The obliging operator at the telegraph office was almost at her wits’ end. She had never been besieged so early in the morning and required to send so many lengthy messages, nor have them come crowding one another so confusingly. The strange part of it all was that although they were intended for one person, a Mr. Ebenezer Stark of Boston, there were three persons telegraphing him.
One was a stout lady of exceedingly fashionable appearance and most peremptory manner. As seemed fitting the first reply of Mr. Ebenezer Stark was for her, and assured her that he would meet her at the wharf, with a carriage, upon the arrival of the first steamer out from Yarmouth. It also informed her that he had already sent her word by post—that letter could follow her home—of the dangerous illness of her mother and that she should make all possible haste. Thus far her message suited him exactly. He made no mention of their son nor did she. It went without saying that Monty would accompany his mother upon her return trip.
Judge Breckenridge was also an early riser. He had met Monty hurrying down the back street toward the little railway station and the office in its corner, and had greeted him with gay surprise:
“Heigho, lad! Whither so fast and so early?”
“Trying to get ahead of Mamma.”
“Why, Montmorency!” cried the gentleman, with an assumed sternness yet a twinkle in his eye.
“Fact. She’s on the road somewhere, but she had to wait for them to hitch up a rig first. Thinks she can’t walk these few blocks alone, I suppose, and didn’t suspect I could have escorted her. But ‘Lovey’ didn’t tell her his plans till he knows if he can carry them out. But I’m glad to see you. I didn’t want to do anything sort of underhand with you, you know. Say, Judge, does your invitation to go camping still hold good? After my looking such a muff and acting it?”
“Certainly. If your parents permit, I shall be glad to have you. I think that a few weeks’ association with men like my friends would give you a new idea of true manliness; and I can promise you to hear more good stories from the ‘Boys’ than you ever heard in your life.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m going to wire Papa to let me stay. What he says goes, even with Mamma. He lets her have her way about my school, and clothes and all that stuff, but he hasn’t ever quite let go of me himself. If it hadn’t been for Papa I’d be a bigger muff than I am now. Only he’s so awfully absorbed in business that he never takes avacation himself or does anything except pile up the cash and shove it out for Mamma to spend. Beg pardon, I’ve no business to tell you, or bother you, with our affairs. I only wanted to know in case he says ‘Yes.’”
They were almost at the end of their short walk and the Judge’s face lightened with a whimsical expression, as he answered:
“Well, Monty lad, muffs are mighty handy sometimes. I heard Lucretia say they wore them large last winter! If I take a muff into camp I shall expect it to add to the general comfort of the party. Ready to warm the heart of anybody who happens to get lonely or out of sorts.”
“This muff will do its duty, sir. You’ll see; if—”
He left his sentence unfinished and although his response was delayed till after Mrs. Stark’s had been received he did not complain of it, but smilingly handed it to the Judge to peruse.
His outward telegram had been:
“Papa, let me stay;” and the incoming one was: “All right. Stay.”
He did not inform his mother why he was there at the office so early and she did not inquire. She attributed it to his filial affection and was accordingly touched by it. She petted him as usual, and carried him back to the hotel in her phaeton, while she thrilled with satisfaction at the knowledge she could at last get away from a benighted region where no Sunday trains were run.
The Judge’s messages were last, and the longest. His outgoing one gave Mr. Ebenezer Stark a sketchy outline of his vacation plans, announced the gentlemen who would share it with him, and added a formal invitation for Montmorency to be of the party, if agreeable to the lad’s friends. Mr. Stark’s reply was heartily grateful, expressed his appreciation of the Judge’s courtesy and good nature in “loading himself with a boy of the calf age. A calf of good enough pedigree, but needed turning out to pasture away from the mother,” and a little more to that nature.
The rub came when trunks were being packed and Montmorency announced that his “things” needn’t be put in; except the “dudish” ones which he wouldn’t want in a vacation camp.
Mrs. Stark was so astonished that she was silent and during that interval her son talked and explained with a rapidity that left her no chance for reply. “Father says so,” was the final argument that clinched the matter; and she wisely refrained from further controversy, reflecting that “Father” might alter his opinion when she had met him and reported the true state of things. Then he would, of course, promptly recall his son and heir from a region so fraught with dangers and temptations as this Province.
Therefore, the parting was effected with less friction than Monty had anticipated, and he watched the train that bore his too-solicitous mother out of sight with a delight that, for the present, knew noregret. He was fully in earnest to “make a man” of himself, and felt that he would be better able to succeed if freed from the indulgence which had surrounded him from his cradle.
After allowing himself the relief of one “pigeon-wing” on the station-platform, he sprang up to the steps at the rear of the hotel stage which had brought departing guests to the train and hugged Tommy, perched there, till the little fellow squealed.
“Good enough, Tommy boy! I’m to rough it now to my heart’s content. Ever been hunting or fishing in the woods, younker?”
“Yep. Go most every year—that is, I’ve been once—with the Boss. He’s the best hunter anywhere’s around. It was him got all those moose and caribou heads that are in the lobby. Oh! you bet it’s cracky! I’m going this fall if—if I’m let, and my mother don’t make me go to school.”
“Mothers—Well, mothers have a bad way of spoiling a fellow’s fun, eh, lad? But after all, they’re a pretty good arrangement. I hope my mother’ll have a good trip over to Boston; and see? Look there?”
With that he pulled from his pocket a handful of silver, explaining that when she traveled Mrs. Stark always provided herself with a large quantity of “change” expressly for “tips,” and that she had generously handed the amount on to her son, since she was simply “going home” and wouldn’t need it.
“More in my suit-case, too, Tommy. But—I’mgoing to give it all away the minute I get back to the hotel.”
Tommy’s eyes almost bulged from his head, as he ejaculated in intense amazement:
“Younever!”
“Fact. I’m going to begin right now.”
Tommy nearly fell off the step. There in his own small hand lay the greater part of what had been in Montmorency’s, but he couldn’t believe in his own good fortune. Despite the tips he received at the hotel—they were neither many nor generous—master Thomas Ransom was a very poor little fellow. He held his position at the inn by the fact that he was willing to work “for his board” and whatever the guests might chance to bestow upon him. The landlord had the name of a “skin-flint,” whether justly or not the boarders didn’t know.
It was to his interest, however, to servethemwell and he did it; but it was rumored that the “help” fared upon the leavings of the guests’ plates, and in that atmosphere of healthy appetites such leavings were scant. Anyway, Tommy was always hungry, and the fact showed in his pinched, eager little face.
“You’re foolin’. Here ’tis back;” he finally gasped, extending his hand toward Monty with a pitiful attempt at a smile.
“Fooling? Not one bit. You put that where it’s safe, and the first chance you get run into the village to some restaurant and get yourself a goodsquare meal. Then go to the circus, if you want. I see by the placards that one is coming.”
“Oh! Pshaw! I don’t know what to say. But, if you do mean it, I ain’t going to no restaurant. I’m going home to my mother the first leave off I get and give it to her. She can’t make her rent hardly, sewing, and she’ll cook a dinner for me to the queen’s taste! Wish you’d come and eat it with us.”
“Wish I could,” answered Monty, with a warm glow in his heart. He hadn’t often had such a look of rapturous gratitude turned upon him and it gave him a most delightful sensation. “But you see we’re off by the afternoon train. Going to hurry along now till we get into camp. See you later, maybe.”
Then they were at the hotel entrance and master Tommy made haste to bestow his treasure in the safest place he knew until his brief hour of recreation should arrive and he could take it home. But how he worked that day! Even the keen-eyed proprietor could find no manner of fault with the nimble little fellow, who answered bells like a flash, so smilingly trotted about with pitchers of ice-water, and so regretfully watched the departure of the Breckenridge party from the house. And in justice to him be it said this regret was after all and most sincerely for the courteous treatment all of them had given him.
“Some folks—somefolks think a bell-boy hain’t no feelings, but I might ha’ been—Why, Imight ha’ beenthem, their own folks, so nice they all were to me;” thought the lad, watching the afternoon train bearing them all away, and secretly wiping the tears from his eyes. However, even for him, deserted as his childish heart felt then, there was comfort. The circus was coming to-morrow! It would be his day off and he had the money to pay for his ticket and one for Ma!
The train was nearing Wolfville where the travelers were to leave it for a brief visit to “Evangeline land” before proceeding to Halifax whence the campers would set out. Aunt Lucretia had checked off the various stations from her time-table and now announced:
“Better get your things together, everybody. Next stop will be ours.”
Then Montmorency Vavasour-Stark got his courage to the sticking point and went forward to where the Judge stood looking through the car door at the landscape whirling by.
“Judge Breckenridge will you do me a favor? Another one, I mean, for you’ve done a lot already.”
“Certainly, if it’s within my power.”
“It is, easy enough. I want you to take this and keep it for me. I want to actually give it away, or put it beyond my reach. I’ve been thinking it’s the boys without money that amount to something. I want to make myself poor and see if I’m worth ‘shucks’ aside from my father’s cash.”
He held out a fat pocketbook but, for a moment,the Judge did not appear to see it. He looked the lad critically over, his keen, but kindly eyes interested and yet doubtful. Then he said:
“I don’t like whimsies. A person who makes a resolution and doesn’t keep it weakens rather than strengthens his character. Have you the slightest idea what it means to be ‘poor,’ or even like Melvin back yonder, who has but a very small wage to use for his own?”
“I don’t suppose I have. But I’d like to try it during all the time I’m over here in the Province. What I mean is that you should pay all my necessary expenses just as you pay for the others; and beyond that I don’t want a cent.”
“Melvin will earn a little for his work in camp. He is to cook and do whatever is needed. There will be an Indian guide with us, and he, of course, will have his regular price per day, or week. Beyond these two helpers we ‘Boys’ will do everything else ourselves. It is our custom. I can’t hire you and pay you, as an extra. If that were done it would have to be by some other of the party and it’s not likely.”
The gentleman’s tone was more grave than the lad felt was necessary, but it made him reflect a little deeper himself. At last he again offered the purse, saying:
“I mean it. It’s my chance. The first one I ever had to see if I can deny myself anything. Please try me.”
“Very well, lad, and I congratulate you on thepluck that makes the effort. However—your last chance! Once made, once this pocketbook passes into my care it becomes mine for the rest of our stay together.”
“All right, sir. That’s exactly what I want.”
“Do you know how much is in it?”
“To a cent. And it’s a great deal too much for a good-for-nothing like me.”
“Don’t say that, Montmorency. I wouldn’t take a ‘good-for-nothing’ under my care for so long a time. You forget I already have a ‘muff’ on hand. I congratulate myself, this time, on having secured a ‘good-for-something.’ Ah! here we are!”
The Judge took the purse and coolly slipped it into his own pocket, merely adding:
“I will also count the contents and make a note of them as soon as I can. As your expenses have been paid by yourself until now we’ll begin our account from this moment. When we part company, soon or late, you shall have an itemized account of all that is used from your store.”
Then the conductor came through the car calling:
“Wolfville! All out for Wolfville!”
“Out” they were all, in a minute, and again the “Flying Bluenose” was speeding on toward the end of its route.
“This is the nearest, or best, point from which to make our excursion to Grand Pré and old Acadia, which our beloved Longfellow made famous by his poem. You’ll find yourselves ‘Evangelined’ onevery hand while you’re here. Glad it’s so pleasant. We won’t have to waste time on account of the weather.”
They found comfortable quarters for the night and longer if desired and were early to bed. The girls to dream of the hapless maid whose story thrilled their romantic souls; and Molly went to sleep with an abridged copy of the poem under her pillow.
Early in the morning she and Dorothy took a brisk walk through the pretty village and peered into the shop windows where, indeed, the name “Evangeline” seemed tacked to most articles of commerce. So frequently was it displayed that when they met a meditative cow pacing along the dewy street Molly exclaimed:
“I wonder if that’s Evangeline’s ‘dun white cow,’ whatever ‘dun white’ may be like. She looks ancient enough and—Oh! she’s coming right toward us!”
Molly was afraid of cows and instinctively hid herself behind Dolly, who laughed and remarked:
“Poor old creature! She looks as if she might have lived in the days of the Acadians, she’s so thin and gaunt. Yet the whole street is grass-bordered if she chose to help herself. But isn’t this glorious? Can you hardly wait till we get to Grand Pré? It’s only a few miles away and I’d almost rather walk than not.”
“You’ll not be let to walk, mind that. My father has had enough of things happening to us youngsters.I heard him tell Auntie Lu that none of us must be allowed out of sight of some of them, the grown-ups, till we were landed safe on that farm, and Auntie laughed. She said she agreed with him but she wasn’t so sure about even a farm being utterly safe from adventures. So we’ll all have to walk just niminy-piminy till then. We shouldn’t be here if Miss Greatorex hadn’t said she too wanted to ‘exercise.’ Now, she’s beckoning to us and we must turn back. Come away from staring over into that garden! That hedge of sweet-peas is not for you, honey, badly as you covet it!”
“All right, I’ll come. But I wish, I wish Father John could see them. I never saw any so big and free-blooming as they are in this beautiful Province.”
“It’s the moisture and coolness of the air, Auntie Lu says. Now, Miss Greatorex, do make Dolly Doodles walk between us, else she’ll never tear herself away from the lovely gardens we pass.”
But they were not late to breakfast, nevertheless. They had learned at last that nothing so annoyed the genial Judge as want of punctuality. He planned the hours of his day to a nicety and by keeping to his plans managed to get a great deal of enjoyment for everybody.
Already carriages to take them on the drive to Grand Pré and the old Acadian region had been ordered and were at the door when they had breakfasted and appeared on the piazza. The two girls were helped into the smaller open wagon whereMelvin sat holding the reins and visibly proud of the confidence reposed in him, and on the front seat of this the Judge also took his place. The ladies with Monty and a driver occupied the comfortable surrey; and already other vehicles were entering the hotel grounds, engaged by other tourists for the same trip.
Monty looked back with regret at the other young folks and longed to ask the Judge to exchange places; then laughed to himself as he remembered that it was no longer his place to ask favors—a penniless boy as he had become!
That was a never-to-be-forgotten day for all the party. No untoward incident marked it, but so well-known is the story of that region that it needs no repetition here. Of course they visited the famous well whence “Evangeline” drew water for her herd, and almost the original herd might have fed in the meadow surrounding it, so peaceful were the cattle cropping the grass there. They saw the “old willows” and the ancient Covenanter church, wherein they all inscribed their names upon the pages of a great book kept for that special purpose.
The church especially interested Dorothy, with its quaint old pulpit and sounding board, its high-backed pews and small-paned windows; and when she wandered into the old burying ground behind, with its periwinkle-covered graves, a strange sadness settled over her.
The whole story had that tendency and the talkof “unknown graves” roused afresh in her mind the old wonder:
“Where are my own parents’ graves, if they are dead? Where aretheyif they are still alive?”
With this in mind and in memory of these other unknown sleepers whose ancient head-stones had moved her so profoundly, she gathered from the confines of the field a bunch of that periwinkle, or myrtle which grew there so abundantly. Thrusting this into the front of her jacket she resolved to pack it nicely in wet moss and send it home to Alfaretta, with the request that she would plant it in the cottage garden. Then she rejoined the others at the gate and the ride was continued to another point of interest called “Evangeline Beach.” Why or wherefore, nobody explained; yet it was a pretty enough spot on the shore where a few guests of a near-by hotel were bathing and where they all stopped to rest their horses before the long ride home.
Dorothy was full of thoughts of home by then, and something in the color of the horse which had drawn her hither awoke tender memories of pretty Portia, now doubtless happily grazing on a dear mountain far away. With this sentiment in mind she stooped and plucked a handful of grass and held it under the nose of the pensive livery-nag.
But alas, for sentiment! Not the few blades of sea-grass appealed to the creature who, while Dorothy’s head was turned, stretched forth its own and pulled the myrtle from the jacket and was contentedlymunching it when its owner discovered its loss.
“Dolly Doodles, whatever are you doing?” cried Molly, running up.
“She’s got—he’s got my ‘Evangeline’ vines! I’m getting—what I can!”
Molly shouted in her glee and the rest of the party drew near to also enjoy. They had all alighted to walk about a bit and stretch their limbs, and now watched in answering amusement the brief tussle between maid and mare. It ended with the latter’s securing the lion’s share of the goodly bunch; but myrtle vines are tough and Dorothy came off a partial victor with one spray in her hand. It had lost most of its leaves and otherwise suffered mischance, yet she was not wholly hopeless of saving that much alive; and in any case the incident had banished all morbid thoughts from her mind, and she was quite the merriest of all during that long drive homeward to the hotel.
As they alighted Monty stepped gallantly forward and offered:
“When we get to Halifax I’ll buy you a slender vase and you can keep it in water till you go home yourself. Or I’ll send back to that graveyard and pay somebody to send you on a lot, after you get back to your own home.”
“Oh! thank you. That’s ever so kind, and I’ll be glad of the vase. But you needn’t send for any more vines. They wouldn’t be the same as this I gathered myself for darling Father John.”
“But you shall have them all the same. They’d be just as valuable to him if not to you and some of those boys that hung around the church would pack it for a little money. I’ll do it, sure.”
“Willyou, Montmorency?How?” asked a voice beside him and the lad looked up into the face of the Judge.
“No, sir, I won’t! I’ll have to take that offer back, Dorothy, take them both back,” and he flushed furiously at her surprised and questioning glance. It was the first test he had made of his “poverty” and he found it as uncomfortable as novel.
“Halifax! End of the line!”
The conductor’s announcement was followed by the usual haste and bustle among the passengers, the taking down of parcels from the racks overhead, and a general settling and straightening of travel-crushed garments.
This little preparatory freshening over, the travelers stepped into the car aisles and followed the rush forward; passing out into by far the most pretentious station they had seen in the Province. Lines of hackmen were drawn up alongside the rail which bordered the paved descent to the railway level, and a policeman in uniform held back the too-solicitous drivers from the arriving strangers, who looked about them, mostly, in doubt which vehicle to select:
“Here you are for the Halifax!” “Right this way for the Queen! Queen, sir? Queen, madam? Finest hotel in—” “Prince Edward! Right on the bluff—overlooking—” “King’s Arms! Carriage for the King’s Arms?”
To the rail and no further were these runners for their various employers permitted to go, yet even atthat few feet of safe distance their cries were so deafening and insistent that Dorothy clapped her hands to her ears and shut her eyes, lest she should grow too much confused.
But there was no hesitation about the Judge. His hotel was a familiar one, their rooms engaged long before; and by a nod he summoned the ’bus of that house, marshalled his party into it, handed the runner his baggage checks, and they rolled away through the streets of the oldest city in the Province.
Just then it was gay with illimitable decorations of bunting and flags, in honor of the visit of the Viceroy of Canada and his consort, due upon the morrow.
“Oh, Papa, did they know we were coming?” mischievously inquired Molly, as vista after vista of red and blue and white unrolled before her eager eyes. “I never saw anything like it! Even at our home Carnival there wasn’t anything to compare.”
“That’s Canada. We Yankees boast we go ahead of everything in the world no matter what line we chance to follow. Canada doesn’t boast, she simply goes ahead.”
“Oh! how disloyal, Schuyler!” protested Aunt Lucretia, herself gazing with admiration at the buildings whose fronts were almost solidly covered with artistically arranged decorations. Of course the English and Canadian flags held first place, but at last their ’bus stopped before a quaint old hotel whose balconies were draped with as many American as English banners.
“Why, is this an American, I mean a United States hotel?” asked Auntie Lu; while Miss Greatorex’s face assumed a more agreeable expression than it had worn since they left the station. She had felt hitherto as if an alien nation had flaunted its colors in her own patriotic face; but her common sense now assured her that these people had a right to honor their rulers after their own fashion even if it could by no possibility be so good a fashion as reigned in her beloved States.
The youngsters of the party felt nothing but delight; and as a squad of scarlet-coated soldiers came marching toward them on the other side of the street Monty tossed up his cap and cheered. Melvin did more, as was natural. They marched to the tune of “God Save the King,” and were on their way to Parliament House to give an evening concert; and as the ’bus came abreast of the squad with its fine band and its national colors floating in front, the young Yarmouthian rose and bared his head, saluting the flag! Then he dropped back to his seat with a slight flush on his fair cheek, as he felt the eyes of the three strangers rest upon him curiously. Then cried Molly:
“That was funny! I forgot you weren’t a ‘Yankee’ like ourselves, but you did right, you did just right. I wouldn’t have let Old Glory pass by without doing it my honor. But, do you know, Auntie Lu, I feel as if this were a foreign country and not part of our own America?”
She was to feel it more and more, but to find akeen delight in all that was so new to her and so matter of fact to Melvin. Even the dishes served at table, were decidedly “English” in name and flavor, though there were plenty of other and more familiar ones upon themenu.
After this supper which was more hearty than most dinners at home, they walked to the postoffice and found a heap of mail that had been forwarded along their route. As usual there were letters from the “Boys” and the Judge hailed with delight the news that they, as well as the Governor-General, would be among the morrow’s arrivals.
“We’ll stay till Sunday in Halifax, then start for camp on Monday, rain or shine, wind, fog, or sunshine;” wrote the correspondent who arranged matters from the other end of the line.
“Good enough, good enough! Then my vacation will actually begin!” cried the pleased man.
“And pray, what do you call the days that have just passed, my brother?” demanded Auntie Lu, with a smile.
“My dear, I call that a ‘personally conducted tour,’ a tour of great responsibility and many perils. After Monday, when I deposit you ladies and the youngsters at Farmer Grimm’s, I wash my hands of the whole of you for one long, delightful month!”
The laugh with which he said this disarmed the words of any unkindness and was echoed by another laugh quite free from offense.
“Very well, then, Schuyler, until Monday wehold you to your ‘personally’ conducting. You must take us everywhere, show us everything that is worth while. I want to go to the ‘Martello’ tower; to the Citadel, the old churches, the parks, all over the harbor on all sorts and conditions of boats, to—”
But the Judge held up his hand, protesting. Then asked:
“Suppose it proves a foggy season? Fog is one of the things to be counted upon in all parts of this country, more especially here. One summer I was here three weeks and the sun didn’t shine once!”
However, Mrs. Hungerford was bent upon enjoying and making others enjoy this visit; and she laughingly assured him that they were all “fog proof.”
“Every one of us has overshoes, umbrella, and raincoat. We feminines I mean and ‘boys’ aren’t supposed to mind any sort of weather. Am I not right, Melvin?”
“Yes, Mrs. Hungerford, I fancy you are. We have so much wet weather we’re ’most unprepared for sunshine, don’t you know.”
This was so long a remark for Melvin, and so thoroughly “English” with its “fancy” and “don’t you know,” that all laughed.
But they waked in the morning to find the Judge’s fear of a fog justified. The whole city was a-drip. The decorations which had been so crisp and brilliant on the day before hung limp and already discolored;and the scarlet and white bunting which had been so artistically wreathed about columns and cornices now clung tightly to them as if shivering in the wet.
It was a disheartened populace, too, which one met upon the street; for the expense had been great in preparations for the Governor’s visit and the week of Carnival that had been planned seemed doomed to a series of disappointments.
None the less Auntie Lu held her brother to his promise to escort them everywhere; and everywhere they went, though mostly in covered carriages or under dripping umbrellas. One morning when the sunshine came for a brief visit they hastened to the street before the Provincial building to hear the most famous band in all the Canadas give its open air concert. Other people besides themselves had flocked thither at the first ray from the sun and now crowded the pavements surrounding the iron-fenced grounds. Everybody waxed enthusiastic and hopeful till—suddenly a drop fell on the tip of the band leader’s nose. He cast one glance skyward but continued to wield his baton with great flourish and skill. Another drop; many; and the summer crowd swiftly dispersed. Not so our sightseers from the States. But let Dorothy tell the tale in her own words and in the journal-letter she faithfully tried to keep for Father John:
“Dear Father:—
“Since we’ve been here in Halifax I haven’t hada chance to write as regular as I ought. You see we come home so tired and wet every time that—Well, I just can’t really write.
“We went to an open air concert in the heart of the city. The band was, were—which is right? Anyhow the men all had on their Sunday uniforms, the most beautiful red and brass and buttons, and their instruments shone like anything. It rained, still they didn’t even wink, except the head of them. He was brillianter dressed than any of them and he didn’t like the rain. You could see that plain as plain. They all had little stands before them with their music on and the music got wet and splattery, but they didn’t stop. They just tossed one piece of music down and began another, after they’d waited a little bit of while, to get their breath, I reckon. By and by all the people, nearly, had gone away from the sidewalk yet the band played right along.
“Then I heard somebody laugh. It was the Judge. He was laughing at Auntie Lu; he always is and she at him. When she asked him ‘why,’ he said: ‘I was thinking this was a match game between British and Yankee pluck. It’s the Britisher’s ‘duty’ to play to the end of his program and he’ll do it if he’s melted into a little heap when he’s finished. It seems to be Yankee pluck, or duty, to stand out here in this melancholy drizzle and hold on as long as he does.’
“‘Of course,’ said Mrs. Hungerford, ‘it would be mean of us to desert the poor chaps and leave them without a listener at all.’
“Then he said: ‘Let’s go indoors and sit in the ’seats of the mighty.’’
“She didn’t know what he meant but he soon showed her. The Province Building where their sort of Congress meets was all open wide and they weren’t having any session, it not being session time. So we went in and sat around in leather covered chairs, only Molly and I and the boys climbed up on the window seats and sat there. We could hear beautiful and we got quite dry. Only it isn’t any use getting dry, daytimes, ’cause you’re always going right out and getting wet again.
“Sunday was the wettest yet. It didn’t look so and Auntie Lu let us girls put on white dresses, but she made us take our raincoats and umbrellas and rubbers just the same. We went to the soldiers’ church out of doors, ’cause they’d thought it was clearing off. There were benches fixed in rows like seats in church, and there was a kind of pulpit all covered by a great English flag. Other benches were up at one side. They were for the band. By and by a bugle blew and they came marching, marching over the grass from the big barracks beyond. The field sloped right down the side of a great hill and at the foot, seemed so close one could almost touch it but you couldn’t for there were streets between, was the harbor of water.
“It was an English church service and the minister prayed for all the royal family one by one. The soldier-band played the chants and hymns and they and anybody wanted sang them. After a littlewhile it rained again and we put on our coats and didn’t dare to raise our umbrellas, ’cause we were in church you know.
“It seemed pretty long but I loved it. I loved the red soldiers and the beautiful place and all. Auntie Lu said it was a good sermon and that the preacher considerately cut it pretty short. But it wasn’t so short but that we got our hats dreadfully wet and Auntie Lu had to buy herself a new one before we came away last Monday morning. In the evening we went to St. Paul’s, which is the oldest church in this oldest city of Markland, as some call Nova Scotia.
“Now we have ridden a good many miles in wagons to this great old farmhouse right on the edge of the woods. Miles and miles of woods, seems if. There are lakes in them and rivers and game of every sort, seems if, to hear them tell. Judge Breckenridge’s friends are here, too, and the Indian guide. He calls them ‘the Boys,’ and they do act like boys just after school’s let out. They laugh and joke and carry on till Molly and I just stare.
“Judge has hired a river to fish in. Isn’t that funny? To pay for a place to fish, and the Farmer Grimm we’re to live with is going to haul all their camp things out there to-morrow morning before sun-up. Monty and Melvin are to go, too, and I expect we women folks’ll feel pretty lonesome.
“One lovely thing the Judge did for me. He hired a violin for me to practice on here. He saidhe thought it would pass the time for all of us. There’s a piano, too, already in the house, and Molly can play real nice on that. Her Auntie Lu plays mag-nifi-cently. I wrote that out in syllables so as to get it right and to make it more—more impressiver. I’m dreadful tired and have been finishing this letter sitting on the floor beside a great big fire on the hearth. It isn’t a bit too warm, either, even though the sun has shone again to-day.
“Good night. Your sleepy Dorothy, but always loving you the best of all the world.
“P. S.—The funniest thing happened after supper. Two the funniest ones. The bashful-bugler, that’s Melvin, slipped something into my hand and said: ‘That’s to remember me by, a keepsake, if anything should happen to me out in the woods. I bought it for you that day in Digby.’ When I opened the little box there was one those weeny-wiggley sort of silver fishes, they call the ‘Digby chickens,’ that I’d wanted to take home to Alfy. But I shan’t take her this; I shall keep it. ’Cause Molly wants one, too, and when we get our next month’s allowance,ifwe get it, we can write and buy some by mail.
“The other funny thing was one of those grown up ‘boys.’ He asked me to play for him and had me stand right near him. When I got through he looked over at the Judge and nodded his head. Two, three times he nodded it and then he said, just like this he said it: ‘It is the most remarkable likeness I ever saw. You’re on the right trackSchuy, I’m sure of it!’ And the Judge cried real pleased, ‘Hurray!’
“They two were little boys together, down in the south where they lived and they know Mrs. Cecil Calvert real well. And the other ‘boy’ said: ‘Aunt Betty’d ought to be spanked—same as she’s spanked me a heap of times.’
“I wonder if it was I ‘resembled’ anybody and who! I wonder why any gentleman should say such a dreadful impolite thing about that dear old lady! I wonder,—Oh, Father John! Your little girl so often wonders many, many things! Good night at last. Molly calls real cross and I must go.
“Dolly.”
Dorothy’s letters to Mother Martha were equally descriptive though not so long. One ran thus:
“Dearest Mother Martha:—
“You ought to see this farm where we’re living now. It’s so big and has so many cattle and men working, and orchards and potato-fields. They call the potatoes ‘Bluenoses’ just as they call the Nova Scotia folks. The house is part stone and part wood. The stone part was built ever and ever so long ago; strong so the man who built it could protect himself against the Indians. The man was English, and he was a Grimm; an ancestor of this Mr. Grimm we board with. The Indians were Micmacs and friends of the French. Seems if they were all fighting all together all the time, whichshould own the land. Mrs. Grimm says there have been a good many generations live here though all are gone now except her husband and herself. They are more than seventy years, both of them, but they don’t act one bit old. She cooks and tends to things though she has two, three maids to help her. He rides horseback all over his farm and jumps off his horse and works with the men. Sometimes he drives the ox-carts with the hay and lets us ride.
“I did want you that last Saturday in Halifax. The day your letter came to me with the one dollar in it. I expect you wanted I should buy something to bring you with it but I didn’t. Listen. It was what they called a ‘green market’ morning. Rained of course, or was terrible foggy between showers. The market is just a lot of Indians and negroes, and a few white people sitting round on the edge of the sidewalk all around a big building. The Judge told me many of them had come from across the harbor, miles beyond it, so far that they’d had to walk half the night to bring their stuff to market. Think of that! And such funny stuff it was. Green peas shelled in little measures, ready to cook. (I wish they’d have them that way in our own Lexington market at home!) Wild strawberries—I didn’t see any other kind, no big ones like we have in Baltimore or at home. The berries were hulled and put into little home-made birch-bark baskets that the Indian women make themselves, just pinned together at the endwith a thorn or stick. Auntie Lu bought some for us but Miss Greatorex wouldn’t let me eat the berries, though I was just suffering to! She said after they’d been handled by those dirty Indian fingers she knew they were full of microbes or things and she didn’t dare. Oh! dear! I wish she didn’t feel so terrible responsible for my health, ’cause it spoils a lot of my good times. The boys weren’t afraid of microbes and they ate the berries but I have the basket. It will be all I have to bring you from Halifax; because one of those Indian women had her baby with her and she looked so poor—I just couldn’t help giving that dollar right to her. I couldn’t really help it. She wanted me to take baskets in pay for it, but I knew that wouldn’t begiving. You won’t mind, will you, dearest Mother Martha? if the only thing I bring you from that city is a poor Indian woman’s blessing? You always give to the poor yourself, so I wasn’t afraid you’d scold. There are just two things that I’d like different here, on this lovely vacation. One is if only you and father were here, too! Every new and nice thing I see, or good time I have, I do so want them for you both also. The other is—I wish, I wish I knew who my father and mother were! The real ones. They couldn’t have been any nicer than you have been to me, but folks that don’t know me are sure to ask me about my family. Molly and Monty and Melvin are always able to tell about theirs, but I can’t. Her mother, the ‘other Molly,’ died when she was a little thing,but she knows all about her. The Judge has a beautiful miniature of this ‘other Molly’ his wife, and takes it with him wherever he goes, even into that camp, where we’re to be let to go, maybe, for a salmon dinner that the ‘Boys’ catch themselves.
“There are lots of books in this old house and a piano. Each generation has added to the library and Mrs. Grimm says that in the winter she and her husband read ’most all the time. Christmases, no matter how deep the snow, all their children come home and then the rooms are opened and warmed and they have such fun. Oh! it must be grand to belong to a big family and know it’s all your own! They burn great logs of wood and even now we have a fire on the living-room hearth all the time. One of the young Indian boys who works here has nothing else for his chores except to keep the wood-boxes filled and the fires fresh. He’s rather a nice Indian boy but he’s full of capers. Molly is so lonesome without Monty and Melvin to play with she makes plays with Anton. I don’t think Mrs. Grimm likes it and I’m sure Aunt Lucretia doesn’t, for I heard her tell Molly so. But nobody can keep Molly Breckenridge still. She doesn’t care to read much and she hates practicing, and she cries every time she has to sew a seam, though Mrs. Hungerford makes her do that ‘for discipline.’ I don’t know what would become of the darling if it wasn’t for Anton. She likes me, course, but I can’t climb trees after cherries, or wade in ponds after water-lilies, and though I liketo ride horseback with her I’m afraid to go beyond bounds where we’re told to stay. Molly isn’t afraid.
“Please give my love to Aunt Chloe and write soon to your loving
“Dorothy.”
Having finished this letter, longer than common, Dorothy wandered out of doors seeking her mate. She was nowhere in sight, but the man who rode into town so many miles away, to fetch and carry the mail and to bring supplies of such things as the farm did not produce, was just driving up the road and playfully shook his mail-pouch at her. She sped to meet him, was helped into his wagon and received the pouch in her arms. She and Molly were always eager to “go meet the mail,” which was brought to them only every other day, and whichever was first and obtained it was given the key to the pouch and the privilege of distributing its contents. This privilege would be Dorothy’s to-day; and she skipped into the living-room and to the ladies at their sewing, dragging the pouch behind her.
Little she knew of its contents; or that among them would come the solution of that “wonder” that now so constantly tormented her:—“Who were my parents?”
When the gray-haired “Boys” had set out for camp, they had left word at the farm that they wished no newspapers or mail matter of that sort forwarded them. Also, most of them had, before leaving their own homes, asked that no letters should be written except such as were important, and these should be duly marked that. They wished to forget care and the outside world as far as possible, and to live in the faith that “no news is good news.”
Therefore, since a fortnight had elapsed, there was a table in the living-room already heaped with the mail which had accumulated during that time. Each man’s portion of it was carefully sorted and placed by itself; but this morning Auntie Lu, upon whom that duty devolved, did not augment her brother’s heap by the three envelopes she had taken from the pouch. She sat long with them in her lap, pondering the course she should follow, for two bore a Richmond postmark and one that of Annapolis, and each was marked according to direction: “Important.”
Miss Greatorex and Dorothy had both received a letter and were eagerly perusing them upon a low window seat, and Mrs. Hungerford left her own mail unopened to glance toward them, still considering what she should do. Her gaze rested longest upon the girl, whose face was radiant over a long, many-paged epistle from Father John. The young lips were parted in a smile, the brown eyes were smiling too, and Dolly looked such a picture of innocent delight that a pang shot through the observer’s tender heart. For she knew that those “Important” letters concerned the child. They were addressed in Ephraim Cook’s familiar, crabbed hand, and the man would never have ventured to disturb the peace of his absent employer except by that employer’s command. Also, she knew that the only business of “Importance” the Judge had entrusted to Mr. Cook was that concerning Dorothy C. All law matters were attended to by other, more experienced persons. She longed to break the seals and read the contents for herself and wished now that she had asked permission so to do, but she could not open another person’s letter without that one’s desire.
Presently, she glanced through her own letters and sought Mrs. Grimm in her kitchen, busy among her maids at preparing the mid-day meal, always an early one since the farm-hands so preferred it; and it had been among their arrangements that, although her “boarders” should have a separate table in an inner room, the food for all the householdshould be the same. Nobody could complain of this for the housemistress was a notable cook and her supplies generous.
“Beg pardon, Mrs. Grimm, for interrupting you, but I want to ask if there’s a ‘hand’ not busy who could ride out to camp and carry some letters to my brother. I am anxious he should have them for they may require immediate replies.” She did not add, as she might, that an intense but kindly curiosity of her own was another reason for the request.
“Why, I can hardly tell, Mrs. Hungerford. They’re all busy in the fields, and my husband with them. There are some who need a constant supervision and my man believes that there’s nothing so good for any job as the ‘eye of the master.’ Else, he’d ride into the woods himself and think naught of it. Let me consider who—”
At that moment Anton came into the kitchen and threw an armful of hewn wood beside the great fireplace, where kettles hung upon cranes and “Dutch ovens” were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even now leaving the kitchen when she chanced to notice Anton and asked:
“Couldn’t this lad go? I know that he heapedthe boxes in the living-room and our bedrooms with more wood than we can use to-night, and surely one kitchen-fire can scarcely require more than that pile yonder. I will pay him, or you, well, if he can be spared to do my errand.”
This guest was rarely so insistent and her hostess saw that to deny her the favor would be a great disappointment; so she answered that:
“Anton can be spared if—Anton can be trusted. And please, understand, dear madam, that no payment for such trivial service would be accepted.”
“But it is a long ride there and back, longer than into Halifax isn’t it? Yet the man who goes there makes but the one trip a day.”
“That is for other reasons. He goes out in the morning upon our errands. It is part of our contract with him that he shall stop the night in town with his family and return the next day early. He is really our caterer and postman. But Anton—Anton is ‘bound.’ And Anton needs watching. Lad, do you promise that if I let you take a horse and ride to camp you’ll do the lady’s errand right and ride straight home again?”
He had lingered just within the kitchen doorway, fooling with the youngest of the maids who resented his teasing by a sharp clap on his cheek, but he had not been so absorbed in this pastime that he had not heard every word spoken between his mistress and her guest. Knowing that he was in truth an untrustworthy messenger, he resented its being told; and the statement that no paymentwould be accepted angered him. He was a bound-out servant, of course. So were many other lads of the Province and no disgrace in it; but if a free gift were offered, was it not his to take? A scowl settled on his dark face and he listened to the outcome of the matter with a vindictive interest. Also, he answered, sullenly:
“’Tis a far call to that camp in the woods and one must ride crooked, not ‘straight,’ to reach it. ’Twould be in the night ere Anton could be back, and there is no moon.”
“Tut, lad! When was Anton ever afraid of the night or the dark? Indeed, some tell me that he loves it better than the light. The Scripture tells why. Will you go or not? And will you do the lady’s errand right?”
“The master read in the Big Book, last Sunday-day that ever was, how the ‘laborer is worthy of his hire.’ That’s good Scripture, too, Missus, the hay-makers say, and one nudged me to take notice at that time.”
Mrs. Grimm hastily turned that he might not see the smile which flitted across her face, and Auntie Lu as suddenly found something interesting to observe which brought her back also toward the quick-witted, mischievous lad. She longed to renew her offer of payment but would not interfere between mistress and man, so waited anxiously for the result. It came after a moment, Mrs. Grimm saying:
“Go, saddle the gray mare and ride upon thaterrand. You shall have your dinner first, and a supper in a napkin to cheer you on the ride home. By ‘lights out’ you will be in your loft with the men. Now tidy yourself and come to table.”
Anton wasted no time before he obeyed. His sullenness had been but a pretence and mostly assumed in order to secure that “payment” which the “foreign” lady offered. The gray mare was a fleet traveler, easy under the saddle—though for that matter he rarely used one—and he loved the forest. A half-day away from the mistress’s eye was clear delight. She had said nothing against a gun or a fishing line and not even the best guide in that region knew better the secret of wood and stream than this other descendant of the Micmacs.
The maid he had teased was glad to be quit of him and hurried to dish up his portion of the dinner, while Mrs. Hungerford returned to desk to write a letter to her brother and to safely make all into a little packet, marked: “Private and Important.”
She had told her companions of Anton’s trip and Dorothy sped out of doors to beg the lad:
“If you see any new flowers, some of those wild orchids Miss Greatorex read grew around here, will you bring me some? Just a few for specimens, to press for Father John and Mr. Seth? They would be so pleased and I will be so grateful. Will you?”
Anton nodded. Promises were easy to make, and to break if he wished. Then came a maid from the kitchen with a message for her home, a tiny clearing on the edge of the “further wood.” Toher, also, a promise was readily spoken; and master Anton thrusting the securely tied packet of letters into his pocket, bowed to Mrs. Hungerford with a third and more important promise.
“’Tis of a truth I will deliver this into the hand of the man they call a Judge. It is a tedious task, yes, but I will so deliver it. Mayhap he too remembers what the Scripture says.”
He uttered the last sentence in a low tone, with a furtive glance houseward, and bearing himself with an air of great complacency. He had become a very important person just then, had Anton, the “bound out.” Moreover, he was wholly honest in his determination so to deliver the letters. That Judge in the woods hadn’t heard the mistress’s opinion about payment and it wasn’t necessary that he should. Other farm hands had witnessed to the liberality of those odd men who lived in a tent, wore old clothes when they could wear new, and cooked their own food when they might have had others cook for them. Anton was not afraid to trust his “payment” to the man who owned the letters in that packet.
Now it so happened that Molly was riding about the grounds and up and down a leafy lane upon a gentle horse that her father had engaged for her own and Dorothy’s enjoyment while on that lonely farm. She used the creature far more than Dorothy, as was natural and right enough; and had mounted it that day to escape what she called her chum’s “everlasting fiddling.”
Dorothy was as fond of her violin as Molly averse to her piano; and the nearest to dispute which ever rose between them was on account of Dolly’s devotion to her music. She had even complained to Aunt Lucretia that “a violin made her head ache.” Whereupon the ambitious violinist had begged permission of its owner to use an empty corncrib at the foot of the “long orchard,” as a music-room, and there “squeaked” as long and as loud as she pleased. She was going there now, violin case under her arm, to pass the half-hour before dinner and to watch the men come in from the fields, at the ringing of the great bell which hung from a pole beside the kitchen door. To her the country was full of every possible delight, but poor Molly found it “too quiet and lonely for words.” So she spent more and more of her time on every pleasant day, riding up and down the lanes or following Farmer Grimm to the fields.
Between those two a great affection had sprung up. He liked her fearlessness in riding and laughed at her timidity when horned cattle appeared anywhere near. He was proud of the way in which she could take a fence and kept her with him all he could.
On this day, however, he could not so take her. His errands were too far afield and too unsuited for her, and that was why she now rode alone, rather disconsolately up and down, until she saw Anton come out of the stable yard, mounted upon the gray mare and holding his head like a prince.
“Anton! Anton! Oh! are you going riding? Take me with you! Please, please, Anton!”
For answer he touched Bess with his heel and she flew out of the enclosure like a bird.
That was enough for Molly Breckenridge. Queenie, the broken-tailed sorrel which she rode, was as swift as she was gentle and needed no goad of heel or whip to spur her forward. A pat of the smooth neck, a word in the sensitive ear—“Fetch him out, Queen!”—and the race was on.
Anton glanced behind and the spirit of mischief flamed in him. They rode toward the forest where a few wood-roads entered, each of which he knew to its finish, not one of which knew Molly. Only this much she did know that Anton lived at the farm, where she lived. Anton rode the farmer’s horse as she did. Anton was never absent from meals and it was dinner-time. Therefore, if she thought at all about it or considered further than the delight of a real race, she knew that back to the farm would Anton go and she could follow.
He dashed aside from the wheel-rutted track. She stumbled over the ridges, kept him in sight, and followed him. He doubled and twisted, so did she. He dashed forward in a long straight line, curved, circled, and came back to the wood-road some distance ahead. She did not curve but cut his circle by a short line and brought up at his side.
“Huh! ’Tis a good rider you are, Miss Molly, but you’d best go back now. I’m for the camp.”
“Never! You can’t be! They wouldn’t trustyou, you’re so tricksy. Who’d want you there?”
He was instantly offended and showed it, drawing himself erect on the gray mare and tossing his head high while his narrow black eyes looked angrily at her. Then he drew from his blouse the packet Mrs. Hungerford had given him and haughtily explained:
“For that Judge. Now, am I trusted? No?”
It was very strange. Ever since she had been at the farm she had heard of Anton’s pranks and trickiness. Tasks he had been set to perform were always neglected except that one of keeping fuel supplied, and this work brought him, also, constantly under his mistress’s eye. Yet he allowed Molly to come so close she could recognize her aunt’s handwriting outside the packet, and especially that word “Important.”
Suddenly she resolved.
“Anton, if you ride to camp I ride with you.”
“You will not. I say it.” He wasn’t going to be disappointed of his fun along the way by the presence of this girl, and no time had been told him when that parcel must be delivered. It must come to the Judgesometime, that was all. The later the better for him, Anton, the more leisure to enjoy the wild and escape that eternal carrying of wood. “You will not,” he repeated, more firmly.
“I will so. That is for my father. His name is on it and it is ‘Important.’ I will see that he gets it. I don’t trust you, Anton.”
He was rather impressed by the fact that shecould read what was written—he could not. He was also angered further by that unwise remark about not trusting him. He stared at her, she stared back. Good! It was a battle of wills, then!
He seemed to waver, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. All roads lead to one’s goal, if one knows them. He was an Indian. He could not be lost in any forest, he who was wise in woodcraft and could tell all directions by signs this “foreigner” could not know. He snapped his fingers, airily, pricked Bess forward again and into a trackless wilderness.
For a moment Molly hesitated. Should she go back and give up this chase? Turning around she gazed about her and could not tell which way she had come.
“Why! I couldn’t go back, even if I tried. I don’t see any track and—I must follow him. I can hear him on ahead, by the breaking branches—Forward, Queenie, quick, quick!”
But Queenie wasn’t pleased to “forward.” She shrank from the rude pressure of the undergrowth against her delicate shanks and, for an instant, set her forefeet stubbornly among the ferns and brambles. But Molly was now past tenderness with any mount which would not do her will and Queenie was forced into the path she hated to tread. Already the brief delay had cost her the sound of the gray mare’s progress. There was neither breaking twig nor footfall to tell her whither that tormenting Anton had vanished. There wasonly the bruised herbage to show which way he had ridden and she must follow; and for a long time she kept her eyes on that faint lead and steadily pursued it.
Then she came to a partly open glade and there she lost the trail entirely. Across this glade Anton had certainly passed but in which direction she couldn’t even guess. She reined Queenie to a stand and called:
“Anton! Anton! ANTON!!” and after another interval, again: “ANTON!”
There was an agony of fear in that last cry. Had Anton heard it, even his mischievous heart would have been touched and he would have ridden back to reassure her. But he did not hear her. He had now struck out from that narrow clearing into a road he knew well, by the blazed trees and the wheel-marks the camp-teamster had left upon it. The undergrowth had sprung up again, almost as completely as before it had been first disturbed, and even had Molly found that trail she would not have known enough to trace it.
But he was now on his own right road. She was where—she pleased. He had not asked her to come, he had tried to make her go back. He had not wanted her at all, but she had taunted him, distrusted him, and yet he knew that this once he was proving trustworthy. He felt that little packet safe in his blouse and patted the cloth above it commendingly.
“Good boy, Anton. If ’tis worth payment, thispayment the so rich Judge will give. That girl rides well. Let her take care of herself. Go, Bess!”
He fished a little, fired a shot or two at some flying bird, then remembered that a shot might be heard and those from the camp come to inquire why it had been fired. Save themselves there were supposed to be no other sportsmen for miles around, and they would surely come, if from no other motive than curiosity.
It was supper-time when he came into camp and upon a picture that warmed his heart and banished from it, for a time, that rather uncomfortable sensation which had lately affected him. He had grown fanciful and thought a night-bird’s call was the cry of somebody lost in the woods.
He was glad to see that cheerful fire, to smell the savory food cooking above it, to observe all the rude comforts with which modern sportsmen surround themselves. Those boys—Why, they had positively grown fat! And how they were laughing and fooling with one another! unrebuked by the older campers, who sat about on logs or stools, and smoked or talked or sang as the spirit moved them.
The Judge’s keen eyes were the first to see the nose of the gray mare appearing through the thicket and he sprang to his feet with a little exclamation of alarm:
“Why, Anton, lad! What brings you here? Nothing had happened, I hope! Eh, what? A packet for me? All right. Thank you. You’rejust in time to join us. We’ve had fine sport to-day and will have a grand meal in consequence. How’s everybody? How’s my little Molly?”
Anton’s answer was an indirect one.
“You’ll tell ’em I brought it safe, no?”
“Why, surely. Did anybody doubt you would? And if it’s good news, a good fee for fetching it. If bad—fee according!”
He drew a little apart, opened the parcel and read the letters. Then he took a pad from his tent and wrote a brief reply; after which he retied the bundle and gave it back to Anton, saying:
“Deliver this to Mrs. Hungerford as safely as you have to me and I dare say she’ll give you another like this!”
He held out a shining silver dollar but somehow, although the lad did take it, it seemed to lie very heavy within that inner pocket where he dropped it.
Supper over, all grouped about the fire and beset the Indian guide for a fresh batch of ghost stories, his specialty in literature or tradition; and though Judge Breckenridge asked his messenger if it were not time that he started back—for Aunt Lu had written urging him to keep the boy no longer than was absolutely necessary—Anton still lingered. Hitherto he had known no fear of any forest. He inherited his love for it and his knowledge. He had even loved best to prowl in its depths during the moonlit or starlit hours, and riding hither had anticipated a leisurely return. So long as he wasback at the farm by morning he saw no reason to hurry himself before.
Then he found himself listening to Monty’s question:
“You say, Guide, that these very woods, right around us, are ‘haunted?’”
“Sure. Hark!”
There was a strange unearthly cry from somewhere in the distance and the man continued:
“Some call that a screech-owl! But I know it’s the cry of a girl who was lost in this forest. Why, Anton, boy, what’s happened you?”
Anton had suddenly swayed in his seat and his face under its copper skin had turned ghastly pale.