CHAPTER XXIVTHE HOUSE OF HAPPINESSHaven Home was brilliantly lighted, for it was Christmas eve, and Grace had made good her promise to ask the Overland Riders to spend the holiday week with her and Tom.Haven Home was a house of happiness on that wonderful Christmas eve, for, up in the nursery, lay a little pink and white bundle of humanity over which the Overlanders bent—that is, the girls did—and worshiped at the shrine of Grace Harlowe’s own little daughter, now less than four weeks old. For that bit of humanity the whole party had come laden with gifts, not forgetting many beautiful things for Yvonne, Grace’s adopted daughter—the child that Grace had rescued from the cellar of a deserted village amid the crashing of exploding German shells in the great world war—now a beautiful young woman.Hamilton White was there, big, brown and manly, a figure that attracted attention where-ever he went; Jim Haley was there, too, with a load of peanuts that required a wagon to carry them from the express office.Elfreda had brought her adopted daughter, now home from a finishing school, and a different child she was from the daughter of the Mad Hermit that the Overlanders had taken to their hearts some years before.But where was Stacy Brown? No one could answer the question. Stacy had not even replied to the invitation to join the Christmas party, and there was disappointment, for no reunion of the Overlanders could be complete without the fat boy.Emma Dean was monopolizing “Hamilton” most of the time, and Nora confided to Grace that she actually believed it was going to be a “match,” but Grace shook her head and smiled.And then Stacy arrived!The fat boy made his usual dramatic entrance at a moment when he knew attention would be centered on him. It was.Stacy was in full evening dress, carrying an opera hat, which he crushed and popped open with one hand as he shook hands and bowed with a grace that was unsuspected by his companions.“Did you stop at the hotel to get into those glad rags?” demanded Hippy.“We wondered why you were so late,” said Grace. “It never occurred to us that you would stop to dress before coming up to the house. Why, if you felt that you must dress, did you not come here? Your room has been ready for several days.”“Dress? Who said I stopped to dress? I dressed this morning before leaving home.”“Stacy!” cried Nora in a horrified tone.“Well?”“You don’t mean that you wore your evening clothes all day on the train?” demanded Nora.“Sure I did. I didn’t want to put them in my suit case and wrinkle them all up, so I wore them. Anything wrong about that?”There was silence for a few seconds, then the Overlanders broke out in peals of laughter.“Say, I want to see the kid.Hewon’t laugh at me, I’ll bet,” said Stacy.“Wrong gender, young man,” observed Hippy.“Of course you shall see him,” cried Grace, linking her arm in Stacy’s and leading him upstairs, with the entire Overland party following.Two little blue eyes looked up at him as Stacy gazed, and popped his crush hat at the bundle of pink and white until the nurse took it away from him indignantly.“The perfect picture of Grace, isn’t she?” bubbled Emma.“Oh, I don’t know. Cute little monkey, isn’t she?”“Young man, you come downstairs,” ordered Hippy, collaring Stacy and leading him away, while the Overlanders followed laughing. The merriment had begun with the arrival of Stacy.Dinner was announced as they reached the drawing room, and it was a dinner that Stacy Brown did full justice to. It did the Overlanders’ hearts good to see him eat.“How you ever managed to develop such an appetite, short of starvation, is a thing that I have many times wondered at,” teased Tom.“Develop it! I didn’t. It’s a gift,” was the fat boy’s quick response. “I was born with it, and I don’t know why you folks are always making fun of me,” he retorted, appearing to be very much hurt.“That is because you are always making fun of yourself,” reminded Emma.“Not when you are about,” mumbled Stacy.And so the merriment went on.At the close of the dinner Hamilton White made his mine report. The mother lode of “Lost Mine” had just recently been tapped when work was suspended for the winter, to be resumed in the early spring, he said. The mining engineer in charge of the work was authority for the statement that it would undoubtedly pan out a big fortune. White said he had the expert’s detailed report which they could look over at their leisure.“So J. Elfreda is a rich woman, eh?” said Stacy, regarding her solemnly.“Yes, rich in the sense that I have such friends as these,” answered Elfreda, her eyes moist as she glanced at the eager, flushed faces about her. “Gold is not riches—friendship is. As for the riches of the ‘Lost Mine’ I have with me a transfer of title to the property, signed, sealed and delivered, providing as follows:“One eighth to the new baby.“One eighth to my adopted daughter ‘Little Silver.’“One eighth to Yvonne.“One eighth each to Grace, Nora and Emma.“And—” Elfreda paused, and in a subdued voice added, “one eighth each for myself and for my husband to be.” A flush slowly grew into her cheeks as J. Elfreda Briggs bent her eyes on the paper from which she was reading.“Your—your what?” stammered Nora, as all eyes were fixed on Miss Briggs’ face.“My husband to be!” Elfreda raised her eyes, eyes full of happiness, to her friends. “I am to wed Mr. White in the early spring. You, my beloved friends, are the first to be told. Why should you not be first?”“Oh, Hamilton, isn’t that perfectly wonderful!” cried Emma.Emma had broken the ice, the dead silence that, for a few seconds, had followed Elfreda Briggs’ announcement, and then the exclamations and the congratulations fairly overwhelmed Elfreda and Hamilton White.Everything else was forgotten.“Well, old chappie, what haveyougot to say foryourself?” demanded Hippy Wingate, frowning on “Ham” White.“Only that I am the most fortunate of men,” answered Hamilton White gravely.“Never mind, Emma,” spoke up Grace smilingly as she looked into the flushed face of Emma Dean. “I have named the baby—I just now named her, and her name is Emma Grace Harlowe Gray.”“Oh, the poor kid,” wailed Stacy. “To go through life with a name like that! My heart of hearts bleeds for her.”“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” struck up Tom Gray, whereupon Grace ran to her piano and joined with the accompaniment, and the old house resounded to the rollicking song until the nurse came down, her face wearing a deep frown.“Please, please!” she begged. “You have awakened the baby.”The song stopped.“Well, we are all set now except for Stacy Brown and Emma Dean. They are our hopeless bachelors,” declared Hippy.“Bachelors! I guess not,” retorted Stacy. “Emma and I have decided to tie up, too.”The Overlanders shouted. They thought it was one of Stacy’s jokes.Then the Overlanders began to realize that Stacy was not joking.“But how do you two expect to get along—you are fighting all the time?” wondered Nora.“The difference between us and some others is that we will have done all our fighting before we were married. Am I right, Emma?”“Yes, Stacy dear,” replied Emma, blushing furiously.“When did all this take place?” asked Grace.“Oh, we got engaged by the correspondence-school plan,” Stacy informed her.“The idea! Children like you two getting married,” objected Nora.“Children? Huh! I’m twenty-three, and Emma—” Stacy shrugged his shoulders. “Well, let her speak for herself. Anything else—anyone got any questions to ask?”“Yes,” spoke up Elfreda. “If I may do so without offense, I should like to know what you propose to do after you marry Emma?”“Nothing!” with rising inflection in his voice. “I have money, my little wife will have more, and we two will live a life of distinguished and elegant leisure.”“You poor turtle doves,” chortled Hippy Wingate.The merry moments that followed failed to soothe the wakeful baby upstairs. After the excitement over the startling announcements had abated, Grace proposed that they dress the Christmas tree, and, following that, they danced for an hour, and the wonderful evening came to a close—for all except Stacy and Emma. The two strolled out on the snow-covered lawn of Haven Home, hand in hand, with the moon beaming down upon them, and a million diamonds sparkling at their feet.“Stacy dear, do you remember that night up in the North Woods when the Overlanders were preparing to leave for home? Do you remember what Hippy asked me as a snowbird chirped high up in a great tree, just as one is now chirping in that apple tree yonder?” asked Emma.“I remember,” nodded Stacy.“Hippy asked me, ‘Emma, what is the little bird saying to-night?’ I answered, ‘He is wishing us all a merry, merry Christmas and a glad, happy new year.’ That is what the snowbird is saying to us from the old apple tree to-night, isn’t he, Stacy dear?”“You bet, kid. Wise guys, those snowbirds,” he observed as they turned and strolled back towards the house. “We are going to be happy, aren’t we, Emma?”“Going to be? Why, we are happy now, dear. Say good-night to me out here,” she whispered as they reached the veranda.Stacy did so. He said good-night several times before they went indoors. Emma Dean’s eyes were bright and her cheeks wore a rosy glow when she faced her companions in the drawing room a moment later.The Overland Riders smiled. They understood.THE END
Haven Home was brilliantly lighted, for it was Christmas eve, and Grace had made good her promise to ask the Overland Riders to spend the holiday week with her and Tom.
Haven Home was a house of happiness on that wonderful Christmas eve, for, up in the nursery, lay a little pink and white bundle of humanity over which the Overlanders bent—that is, the girls did—and worshiped at the shrine of Grace Harlowe’s own little daughter, now less than four weeks old. For that bit of humanity the whole party had come laden with gifts, not forgetting many beautiful things for Yvonne, Grace’s adopted daughter—the child that Grace had rescued from the cellar of a deserted village amid the crashing of exploding German shells in the great world war—now a beautiful young woman.
Hamilton White was there, big, brown and manly, a figure that attracted attention where-ever he went; Jim Haley was there, too, with a load of peanuts that required a wagon to carry them from the express office.
Elfreda had brought her adopted daughter, now home from a finishing school, and a different child she was from the daughter of the Mad Hermit that the Overlanders had taken to their hearts some years before.
But where was Stacy Brown? No one could answer the question. Stacy had not even replied to the invitation to join the Christmas party, and there was disappointment, for no reunion of the Overlanders could be complete without the fat boy.
Emma Dean was monopolizing “Hamilton” most of the time, and Nora confided to Grace that she actually believed it was going to be a “match,” but Grace shook her head and smiled.
And then Stacy arrived!
The fat boy made his usual dramatic entrance at a moment when he knew attention would be centered on him. It was.
Stacy was in full evening dress, carrying an opera hat, which he crushed and popped open with one hand as he shook hands and bowed with a grace that was unsuspected by his companions.
“Did you stop at the hotel to get into those glad rags?” demanded Hippy.
“We wondered why you were so late,” said Grace. “It never occurred to us that you would stop to dress before coming up to the house. Why, if you felt that you must dress, did you not come here? Your room has been ready for several days.”
“Dress? Who said I stopped to dress? I dressed this morning before leaving home.”
“Stacy!” cried Nora in a horrified tone.
“Well?”
“You don’t mean that you wore your evening clothes all day on the train?” demanded Nora.
“Sure I did. I didn’t want to put them in my suit case and wrinkle them all up, so I wore them. Anything wrong about that?”
There was silence for a few seconds, then the Overlanders broke out in peals of laughter.
“Say, I want to see the kid.Hewon’t laugh at me, I’ll bet,” said Stacy.
“Wrong gender, young man,” observed Hippy.
“Of course you shall see him,” cried Grace, linking her arm in Stacy’s and leading him upstairs, with the entire Overland party following.
Two little blue eyes looked up at him as Stacy gazed, and popped his crush hat at the bundle of pink and white until the nurse took it away from him indignantly.
“The perfect picture of Grace, isn’t she?” bubbled Emma.
“Oh, I don’t know. Cute little monkey, isn’t she?”
“Young man, you come downstairs,” ordered Hippy, collaring Stacy and leading him away, while the Overlanders followed laughing. The merriment had begun with the arrival of Stacy.
Dinner was announced as they reached the drawing room, and it was a dinner that Stacy Brown did full justice to. It did the Overlanders’ hearts good to see him eat.
“How you ever managed to develop such an appetite, short of starvation, is a thing that I have many times wondered at,” teased Tom.
“Develop it! I didn’t. It’s a gift,” was the fat boy’s quick response. “I was born with it, and I don’t know why you folks are always making fun of me,” he retorted, appearing to be very much hurt.
“That is because you are always making fun of yourself,” reminded Emma.
“Not when you are about,” mumbled Stacy.
And so the merriment went on.
At the close of the dinner Hamilton White made his mine report. The mother lode of “Lost Mine” had just recently been tapped when work was suspended for the winter, to be resumed in the early spring, he said. The mining engineer in charge of the work was authority for the statement that it would undoubtedly pan out a big fortune. White said he had the expert’s detailed report which they could look over at their leisure.
“So J. Elfreda is a rich woman, eh?” said Stacy, regarding her solemnly.
“Yes, rich in the sense that I have such friends as these,” answered Elfreda, her eyes moist as she glanced at the eager, flushed faces about her. “Gold is not riches—friendship is. As for the riches of the ‘Lost Mine’ I have with me a transfer of title to the property, signed, sealed and delivered, providing as follows:
“One eighth to the new baby.
“One eighth to my adopted daughter ‘Little Silver.’
“One eighth to Yvonne.
“One eighth each to Grace, Nora and Emma.
“And—” Elfreda paused, and in a subdued voice added, “one eighth each for myself and for my husband to be.” A flush slowly grew into her cheeks as J. Elfreda Briggs bent her eyes on the paper from which she was reading.
“Your—your what?” stammered Nora, as all eyes were fixed on Miss Briggs’ face.
“My husband to be!” Elfreda raised her eyes, eyes full of happiness, to her friends. “I am to wed Mr. White in the early spring. You, my beloved friends, are the first to be told. Why should you not be first?”
“Oh, Hamilton, isn’t that perfectly wonderful!” cried Emma.
Emma had broken the ice, the dead silence that, for a few seconds, had followed Elfreda Briggs’ announcement, and then the exclamations and the congratulations fairly overwhelmed Elfreda and Hamilton White.
Everything else was forgotten.
“Well, old chappie, what haveyougot to say foryourself?” demanded Hippy Wingate, frowning on “Ham” White.
“Only that I am the most fortunate of men,” answered Hamilton White gravely.
“Never mind, Emma,” spoke up Grace smilingly as she looked into the flushed face of Emma Dean. “I have named the baby—I just now named her, and her name is Emma Grace Harlowe Gray.”
“Oh, the poor kid,” wailed Stacy. “To go through life with a name like that! My heart of hearts bleeds for her.”
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” struck up Tom Gray, whereupon Grace ran to her piano and joined with the accompaniment, and the old house resounded to the rollicking song until the nurse came down, her face wearing a deep frown.
“Please, please!” she begged. “You have awakened the baby.”
The song stopped.
“Well, we are all set now except for Stacy Brown and Emma Dean. They are our hopeless bachelors,” declared Hippy.
“Bachelors! I guess not,” retorted Stacy. “Emma and I have decided to tie up, too.”
The Overlanders shouted. They thought it was one of Stacy’s jokes.
Then the Overlanders began to realize that Stacy was not joking.
“But how do you two expect to get along—you are fighting all the time?” wondered Nora.
“The difference between us and some others is that we will have done all our fighting before we were married. Am I right, Emma?”
“Yes, Stacy dear,” replied Emma, blushing furiously.
“When did all this take place?” asked Grace.
“Oh, we got engaged by the correspondence-school plan,” Stacy informed her.
“The idea! Children like you two getting married,” objected Nora.
“Children? Huh! I’m twenty-three, and Emma—” Stacy shrugged his shoulders. “Well, let her speak for herself. Anything else—anyone got any questions to ask?”
“Yes,” spoke up Elfreda. “If I may do so without offense, I should like to know what you propose to do after you marry Emma?”
“Nothing!” with rising inflection in his voice. “I have money, my little wife will have more, and we two will live a life of distinguished and elegant leisure.”
“You poor turtle doves,” chortled Hippy Wingate.
The merry moments that followed failed to soothe the wakeful baby upstairs. After the excitement over the startling announcements had abated, Grace proposed that they dress the Christmas tree, and, following that, they danced for an hour, and the wonderful evening came to a close—for all except Stacy and Emma. The two strolled out on the snow-covered lawn of Haven Home, hand in hand, with the moon beaming down upon them, and a million diamonds sparkling at their feet.
“Stacy dear, do you remember that night up in the North Woods when the Overlanders were preparing to leave for home? Do you remember what Hippy asked me as a snowbird chirped high up in a great tree, just as one is now chirping in that apple tree yonder?” asked Emma.
“I remember,” nodded Stacy.
“Hippy asked me, ‘Emma, what is the little bird saying to-night?’ I answered, ‘He is wishing us all a merry, merry Christmas and a glad, happy new year.’ That is what the snowbird is saying to us from the old apple tree to-night, isn’t he, Stacy dear?”
“You bet, kid. Wise guys, those snowbirds,” he observed as they turned and strolled back towards the house. “We are going to be happy, aren’t we, Emma?”
“Going to be? Why, we are happy now, dear. Say good-night to me out here,” she whispered as they reached the veranda.
Stacy did so. He said good-night several times before they went indoors. Emma Dean’s eyes were bright and her cheeks wore a rosy glow when she faced her companions in the drawing room a moment later.
The Overland Riders smiled. They understood.
THE END
THE END