to swallow the laugh she was in the midst of.
“We was jes’ a-talkin’ about you,” said Bobby, with his most disarming smile.
“About me?” and the young fellow choked his engine.
“Yes, I was a-tellin’ – ”
But here Helen took her little brother in hand. Helen could usually manage him better than any of the others. She whispered some mysterious something to him which quickly sobered him.
“I don’t want you to think I am impertinent or interfering, but your little brother told me on the train coming out that your mother and father were both ill – ”
“Yes, I told him they were likely to die mos’ any time.”
“And I heard at the post-office at Preston, where I live, that you have rented the farm from the Misses Grant; also that those ladies were not expecting you until tomorrow – ”
“But I wrote we would be there today, Wednesday!” exclaimed Douglas.
“That doesn’t make a bit of difference to Miss Ella and Miss Louise Grant,” laughed the boy. “They never get anything straight because they discuss every subject so thoroughly that they are all mixed up before they get through. Anyhow, they did not meet you, and if you don’t think I am pushing or forward or something – ”
“Butinsky!” suggested Bobby, but Helen slipped her hand over his pert little mouth.
“Thank you for that word – butinsky – why, I should like the privilege of going after your mother and father and bringing all the luggage my car will hold.”
“Oh, you are too kind!” chorused the girls.
“Let me take all of you first to the farm.”
“We must go by Grantly to let the ladies know we are here,” suggested Douglas.
“They are both of them at the farm. I saw them as I came by.”
“Did you tell them we had come?”
“No! They were sure to let me know it was none of my business, and, as I was fully aware of the fact, I just drove on by, hoping to be of more service to you in this way.”
The girls and Bobby piled into the car assisted by the boy, who handed them in with pleasing gallantry. By adroit manœuvering he managed to get Nan in front, although the irrepressible did squeeze in, too.
“I must sit in front so I can poke out my arm. Maybe you is huntin’ a shover. I’m Dr. Wright’s shover in town an’ up’n the mountings. He don’t mind my having two jobs in off times when he ain’t a-needin’ me.”
“Well, then, I’ll employ you right now,” said Billy Sutton, solemnly.
“I think maybe it is in order for us to introduce ourselves,” said Douglas. “This is Helen Carter; and this, Nan; and this, Lucy; I am Douglas; and Bobby has already been noticed enough.”
Hands were shaken and then they started gaily off.
“It seems a long quarter of a mile from the station to the farm, but maybe it is because I am lazy,” said Nan, who was unfeignedly glad of a lift.
“Who said it was only a quarter of a mile? It is exactly three quarters.”
Two minutes brought them to the farm gate, where Billy deposited the occupants of the back seat. It was decided that Nan and Bobby were to go on to the station with their new friend and benefactor and explain him to Mr. and Mrs. Carter.
“Oh, Douglas, isn’t the place sweet? Lucy, don’t you like it?” asked Helen as they opened the big gate that led from the road into the lawn of their new abode.
“Great! It looks so romantical.”
“I was so afraid it wasn’t going to be as nice as we thought it was because the real estate agent was so glib and rattled on so he confused us. I was afraid he had hypnotized us into liking it. But it is lovely,” and Douglas breathed a great sigh of relief.
Indeed it was lovely; lovelier, I fancy, than the real estate agent dreamed. The lawn was spacious, with soft rolling contours and a few great trees, some of them centuries old. In the front a mighty oak stood guard at one corner and an elm at another. Nearer the house a straight young ash and a willow oak divided the honors. At one side of the quaint old house a great mock orange had established a precedent for mock oranges and grown into a tree, just to show what a mock orange is capable of when not confined to the limitations of a hedge. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted and because of careful pruning of lower branches it had grown like a huge umbrella with limbs curving out from the parent stem and almost touching the ground all around.
“What a grand place to play house and tell secrets!” thought Lucy, regretting that thirteen years old, almost fourteen, was too great an age to indulge in dolly tea parties.
A grove of gum trees glorified the back yard with their brilliant October foliage. There never was such a red as the gum tree boasts and these huge specimens were one blaze of color. The trunks had taken on a hoary tone that contrasted pleasantly with the warm tints of the leaves.
The yard contained about four acres enclosed by a fence that had been covered entirely by honeysuckle, and even then a few blossoms were making the air fragrant. In the back there were several rather tumble-down outhouses, but these, too, were covered with honeysuckle as though by a mantle of charity.
The house had been added to from time to time as the race of overseers had felt the need. These additions had been made with no thought of congruity or ornamentation, but since utility had been the ruling thought the outcome was on the whole rather artistic. The original house, built in the first years of the nineteenth century, had a basement dining-room, a large chamber over this and two small, low-ceilinged attic rooms. Later a shed room had been built at one side in the back, then a two-story addition had reared itself next to that with no apparent connection with the main house, not even a family resemblance. This two-storied “lean-to” was known always as “the new house,” although it had been in existence some threescore years. There were two rooms and two halls in this addition and it had a front porch all its own. The old house also boasted a front porch, with a floor of unplaned boards and posts of rough cedar. But who minds cedar pillars when Washington’s bower has done its best to cover them up? As for unplaned boards with cracks between: what a good place to sweep the dirt!
The green blinds were open all over the house and windows were raised. As our girls stood on the lawn drinking in the beauty and peace of the scene they heard loud and angry voices proceeding from the basement window.
“Louise Grant, you are certainly foolish! Didn’t I tell you they wouldn’t be coming down here yesterday? Here you have littered up this place with flowers and they will all be faded by tomorrow. I have told you a million times I read the letter that Douglas Carter wrote and she said distinctly she was coming on Thursday.” This in a loud, high, commanding tone as though the speaker was determined to be heard. “You needn’t put your hands over your ears! I know you can hear me!”
“That’s all right, Ella Grant,” came in full contralto notes; “just because they didn’t come yesterday is no sign they did not say they were coming that day. I read the note, too, and if you hadn’t have been so quick to burn it I guess I could prove it. Those flowers are not doing anybody any harm and I know one thing – they smell a sight better than that old carbolic you are so fond of sprinkling
