CHAPTER IIA HOUSE OF MYSTERY
Asthough to completely take the joy out of life for us, no other cars came along, as we had expected they would. The sway-backed roadster with the crazy name and queer-looking driver seemed to have the whole highway to itself. And that was strange, we thought, puzzled.
Why had the road been closed to all the cars except this one? Or, to put it another way, if the road had been closed to the general traffic, for certain reasons, how had the one car gotten permission to come through?
It was dusk now. And as though cheered up by the cooler air of early nightfall, the crickets and locusts were tuning it up to beat the cars. Or maybe, was my crazy thought, they were hooting at us in derision as we passed. I could imagine, as we trudged along, hungry and fagged out, that we looked not unlike some rare piece of junk that the cat had dragged in. I know I felt that way.
Once or twice we caught sight of a scuttling rabbit. And now that the bushes beside the hard road werelost in creeping shadows, I began to pick out moving eyes. Hunks of green glass set close together.
Poppy had joked with me about putting in the night here, though at the time neither of us had thought that we might in all fact have to do that very thing. But now the outlook was against us. We seemed to be a million miles from nowhere. Did snakes and sand lizards, I wondered, have green eyes? Br-r-r-r! If it came about, to our further grief, that we had no other choice than to stick it out all night in the open, it was my clever little decision to roost in a tree—that and nothing else but. I wasn’t so well supplied with spare legs and arms that I cared to run the chance of having one chawed off and hurriedly digested by some green-eyed monster while I snoozed on a bed of sand burs. I guess not.
Certainly, I checked up on the day’s adventures, so different from our dreams, a fellow’s fortunes were easily turned upsidedown. Only that morning we had set forth on our trip with lilting hearts, as the saying is. Everything was sunshine and chocolate drops. But were we lilting now? Not so you could notice it. I had the beaten feeling, as I dragged myself along, that I had lilted my last lilt.
“Poppy,” I suffered, feeling that it was time for some more nonsense, “if the worst comes to the worst, and I go down first, you can have my jigsawand football shoes—only the jigsaw needs a new leather belt.”
“Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along,” the other sang, to cheer me up.
“Say, Poppy,” I breathed, clinging to his arm, my eyes far away, “what is heaven like?”
“Be yourself, kid,” he shoved at me. “You aren’t Little Eva.”
“I wish now that I had taken lessons on a harp,” I tremoloed, “instead of a shoehorn. If only we could look ahead and know what the Fates have in store for us. Eh, kid?”
“Jerry,” came warmly, as the leader slipped an arm around me, “you’re a regular little sunbeam. For no matter how hard we get bumped, your stock of silly gab never dries up. I don’t know how I ever could get along without you. Certainly, it wouldn’t be the same old world.”
Well, that was pretty nice of him, I thought. I appreciated the hug, too!
“If you want to,” I puckered up, looking at him with my soul in my eyes, “you can kiss your little sunbeam ... once.”
“Go on!” he shoved.
I was about to unhinge some more of my crazy gab, when all of a sudden the leader gave a whoop and scooted down the road.
“Here’s a signboard, Jerry. ‘New Zion ten miles,’” he read.
“Ten miles!” I groaned.
“We can make it.”
“But look at the road!” I wailed. “It’s nothing but sand. We’ll slip back faster than we can go ahead.”
“Then we’ll walk backwards,” came the quick grin.
“Ten miles!” I suffered anew. “It’s no use, Poppy,” I waggled weakly, as a sort of climax to my little act. “I’m done for. Remember, kid, the jigsaw’s yours. And you’ll find my book of patterns and seven new blades under the dog house. Good-by, Poppy. You meant well in bringing me here. But you didn’t know, old pal. So I forgive you. And if you can’t make the jigsaw saw ask Dad to help you, for he’s almost as clever at sawing hunks out of his finger tips as I am.”
“I’ll ‘jigsaw’ you in the seat of the pants if you don’t come on and shut up,” he told me.
Seesawing together, the moon had been lifted into sight by the sinking sun. And now we could trace the winding course of the sandy road leading to New Zion. As I have hinted in an earlier paragraph, it wassomeroad. Sand to the right of us, sand to the left of us and sand in front of us, as Lord Tennysonwould have written it in poetry. But as I trudged along beside the leader I tried to grin and bear it.
“A light, Jerry!” he suddenly yipped. “There’s a farmhouse up ahead of us. We’re saved now, old kid.”
There was indeed a house up ahead of us, on the right-hand side of the road. We could see it in the moonlight. But as we hurried toward it, in livelier spirits, I couldn’t make myself believe that it was a farmhouse. Certainly, it was no ordinary farmhouse. For it was much too showy. I could count three stories and an attic. It was a stone house, too. And even if it had been built years and years ago, when labor and plaster were peddled around at bargain rates, I could not doubt that it had cost a fortune.
Who had been crazy enough, I wondered, curious over the unusual place, to build a house like this at the very end of the world? It didn’t fit into the waste landscape at all. Still, was my contented thought, the better the house the better the meal. It ought to work out that way. So we really were in luck to strike a place like this instead of a shack, which would have better matched the country.
Not only was the house itself built of stone, but it was inclosed by a stone wall at least three feet high. Where the private road turned in, smoothly graveled, the wall was lifted into a huge archedgateway. Looking in, I thought curious-like of the magic palace that the genii had built for Aladdin.
“Is it real?” I asked Poppy’s opinion, wondering if it would be safe for us to go in. “Or is it a mirage, as you read about in stories of people crossing the desert?”
“Tell me what you see,” laughed the other, as puzzled over the unusual place as I was, “and I’ll tell you what I see.”
“A beautiful three-story stone house,” I checked off, “with fancy jiggers all over it, to make it showy, and a stone wall in front, with a big gateway, like a cemetery.”
“That’s exactly what I see, too. So I guess it’s real enough. But it beats me,” the puzzled leader concluded, matching my thoughts, “to find a place like this in a country where there aren’t even farmhouses.”
Leg weary and hollow under our belts, it had been our intention to buy a meal here, late as it was, and if possible rent a bed for the night. Certainly, done up as we were from our first unsatisfactory day on the road, it was all right for us to draw on our emergency fund. The next night, when we were on the other road where the automobiles were, and playing in luck again, we would try working for our supper and breakfast, as we had planned on doing. But not to-night.
It struck me, though, as I stood there looking at the peculiar house, that this was no place to buy a meal. If we were admitted into the house at all it would be without pay. For only a very wealthy man could have built a place like this. And what would a dollar or two of our money mean to him?
Still, unless we wanted the people to think that we were tramps, it would be better for us to offer to pay for our supper, I told Poppy, than to ask for it. So of this determination we turned in through the big gate and mounted the front steps.
The door that we came to was set in a framework of glass, in the old colonial way, and taking a squint inside, I saw a long, wide, dimly-lit hall, the walls and ceiling of which were fixed up with fancy dark wood panels. It was a swell house, all right, as swell on the inside, with its beautiful walls and old furniture, as it was on the outside. And more than ever I wondered at its being here. It must have a queer history, I told myself.
“Clang!” went the old-fashioned knocker. And I stepped back now, out of sight, for a small, quick-footed woman of considerable age had come briskly into sight, carrying a hand lamp. I saw her set the lamp on a small table close to the door. In her blue and white kitchen apron, she didn’t look very high-toned, like the big house, yet, to that point, I likedher best the way she was. She had a sort of motherly look. Her gray hair was combed tight to her head, which she carried very straight on her shoulders, and even before I got a close look at her I knew that her eyes were gray, too. I was to learn soon that they were very bright eyes, sparkling as she talked—and could shetalk! Oh, boy!
The door was opened without hesitation. Yet at sight of us the woman seemed to be startled, even disappointed. She was looking for some one else, I figured.
“It’s just two boys,” Poppy spoke up quickly, noticing that the older one was trying to look over our shoulders. “We haven’t had any supper. And seeing your light, as we were hoofing it for New Zion, we wondered if you wouldn’t be kind enough to sell us something to eat.”
“Laws-a-me!” cried the little old woman, with a nervous, excited gesture. “If you’ve got money, keep it. You don’t have to pay for a meal inthishouse, not whileI’mhere, though how long I’ll be here I can’t say.”
“That’s fine,” says Poppy in good manners. “But we don’t want to be cheap about it.”
“Samantha AnnDanverDoane is my name,” the woman ran on, “Danverbeing my maiden name, and a name I’m justly proud of, I want you to know.While it probably isn’t anything to boast of, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, I’ll confess to you, as I have to other people, it being my nature to be frank and open, that I’m only a poor relation of the man who built this house and lived in it until his sudden death, the ninth of last August. So now you know who I am, and you understand what I mean when I say I don’t know how long I’ll be here.... Who did you say you were?”
Poppy gave our names and explained about the closed highway. All the time he was talking the woman talked, too. It was kind of funny. But I kept a straight face. For even if old people are queer, you can’t laugh at them to their face. I guess not. Mother and Dad would jerk me out of my skin if I ever did a trick like that.
“When you first knocked,” the woman ran on, and I was getting wise to her lively eyes now, “I thought it was Miss Ruth. ‘There,’ says I to myself, as I dropped my work in the kitchen, ‘it would be just like that dear jolly girl to call me to the door and then jump into my arms.’ While I am a poor relation of the Danvers, as I say, I want you to know that I’m very proud of my stock, and consequently Miss Ruth is very dear to me, though I don’t like her mother, and never did. The proud piece! But, laws-a-me, Miss Ruth is thedearestgirl, just about theage of you boys, and just like her pa and her grandpa, too.”
Talk like that takes a lot of air. But in stopping to get her wind, the little old lady didn’t waste any time.
“Hewas the commonest and kindest man I ever knew in all my life, with all of his great wealth—meaning Mr. Corbin Danver, who built this mammoth house and died here—and how his son, Harold, could have quarreled with him, and let the quarrel stand to the separation of the two branches of the family, is more thanIcan figure out. But a lot of queer things happen in this world—and in the best of families, our own unexcepted.”
“Yes, indeed,” says Poppy, feeling, I guess, that to be polite he ought to say something.
The woman then switched her thoughts to us and smiled as though she had seen worse-looking guys.
“As I say, I didn’t expect to find twoboyswhen I opened the door, but you are none the less welcome, if that is in good form as coming from a poor relation. And you’re hungry, you say! Well, just come with me to the kitchen and I’ll see what I can find for you. I haven’t had supper myself, figuring I’d wait until Pa and Miss Ruth got here, so I may take a bite with you for company’s sake, for Pa may not get here for another hour.Suchan old car as we have!But it’s all we can afford. You never know what is liable to happen to it when you start out. A wheel ran off the day we came here, which was a week ago yesterday. Oh, dear! It’s awful to be poor. I sometimes wonder how it would seem to be arichrelation for once instead of apoorrelation.... Do you like cold meat sandwiches? Or shall I fry some potatoes?”
“Don’t go to any bother,” Poppy told her quickly. “For anything in the way of grub is good enough for us.”
Having followed the woman to the kitchen, we now watched her, grinning at each other, while she worked and talked. Her hands and tongue moved together, though for the most part what she said passed over our heads. She kept referring to “Miss Ruth” and “Pa.” “Miss Ruth’s ma,” we learned, had been aHardybefore her marriage into theDanverfamily. And considering her stock she was acting much too big for her shoes—whatever that was. But “Miss Ruth’s pa” was a gentleman ofrealstock—aDanver, if you please! And “Miss Ruth” herself was just like her pa and her grandpa.
What interested us more than the woman’s chatter was the fine supper that she set out for us. Boy, did food ever taste so good to us! I’d be ashamed to tell you how many sandwiches we ate. Buthowever much we stuffed ourselves, we didn’t eat half enough to suit the little old lady, who, having talked all the time she was getting the “eats” ready, was still talking. Her one great ambition, it seemed to me, was to tell all she knew!
Once she left us, to see if “Pa and Miss Ruth” were coming. We heard her open the front door and go outside.
“She sure has a limber tongue,” grinned Poppy, murdering his tenth sandwich. “But she’s all right,” he tacked on hastily, not wanting me to get a wrong idea of what he meant.
“What do you make out of her talk?” says I, looking around the big kitchen, which was as fine a kitchen as I ever had been in.
“As I understand it, she and ‘Pa,’ her husband, came here a week ago to open up this house, which had been closed since the funeral—whoever it was that died here.”
“I got that part—it was Miss Ruth’s grandfather, Mr. Corbin Danver. He was the man who built this place.”
“But who is Miss Ruth?”
“Some girl who’s coming here on a visit, I guess.”
“‘Pa’ went to the train to meet her, huh?”
“That’s the way I understand it.”
Poppy laughed.
“Say, Jerry, I wonder if that wasn’t ‘Pa’ in the old car.”
“He was headed this way, all right.”
“Still,” the leader turned the thought around in his mind, “it couldn’t have been him. For the man who passed us in the Galloping Snail could easily have gotten here ahead of us. Besides, he was alone.”
“Don’t forget about the goose,” I grinned.
“A goose isn’t a girl.”
“A lady goose is,” I joked, “when she’s young.”
“You’re a goose yourself!”
The woman was nervous when she came back to the kitchen.
“Dear me!” she cried. “I’m beginning to worry about Pa. For it’s almost ten o’clock. Do you suppose he’s lost?”
“Doesn’t he know the roads around here?” I inquired.
“Him?Pa is dumb, if I must admit it, as one who has lived with him for more than forty years.Heisn’t a Danver,” came proudly, “it’smewho is.He’sa Doane, and the Doanes, from Cyril Doane down, are a thick-headed lot, though I hoped well for Pa when I married him. But it’s a fact,hewouldn’t know how to put on his shirt if I didn’t yank him into it. However, he’s a good husband in some ways. For one thing, he never talks back to me.But it’smewho has to do all the planning. His head might just as well be made of wood for all the use he makes of it. I never can depend on him. The other day I sent him to Neponset Corners for somebakingpowder and he ended up in Sandy Ridge where he boughtbugpowder. Powder! That was all he could keep in his mind at one time—he knew I had saidpowder—but could he think ofbakingpowder?—no,bugpowder! That’s Pa for you. No wonder I worry about him when he’s out of my sight. And I wish now that I hadn’t trusted him to go to Pardyville alone.”
“We came through Pardyville this afternoon,” says Poppy, by way of conversation.
“Like as not,” came the further worry, “he’ll go to the wrong depot. Oh, dear! What wouldn’t I give to hear one of his old tires blow up out in front—just to know that he was home safe and sound. Suppose something should happen to Miss Ruth!—and her coming here secretly. What would her ma say? I sometimes think she shouldn’t have planned to come here without telling her ma. And to that point,whyshe wants to come here, so secret-like, is a mystery tome. But when I got her letter, asking me to come over with Pa to open the house, I didn’t say ‘no.’ That was little enough for a body to do for one’s rich relation, I thought—and you alwaysget something for it. As I said to Pa last night, ‘Pa,whyis Miss Ruth so anxious to come here all of a sudden? What is her object? Kept away from her grandpa’s funeral by her ma, who never got over the quarrel, is she anxious now to come here, on her way to boarding school, out of respect for the dead?’ But you might as well talk to a hitching post as to talk to Pa. Allheever says is ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and half the time he doesn’t know enough to say that if I don’t tell him to.”
I was thinking to myself, sort of grinning-like, that maybe all “Pa” ever had a chance to say was “yes” and “no.” But, of course, I kept shut on my thoughts. For I know my manners.
As we finished our supper, the droning voice of a clock came down the stairs. I began to count the slow strokes.
“Listen!” the woman breathed, and I saw that a quick change had come over her. She looked frightened—as though she expected something to rush in and grab her. “... seven ... eight ... nine ... ten,” she counted. There was a short deep silence. Then something slammed upstairs. “What is it?” she cried, looking back and forth at us.
“Sounded like a door,” says Poppy.
“I know it’s a door. And I suspect that it’s the door of the chamber where Miss Ruth’s grandpadied. But what makes itslam? And always when the clock strikes ten! It does that every night. As I told Pa the second time it happened, there’s something queer going on in this house—something that neither he nor I can understand. Miss Ruth isn’t coming here in a mere whim. She has areason. Has she learned why her grandpa left her the keys of this house? Does she know what is in the will, which is to be read here Wednesday night? Certainly, when she gets here, and I expect her any minute now, I hope that she tells me the truth. For if there’s anything I hate it’s to be around people who have secrets.Me?—I never had a secret in all my life. I don’t believe in secrets. And that is one reason why I set my foot down when Pa wanted to join the Masons. I wasn’t going to havehimknow things thatIdidn’t know.”
Poppy was sitting beside the telephone. And when it suddenly jingled he jumped as though he had been shot.
“Laws-a-me!” cried the woman nervously. “I wonder what now?”