her sister, with revived interest.

"Cyrus Pritchett," stated 'Phemie, with conviction, and nothing her sister
could say would shake her belief in that fact.




CHAPTER XIII

LYDDY DOESN'T WANT IT


"Who is this Mr. Spink?" asked Lydia Bray the following morning, as they
prepared for church.

It was a beautiful spring morning. There had been a pattering shower
at sunrise and the eaves were still dripping, while every blade of the
freshly springing grass in the side yard--which was directly beneath
the girls' window--sparkled as though diamond-decked over night.

The old trees in the orchard were pushing both leaf and
blossom--especially the plum and peach trees. In the distance other
orchards were blowing, too, and that spattered the mountainside with
patches of what looked to be pale pink mist.

The faint tinkling of the sheep-bells came across the hills to the ears
of Lyddy and 'Phemie. The girls were continually going to the window or
door to watch the vast panorama of the mountainside and valley, spread
below them.

"Who _is_ this Mr. Spink?" repeated Lyddy.

Her sister explained what she knew of the man who--once a poorhouse
boy--was now counted a rich man and the proprietor of Diamond Grits,
the popular breakfast food.

"He lived here at Hillcrest as a boy, with grandfather," 'Phemie said.

"But what's _that_ got to do with his coming up here now--and at night?"

"And with Mr. Pritchett?" finished 'Phemie.

"Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Pritchett about it. They surely weren't after
vinegar so late at night," Lyddy observed.

But 'Phemie did not prolong the discussion. In her secret thoughts the
younger Bray girl believed that it was Cyrus Pritchett and Mr. Spink whom
she had heard about the old house the night she and Lyddy had first slept
at Hillcrest.

There was no use worrying Lyddy about it, she told herself.

A little later the roan ponies appeared with the Pritchett buckboard.
Instead of Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter, however, the good lady's
companion on the front seat was Lucas, who drove.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Lyddy. "I hope we haven't turned Miss Pritchett out
of her seat. Surely we three girls could have squeezed in here on the back
seat."

"Nope," said Mrs. Pritchett. "That ain't it, at all. Sairy ain't goin' to
church this mornin'."

"She's not ill?" asked Lyddy.

"I dunno. She ain't got no misery as I can find out; but she sartainly
has a grouch! A bear with a sore head in fly time would be a smilin'
work of Grace 'side of Sairy Pritchett ever since she come home from
the Temperance Club las' night."

"Oh!" came from 'Phemie.

"Why----She surely isn't angry because we went home early?" cried Lyddy.
"My sister, you see, got nervous----"

"I reckon 'taint that," Lucas hastened to say. "More likely she's sore
on me."

"'Tain't nawthin' of the kind, an' you know it, Lucas," declared his
mother. "Though ye might have driven 'round by the schoolhouse ag'in and
brought her home."

"Wal, I thought she'd ride back with school teacher. She went with him,"
returned Lucas, on the defensive.

"She walked home," said Mrs. Pritchett, shortly. "I dunno why. She won't
tell _me_."

"I hope she isn't ill," remarked the unconscious Lyddy.

But Lucas cast a knowing look over his shoulder at 'Phemie and the latter
had hard work to keep her own countenance straight.

"Well," said Mrs. Pritchett, more briskly, "ye can't always sometimes tell
what the matter is with these young gals. They gits crotchets in their
heads."

She kept up the fiction that Sairy was a young and flighty miss; but even
'Phemie could no longer laugh at her for it. It was the mother's pitiful
attempt to aid her daughter's chances for that greatly-to-be-desired
condition--matrimony.

The roads were still muddy; nevertheless the drive over the ridge to
Cornell Chapel was lovely. For some time the girls had been noting the
procession of carriages and wagons winding over the mountain roads, all
verging upon this main trail over the ridge which passed so close to
Hillcrest.

Lucas, driving the ponies at a good clip, joined the procession. Lyddy
and 'Phemie recognized several of the young people they had met the night
before at the Temperance Club--notably the young men.

Joe Badger flashed by in a red-wheeled buggy and beside him sat the buxom,
red-faced girl who had voiced her distaste for the city-bred newcomers
right at the start. Badger bowed with a flourish; but his companion's nose
was in the air.

"I never did think that Nettie Meyers had very good manners," announced
Mrs. Pritchett.

They overtook the schoolmaster jogging along behind his old gray mare.
He, likewise, bowed profoundly to the Bray girls.

"I am afraid you did not enjoy yourself last night at the club, Miss
Bray," he said to Lyddy, who was on his side of the buckboard, as Lucas
pulled out to pass him. "You went home so early. I was looking for you
after it was all over."

"Oh, but you are mistaken," declared Lyddy, pleasantly. "I had a very nice
time."

As they drove on Mrs. Pritchett's fat face became a study.

"And he never even asked arter Sairy!" she gasped. "And he let her come
home alone last night. Humph! he must ha' been busy huntin' for _you_,
Miss Bray."

Lucas cast oil on the troubled waters by saying:

"An' I carried Miss Lyddy and Miss 'Phemie away from all of 'em. I guess
_all_ the Pritchetts ain't so slow, Maw."

"Humph! Wa-al," admitted the good lady, somewhat mollified, "you _hev_
seemed to 'woke up lately, Lucas."

The chapel was built of graystone and its north wall was entirely covered
with ivy. It nestled in a grove of evergreens, with the tidy fenced
graveyard behind it. The visitors thought it a very beautiful place.

Everybody was rustling into church when they arrived, so there were no
introductions then. The pastor was a stooped, gray old man, who had been
the incumbent for many years, and to the Bray girls his discourse seemed
as helpful as any they had ever heard.

After service the girls of Hillcrest Farm were introduced to many of the
congregation by Mrs. Pritchett. Naturally these were the middle-aged, or
older, members of the flock--mostly ladies who knew, or remembered, the
girls' mother and Aunt Jane. Indeed, it was rather noticeable that the
young women and girls did not come forward to meet Lyddy and 'Phemie.

Not that either of the sisters cared. They liked the matrons who attended
Cornell Chapel much better than they had most of the youthful members of
the Temperance Club.

Some of the young men waited their chance in the vestibule to get a bow
and a smile of recognition from the newcomers; but only the schoolmaster
dared attach himself for any length of time to the Pritchett party.

And Mrs. Pritchett could not fail to take note of this at length. The
teacher was deep in some unimportant discussion with Lyddy, who was
sweetly unconscious that she was fanning the fire of suspicion in Mrs.
Pritchett's breast.

That lady finally broke in with a loud "Ahem!" following it with: "I
re'lly don't know what's happened to my Sairy. She's right poorly to-day,
Mr. Somers."

"Why--I--I'm sorry to hear it," said the startled, yet quite unsuspicious
teacher. "She seemed to be in good health and spirits when we were on our
way to the club meeting last evening."

"Ya-as," agreed Mrs. Pritchett, simpering and looking at him sideways.
"She seems to have changed since then. She ain't been herself since she
walked home from the meeting."

"Perhaps she has a cold?" suggested the teacher, blandly.

"Oh, Sairy is not subject to colds," declared Mrs. Pritchett. "But she
is easily chilled in other ways--yes, indeed! I don't suppose there is
a more sensitive young girl on the ridge than my Sairy."

Mr. Somers began to wake up to the fact that the farmer's wife was not
shooting idly at him; there was "something behind it!"

"I am sorry if Miss Sairy is offended, or has been hurt in any way," he
said, gravely. "It was a pity she had to walk home from the club. If I
had known----"

"Wa-al," drawled Mrs. Pritchett, "_you_ took her there yourself in your
buggy."

"Indeed!" he exclaimed, flushing a little. "I had no idea that bound me
to the necessity of taking her home again. Her brother was there with your
carriage. I am sure I do not understand your meaning, Mrs. Pritchett."

"Oh, I don't mean anything!" exclaimed the lady, but very red in the face
now, and her bonnet shaking. "Come, gals! we must be going."

Both Lyddy and 'Phemie had begun to feel rather unhappy by this time. Mrs.
Pritchett swept them up the aisle ahead of her as though she were shooing
a flock of chickens with her ample skirts.

They went through the vestibule with a rush. Lucas was ready with the
ponies. Mrs. Pritchett was evidently very angry over her encounter with
the teacher; and she could not fail to hold the Bray girls somewhat
accountable for her daughter's failure to keep the interest of Mr. Somers.

She said but little on the drive homeward. There had been something said
earlier about the girls going down to the Pritchett farm for dinner; but
the angry lady said nothing more about it, and Lyddy and 'Phemie were
rather glad when Hillcrest came into view.

"Ye better stop in an' go along down to the house with us," said the
good-natured Lucas, hesitating about turning the ponies' heads in at the
lane.

"Oh, we could not possibly," Lyddy replied, gracefully. "We are a thousand
times obliged for your making it possible for us to attend church. You
are all so kind, Mrs. Pritchett. But this afternoon I must plead the
wicked intention of writing letters. I haven't written a line to one of
my college friends since I came to Hillcrest."

Mrs. Pritchett merely grunted. Lucas covered his mother's grumpiness by
inconsequential chatter with 'Phemie while he drove in and turned the
ponies so that the girls could get out.

"A thousand thanks!" cried 'Phemie.

"Good-day!" exclaimed Lyddy, brightly.

Mrs. Pritchett's bonnet only shook the harder, and she did not turn to
look at the girls. Lucas cast a very rueful glance in their direction as
he drove hastily away.

"Now we've done it!" gasped 'Phemie, half laughing, half in disgust.

"Why! whatever is the matter, do you suppose?" demanded her sister.

"Well, if you can't see _that_----"

"I see she's angry over Sairy and the school teacher--poor man! But what
have we to do with that?"

"It's your fatal attractiveness," sighed 'Phemie. Then she began to
laugh. "You're a very innocent baby, Lyd. Don't you see that Maw Pritchett
thought--or hoped--that she had Mr. Somers nicely entangled with Sairy?
And he neglected her for you. Bing! it's all off, and we're at outs with
the Pritchett family."

"What awful language!" sighed Lyddy, unlocking the door. "I am sorry
you ever went to work in that millinery shop, 'Phemie. It has made your
mind--er--almost common!"

But 'Phemie only laughed.

If the Pritchett females were "at outs" with them, the men of the family
did not appear to be. At least, Cyrus and his son were at Hillcrest bright
and early on Monday morning, with two teams ready for plowing. Lyddy had
a serious talk with Mr. Pritchett first.

"Ya-as. That's good 'tater and truckin' land behind the barn. It's laid
out a good many years now, for it's only an acre, or so, and we never
tilled it for corn. It's out o' the way, kinder," said the elder Pritchett.

"Then I want that for a garden," Lyddy declared.

"It don't pay me to work none of this 'off' land for garden trucks," said
Cyrus, shortly. "Not 'nless ye want a few rows o' stuff in the cornfield
jest where I can cultivate with the hosses."

"But if you plant corn here, you must plant my garden, too," insisted
Lyddy, who was quite as obstinate as the old farmer. "And I'd like to have
a big garden, and plenty of potatoes, too. I am going to keep boarders
this summer, and I want to raise enough to feed them--or partly feed them,
at least."

"Huh! Boarders, eh? A gal like you!"

"We're not rich enough to sit with idle hands, and I mean to try and earn
something," Lyddy declared. "And we'll want vegetables to carry us over
winter, too."

Lucas had been listening with flushed and anxious face. Now he broke in
eagerly:

"You said I could till a piece for myself this year, Dad. Lemme do it up
here. There's a better chance to sell trucks in Bridleburg than there has
been. I'll plow and take care of two acres up here, if Miss Lyddy says so,
for half the crops, she to supply seed and fertilizer."

"Will--will it cost much, Lucas?" asked Lyddy, doubtfully.

"That land's rich, but it may be sour. Ain't that so, Dad? It won't take
so very much phosphate; will it?"

Cyrus was slower mentally than these eager young folk. He had to think
it over and discuss it from different angles. But finally he gave his
consent to the plan and advised his son and Lyddy how to manage the matter.

"You kin git your fertilizer on time--six or nine months--right here in
Bridleburg. That gives you a chance to raise your crop and market it
before paying for the fertilizer," he said. "You'll have to get corn
fertilizer, too, in the same way. But 'most ev'rybody else on the ridge
does the same. We ain't a very fore-handed community, and that's a fac'."

At noon Lyddy and 'Phemie talked over the garden project more fully with
Lucas. They planned what early seeds should be planted, and Lucas began
plowing that particular piece behind the barn right after dinner.

Lyddy had very little money to work with, but she believed in "nothing
ventured, nothing gained." She told Lucas to purchase a bag of potatoes
for planting the next day when he went to town, and he was to buy a few
papers of early garden seeds, too.

And when Lucas came back with the potatoes he brought a surprise for the
Bray girls. He drove into the yard with a flourish. 'Phemie looked out
of the window, uttered a scream of joy and surprise, and rushed out to
receive her father in her strong young arms as he got down from the seat.

How feeble and tired he looked! 'Phemie began to cry; but Lyddy "braced
up" and declared he looked a whole lot better already and that Hillcrest
would cure him in just no time.

"And that foolish 'Phemie is only crying for joy at seeing you so
unexpectedly, Father," said Lyddy, scowling frightfully at her sister
over their father's bowed head as they helped him into the house.

Lucas hovered in the background; but he could not help them. 'Phemie saw,
however, that the young farmer fully appreciated the situation and was
truly sympathetic.

The change in Mr. Bray's appearance was a great shock to both girls. Of
course, the doctor at the hospital had promised Lyddy no great improvement
in the patient until he could be got up here on the hills, where the air
was pure and healing.

Aunt Jane had come as far as the junction with him; but he had come
on alone to Bridleburg from there, and the agent at the station had
telephoned uptown to tell Lucas that the invalid wished to get to
Hillcrest.

"I'm all right; I'm all right!" he kept repeating. But the girls almost
carried him between them into the house.

"The doctors said you could do more for me up here than they could do for
me there," panted Mr. Bray, smiling faintly at his daughters, who hovered
about him as he sat before the crackling wood fire in the kitchen.

"And Aunt Jane never told us you were coming!" gasped Lyddy.

"What's the odds, as long as he's here?" demanded 'Phemie.

"Why, I shall soon be my old self again up here," Mr. Bray declared,
hopefully. "Now, don't fuss over me, girls. You've got other things to
do. That young fellow who brought me up here seems to be your chief cook
and bottle-washer, and he wants to speak to you, I reckon," for Lucas
was waiting to learn where he should put the potatoes and other things.

Mr. Bray knew all about the boarding house project and approved of it.
"Why, I can soon help around myself. And I must do something," he told
them, that evening, "or I shall go crazy. I couldn't endure the rest
cure." But it was complete rest that he had to endure for several days
after his unexpected arrival.

The girls gave up their room to their father, and went upstairs to sleep.
'Phemie had to admit that even _she_ was glad there was at last somebody
else in the house. Especially a man!

"But I never have thought to ask Mr. Pritchett about his being up here
with that Spink man last Saturday night," Lyddy said, sleepily.

"You'd better let it drop," advised 'Phemie. "We don't want to get the
whole Pritchett family down on us."

"What nonsense! Of course I shall ask him," declared her sister.

But as it happened something occurred the following day to quite put this
small matter out of Lyddy's mind. The postman brought the first letter in
answer to their advertisement. Lyddy was about to tear open the envelope
when she halted in amazement. The card printed in the corner included the
number of Trimble Avenue right next to the big tenement house in which the
Brays had lived before coming here to Hillcrest.

"Isn't that strange?" she murmured, and read the card again:

                    _Commonwealth Chemical Company_
                         _407 Trimble Avenue_
                             _Easthampton_

"Right from the very next door!" sparkled 'Phemie. "Don't that beat
all!--as Lucas says."

But Lyddy had now opened the letter and read as follows:

  "L. Bray, Hillcrest Farm, Bridleburg P. O.
    "Dear Madam:

  I have read your advertisement and believe that you offer exactly
  what my father and I have been looking for--a quiet, homelike
  boarding house in the hills, and not too far away for me to get
  easily back and forth. If agreeable, we shall come to Bridleburg
  Saturday and would be glad to have you meet the 10:14 train on its
  arrival. If both parties are suited we can then discuss terms.

                                    "Respectfully,
                                            "Harris Colesworth."

"Why, what's the matter, Lyd?" demanded her sister, in amazement.

But Lyddy Bray did not explain. In her own mind she was much disturbed.
She was confident that the writer of this note was the "fresh" young
fellow who had always been at work in the chemical laboratory right across
the air-shaft from her kitchen window!

Of course, it was quite by chance--in all probability--that he had
answered her advertisement. Yet Lyddy Bray had an intuition that if she
answered the letter, and the Colesworths came here to Hillcrest, trouble
would ensue.

She had hoped very much to obtain boarders, and to get even one thus early
in the season seemed too good to be true. Yet, now that she had got what
she wanted, Lyddy was doubtful if she wanted it after all.




CHAPTER XIV

THE COLESWORTHS


Mr. Bray fell in with the boarder project, as we have seen, with
enthusiasm. Although he could do nothing as yet, his mind was active
enough and he gaily planned with 'Phemie what they should do and how
they should arrange the rooms for the horde of visitors who were, they
were sure, already on their way to Hillcrest.

"Though Lyd won't show the very first letter she's received in answer to
our ad.," complained the younger sister. "What's the matter with those
folks, Lyddy? Do they actually live right there near where we did on
Trimble Avenue?"

"That was a loft building next to us," said their father, curiously. "Who
are the people, daughter?"

"Somebody by the name of Colesworth. The Commonwealth Chemical Company
office. It's about an old man to stay here."

"One man only!" exclaimed 'Phemie.

"With a young man--the one who writes--to come up over Sundays, I
suppose," acknowledged Lyddy, doubtfully.

"Goody!" cried her sister. "_That_ sounds better."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, 'Phemie!" chided Lyddy, with some
asperity.

But Mr. Bray only laughed. "I guess I can play 'he-chaperon' for all the
young men who come here," he said. "Your sister is only making fun, Lydia."

But Lyddy was more worried in secret about the Colesworth proposition
than she was ready to acknowledge. She "just felt" that Harris Colesworth
was the young man who had helped them the evening of the fire in the
Trimble Avenue tenement.

"He found out our name, of course, and when he saw my advertisement he
knew who it was. He may even have found out where we were going when
we left for the country. In some way he could have done so," thought
Lyddy, putting the young man's character before her mind in the very
worst possible light.

"He is altogether too persistent. I hope he is as energetic in a better
way--I hope he attends to his business as faithfully as he seems to attend
to _our_ affairs," continued Lyddy, bitterly.

"I don't suppose this idea of his father coming up here into the hills is
entirely an excuse for him to become familiar with--with _us_. But it
looks very much like it. I--I wonder what kind of a man old Mr. Colesworth
can be?"

Lyddy ruminated upon the letter she had received all that day and refused
to answer it right away. Indeed, as far as she could see, the letter did
not really need an answer. This Harris Colesworth spoke just as though
he expected they would be only too glad to meet him on Saturday with a rig.

"And, if it were anybody else, I suppose I would be glad to do so," Lyddy
finally had to admit. "I suppose that 'beggars mustn't be choosers'; and
if this Harris Colesworth isn't a perfectly proper young man to have
about, father will very quickly attend to _his_ case."

Really, Lyddy Bray thought much more about the Colesworths than her sister
and father thought she did. After being urged by 'Phemie several times she
finally allowed her sister to reply to the letter, promising to have a
carriage at the station for the train mentioned in Harris Colesworth's
letter.

Of course, this meant hiring Lucas Pritchett and the buckboard. Lucas was
at Hillcrest a good deal of the time that week. He got the garden plowed
and the early potatoes planted, as well as some few other seeds which
would not be hurt by the late frosts.

Mr. Bray got around very slowly; at first he could only walk up and down
in the sun, or sit on the porch, well wrapped up.

Like most men born in the country and forced to be city dwellers for
many years, John Bray had longed more deeply than he could easily express
for country living. He appreciated the sights and sounds about him--the
mellow, refreshing air that blew over the hills--the sunshine and the
pattering rain which, on these early spring days, drifted alternately
across the fields and woods.

With the girls he planned for the future. Some day they would have a
cow. There was pasture on the farm for a dozen. And already Lyddy was
studying poultry catalogs and trying to figure out a little spare money
to purchase some eggs for hatching.

Of course they had no hens and at this time of the year the neighbors
were likely to want their own setting hens for incubating purposes. Lyddy
sounded Silas Trent, the mail-carrier, about this and Mr. Trent had an
offer to make.

"I tell ye what it is," said the garrulous Silas, "the chicken business is
a good business--if ye kin 'tend to it right. I tried it--went in deep
for incubator, brooders, and the like; and it would have been all right
if I didn't hafter be away from home so much durin' the day.

"My wife's got rheumatiz, and she can't git out to 'tend to little chicks,
and for a few weeks they need a sight of attention--that's right. They'd
oughter be fed every two hours, or so, and watched pretty close.

"So I had ter give it up last year, an' this year I ain't put an egg in
my incubator.

"But if I could git 'em growed to scratchin' state--say, when they're
broiler-size--I sartainly would like it. Tell ye what I'll do, Miss. I'll
let ye have my incubator. It's 200-egg size. In course, ye don't hafter
fill it first time if ye don't wanter. Put in a hundred eggs and see how
ye come out."

"But how could I pay you?" asked Lyddy.

"I'll sell ye the incubator outright, if ye want to buy. And I'll take my
pay in chickens when they're broiler-size--say three months old."

"What do you want for your incubator?" queried Lyddy, thoughtfully.

"Ten dollars. It's a good one. And I'll take a flock of twenty
three-months-old chicks in pay for it--fifteen pullets and five cockerels.
What kind of hens do you favor, Miss Bray?"

Lyddy told him the breed she had thought of purchasing--and the strain.

"Them's fine birds," declared Mr. Trent. "For heavy fowl they are good
layers--and when ye butcher one of 'em for the table, ye got suthin' to
eat. Now, you think my offer over. I'll stick to it. And I'll set the
incubator up and show ye how to run it."

Lyddy was very anxious to venture into the chicken business--and here was
a chance to do it cheaply. It was the five dollars for a hundred hatching
eggs that made her hesitate.

But Aunt Jane had shown herself to be more than a little interested in
the girls' venture at Hillcrest Farm, and when she expressed the keys
of the garret chests and bureaus to Lyddy--so that the girl could get
at the stores of linen left from the old doctor's day--she sent, too,
twenty-five dollars.

"Keep it against emergencies. Pay it back when you can. And don't let's
have no talk about it," was the old lady's characteristic note.

Lyddy was only doubtful as to whether this desire of hers to raise
chickens was really "an emergency." But finally she decided to venture,
and she wrote off for the eggs, sending the money by a post-office order,
and Lucas brought up Silas Trent's incubator.

Friday night Trent drove up to Hillcrest and spent the evening with the
Brays. He set the incubator up in the little washhouse, which opened
directly off the back porch. It was a small, tight room, with only one
window, and was easily heated by an oil-lamp. The lamp of the incubator
itself would do the trick, Trent said.

He leveled the machine with great care, showed Lyddy all about the
trays, the water, the regulation of heat, and gave her a lot of advice
on various matters connected with the raising of chicks with the "wooden
hen."

They were all vastly interested in the new vocation and the evening passed
pleasantly enough. Just before Trent went, he asked:

"By the way, what's Jud Spink doing up this way so much? I seen him again
to-day when I came over the ridge. He was crossin' the back of your farm.
He didn't have no gun; and, at any rate, there ain't nothin' in season
jest now--'nless it's crows," and the mail-carrier laughed.

"Spink?" asked Mr. Bray, who had not yet gone to bed. "Who is he?"

"Lemuel Judson Spink," explained 'Phemie. "He's a man who used to live
here with grandfather when he was a boy--when _Spink_ was a boy; not
grandfather."

"He's a rich man now," said Lyddy. "He owns a breakfast food."

"Diamond Grits," added 'Phemie.

"He's rich enough," grunted Trent. "Rich enough so't he can loaf around
Bridleburg for months at a time. Been here now for some time."

"Why, could that be the Spink your Aunt Jane told me once made her an
offer for the farm?" asked Mr. Bray, thoughtfully.

"For Hillcrest?" cried 'Phemie. "Oh, I hope not."

"Well, child, if she could sell the place it would be a good thing for
Jane. She has none too much money."

"But why didn't she sell to him?" asked Lyddy, quite as anxious as her
sister.

"He didn't offer her much, if anything, for it."

"Ain't that like Jud?" cackled Trent. "He is allus grouching about the
old doctor for being as tight as the bark to a tree; but when it comes
to a bargain, Jud Spink will wring yer nose ev'ry time--if he can. Glad
Mis' Hammon' didn't sell to him."

"Perhaps he didn't want Hillcrest very much," said Mr. Bray, quietly.

"He don't want nothin' 'nless it's cheap," declared Trent. "He's picked up
some mortgage notes, and the like, on property he thinks he can foreclose
on. Got a jedgment against the Widder Harrison's little place over the
ridge, I understand. But Jud Spink wouldn't pay more'n ha'f price for a
gold eagle. He'd claim 'twas second-hand, if it warn't fresh from the
mint," and the mail-carrier went off, chuckling over his own joke.

Both Lyddy and 'Phemie forgot, however, about the curious actions of Mr.
Spink, or his desire to buy Hillcrest, in their interest in the coming
of the only people who had, thus far, answered their advertisement for
boarders.

Lucas met the 10:14 train on Saturday morning, and before noon he drove
into the side yard with an old gentleman and a young man on the rear seat
of the buckboard.

Before this the two girls, working hard, had swept and garnished the whole
lower floor of the big farmhouse, save the east wing, which was locked.
Indeed, Lyddy had never ventured into the old doctor's suite of offices,
for she couldn't find the key.

A fire had been laid and was burning cheerfully in the dining-room--that
apartment being just across the square side entrance hall from the
kitchen. Lyddy was busy over the cooking arrangements when the visitors
arrived, and 'Phemie was giving the finishing touches to the table in
the dining-room.

But Mr. Bray, leaning on his cane, met the Colesworths as they alighted
from the buckboard. Lucas drove away at once, promising to return again
with the team in time to catch the four-fifty train back to town.

Lyddy found time to peep out of the kitchen window. Yes! there was that
very bold young man who had troubled her so much--at times--while they
lived in Trimble Avenue.

He met Mr. Bray with a warm handshake, and he helped his father up the
wide stone steps with a delicacy that would have pleased Lyddy in anybody
else.

But she had made up her mind that Harris Colesworth was going to be a
very objectionable person to have about, and so she would not accept his
friendly attitude or thoughtfulness as real virtues. He might attract the
rest of the family--already 'Phemie was standing in the door, smiling and
with her hand held out; but Lyddy Bray proposed to watch this young man
very closely!




CHAPTER XV

ANOTHER BOARDER


Lyddy heard her sister and Harris Colesworth in the hall, and then in the
dining-room. The girls had not made a fire in any other room in the house.
It took too much wood, and the dining-room was large enough to be used as
a sitting-room "for company," too.

And with the fresh maple branches and arbutus decorating the space over
the mantel, and the great dish of violets on the table, and the odorous
plum branches everywhere, that dining-room was certainly an attractive
apartment.

The old-fashioned blue-and-white china and the few pieces of heavy
silverware "dressed" the table very nicely. The linen was yellow with
age, but every glass and spoon shone.

The sun streamed warmly in at the windows, the view from which was lovely.
Lyddy heard the appreciative remarks of the young man as 'Phemie ushered
him in.

But she ran out to greet the old gentleman. The elder Colesworth was sixty
or more--a frail, scholarly-looking man, with a winning smile. He, like
Mr. Bray, leaned on a cane; but Mr. Bray was at least fifteen years Mr.
Colesworth's junior.

"So _you_ are 'L. Bray'; are you?" asked the old gentleman, shaking hands
with her. "You are the elder daughter and head of the household, your
father tells me."

"I am older than 'Phemie--yes," admitted Lyddy, blushing. "But we have
no 'head' here. I do my part of the work, and she does hers."

"And, please God," said Mr. Bray, earnestly, "I shall soon be able to do
mine."

"Work is the word, then!" cried the old gentleman. "I tell Harris that's
all that is the matter with me. I knocked off work too early. 'Retired,'
they call it. But it doesn't pay--it doesn't pay."

"There will be plenty for you to do up here, Mr. Colesworth," suggested
Lyddy, laughing. "We'll let you chop your own wood, if you like. But
perhaps picking flowers for the table will be more to your taste--at
first."

"I don't know--I don't know," returned the old gentleman. "I was brought
up on a farm. I used to know how to swing an axe. And I can remember yet
how I hated a buck-saw."

They went into the house; but Lyddy slipped back to the kitchen and
allowed her father to follow Harris Colesworth and 'Phemie, with the old
gentleman, into the dining-room.

'Phemie soon came out to help, leaving their father to entertain the
visitors while dinner was being served. Lyddy had prepared a simple meal,
of which the staple was the New England standby--baked beans.

She had been up before light, had built a huge fire in the brick oven,
had heated it to a high temperature, and had then baked her pies, a huge
pan of gingerbread, her white bread, and potatoes for dinner. She had
steamed her "brown loaf" in a kettle hanging from the crane, and the
sealed beanpot had been all night in the ashes on the hearth, the right
"finish" being given in the brick oven as it gradually cooled off.

The girl had had wonderfully good luck with her baking. The bread was
neither "all crust" nor was it dough in the middle. The pies were flaky
as to crust and the apples which filled them were tender.

When Lyddy brought in the beanpot, wrapped in a blue and white towel to
retain the heat, she met Harris Colesworth for the first time. To her
surprise he did not attempt to appear amazed to see her.

"Miss Bray!" he cried, coming forward to shake hands with her. "I have
been telling your father that we are already acquainted. But I never _did_
expect to see you again when you sold out and went away from Trimble
Avenue that morning."

"Shows how small the world is," said Mr. Bray, smiling. "We lived
right beside the building in which Mr. Colesworth works, and he saw
our advertisement in the paper----"

"Oh, I was sure it was Miss Bray," interrupted young Colesworth, openly
acknowledging his uncalled-for interest (so Lyddy expressed it to herself)
in their affairs.

"You see," said this very frank young man, "I knew your name was Bray.
And I knew you were going into the country for Mr. Bray's health. I--I
even asked at the hospital about you several times," he added, flushing
a little.

"How very kind!" murmured Lyddy, but without looking at him, as 'Phemie
brought in some of the other dishes.

"Not at all; I was interested," said the young man, laughing. "You always
were afraid of getting acquainted with me when I used to watch you working
about your kitchen. But now, Miss Bray, if father decides to come out
here to board with you, you'll just _have_ to be acquainted with me."

Mr. Bray laughed at this, and 'Phemie giggled. Lyddy's face was a study.
It did seem impossible to keep this very presuming young man at a proper
distance.

But they gathered around the table then, and Lyddy had another reason for
blushing. The visitors praised her cooking highly, and when they learned
of the old-fashioned means by which the cooking was done, their wonder
grew.

And Lyddy deserved some praise, that was sure. The potatoes came out of
their crisp skins as light as feathers. The thickened pork gravy that
went with them was something Mr. Colesworth the elder declared he had
not tasted since he was a boy.

And when the beans were ladled from the pot--brown, moist, every bean
firm in its individual jacket, but seasoned through and through--the
Colesworths fairly reveled in them. The fresh bread and good butter,
and the flaky wedges of apple pie, each flanked by its pilot of cheese,
were likewise enjoyed.

"If you can put us up only half comfortably," declared the elder
Colesworth, bowing to Lyddy, "I can tell you right now, young lady, that
we will stay. Let us see your rooms, we will come to terms, and then
I'll take a nap, if you will allow me. I need it after this heavy dinner.
Why, Harris! I haven't eaten so heartily for months."

"Never saw you sail into the menu with any more enjoyment, Dad," declared
his son, in delight.

But Lyddy made her sister show them over the house. They were some time in
making up their minds regarding the choice of apartments; but finally
they decided upon one of the large rooms the girls proposed making over
into bed-chambers on the ground floor. This room was nearest the east
wing, had long windows opening upon the side porch, and with the two small
beds removed from the half-furnished rooms on the second floor of the
east wing, and brought downstairs, together with one or two other pieces
of furniture, the Colesworths declared themselves satisfied with the
accommodations.

Young Colesworth would come out on Saturdays and return Monday mornings.
He would arrange with Lucas to drive him back and forth. And the old
gentleman would come out, bag and baggage, on the coming Monday to take
possession of the room.

To bind the bargain Harris handed Lyddy fifteen dollars, and asked for a
receipt. Fifteen dollars a week! Lyddy had scarcely dared ask for it--had
done so with fear and trembling, in fact. But the Colesworths seemed to
consider it quite within reason.

"Oh, 'Phemie!" gasped Lyddy, hugging her sister tight out in the kitchen.
"Just think of _fifteen dollars_ coming in every week. Why! we can all
_live_ on that!"

"M--m; yes," said 'Phemie, ruminatively. "But hasn't he a handsome nose?"

"Who--what---- 'Phemie Bray! haven't you anything else in your head but
young men's noses?" cried her sister, in sudden wrath.

But it was a beginning. They had really "got into business," as their
father said that night at the supper table.

"I only fear that the work will be too much for us," he observed.

"For 'Phemie and me, you mean, Father," said Lyddy, firmly. "You are
not to work. You're to get well. _That_ is your business--and your only
business."

"You girls will baby me to death!" cried Mr. Bray, wiping his eyes. "I
refuse to be laid on the shelf. I hope I am not useless----"

"My goodness me! Far from it," cried 'Phemie. "But you'll be lots more
help to us when you are perfectly well and strong again."

"There'll be plenty you can do without taxing your strength--and without
keeping you indoors," Lyddy added. "Just think if we get the chicken
business started. You can do all of that--after the biddies are hatched."

"I feel so much better already, girls," declared their father, gravely,
"that I am sure I shall have a giant's strength before fall."

Aunt Jane had written them, however, certain advice which the doctor at
the hospital had given to her regarding Mr. Bray. He was to be discouraged
from performing any heavy tasks of whatsoever nature, and his diet was
to consist mainly of milk and eggs--tissue-building fuel for the system.

He had worked so long in the hat shop that his lungs were in a weakened
state, if not actually affected. For months they would have to watch him
carefully. And to return to his work in the city would be suicidal.

Therefore were Lyddy and 'Phemie more than ever anxious to make the
boarders' project pay. And with the Colesworths' fifteen dollars a week
it seemed as though a famous start had been made in that direction.

By serving simple food, plainly cooked, Lyddy was confident that she could
keep the table for all five from the board paid by Mr. Colesworth and
his son. If they got other boarders, a goodly share of _their_ weekly
stipends could be added on the profit side of the ledger.

Lucas helped them for a couple of hours Monday morning, and the girls
managed to put the room the newcomers had chosen into readiness for the
old gentleman. Lucas drove to town to meet Mr. Colesworth. Lucas was
beginning to make something out of the Bray girls' project, too, and he
grinned broadly as he said to 'Phemie:

"I'm goin' to be able to put up for a brand new buggy nex' fall, Miss
'Phemie--a better one than Joe Badger's got. What 'twixt this cartin'
boarders over the roads, and makin' Miss Lyddy's garden, I'm going to be
well fixed."

"On the road to be a millionaire; are you, Lucas?" suggested 'Phemie,
laughing.

"Nope. Jest got one object in view," grinned Lucas.

"What's that?"

"I wanter drive you to church in my new buggy, and make Joe Badger an'
that Nettie Meyers look like thirty cents. That's what _I_ want."

"Oh, Lucas! _That_ isn't a very high ambition," she cried.

"But it's goin' to give me an almighty lot of satisfaction," declared the
young farmer. "You won't go back on me; will yer, Miss 'Phemie?"

"I'll ride with you--of course," replied 'Phemie. "But I'd just as lief
go in the buckboard."

"Now _that_," said the somewhat puzzled Lucas, "is another thing that
makes you gals diff'rent from the gals around here."

Old Mr. Colesworth came and made himself at home very quickly. He played
cribbage with Mr. Bray in the evening while the girls did up the work and
sewed; and during the early days of his stay with them he proved to be a
very pleasant old gentleman, with few crotchets, and no special demands
upon the girls for attention.

He walked a good deal, proved to be something of a geologist, and pottered
about the rocky section of the farm with a little hammer and bag for hours
together.

As Mr. Bray could walk only a little way, Mr. Colesworth did most of his
rambling about Hillcrest alone. And he grew fonder and fonder of the
place as the first week advanced.

As far as his entertainment went, he could have no complaint as to that,
for he was getting all that Lyddy had promised him--a comfortable bed,
a fire on his hearth when he wanted it, and the same plain food that the
family ate.

The girls of Hillcrest Farm had received no further answer to their
advertisement, but the news that they were keeping boarders had gone
broadcast over the ridge, of course. Silas Trent would have spread this
bit of news, if nobody else.

But on Saturday morning, soon after breakfast, Mr. Somers's old gray mare
turned up their lane, and Lyddy put on a clean apron and rolled down her
sleeves to go out and speak to the school teacher.

"That's a very good thing ab

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