was very quiet for the rest of the day, but the next day, when they were camped near the river Avon just beyond the town of Wolfville, she said rather timidly to Jack:
“Do you suppose we could find out anywhere who owns the Godet house now?”
“Possibly; but why?”
“I’d just like to know.”
Her brother looked at her keenly before he said—“We can walk into town and see what information we can get, if you like.”
“Do you suppose the children would be safe if we left them?” looking up at him doubtfully.
“I think so. Priscilla must begin to take a little responsibility now. We’ll have plenty of time to get back before dinner time.”
While Desiré got ready, Jack issued instructions to the two children, closing with—“René, you’re to mind Priscilla; and Prissy, don’t go away from the wagon, or let René out of your sight.”
They had gone only a short distance when Desiré, who had looked back several times, said—“Jack, would you mind very much if I let you go on alone, and I went back?”
“No, of course not; don’t you feel well?” he inquired anxiously.
“Perfectly; but—Prissy is pretty young to be left with the wagon and the baby; and it isn’t as if you really needed me along.”
“I think they’re perfectly safe, but if you’d feel better about it, go back by all means,” said her brother kindly.
So Desiré returned to the children, and waited in a fever of suspense for Jack to come back. With one eye on the long road, and the other on her household, or rather wagonhold, duties, she was ready to drop everything and go to meet him as soon as his tall form appeared in the distance.
At full speed she dashed along the highway, raising quite a cloud of fine white dust, and fell into Jack’s arms outspread to stop her.
“Good work, Dissy! All our riding hasn’t made you forget how to run. Remember the races you and I used to have when we were little, on that smooth path running along the edge of the woods?”
“And the day you fell over a stone and had such a terrible nosebleed? How frightened I was!”
“We had lots of good times together when we were kids, didn’t we?” asked Jack, laying his arm affectionately across her shoulders.
“We surely did; but why say ‘when we were kids?’ We do now, too, only they are a different kind of times.”
“And a different kind of race,” added Jack, thoughtfully.
“Well, what did you do in town?” asked the girl, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer.
“I rambled about a bit first, asking a question here and there, and finally ended up at the house of Judge Herbine. He’s a fine old man, Desiré; you’d like him. As he is quite a story-teller, and very much interested in our affairs, it took some time to get the information I was after; but at last I succeeded in finding out that the house apparently belongs to no one. Some years ago a man from the States wanted to buy the site for a summer home, but when he investigated and found that there wasn’t a clear title to the property, he decided not to take it. I don’t really understand it, but it’s something about some papers that are missing, have been for years and years back. Nobody else wanted it, so—”
“We can take it ourselves,” concluded Desiré.
The boy stood stock still in the road, and looked at his sister in frank dismay.
“What on earth do you mean!” he asked.
“Just what I said. If it belongs to nobody, we, being the Godets’ descendants, can surely take it. Who’d have a better right?”
Jack looked more and more puzzled, as he said—“What would you do with it?”
“Do with it? Why, live in it, of course.”
The boy regarded her with such a worried look that she laughed outright.
“I’m perfectly sane, Jack. My plan is this. We’ll have to live somewhere during the winter; and if we board, we’ll use up all the money we make this summer. With this as our headquarters, during unpleasant weather we could make day trips as we planned, and send Prissy to school every day in Wolfville. Or possibly you could get some kind of a job in Windsor for the winter, and I could take charge of the wagon.”
“But nobody could possibly live in that cabin,” objected Jack, brushing away a persistently hovering bee. “It’s hopeless.”
“Indeed it isn’t hopeless. I agree with you that no one could live in it the way it is now, but with new floors and a couple of partitions, it would be fine. You admitted that the walls were stout, and the chimney perfect.”
“With help, I could put down floors—” began Jack half to himself, after a moment’s consideration. “We’ll have to think this out more carefully, though, and talk it over again.” And he added hurriedly as they got near the wagon, and Priscilla dashed out to meet them, “Don’t say anything yet before the children.”
The same afternoon Jack went again to town, and did not return until supper time. Priscilla was curious to know what he did there, but he gave such absurd answers to her questions that she finally gave up.
“I’m not ever going to ask you another question,” she announced.
“Not until next time,” teased Jack, ruffling up her hair.
“I suppose you are as curious as Prissy,” he said later on to Desiré, after the children were asleep.
August had come in with a cool wind from over Fundy, and after darkness fell, the chill was more noticeable; so Jack had built a small camp fire, and he and Desiré were sitting beside it on a pile of cedar boughs.
“Well, yes,” admitted Desiré. “I must confess that I am.”
“I went to see a young carpenter that the judge recommended to me—”
“About floors?” asked Desiré eagerly, twisting around so quickly to look directly into his face that the pile of boughs swayed threateningly.
“Look out, Dissy!” warned her brother. “You’ll have us both in the fire if you don’t sit still. Yes, about floors, and partitions.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s busy on one of the farms now, but when the crops are in he’ll do the work for us at a price that we can afford to pay. That is, I think we can if we do well for the rest of the summer.”
“Then we’ll just have to,” decreed Desiré, tossing a couple of pine cones into the fire.
“The judge is a good old scout. Seemed so interested in us that I told him what we were doing, or rather trying to do, and he was awfully keen about seeing the rest of you. So he’s coming out tomorrow to lunch—”
“Tomorrow!”
