Arthur’s first inclination was to call. But something within him warned him not to do that. Something just as imperative advised him to another course of action. He waited a moment or two to let Silva get far enough ahead, so that she could not possibly hear his footsteps. Then he followed her.
She walked with an extraordinary swiftness—so swiftly indeed that Arthur was put to it to keep up with her. However she had the advantage over him in that she knew the trail perfectly. Her feet stumbled over no obstacles; her arms hit no protruding branches; her face brushed against no scratchy twigs. She moved indeed as though it were day. Arthur was in a difficult situation. He must walk quickly to keep up with her; but if he walked too quickly she would certainly hear him.
Presently she came to the place in the trail where it turned at right angles on itself. Arthur, anticipating this, stopped in the shadowof a tree in the far side of the path. Silva turned swiftly. It happened that she did glance indifferently backwards over the way in which she had come. But she could not have seen Arthur; for she went on at the same composed high pace. But Arthur saw that she was carrying under her arm a bottle of milk.
Arthur quickened his cautious footsteps; came in his turn to the fork in the trail. There was Silva ahead, her white skirt fluttering on both sides of her vigorous walking, much as the white foam of the sea flutters away from the prow of the ship. She kept straight on and Arthur kept straight on. The moon dipped behind clouds and dove out of them; flashed her great blaze on the earth and shadowed it again. On and on they went, the stalker and the stalked. They were approaching the Moraine. Big stones began to lift out of the underbrush on either side. Some were like great tables, flat and smooth; comfortable and comforting. Others were perturbing—like huge monsters that had thrust themselves out of the earth, were resting on their front paws or their haunches even. Layers of rust-colored leaves—the leaves that had been for many years falling—lay between them. And now and then the moonlight caught on therocks with a black glisten and on the leaves with a red gleam; for the dew was falling.
Arthur began to wonder what he should do. He somehow took it for granted that Silva was going to the Moraine; mainly because there seemed no other place for her to go; though for what purpose he could not guess. If for any reason she stopped there, he must soon become visible to her. Indeed there were only two courses for him to take: retreat by the path over which he had come or through the wood on either side. He could not make up his mind to turn back. If he took the second course, he would undoubtedly get lost. He would have to wait for daylight to find his way home and that, he recognized at once, would be stretching inexcusably the generous liberty which Mr. Westabrook had given him. He might call to Silva. But again something inside seemed to warn him not to make his presence known. He continued to follow the vigorous figure ahead.
As though she were approaching the end of her journey, Silva was hurrying faster and faster. Arthur hurried too. Silva broke into what was a half run. It would have been, Arthur felt, a complete run, if she were notcarrying the bottle of milk so carefully. Arthur seethed with perplexity. Why was she speeding so? What could she possibly have to do at this spot and at this hour? What could require such urgent haste? Well, perhaps he would know in another moment.
And then suddenly strange things happened all at once.
Silva’s rapid progress had, as it apparently neared its object, become less careful. At any rate, an overhanging briar caught her hair; pulled her up sharply. In her first effort to extricate herself, Silva turned completely about; caught sight of Arthur’s figure a little way down the trail.
She started so convulsively that even Arthur could see it. Then with a swift wrench of her slender hand she tore her hair away; turned and ran like a deer in the direction of the Moraine.
Arthur ran too. And as he ran he called, “Don’t be afraid, Silva. It’s Arthur Duncan from the Little House. Don’t mind me! I won’t hurt you.”
But Silva only redoubled her speed. Arthur redoubled his. He was gaining swiftly on her. He entered the Moraine. On theother side Silva was just disappearing from it. “I tell you,” he called, “I’m not going to hurt you. Stop! I want to speak to you!”
Silva did not answer. He heard a frenzied floundering among the underbrush. For the noise Silva made, she might have been an elephant. And then suddenly came silence—silence utter and complete.
Had she fainted? What could be the matter? What a silly girl to act like that! Arthur rushed across the Moraine; penetrated the woods on the other side.
Silva had disappeared as completely as though she had vanished into the air. Arthur stared about him like one waking from a dream. Then he began to search for her. Around rocks, into clumps of bushes he peered. Nobody. Nothing.
“Silva Burle!” he called. “Silva! Silva! Where are you?” And then because he was genuinely alarmed, “Please answer. Please! I’m afraid you’re hurt.” Another search over a wider area. He mounted rocks this time. Remembering how Silva could climb, he stared upwards into trees. He crawled on hands and knees through every little thicket he found. And all the time he kept calling. Still nobody. Still nothing. As far as hecould see, he was absolutely alone in that part of the wood.
After half an hour, he gave it up. But he was a little alarmed and very much humiliated. He walked back over the trail to the Magic Mirror and all the time his head was bent in the deepest thought. He found the canoe; absently slid into it; mechanically paddled himself across the water. And all the time he continued to think hard. “It’s like a dream,” he thought. “I’d think anybody else was dreaming who told me this.”
When he reached the barn, the whole mysterious episode seemed to float out of his mind in the great wave of drowsiness which suddenly beat through him. He fell immediately into slumber. But his sleep was full of dreams, all so strange that when he awoke in the morning, his experience of the night before threatened for a moment to take its place among them. “But I didn’t dream the peacocks or the deer,” he said to himself. “And I know I didn’t dream Silva!”
He said nothing of his experience to any of the other children, though he found himself strangely tempted to tell Maida. But a kind of shyness held him back. At times it occurred to him that Silva might be lyinginjured somewhere in the woods. But always some instinct made him believe that this was not true.
Halfway through the morning Granny Flynn sent him on an errand to the village. As he came out of the Post Office, he ran into Silva Burle just about to enter it. He tumbled off the wheel which he had just mounted.
“Say,” he said without any other greeting, “where did you disappear to last night?”
“Last night!” Silva repeated in a bland tone of mere curiousness. “What do you mean bylast night?”
“You know very well what I mean,” Arthur persisted. “Last night in the Moraine—in the woods.”
“In the Moraine—in the woods,” Silva repeated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t sleep in the woods last night. I slept in my tent as usual.”
Arthur looked at her hard. “Well,” he said after a moment, “either you’re telling the biggest whopper I ever listened to or you were walking in your sleep.”
“Walking in my sleep,” Silva said scornfully, “you’re crazy.” And she passed on.
It was drawing near the middle of August. And now with each sunrise, the fun at the Little House seemed to double itself.
“I never saw such a place as this,” Rosie wailed once. “There aren’t hours enough to do all the things you want to do every day; and not days enough to do all you want to do every week.”
There was some justice in Rosie’s complaint. The day’s program of swimming, tennis, croquet, bicycling, reading and games had been broken into by the coming of the berry season. Blueberries and blackberries were thick in the vicinity and the children enjoyed enormously eating the fruit they had gathered.
Floribel taught the little girls how to make blueberry cake and blackberry grunt and on their teacher’s day out, the Little House was sure to have one of these delicacies for luncheon and another for dinner. The Big Six tried to do everything of course; and as Laura complained, they succeeded in doingeverything badly and no one thing very well. One day Maida appeared at the table with a radiant look of one who has spawned an idea.
“Granny,” she said, “we haven’t had a picnic on the beach yet. Every summer we go to the beach once at least. Can’t we go this week on Floribel’s day out? We girls will cook the luncheon and pack it all up nicely.”
“But the beach is pretty far away,” Mrs. Dore said warily. “How far is it? Could you walk to it?”
“It’s between four and five miles,” Maida answered hazily. “You see the little children could go in the motor and the rest of us—the Big Six—could go on our bicycles.”
“But I don’t think,” Mrs. Dore said, “that I’d like you children to go so far away without a grown person with you.”
“Yes, of course,” Maida said, “you and Granny come too.”
“But with Zeke and Floribel away,” Mrs. Dore protested, “who would drive the automobile?”
Maida’s face fell. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I never thought of that.”
All the faces about the table—they had grown bright in anticipation of this new excursion—grew dark.
Zeke had already taught Arthur and Harold to run the machine, but Mr. Westabrook’s orders against unlicensed persons driving it, were strict. For a moment it looked as though the ocean-picnic must be given up.
“I think,” Maida faltered, “if I ask my father to lend us Botkins and the big car, he’d do it.”
Mrs. Dore shook her head. “I wouldn’t like to have you do that, Maida,” she said. “Your father has given us everything that he thinks necessary for this household.” She added gratefully, “And more than any of us had ever had in our lives before. I should certainly not like you to ask a single thing more of him.”
Again gloom descended on the Big Six. And then hope showed her bright face again.
“Ah’ll tell you what Ah’ll do,” Floribel, who was waiting on table, broke in. “Zeke and Ah’ve wanted fo’ a long time to see the big ocean. Now eff yo’ll let the lil’ children go on dat pic-a-nic, Mis’ Dore, Zeke and Ah’ll go with them and tak’ the best of care of them.”
“Ohwouldyou, Floribel?” Rosie asked.
“Well, in that case,” Mrs. Dore decidedthoughtfully, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t all go.”
Madness at once broke out in both Sixes, Little and Big. Laura, Maida and Rosie leaped to their feet and danced about the room. The little children beat on the table with their spoons and the three boys indulged in ear-splitting whistles.
The next Thursday, Floribel, Zeke, the Little Six and the lunch, packed somehow into the machine, the Big Six on their bicycles, streaming ahead like couriers, started off for the beach.
“Thank goodness we’ve remembered the salt this time,” Rosie said to Arthur as they mounted their wheels, “I took care of that myself.”
It was a beautiful day, cool as it was sunny, brisk as it was warm. The winding road led through South Satuit and then over a long stretch of scrub-pine country, straight to the beach.
Just as they emerged from the Westabrook estate into South Satuit, Maida’s bicycle made a sudden swerve. “Why I just saw Silva Burle!” she called in a whisper to Rosie. “She was walking along the trail towards theLittle House. I wonder what she is doing there?”
“Well you may be very sure she isn’t calling onus,” Rosie declared, “and if she is I’m delighted to think that Granny will say, ‘Not at home!’”
“Still,” Maida said thoughtfully, “that trail leads directly to the Little House. She must be going there for some reason.”
“Probably,” Laura remarked scornfully, “she’s hoping she’ll meet some of us, so’s she can make faces at us.”
The automobile arrived at the beach first and the cyclists came straggling in one after another. Crescent Moon Beach was like a deeply cut silver crescent, furred at each tip of the crescent with a tight grove of scrub-pines which grew down to the very water’s edge. Beyond it, except for a single island, stretched unbroken the vast heaving blue of the Atlantic. Under the lee of the southern tip of the crescent was a line of half-a-dozen bath houses.
“What a wonderful, wonderful beach!” Laura commented.
“And there’s that island,” Dicky said, “that we see from the Tree House—SpectaclesIsland, didn’t you say—oh no, I remember, Tom Tiddler’s Ground. How I wish I could swim out to it. I have never been on an island in my life. Could you swim as far as that, Arthur?”
Arthur laughed. “I should say not. Nobody but a professional could do that—and perhaps he’d find it some pull. It’s much longer than it looks, Dicky. Distances on the water are very deceiving.”
“What’s on the Island, Maida?” Dicky went on curiously. “Have you ever been there?”
“Oh yes,” Maida answered, “once. I went on father’s yacht but I was such a little little girl that I have only one impression—of great trees and enormous rocks and thick underbrush.”
Dicky sighed. “I wish we could go on a picnic there!”
“What’s that over there?” Harold demanded, pointing to a spot far out where a series of poles, connected by webs of fish-net, rose above the water’s surface.
“Oh that’s a fish weir,” Maida declared electrically. “I’d forgotten all about that. You see the tide’s going out. It goes out almost two miles here. And if we follow it up,we can get into the weir and come back before the tide overtakes us.”
Maida explained the situation to Floribel. Floribel turned to Zeke for advice. Zeke corroborated Maida’s story. He had, he said, been in that weir several times himself. Floribel said she would stay on the beach with the Little Six while Zeke accompanied the Big Six. When they came back, she added, lunch would be all spread out on the beach.
“The last bath house,” Maida informed them, “is ours. Now let’s get into our bathing suits at once because we have no time to lose.”
It was only partially low tide when they arrived but it almost seemed to the children that they could see the water slipping away towards the horizon. When they emerged from the bath house, a patch of eelgrass, not far off, made a brilliant green spot in the midst of the golden sand. As the Big Six started towards the fish weir, the Little Six were splashing about in the warm shallows near shore.
“Oh what fun this is!” Rosie said. “I love salt-water bathing more than fresh water—I don’t know why. But somehow I always feel so much gayer.”
The salt water seemed to have an effectof gayety on all of them. They chattered incessantly when they were not laughing or singing. At times they came to hollows between the sand bars where the water was waist-high, but in the main, the water came no farther than their knees; and it continued to recede steadily before them. Sand-bar after sand-bar bared itself to the light of the sun—stretched before them in ridges of solid gold. Eelgrass—patch after patch—lifted above the water; spread around them areas of brilliant green. Above, white clouds and blue ether wove a radiant sky-ceiling. And between, the gulls swooped and soared, circled and dashed, emitting their strange, creaking cries. It seemed an hour at least to the Big Six before they reached the weir, but in fact it had taken little more than half that time.
Zeke found the entrance to the weir and they followed him in. Here the water was waist-deep. Zeke explained the plan of the weir. It was, he pointed out, nothing but a deep-sea trap for fish. The fish entered through the narrow opening into a channel which led into the big inner maze. Although it was very easy for them to float in, it was a very difficult matter finding the way out. Caught there, as the tide retreated, they stayed until thefisherman arrived with his cart and shoveled them ignominiously into it.
“Oh, oh!” Laura shrieked suddenly. “This place is full of fish. One just passed me! Oh, there’s another! And another!”
But by this time both the other girls were jumping and screaming with their excitement; for fish were darting about them everywhere. The boys, not at all nervous of course and very much excited, were trying to drive the fish into corners to find out what they were. Zeke identified them all easily enough—cod, sculpins, flounders, and perch.
“What’s that big thing?” Arthur exclaimed suddenly. “Jiminycrickets!” he called excitedly. “It’s the biggest turtle I ever laid my eyes on.”
The girls shrieked and stayed exactly where they were, clinging together. But the males all ran in Arthur’s direction.
“Dat’s some turtle, believe muh,” commented Zeke.
“I’m going to take it home,” Arthur declared, “and put it in the Magic Mirror.”
“The Magic Mirror!” Laura echoed. “Why I would never dare go in swimming if I knew that huge thing was there.”
“We’ll keep it tied up with a rope,”Arthur went on excitedly. “It can’t get where we go in swimming because the rope won’t be long enough. Come on, fellows, help me get it.”
“How are you going to catch it?” Harold demanded.
“Lasso it!” Arthur declared, untying a stout rope which hung from one end of the weir posts.
The prospect of catching such big game was too tempting for the males of the party. And so while the girls dashed madly about, trying to get out of their reach, screaming with excitement and holding on to each other for protection, but really enjoying the situation very much—the boys chased the turtle from corner to corner, until finally Arthur managed to lasso a leathery paw and tie it captive to a weir post. How he did this, he himself found it hard to say, because the water was lashed to a miniature fury by the flounderings of both the turtle and its captors. It was probably pure accident, he was humble enough to assert. But having caught the creature, they were not content until they had brought him ashore, and so the procession started beachwards, Arthur pulling the turtle at the end of the rope.
It was a huge turtle at least two feet indiameter. It had wide leathery flappers, a wicked looking head—as big, Rosie said, as her alarm clock. But its shell was beautifully marked.
As they approached the beach they could see the great square of the tablecloth laid out on the sand and Floribel busy piling up sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs; fruit and cake. The Little Six came running to meet them and then it became a problem to keep them out of the way of the turtle’s snapping jaws. They had no difficulty however, with Floribel, who screamed with terror at the sight of the strange creature and would not allow them to bring it onto the beach. They ended by mooring it, by means of a large rock, in one of the pools near the shore.
Then, forgetting their prey for a while, they sat down to lunch. They were ready to do full justice to it.
“Lordee!” Floribel exclaimed once. “Dey’se salt enough here for an army—shuah! Who put all dat salt in the basket?”
The three girls burst into giggles.
“I was so sure we’d forget the salt,” Maida said, “that I put in a pair of salt-cellars.”
“I put in three,” declared Rosie.
“And I put in four,” confessed Laura.
After lunch, following the orders which Mrs. Dore had given them, they sat on the beach for an hour before they went in bathing again. This prolonged itself to much more than an hour because they began making the inevitable collections of shells and stones to take home. Floribel said that moon-stones were sometimes found on this beach and there instantly began a frantic search for the small, translucent white stones. Of course everybody found several of what he supposed were invaluable gems. By this time the tide, which had turned just as they left the fish weir, was now galloping up on the beach in great waves. They had to pull the turtle farther and farther in shore. At length they all went in bathing again; the Big Six diving through the waves and occasionally getting “boiled”—which was the local term for being whirled about—for their pains. Floribel permitted the Little Six to play only in the rush of the waves after they broke.
After five o’clock, blissfully tired, excitedly happy, they piled the little children into the machine; packed the turtle in the big lunch hamper, tied the cover securely over him and started home.
Wild with excitement and the news of theirfind, they dashed into the Little House.
“Oh Granny you’ll never guess what we’ve brought home with us,” Maida exclaimed.
“And oh what a wonderful day we’ve had,” Rosie added.
“And how tired we are and how hungry,” Laura concluded.
The little children were all chattering with excitement; the boys were attending to the turtle in the barn, preparatory to taking it to the Magic Mirror.
“I’m glad you’ve had a good time, children,” Granny said gravely. “Your father is here, Maida, and he wants to see you all in the living room.”
Something seemed to have gone out of the gayety of the day. What it was or what made it go or where it went, Maida could not guess. Perhaps it was a quality in Granny’s air and words. At any rate she said instantly, “I’m going right in there, Granny, and Rosie will you please tell the boys to come at once?”
Rosie too had caught an infection of this seriousness. She sped to the barn. In three minutes, the Big Six had gathered in the living room. Mr. Westabrook was sitting on the couch in front of the fire.
“Good afternoon, children,” he said quietly.“I told Granny to ask you to come here the instant you came home, because I had something to say to you. It occurred to me to-day that I would come over to the Little House when you didn’t expect me and make an inspection. Hitherto I have come regularly every Sunday. This is Thursday. I’m glad I did because I found that neither the flower garden nor the vegetable garden had been weeded for the last three days. The barn was in a very disorderly confusion. I asked Granny how the girls had left their rooms and although she didn’t want to tell me, she had to say that the beds were not made and apparently nothing had been done. But the worst thing of all that I have to say is that I find that the tennis court is all kicked up as though it had been played on after a shower without having first been rolled.”
There was an instant of silence in the room; a silence so great that everybody could hear quite plainly the ticking of the grandfather’s clock. Arthur spoke first.
“Mr. Westabrook,” he said in a low voice, “we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and I certainly am. After all your kindness to us—I won’t try to make any excuses because there are no excuses we can make.”
“It’s all my fault,” Harold admitted, “I’msupposed to run the boys’ end of the work and I have not held them up to keeping everything right.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Dicky declared hotly, “no more than mine or Arthur’s. We’re all to blame.”
“I’m awfully ashamed of myself, Mr. Westabrook,” Rosie confessed almost in a whisper. “I wouldn’t blame you if youneverforgave us, but I hope you will.”
“I don’t know how we got this way,” Laura said in perplexity. “We began right.”
“We’ve been having such a good time,” Maida explained in a grave tone, “that we’ve just let ourselves get careless.”
“Then,” Mr. Westabrook advised them, rising, “try not to let yourselves get careless again.” He shook hands all around; and kissed his daughter. “Fair warning,” he said, “I don’t know when I’m coming again, but it won’t be when you expect me.”
It was a very subdued and a very tired little trio of girls who went up-stairs and attended to their rooms. It was an even more subdued—though a less tired—trio of boys who put the barn in order and then trailing the turtle at the end of his rope, walked down to the Magic Mirror, and tied him to a tree, and deposited him in the water there for the night.
A very quiet group of children gathered at breakfast the next morning. Conversation was intermittent and devoted mainly to piling offers of assistance in the housework on Granny and Mrs. Dore.
“When you have finished your own work, we’ll see,” Mrs. Dore steadily answered all these suggestions.
The children finished their work in record time and with the utmost care. The girls swept and dusted their chambers. They washed the furniture, the paint and the windows. Everything was taken out of closets and bureau-drawers, shaken and carefully put back. They shook rugs. The boys in a frenzy of emulation followed a program equally detailed. Having accomplished all this, the Big Six again begged for more work and Granny and Mrs. Dore, taking pity on the penitent little sinners, thought up all kinds of odd jobs for them to perform.
At length, Maida said, “Now we’ve done allthe work we can do, there’s one other thing I’d like to see attended to. I woke up in the middle of the night—I don’t know what woke me—but I began at once to think of that turtle—that poor, horrid turtle. And it suddenly came into my head that it was a very cruel thing to put a creature in fresh water who is accustomed to salt water. I suppose it’ll kill him in time, won’t it?” she appealed to Arthur.
“Geewhillikins,” Arthur answered, “I never thought of that! Of course he’ll die. But what are we going to do about it?”
“I thought,” Maida began very falteringly, “if you would let us, Granny, we’d ask Zeke to drive us over to the beach and we’d take the turtle and put him back in the water where he came from. We won’t stay there but a moment.”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Dore accorded them thoughtfully.
“And as for me, I’ll be glad to be well rid of the craythur,” Granny said shudderingly.
So it was settled. After luncheon, the three boys went down to the Magic Mirror, hauled the poor awkward beast out of the water; pulled it along the trail to the barn. They loaded it into the lunch hamper again; stowedit in the automobile; and then Zeke drove them to the beach.
Once there, they lifted the hamper out of the machine, removed the cover and dumped its living contents onto the sand.
There was no question as to the turtle’s wishes in this matter. Without an instant’s hesitation, he turned in the direction of the ocean; and lumbered toward it over the sand—lumbered awkwardly but with a surprising swiftness. The waves were piling in, like great ridges of melted glass, green edged with shining, opalescent filigree. They shattered themselves on the sand and seemed miraculously to turn into great fans of green emerald trimmed with pearl-colored, foam lace.
The turtle struck the broken wave ... swam into it ... dove through the next wave ... and the next ... and the next.... Suddenly they lost sight of him.
When they returned, still unnaturally quiet, to the Little House, to their great surprise Billy Potter came forward to meet them.
Their subdued spirits took an involuntary jump. Nevertheless they greeted their guest in an unusually quiet way. Billy’s perceptions, always keen, apparently leapedin an instant of calculation to the truth. After a while, in which he devoted himself to the Little Six, he suggested that the Big Six take a walk with him. They accepted the invitation with alacrity and plunged into the woods.
When they were out of sight of the Little House, “Now what’s the matter?” Billy Potter suddenly demanded.
They told him; all at once; each interrupting the other, piling on excuses and explanations; interrupted with confessions and self-accusals.
“We feel that we’ve treated Mr. Westabrook rottenly,” Arthur concluded.
“And we don’t know what to do to show him we’re sorry,” Rosie after a pause added.
“That’s pretty bad,” Billy commented. “Now let’s think of some way out of this.” He himself meditated for an interval, falling into a study so deep that no one of the children dared interrupt it.
“I’ll tell you,” he burst out after a while, “Why not invite Mr. Westabrook down for an afternoon—to make another inspection of the house—and to stay for supper. You probably haven’t shown him for a long time how well you can cook.”
“No, we haven’t,” Maida said. “I think father has eaten only one meal that we girls cooked.”
“I think that would be lovely,” Rosie agreed.
“Let’s do it as quickly as possible,” Arthur suggested. “This is Friday morning. Why don’t you invite him for Monday night?”
The children caught the suggestion at once. That night, working together—for Billy Potter stayed over only one train—they painfully drafted a formal invitation to Mr. Westabrook to spend Monday afternoon with them and stay to supper. They posted it the next morning and almost by return mail, they received a formal acceptance.
Monday was a day of the most frantic work that the Little House had ever seen. Everything was swept that could be swept; dusted that could be dusted; washed that could be washed; polished that could be polished. Rosie even washed off the stepping stones that led to the Little House. And Maida not to be outdone, shined the brass knocker on the door and the knob. Laura was only stopped in time from pinning flypaper, which she had bought with her own pocket money, on the outside of the screen door.
“There are no flies in the house,” Mrs. Dore protested, “and we can’t catch all the flies in the outside world.”
The boys cleaned the barn, the little cellar to the house, its tiny garret. They rolled and re-rolled the tennis court. They begged for other work and Mrs. Dore gave them all the table silver to polish and some pots, obstinately black, to scrape.
When Mr. Westabrook came, the place looked, as he said, as though they had cleaned the outside with manicure tools and the inside with the aid of a microscope. The supper which, in deference to Mr. Westabrook, included a single hot dish, consisted of one of Rosie’s delicious chowders; one of Maida’s delicious blueberry cakes; one of Laura’s delicious salads; and a freezer full of the boys’ delicious ice-cream.
Mr. Westabrook said that he had eaten meals all over the United States and in nearly every country in Europe and he could not recall any one that he had enjoyed more than this.
That night the Big Six went to bed with clear consciences.
“What are you so quiet about, Maida?” Dicky asked at breakfast a few mornings later. “I don’t think you’ve said a word since you’ve got up.”
“Haven’t I?” Maida replied. But she added nothing.
At first because of the noise which prevailed at breakfasts in the Little House, nobody noticed Maida’s continued silence. Then finally Rosie Brine made comment on it. “Sleepy-head! Sleepy-head!” she teased. “Wake up and talk. You’re not in bed asleep. You’re sitting at the table.”
Maida opened her lips to speak but closed them quickly on something which it was apparent, she even repented thinking. She shut her lips firmly and maintained her silence.
“S’eepy-head! S’eepy-head!” the little mimic, Delia, prattled. “Wate up and tot. Not in bed as’eep. Sitting at table.”
Everybody laughed. Everybody always laughed at Delia’s strenuous efforts to produceas copious a stream of conversation as the grown-ups. But Maida only bit her lips.
The talk drifted among the older children to plans for the day.
“Perhaps you will give us your views, Miss Westabrook,” Laura said after some discussion, with a touch of purely friendly sarcasm. “That is if you will condescend to talk with us.”
“Oh can’t I be quiet once in a while,” Maida exclaimed pettishly, “without everybody speaking of it!” She rose from the table. “I’m tired of talking!” She walked quickly out of the dining room and ran upstairs to her own chamber. The children stared for a moment petrified.
“Why I never saw Maida cross before,” Rosie said in almost an awed tone. “I wonder what can be the matter. I hope I didn’t say anything—”
“No, of course you didn’t,” Arthur answered. “Maida got out of the wrong side of her bed this morning—that’s all.”
“Well,” Laura concluded generously, “if anybody’s got a right to be cross once in a while, it’s Maida. She’s always so sweet.”
After breakfast, the children separated, as was the custom of the Little House, to theearly morning tasks. But Rosie and Laura lingered about, talking in low tones, before one went to the library and the other into the living room to do her daily stint of dusting. After this work was finished, they proceeded to the garden and plucked flowers together.
It was phlox season and Laura cut great bunches of blossoms that ran all the shades from white to a deep magenta through pink, vermilion, lavender and purple-blue. But Rosie chose caligulas—changelessly orange; zinnias—purple, garnet, crimson; marigolds—yellow and gold.
“Oh how lovely they look,” Laura exclaimed burying her face in the delicately-perfumed mass of phlox. She put her harvest on a rock and helped Rosie with the more difficult work of gathering nasturtiums. The vines and plants were now full of blossoms. It was impossible to keep ahead of them. They picked all they could.
“I hope Maida isn’t sick,” Laura said after a while.
“I don’t believe she is,” Rosie reassured her.
“I wonder if we ought not to go up to her room,” Laura mused. “Let’s!”
Rosie reflected. “No, I think we’d betterwait until after we’ve come back from the errands. Maida wants to be alone so seldom that I guess we’d better not interrupt her. Besides I heard her slam her door hard and then lock it. I guess that means she doesn’t want anybody around for a time.”
“I guess it does too,” Laura agreed. “It isn’t my turn to go to market, but I’m going with you this morning, Rosie. It’ll give Maida a chance to be alone for a while.”
The little girls trundled their bicycles out of the barn; mounted them and speeded down the long trail which led to the road.
In the meantime, Maida still remained in her room. She made her bed with fierce determined motions, as though it were a work of destruction rather than construction. She dusted her bureau with swift slapping strokes. Then she sat down by the window. Why was she cross, she didn’t know; but undoubtedly shewascross. She didn’t want to go anywhere; she didn’t want to play games; to see anybody; least of all to talk. Why—when ordinarily she was so sociable, she should have this feeling she had no idea. Nevertheless it was there.
From various directions, sound of voicescame to her; Rosie’s and Laura’s from the garden; the boys from the barn; the little children from House Rock. Rosie and Laura were nearer, but she could not hear what they were saying. And of course she made no attempt to listen. Later she heard them go around to the barn—she knew they were off on the morning marketing. Still Maida continued to sit listlessly looking out of the window.
A long time seemed to go by.
Presently she heard in the distance, the sound of Laura and Rosie returning. They were evidently in a great state of excitement. She could hear them chattering about something as they came up the trail to the house. She did not feel like talking, but she knew it was her duty to meet them, to apologize for her rudeness, to go on with the usual games of the day. She caught the rattle with which the two girls put their bicycles in place; then their swift rush to the kitchen. At the door she got in Rosie’s high excited tones, “Where’s Maida, Granny?”
“Still upstairs,” Granny answered. “I haven’t heard her stir.”
“We’ve got something to tell her,” Rosie went on swiftly.
“And the most dreadful thing hashappened,” Laura put in simultaneously. Then talking together in phrases that broke one against the other or overlapped, “A dreadful accident ... Silva Burle ... this morning ... she was on her bicycle ... man just learning to run an automobile ... knocked her off ... picked up senseless.... It happened in front of Fosdick house ... took her in ... there now....”
“How is the poor choild?” Maida heard Granny ask compassionately.
“Nothing broken,” Laura answered eagerly, “but it was a long time before she came to.”
“She’s not unconscious any longer,” Rosie concluded the story. “She’s asleep, but she moans and mutters all the time.”
Maida listened, horrified. She felt that she ought to go downstairs and talk with the girls. She felt that she ought to get on her bicycle, go at once to see Silva.
Apparently Mrs. Dore said something to that effect; for Rosie answered promptly, “Oh no, nobody’s allowed to see her yet.”
Somehow if she could not go to Silva, Maida did not feel like talking. Not yet at any rate. Why not get away from the house until her strange mood passed?
Maida crept slowly out of her room; stole softly down the stairs; ran quietly to a side entrance; opened the screen door gently; closed it inaudibly; dashed down the trail to the Magic Mirror. She arrived at the boathouse panting. But she did not wait to recover her breath. Quickly she unlocked the door and pulled out one of the canoes, leaped into it so swiftly that she almost upset it, paddled as rapidly as she could towards the center of the lake.
It was an unusually hot day. And paddling was hot work. The water looked tempting. Maida battled with a temptation, which she had never known before, to jump overboard just as she was in her fresh clean dress and take a long swim. But she knew that Granny Flynn would disapprove of this and she relinquished her project with a tired sigh. She did not stop paddling until she reached the other side of the lake. Then she drew thecanoe in close to the shore, under an overhanging tree; lay down in it; stared vacantly up at the sky.
“I know what’s the matter with me,” she thought suddenly. “I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I had a dreadful dream—Now what was that dream? It was a nightmare really and it seemed to last so long. What was it—Ohwhatwas it?”
She groped in her memory in the way one does to remember a haunting but elusive dream. It was like trying, in pitch darkness, to pick out one rag from scores of others in a rag bag. Then suddenly a ray of light seemed to pierce that darkness and she put her hand on the right rag.
Very late, long after midnight indeed, it seemed to her that somebody came into her room, that she half-waked; spoke. That somebody did not answer and she fell asleep again. Yes, she remembered now, that that somebody seemed to come in through the window. She fell asleep and yet not entirely asleep.... That somebody moved about the room ... looked at everything.... That somebody stopped near the little hair-cloth trunk which contained Lucy’s clothes. After a while ... that somebody went away ...through the window.... But all night long, a sense of trouble and disturbance kept bringing Maida out of deep sleep to ruffled wakefulness; then sent her back into a heavy and fatiguing slumber.
Thinking this over and staring up at the blue sky, Maida drifted off to sleep. She woke—it must have been nearly two hours later—perfectly refreshed. But she did not go back immediately to the Little House. Instead, the sight of a columbine in the woods made her determine to land. She knew that Rosie particularly loved the columbines and pursuing, half absently, the trail which went to the Moraine, she soon gathered a great armful.
Maida became so absorbed in this pleasant duty of reparation that she went further than she intended. In fact, it was with a real sense of surprise—and a slight tingle of terror—that suddenly she found herself at the approach to the Moraine itself. She had not been there since the extraordinary day of the picnic and although she had not let her mind dwell on the curious experience of that occasion, she had by no means forgotten it. For a moment, she hesitated about going further. And then she caught a glimpse, across therust-brown pine-needle-covered expanse, of a great clump of columbines faintly nodding their delicate heads. Involuntarily Maida dashed across the Moraine and picked them. More appeared beyond. She picked all these and then just beyond, she caught sight of a tiny field of columbines. Maida moved in their direction, plumped herself down in the midst of their beautiful living carpet. It was cool there and quiet. The pines held the sun out, although their needles were all filmed with iridescence; but they let little glimpses of the sky through their branches. Some strange wood insect burst into a long strident buzz.
Suddenly there came, as though from the very ground under her feet, a long wailing cry.
Maida turned white. Her heart leaped so high that she felt with another such impulse it would break through her chest. She jumped to her feet, still clutching her flowers, raced across the Moraine into the path. She had not gone very far before something stopped her; not an obstacle but a thought. She had expected, remembering the day of the picnic, that the voice would be joined by two others. This did not happen. That first voice maintained its eerie call. The thought was, “That cry is not the cry of anything frighteninglike a goblin or a wild animal, or a tramp—it is the wail of a baby.”
Maida stood for a moment just where she had stopped. The cry began again. Terror surged through Maida. But she clinched her hands and made herself listen. Yes, that was what it was—the wail of a baby. Could it be some little baby animal crying for its mother—a fawn like Betsy’s or—and here Maida’s hair rose on her head again—a baby bear? Her common sense immediately rejected this theory. There were no bears in the woods. And if it were a baby deer, she would be ashamed of being afraid of a baby deer when Betsy showed no fear. For another interval she stood still fighting her cowardice. Then suddenly she took her resolution in hand. “I’m going to find outwhatit is,” she said aloud. Perhaps she was assisted in this by the cessation of the mysterious wail. Only for a moment however! Her resolution received another weakening blow by the sudden resumption of the uncanny noise. But she did not actually stop, she only faltered. For the farther she walked across the Moraine, the more it sounded like the crying of—not a baby animal—but a regular baby. Suddenly all Maida’s fear vanished forever. “I am notafraid any more,” she said to herself. And she wasn’t.
The hard thing was to discover where the cry came from. It seemed under her feet. She plunged here, there, beyond—everywhere, looking up and down but finding nothing. Then she began a more systematic search. Starting with the very edge of the Moraine she took every rock as it came along, searched around and over it, each clump of bushes, parted them and walked through them. Still the cry kept up. Occasionally she stopped to listen. “That baby’s sick,” she said once, and later, “I do believe it’s hungry.”
Ahead, a big rock thrust out of the earth like an elephant sitting on its haunches. At one side, two bushes grew at so acute an angle and with branches so thickly leaved, that the great surface of the rock was concealed. Maida parted them.
Underneath there was no rocky surface. The bushes concealed a small low opening to what looked like a cave. Was it a cave? Where did it lead? How far? Would—and again Maida’s heart spun with terror—would she confront an enraged mother bear if she entered it? But these questions all died in Maida’s mind. For, emerging undisputedlyfrom the cave, came the fretful cry of a baby.
Without further question, Maida dropped to her hands and knees and crawled into the opening. Crawleddownrather; for the entrance sloped at first. Then, it began to grow level. The crying grew louder.
It was a big cave. The end was lost in shadow but in the light from the entrance, Maida could see something lying, not far off, on a heap of bed clothes. As she looked, a tiny hand came up and waved in the air. Maida could not stand upright yet. But she hurried over to that tiny hand. She was beginning to get the glimmer of a little white face.
Itwasa baby.
The baby put up its hands to her. Maida lifted it from the ground and made rapidly backwards to the cave opening. It was a lovely baby—Maida decided that at once—a girl, getting towards a year old, brown-complexioned with a thick shock of dark hair and big brown eyes. For a moment, it looked at Maida in surprise and even in baby distrust; then it began to cry. Its open mouth displayed four little white teeth.
Maida put the baby down on the soft grass in the shade of some bushes. She returned to the cave. She found a candle there; somematches in an iron box. She lighted the candle. There was one pile of baby clothes, unironed though perfectly clean, but in tatters. Beside them was another pile. Somehow these seemed familiar. Maida looked closely.
They were Lucy’s clothes.
Then—lightnings poured through Maida’s mind—It was not a dream—Somebody had come into her room ... robbed her ... robbed little Lucy.... But she must not think of that now, with a crying, perhaps a starving baby on her hands. Further back was a bundle of hay, pressed down as though somebody older slept there. There was a little alcohol lamp and the materials for warming milk; milk bottles but no milk.
Maida returned to the baby, who had resumed its crying; took it into her lap; rocked it.
What should she do? The baby must belong to somebody. But where was that somebody? It was hungry now. She felt sure of that. It seemed to her that she ought to take the baby home. And yet suppose the parent should come back? Then she would be in the position of stealing a baby. What should she do? She could not go off and leave it. Nor could she stay indefinitely. She had not eventold them at the Little House where she was going. They would be worried about her. They would think that, like Betsy, she was lost. Pretty soon they might send out searching parties. How she regretted her pettishness of the morning. And still if it had not been for that, she would not have come here; would not have found the baby. Whatshouldshe do?
She put her hands over her eyes, as though shutting out the sight of things made it easier to think. Perhaps it did. For suddenly it came to her that the first thing to consider was the baby. Babies must not be neglected. Babies must be fed. It was a serious matter for them to go too long without their milk. Suddenly she pulled her little red morocco diary from her pocket; tore out a page. With the little pencil that lay in the loop of the diary she wrote:
I have taken your baby to my home—the Little House. It is at the end of the trail just across the lake. I was afraid you had deserted her and she would get sick and die. I am sorry if you are worried, but you can have your baby at once by claiming her.
I have taken your baby to my home—the Little House. It is at the end of the trail just across the lake. I was afraid you had deserted her and she would get sick and die. I am sorry if you are worried, but you can have your baby at once by claiming her.
A phrase slipped from she knew not where into her mind. She concluded with it: “andproving property.” She signed her own name and under it wrote, “Daughter of Jerome Westabrook, financier.”
Her mind made up, Maida worked quickly. Holding the baby in her arms, she walked swiftly down the trail to the canoe. Here a problem presented itself.
She could not hold the baby in her arms, nor could she let the hot sun of that hot August day pour on the little head. After a great deal of difficulty and some maneuvering, she managed to stand up some thickly-leaved branches so that they made a shade. She placed the baby on one of the canoe cushions in its shadow; stepped into the canoe.
Never had Maida paddled so carefully or so well. On the other side, she tethered the canoe; lifted the baby out. She had cried all the way across the lake and was still crying fitfully.
“Somebody may come and break the canoe,” Maida surmised swiftly, “but I can’t wait to put it away.” She hurried in the direction of the Little House. “What a surprise I’ve got for them,” her thoughts ran. She was toiling along slowly now, for by this time, the baby had grown heavy as lead. Maida had to stop many times to rest herarms. Her back ached as though it would break. “They’ll all want to keep this baby forever and I wish we could.”
But the surprise was not all for the others, nor indeed much as compared with their surprise for Maida. For as Maida neared the house, Rosie came flying down the path. Maida saw that her face was white and that great tears were pouring down her cheeks.
“Oh, Maida,” she sobbed, “where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere. A most terrible thing has happened. Poor Mrs. Dore”—she burst for an instant into uncontrollable sobbing; then composed herself, “—fell down the cellar stairs and broke her leg. We’ve had a dreadful time—Where did you get that baby?”
“In a cave,” Maida answered faintly. “Will you carry her, Rosie, I’m so tired. Go on quickly. Tell me all about it—”
Rosie took the baby into her expert arms; continued. “Well, Arthur called up the Satuit doctor and he came with an ambulance and they’ve taken her to the Satuit Center hospital. Granny Flynn had to go with her—and we’re all alone. We’ll have to run the house ourselves until Granny can get back. PoorDicky feels dreadful and now we’ve got this baby on our hands. Everything happens at once, doesn’t it? Gracious, I’ll have to give this poor little thing something to eat right off. That’s a hungry cry.”
Indoors was the scene and sound of confusion. Delia, sensing the panic that lay in the atmosphere, was crying wildly for her mother. The other children, unchecked, were running about the house in a game that seemed an improvised combination of tag and hide-and-go-seek. Their excited cries rang from above. Arthur was at the telephone trying to get Central. Beside him, a pencil ready to take down anything of importance, very wan-faced and pale, drooped Dicky. From the dining room came the clatter of plates as Harold and Laura went practically to work to set the table.
Arthur stared at Maida and Rosie as they entered with their strange bundle; stopped his telephoning to say, “Where did you get that baby?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment,” Maida said wearily, “but now we’ve got to work fast and I never was so tired in my life. Oh Dickydear, I’m so sorry for you! Poor, poor, Mrs. Dore and poor, poor Granny!”
But it was Rosie who really took the situation in charge, Rosie who so loved babies, Rosie who having helped so long in the care of her own little brother, knew exactly what to do.
“Tell Laura to get some milk from the ice chest, Arthur!” she commanded crisply, “and warm it up on the stove as quickly as possible. Then bring it upstairs to us. Maida, you come with me!” Rosie marched up to the bathroom and Maida meekly followed. On the first floor, “Get Mrs. Dore’s sewing board!” Rosie ordered and Maida got it. In the bathroom, Rosie placed the sewing board across the tub, close to the hand bowl; began to undress the baby.
There were few things to take off. They were all loose, comparatively clean, but ragged. Soon the little creature lay on the soft towels that Rosie had spread on the sewing board, kicking feebly. The removal of her clothes seemed to ease her. Her cry abated its violence a bit. Only what was the translation of a baby sob came now and then. Rosie filled the bowl with warm water, then with the gentlest of soothing strokes andusing the softest sponge she could find, she began to bathe the baby. Its crying died down completely. It responded to this cooling treatment with a little soft coo that drew from Maida, “Oh the little darling. Don’t you love her already, Rosie?”
“I love all babies,” Rosie said in a business-like tone, sopping the little girl’s downy head. She dried her carefully—deft little pattings that seemed merely pettings—with the finest towel she could get.
“Run to Mrs. Dore’s room and get Delia’s powder!” she commanded briefly again. When Maida returned, she covered the little glowing form with the cool powder. The baby’s eyelids began to droop.
“See how sleepy it is,” Rosie said with a kind of triumph. “Ah there comes Laura. Oh I wonder if she had the sense to put the milk in one of Delia’s old bottles?”
Laura had had the sense to do this, and was obviously proud of her foresight. Very expertly, Rosie turned a few drops from the bottle onto the back of her hand; decided it was not too hot; inserted the nipple in the baby’s mouth. The little girl pulled on it like one famished; pulled so hard and long and deep that Rosie had, once or twice, to take the bottleaway to keep her from choking. The little hands always reached out for the bottle and after a few instants Rosie gave it to her again.
In the meantime, Maida answered the stream of Laura’s questions, and Laura answered the torrent of Maida’s.
The baby pulled continuously at the bottle. Rosie had to lift the lower end higher and higher. After a long while, the baby dropped the nipple with a little sigh of relaxation. Her eyes, which had been growing heavier and heavier closed ... opened ... closed....
Now she was asleep.
“I don’t know what her feeding hours are,” Rosie said. “I’ll give her another feeding at four this afternoon. I’m going to fix the alarm clock so that I’ll wake at ten to-night, then I’ll let her go until morning. I don’t believe she has more than one night feeding. Even if she does, she can get along without it, one night. She seems famished now though. I never saw such a hungry baby.”
“You wake me up,” Maida said almost jealously. “Remember she’smybaby.”
“Yes,” Rosie agreed, “I’ll wake you.” She knit her satiny brows. “I wonder whose baby she is? They must be awfully worried about her by this time.”
“Oh, I left a note,” Maida protested.
“Are you sure you left it where they’d see it?”
Maida nodded. “I put a stone on it to hold it down and I surrounded it by other pages that I tore out of my diary and put stones on them. You could not fail to see it.”
Rosie lifted the baby and carried it to her bed. “I don’t think she could fall off,” she said. “But to make sure I’ll put chairs up against her and bank her around with pillows. Now we’d better let her sleep.”
In the meantime, Arthur had finished his telephoning. Mrs. Dore was as well as could be expected; was resting quietly. The break was a simple one. All she needed, in order to recover, was time and rest. The three boys had managed to stop Delia’s sobs; had captured the five other children and were keeping them quiet. Now they bombarded Maida with questions.
For the third time, Maida told the story of the baby. “Well, Maida, you certainly were brave,” Laura declared, “to follow that noise until you found out what it was. I would have run as fast as I could and as far as I could. That is, if I hadn’t fainted.”
“No,” Maida protested, “I wasn’t braveI wish I had been. At first I was as frightened as I could be. But when it flashed on me that it was a baby crying, it didn’t take any courage to find out where the baby was.”
“I wonder whose baby it is,” Harold said.
Everybody said this at least once, everybody except Arthur, but Arthur said nothing. He was thinking hard.
“Something queer happened to me the other night,” he broke out suddenly. “I didn’t tell you all about it because—because—Well somehow I couldn’t. I didn’t know what the answer was and I was ashamed that a girl could beat me like that.”
“Like what?” Rosie demanded. “What are you talking about? Oh, Arthur, do tell us!”
Arthur related in all its detail his experience with Silva Burle. “It made me wild,” he admitted, “to think that a girl could find a path that I couldn’t see and get away from me when I could run twice as fast as she—Well not twice as fast,” he corrected himself honestly, “but a great deal faster.”
“Well of course Silva’s a queer girl,” was Rosie’s comment. She added, “She won’t be running down any paths for some time yet I’m afraid, poor thing!”
“I think Silva had something to do with that baby,” Arthur guessed shrewdly.
“What nonsense!” Rosie said briskly. “What would she be doing taking care of somebody’s baby in the woods?”
“But she had a bottle of milk under her arm,” Arthur persisted.
“Yes,” Rosie said in an uncertain voice, “and that reminds me that I have seen her before carrying bottles of milk.”
“Oh I think somebody’s probably left that baby there for the day,” Laura said, “some tramp—or somebody.”
“But it must have been the baby crying that frightened us on the day of the picnic,” Harold declared.
“Well then,” Laura explained, “it was the same baby and the same people, whoever they were, left the baby in the cave that day too.”
The telephone rang. Arthur answered it. He listened for a moment, then he said, “Yes, of course. We’ll be all right. Tell her not to worry.” He turned to the others. “Poor Granny’s so upset that she wants to stay near the hospital all night, so she can see Mrs. Dore the first thing to-morrow morning. She asked if we could get along by ourselves untilFloribel came to-night and of course I said we could.”
“Of course we can,” Maida reassured him.
“Oh I’m so glad Granny can stay. It does seem as though everything came at once.”
“Things go by three’s,” Rosie asserted.
“Well what are our three?” Maida inquired. “There was Mrs. Dore’s accident, finding the baby and— What’s the third?”
“You wait,” Rosie prophesied loftily, “It’ll come. But now the thing to do is to get lunch. Thank goodness for all those cooking lessons we’ve had. Don’t you remember, Maida, that your father said that we’d never know when we’d be put in a situation that we’d be very glad we could cook.”
“What shall we have for luncheon?” Maida asked and her voice quavered a little.
“We’d better look into the ice chest and see what’s there,” suggested the practical Laura.
“Oh here’s all this nice stew left over from day before yesterday!” Rosie’s head was concealed by the ice chest door but her tone was that of one who has found diamonds. “That’s nice because all we’ve got to do to that is warm it up. I’ll attend to the stew.”
“And here’s some delicious tarts,” Laura exclaimed, “that Granny must have madethis morning. We’ll have them for dessert.”
“Now while I’m warming the stew,” Rosie commanded, “you two cut the bread; fill the milk pitchers and put the butter on the table.”
When they summoned the others to lunch, they found the seats all changed about. This was the work of the practical Rosie. “You must each of you take care of one of the children,” Rosie explained. “Now all of you begin buttering the bread while I am dishing out the stew.”
Laura had Betsy, and Dicky, Delia. Harold had one of the Clark twins and Laura the other. Maida took care of both Timmie and Molly; so that Rosie had nothing to do but serve.
“My goodness, I never realized how much work Granny and Mrs. Dore do,” Laura said once, “and how patient they are. Delia, that’s your fourth slice of bread and butter. Now youmustdrink your milk.”