Greendale, Va.Saturday Morning.My darling Grace:Such a time as we are having—I’ve almost danced up my new ten dollar shoes, but I am sure glad I wore them as they have been much admired. There are oodlums of men up here and some of the prettiest dancers I have ever met.I must tell you what a terrible break I made. There is a man here named Bill Tinsley, and do you know I took him for a jitney driver the first day I got here and gave him a tip—twenty-five cents. He took it like a mutt and now he has a hole in it and wears it around his neck and everybody thinks it is an awful joke on me. I must say that it is hard to tell one kind of man from another when nobody introduces you. He is awful dum but dances like Volinine. He never opens his face except to feed it and to laugh and he laughs louder and more than anybody I have ever met before.Speaking of feeding, the eats are fine. I don’t see how the Carter girls ever learned how to do it but they have the best things! I hoped itwould be bum as I want to fall off. I have always been a perfect thirty-six and must say I don’t relish taking on flesh, but I can’t resist fried chicken and waffles.I am almost sorry I brought my new pink as I really need some kind of outing dress, but I did not have room for so many things and I do think that it is best to have plenty of dancing frocks rather than sport suits that after all do not become me very much.We have chaperones to burn as Miss Elizabeth Somerville is here and Mrs. Tate may stay a long time so Lil can be here with Lucy Carter. I am dying to stay but $2.00 per is right steep for yours truly. I don’t think that is much for what you get and I think the Carter girls are real smart to charge a good price as long as they are giving you good things. Helen Carter does a lot of the cooking and has the sweetest little bungalow aprons to cook in. They are pink and blue, just my style, and when I get a trousseau I intend to have one.We danced last night until eleven and then old Miss Somerville made all of us go to bed. She couldn’t see to play cards was the reason she was so proper. Little dinky kerosene lamps that blow out in the wind are not much for card playing but they do fine for dancing. The boys say they are going to bring up some electric lanterns the next week-end so the old lady can see to play and she will forget the time.Did you ever sleep in a tent, Grace? Well, it is great—I was real sorry I didn’t have a blanket when it blew up so cold. It was right downnippy. I wasn’t going to say a thing but I was sorry I hadn’t even brought a sweater—one of the fellows didn’t have a blanket either but I heard him say he was going to sleep in his clothes. A blue Georgette crêpe and a pink chiffon wouldn’t help me much and all of my clothes are diaphanous this summer. I am sharing a tent with two old maids and a sten from Richmond. Do you know when I went to my tent I found six blankets on my cot and Susan the maid brought me two more? It had got out among the men that I didn’t have a blanket, how I can’t imagine, and they sent me theirs. Now wasn’t that too sweet of them? I sent them all back but a lovely cadet blue—it was so becoming I chose that. It turned out to be Mr. Tinsley’s so I believe he is not mad about the tip I gave him.We are going on a walk this morning over to a terrible place called the Devil’s Gorge. I am going to wear Lucy Carter’s shoes and Nan’s skirt and Helen’s middy blouse and Douglas has a hat for me. The sten in the tent with me lent me some stockings. You see I brought nothing but silk ones. After we got to bed last night and I was almost asleep but was talking to the sten, who is a very nice agreeable girl—the old maids were both snoring—we heard a car chugging up the hill and it seems two more men had arrived, motored all the way from Richmond. It was a Dr. Wright and a boy named Dick. I heard Helen Carter, in the next tent, just raising Cain and saying he was very inconsiderate to come in on them at night that way, but before they could so much as get up to see where they were to sleep,they got a message that the new comers had brought their own blankets and hammocks and no one was to stir for them. I met Dr. Wright at breakfast and I think he is real cute. Helen Carter is mighty rude to him and I can’t see how he stands it. Helen has lovely manners usually but she certainly does pick him up quick. He is a general favorite with the rest of the family though, and Bobby is just wild about him. No more at present. I don’t see how I ever wrote this much as there has been a lot of noise and I know ten times I have been begged to stop writing and come dance. It looks like rain but I do hope it won’t. My blue will melt I know if it rains.Your best friend,Tillie Wingo.
Greendale, Va.Saturday Morning.
My darling Grace:
Such a time as we are having—I’ve almost danced up my new ten dollar shoes, but I am sure glad I wore them as they have been much admired. There are oodlums of men up here and some of the prettiest dancers I have ever met.
I must tell you what a terrible break I made. There is a man here named Bill Tinsley, and do you know I took him for a jitney driver the first day I got here and gave him a tip—twenty-five cents. He took it like a mutt and now he has a hole in it and wears it around his neck and everybody thinks it is an awful joke on me. I must say that it is hard to tell one kind of man from another when nobody introduces you. He is awful dum but dances like Volinine. He never opens his face except to feed it and to laugh and he laughs louder and more than anybody I have ever met before.
Speaking of feeding, the eats are fine. I don’t see how the Carter girls ever learned how to do it but they have the best things! I hoped itwould be bum as I want to fall off. I have always been a perfect thirty-six and must say I don’t relish taking on flesh, but I can’t resist fried chicken and waffles.
I am almost sorry I brought my new pink as I really need some kind of outing dress, but I did not have room for so many things and I do think that it is best to have plenty of dancing frocks rather than sport suits that after all do not become me very much.
We have chaperones to burn as Miss Elizabeth Somerville is here and Mrs. Tate may stay a long time so Lil can be here with Lucy Carter. I am dying to stay but $2.00 per is right steep for yours truly. I don’t think that is much for what you get and I think the Carter girls are real smart to charge a good price as long as they are giving you good things. Helen Carter does a lot of the cooking and has the sweetest little bungalow aprons to cook in. They are pink and blue, just my style, and when I get a trousseau I intend to have one.
We danced last night until eleven and then old Miss Somerville made all of us go to bed. She couldn’t see to play cards was the reason she was so proper. Little dinky kerosene lamps that blow out in the wind are not much for card playing but they do fine for dancing. The boys say they are going to bring up some electric lanterns the next week-end so the old lady can see to play and she will forget the time.
Did you ever sleep in a tent, Grace? Well, it is great—I was real sorry I didn’t have a blanket when it blew up so cold. It was right downnippy. I wasn’t going to say a thing but I was sorry I hadn’t even brought a sweater—one of the fellows didn’t have a blanket either but I heard him say he was going to sleep in his clothes. A blue Georgette crêpe and a pink chiffon wouldn’t help me much and all of my clothes are diaphanous this summer. I am sharing a tent with two old maids and a sten from Richmond. Do you know when I went to my tent I found six blankets on my cot and Susan the maid brought me two more? It had got out among the men that I didn’t have a blanket, how I can’t imagine, and they sent me theirs. Now wasn’t that too sweet of them? I sent them all back but a lovely cadet blue—it was so becoming I chose that. It turned out to be Mr. Tinsley’s so I believe he is not mad about the tip I gave him.
We are going on a walk this morning over to a terrible place called the Devil’s Gorge. I am going to wear Lucy Carter’s shoes and Nan’s skirt and Helen’s middy blouse and Douglas has a hat for me. The sten in the tent with me lent me some stockings. You see I brought nothing but silk ones. After we got to bed last night and I was almost asleep but was talking to the sten, who is a very nice agreeable girl—the old maids were both snoring—we heard a car chugging up the hill and it seems two more men had arrived, motored all the way from Richmond. It was a Dr. Wright and a boy named Dick. I heard Helen Carter, in the next tent, just raising Cain and saying he was very inconsiderate to come in on them at night that way, but before they could so much as get up to see where they were to sleep,they got a message that the new comers had brought their own blankets and hammocks and no one was to stir for them. I met Dr. Wright at breakfast and I think he is real cute. Helen Carter is mighty rude to him and I can’t see how he stands it. Helen has lovely manners usually but she certainly does pick him up quick. He is a general favorite with the rest of the family though, and Bobby is just wild about him. No more at present. I don’t see how I ever wrote this much as there has been a lot of noise and I know ten times I have been begged to stop writing and come dance. It looks like rain but I do hope it won’t. My blue will melt I know if it rains.
Your best friend,Tillie Wingo.
Skeeter from Frank Maury.
Hello Skeeter!Come in, the water’s fine! Say, Skeeter, what’s the reason you can’t light right out and come up to camp? Be sure and bring a blanket, the nights are cold as flugians. Miss Douglas Carter says that they call it a week-end camp just for cod, but we can stay through the week if we’ve a mind. Bully eats and plenty of ’em, and say, Skeeter, two mighty prime girls—no nonsense about them but spunky and up to snuff. They are named Lucy Carter and Lil Tate. They say they’d like to meet you a lot. If you come we can play five hundred when we are not climbing the mountains and hunting bee trees.Lucy has some chores she has to do but Lil and I help and we get through in a jiffy. It is just fun. I talk like I been here a month and it is just one night. Anyhow, Lil and I helped this morning and we are going to do it every morning. You see, these Carter girls are running this camp for the spondulix they can get out of it and it means all of them have got to spit on their hands and turn in. Lucy has to help wipe the dishes when they have many folks. I blew in the glasses and polished them so fine that Miss Helen said she would like to hire me. I ain’t going to tell you more of the camp because I am sure you will be here yourself soon. It beats the beach all hollow. These girls are sure slick, these Carter girls. They have a camp fire going all the time to make it look al frescoish, but they do their cooking mostly on stoves and in fireless cookers. They roast the potatoes in the camp fire and bring them to the table with ashes on ’em to make ’em look more campyfied; and they have a big iron pot hanging over the fire but they never have anything in it but water. Say, Skeeter, when you come, bring your fish lines as there is a stream that looks like fish. Let a fellow know when to look for you.Yrs. truly,Frank Maury.
Hello Skeeter!
Come in, the water’s fine! Say, Skeeter, what’s the reason you can’t light right out and come up to camp? Be sure and bring a blanket, the nights are cold as flugians. Miss Douglas Carter says that they call it a week-end camp just for cod, but we can stay through the week if we’ve a mind. Bully eats and plenty of ’em, and say, Skeeter, two mighty prime girls—no nonsense about them but spunky and up to snuff. They are named Lucy Carter and Lil Tate. They say they’d like to meet you a lot. If you come we can play five hundred when we are not climbing the mountains and hunting bee trees.Lucy has some chores she has to do but Lil and I help and we get through in a jiffy. It is just fun. I talk like I been here a month and it is just one night. Anyhow, Lil and I helped this morning and we are going to do it every morning. You see, these Carter girls are running this camp for the spondulix they can get out of it and it means all of them have got to spit on their hands and turn in. Lucy has to help wipe the dishes when they have many folks. I blew in the glasses and polished them so fine that Miss Helen said she would like to hire me. I ain’t going to tell you more of the camp because I am sure you will be here yourself soon. It beats the beach all hollow. These girls are sure slick, these Carter girls. They have a camp fire going all the time to make it look al frescoish, but they do their cooking mostly on stoves and in fireless cookers. They roast the potatoes in the camp fire and bring them to the table with ashes on ’em to make ’em look more campyfied; and they have a big iron pot hanging over the fire but they never have anything in it but water. Say, Skeeter, when you come, bring your fish lines as there is a stream that looks like fish. Let a fellow know when to look for you.
Yrs. truly,Frank Maury.
Susan Jourdan to Melissa Thompson, the former cook at the Carters’.
Dere ant Melisser?i am sogournin hear most profertably to all consearned. me and uncle Oscur is took over theBrunt of the laber but the yung ladys is very konsiderable of us and all of them healps at every chanst. miss Helun is astonishun in her caperbilitys, morn what we thort posserble. We had upwards of thirty last night for super and it took a sight of vittles to fill them folks. We want countin on morn twenty-four and want countin’ on them eatin quite so much but miss Helun took holt and stirred up some batty kates and got em started to fryin befoar the waffles give out and all the folks turned in then and et batty kates like they aint never already filled up on waffles. White folks are sure quick to think in times of stress. Niggers jest lay down and give up when anything suddint turns up like extry stomiks but white gals aint nocked out by sich things. Now uncle Oscur and me would have to know long time befoar han about batty kates but miss Helun just waltzed in and made em. it war the las think they learnt her to make at the XYWZ whar she tuck a coarse in culminary cookin. Theys a yung lady here named miss Guen who is a mistery to me and uncle Oscur. she is bar futed and dressed in a dress no biggern a flower sax but she talks properern miss Lizy sumervil and hoalds up her haid ekal to mis Carter herself, she is a gret han at cookin and shen Me together kin git up a sweet meel. She was floared by the Nos. last nite tho and shen Me was bout givin up when miss Helun stept in. miss Helun looks Sweet in her bugaboo apern i think dr. Right thinks so too but when he started to say something to her bout it she pritty near bit his haid off. she is got it in for him good and wright but the others is daftybout Him and Bobby thinks he is the angle Gabrul hisself. I aint writ you bout a low flung mounting boy up hear what put a hornets nest under my baid the fust nite we sogourned hear. he is impruved now because of mr. Lewis who sayed his say to Him and thin made him take a bath when it want morn Chewsday. We gits along with him by gittin out of his Way. Ill give it to him that he is smart enuf and kin work. He is got strange notions tho and whin some of the compny handed him a little change for his trouble in totin up they bags he got insulted. uncle Oscur and I says we would like some of them insults heeped on us. no more from yours in haste at preasant. I dreemed bout teeth last nite wich is sure sine of death but miss Nan sayed it was because i sleapt with a wad of chueing gum in my mouth and it sprung my Gaw and maid my teeth ake. we are xpecting a large Crowd for the 4th of july. it air a strange thing to me that white folks should make so mutch noise on the day that our rase was given its freedom. The folks is all lawd in prase of my biskit which is no trubble at all to roll out. the yung folks is all gone on a walk what they calls a hyke. They is going to a fearsum spot known as the devilsgorge. twas there that miss Guens paw made way with his life. miss Guen and i is to serve lunch for miss Lizzie sumervil and some ladies and a gent who is too crepit to hyke. They is endorsed in cards and done forgot to chapperroon. thaint none here what needs watching. that pretty miss Tillie wingo is mighty flity but thaint no meanness in her. the bows act likebeas round a honie pot with her. She don’t talk nothin but fulishnes and gigglin but men fokes is sometimes took with that sawt of tainment. miss Nan done say she thinks twould be good bizness if they ask miss Tillie to stay on as a gest. She earns her keep and weakenders will come here jest cause of her. miss Duglas say so too but miss Helun says let her stay but make her get sum sootable duds as shes got no i dear of lending her her noo accordeonroy skurt perchused specally for the mountings and she sayed she seen miss Tillie eying it with Mutt Ise. I am enjoyn poar helth and hope it finds you the same.respeect.Susan Jourdan.
Dere ant Melisser?
i am sogournin hear most profertably to all consearned. me and uncle Oscur is took over theBrunt of the laber but the yung ladys is very konsiderable of us and all of them healps at every chanst. miss Helun is astonishun in her caperbilitys, morn what we thort posserble. We had upwards of thirty last night for super and it took a sight of vittles to fill them folks. We want countin on morn twenty-four and want countin’ on them eatin quite so much but miss Helun took holt and stirred up some batty kates and got em started to fryin befoar the waffles give out and all the folks turned in then and et batty kates like they aint never already filled up on waffles. White folks are sure quick to think in times of stress. Niggers jest lay down and give up when anything suddint turns up like extry stomiks but white gals aint nocked out by sich things. Now uncle Oscur and me would have to know long time befoar han about batty kates but miss Helun just waltzed in and made em. it war the las think they learnt her to make at the XYWZ whar she tuck a coarse in culminary cookin. Theys a yung lady here named miss Guen who is a mistery to me and uncle Oscur. she is bar futed and dressed in a dress no biggern a flower sax but she talks properern miss Lizy sumervil and hoalds up her haid ekal to mis Carter herself, she is a gret han at cookin and shen Me together kin git up a sweet meel. She was floared by the Nos. last nite tho and shen Me was bout givin up when miss Helun stept in. miss Helun looks Sweet in her bugaboo apern i think dr. Right thinks so too but when he started to say something to her bout it she pritty near bit his haid off. she is got it in for him good and wright but the others is daftybout Him and Bobby thinks he is the angle Gabrul hisself. I aint writ you bout a low flung mounting boy up hear what put a hornets nest under my baid the fust nite we sogourned hear. he is impruved now because of mr. Lewis who sayed his say to Him and thin made him take a bath when it want morn Chewsday. We gits along with him by gittin out of his Way. Ill give it to him that he is smart enuf and kin work. He is got strange notions tho and whin some of the compny handed him a little change for his trouble in totin up they bags he got insulted. uncle Oscur and I says we would like some of them insults heeped on us. no more from yours in haste at preasant. I dreemed bout teeth last nite wich is sure sine of death but miss Nan sayed it was because i sleapt with a wad of chueing gum in my mouth and it sprung my Gaw and maid my teeth ake. we are xpecting a large Crowd for the 4th of july. it air a strange thing to me that white folks should make so mutch noise on the day that our rase was given its freedom. The folks is all lawd in prase of my biskit which is no trubble at all to roll out. the yung folks is all gone on a walk what they calls a hyke. They is going to a fearsum spot known as the devilsgorge. twas there that miss Guens paw made way with his life. miss Guen and i is to serve lunch for miss Lizzie sumervil and some ladies and a gent who is too crepit to hyke. They is endorsed in cards and done forgot to chapperroon. thaint none here what needs watching. that pretty miss Tillie wingo is mighty flity but thaint no meanness in her. the bows act likebeas round a honie pot with her. She don’t talk nothin but fulishnes and gigglin but men fokes is sometimes took with that sawt of tainment. miss Nan done say she thinks twould be good bizness if they ask miss Tillie to stay on as a gest. She earns her keep and weakenders will come here jest cause of her. miss Duglas say so too but miss Helun says let her stay but make her get sum sootable duds as shes got no i dear of lending her her noo accordeonroy skurt perchused specally for the mountings and she sayed she seen miss Tillie eying it with Mutt Ise. I am enjoyn poar helth and hope it finds you the same.
respeect.Susan Jourdan.
You could plainly see the Devil’s Gorge from Camp Carter, that is, you could see a dent in the neighboring mountain, and no one but Josh knew that it was two hours’ steady walking to that purplish dimple. Two hours’ steady walking is not possible with twenty-odd persons, and so it took nearer four to reach the end of their journey. There were many pauses to rest and to tie shoe strings and refresh themselves at gurgling springs. Josh led the way with Josephus as pack mule, the lunch strapped on his back and Bobby perched on top like a Great Mogul.
Josephus was at a great disadvantage as his short fore leg was down hill. “Never mind, he’ll play thunder goin’ back,” Josh consoled himself and Bobby, who had to sit very carefully to keep from falling off on the down side. Josephuslimped cheerfully on as though there were nothing he enjoyed more than a hike where he was allowed to carry the lunch.
“He is such a cheerful old mule that I just know if he had been born a canary bird he would be singing all the time,” declared Nan. “I think he has a most enviable disposition.”
“Yes, his disposition is more to be envied than his job,” suggested one of the party.
“Never mind, we will lighten his load for him before we return. I am starved.”
“Who is it that is hungry?”
“Me, me!” from so many mouths that the educating spinsters’ precise “I, I,” was lost in the avalanche of me’s.
Those worthy ladies were in a seventh heaven of bliss. They had found many botanical specimens which they pounced upon for future analysis, and their little hammers were going whack! whack! at every boulder that poor Josephus stumbled over. They were really very nice and kind, and as for their backbones, it was not their fault that they had pokers instead of vertebrae.
The Devil’s Gorge was worth the long walk, even to those who had no hammers. Great rocks were piled high on top of one another and all down the mountain side was an enormous crack in solid rock.
“Geewhiz! Something must have been doing here once to make such a mess,” declared Lewis Somerville.
“Just look at that great rock balanced there on that little one! It would take just a push to send it clattering down. To think that one great heave of Mother Earth must have sent it up, and there it has been just as it is for centuries!” said Douglas.
“Well, we uns bets Mr. Bill could send it over with one er his side splitters.” And with that from Josh, Bill gave a sample of his laugh that did not dislodge the great boulder but made Tillie Wingo stop talking for a whole minute.
“You uns ain’t lowing to eat here, is you uns?” asked Josh rather plaintively.
“Well, this is a pretty good place,” suggested Dr. Wright, who had found a pleasant companionin Miss Hill although he had made some endeavor at first to walk beside Helen. But that young lady swished her cold-gravy corduroy skirt by him and refused to be walked beside. Helen was looking particularly charming on that day, although she could but confess to herself that she was a little tired. Making sandwiches for such a lot of persons was no joke, and she had been at it for hours before they started on the hike. She had had plenty of helpers, but sandwiches were her particular stunt and she had had a finger in every one.
Dr. Wright’s last glimpse of Helen as she had sat in the coach of the moving train, telling a truly true made-up story to Bobby, had remained a very pleasant picture in his mind. He had decided that there was a lot of sweetness in the girl and certainly a great deal of cleverness and charm—if she would only not feel that her thorny side was the one always to be presented to him. When he had handed her the aromatic ammonia for Douglas and she had thanked him so sweetly, he had felt that surely the hatchet was buried betweenthem and now they were to be friends. He had been thinking of her a good deal during the past week and had quite looked forward to the possibility of becoming better acquainted with her.
Helen had really meant to be nice, but on the young doctor’s arrival a spirit of perverseness had seized her and she had her thorns all ready to prick him whenever he approached her, hoping for some share of the sweetness she could lavish on others: on Bobby, for instance. That youngster always declared Helen was his favorite sister, and there was never a time when Bobby was too dirty or too naughty for Helen to think he was not the sweetest and most kissable thing in the world. As Bobby’s conversation when he was with his ’ployer was taken up a great deal with Helen, and vice versa, those two young persons perforce heard much of one another. Helen was grateful to Dr. Wright for his kindness to Bobby and at the same time was a little jealous of Bobby’s affection and admiration for him.
“It isn’t like me,” she would argue to herself, “but somehow this man seems always to be putting me in the wrong, and now he even has Bobby loving him more than he does me, and as for the girls—they make me tired!”
That very morning when they were dressing for the hike and she was putting on her cold-gravy corduroy skirt, grey pongee shirtwaist and grey stockings and canvas shoes—all thought out with care even to the soft grey summer felt hat and the one touch of color: a bright red tie knotted under the soft rolling collar—she had been irritated almost to a point of tears because Nan, who was all ready, came running back into the tent to put on some khaki leggins because Dr. Wright said it would be wise to wear them, as a place like the Devil’s Gorge was sure to be snaky. Douglas and Lucy had done the same thing and had wanted her to.
“Indeed I won’t! How did he happen to be the boss of this camp? His power of attorney does not extend to me, I’ll have him know! Besides, do you think I am going to ruin the whole effectof my grey costume with those old mustard colored leggins? Not on your life!”
“Helen is very tired; that’s what makes her so unreasonable,” Nan had whispered to Douglas as they left the tent to Helen and her costume. “She has worked so hard all morning on the sandwiches. When I finished the deviled eggs, I wanted her to let me help, but she wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I know. I was so busy in the tents, making up cots and straightening up things, that I had to leave it all to you and Helen, but I thought Gwen and Susan were there to help.”
“So they were, but Susan has a slap dash way of making sandwiches that does not appeal to Helen, and while Gwen is very capable, she cannot take the initiative in anything unless she has been taught it at school. The next time we make sandwiches she will do it much better. She was so anxious to make them just right that she was slower than Brer Tarripin.”
“I asked Gwen to go with us this morning, but she shrank back in such horror at the mention of the Devil’s Gorge that I realized I had been cruel,indeed, to speak of the place to her. That’s where her father killed himself, you know.”
“Yes, poor girl! Doesn’t it seem strange that there were no papers of any sort found to show where he came from?”
Just then Dr. Wright joined them and they told him of the little English girl and how her father had killed himself and how, there being no papers to show that he had made a payment on the mountain property, Old Dean, the country storekeeper, had foreclosed at the Englishman’s death and the property had later been given to their father in payment of a debt Dean owed him for services in rebuilding the hotel at Greendale, also owned by Dean.
“Aunt Mandy says it was only about a thousand dollars in all,” explained Douglas, “and she was under the impression that Mr. Brown had paid cash for the land, but he was so reticent no one knew much about him and old Dean said that he had never paid anything. Of course Dean is the rich member of the community and gives them credit at his store, so all the mountaineersare under his thumb, more or less. Father got only half the land.”
When Helen appeared, she fancied Dr. Wright looked disapprovingly at her because of her legginless state, but on the contrary he was thinking what a very delightful looking person she was and never even thought of leggins. He only thought how nice it would be if she would permit him to walk by her side and hold back the low hanging branches and briars so that her bright, animated face would escape the inevitable scratches that attend a hike in the mountains. He liked the way she walked, carrying her head and shoulders in rather a gallant way. He liked the sure-footed way she stepped along in her pretty grey canvas ties. He liked the set and hang of her corduroy skirt and the roll of the soft collar of her shirt—above all, he liked the little dash of red at her throat. She reminded him of a scarlet tanager, only they were black, and she was grey, grey like a dove—but there was certainly nothing dovelike about her, certainly nothing meek or cooing as she swished by him.
No one laughed more or chattered more than Helen did on that hike, not even Tillie Wingo herself, the queen bee of laughers and chatterers; but Nan noticed that the last mile of their walk her sister’s carriage was not nearly so gallant, and Dr. Wright noticed that the scarlet of her tie was even more brilliant because of an unwonted paleness of her piquant face. He tapped his breast pocket to be sure that the tiny medicine case he always carried with him was safe.
“You never can tell what will happen when a lot of youngsters start off on a hike, and it is well to have ‘first aid to the injured’ handy,” he had said to himself.
“Wal, if you uns is lowing to eat here, reckon we uns will drive Josephus round the mounting a bit. We uns feels like it’s a feedin’ the Devil and starvin’ God to eat in sech a spot,” and Josh prepared to unload his mule after he had assisted Bobby to the ground.
“Oh, please don’t eat here,” begged Nan, “this is where the Englishman died.”
“Where? Where?” the others demanded, andJosh, nothing loath to tell the dramatic incident and emboldened by the crowd and broad daylight, when hants were powerless, told again the tale of the man with the sad, tired face who was always trying to get away from the ringing and roaring in his head; how he had drifted into Greendale and bought the land with the cabin on it from old Dean and taken his little girl up there where they had lived about two years; and then how one night he had not come home, and Gwen had come to their cabin early in the morning to ask them to hunt her father, and after long search they had found him down in the Devil’s Gorge—dead.
“Dead’s a door nail and Gwen left ’thout so much as a sho ’nuf name, ’cause the Englishman allus called hisself Brown, but the books what Gwen fetched to we allses’ house is got another name writ in ’em, an’ my maw, she says that Gwen’s jes’ as likely to be named one as tother. My maw says that she don’t hold to the notion that the Englishman took his own life, but that was what the coroner said—susanside—an’ accordin’to law we uns is bleeged to accept his verdict.”
“I agree with your mother,” said Dr. Wright. “It is more apt to have been vertigo that toppled the poor man over. That ringing in the head is so often accompanied with vertigo.”
They carried the provisions around the mountain, out of sight of the gruesome spot, and under a mighty oak tree ate their very good luncheon.
“It is strange we haven’t seen a single snake,” said one of the visiting girls.
“Thank goodness for it!” exclaimed another. “I was almost afraid to come camping because of snakes.”
“We haven’t seen any around the camp at all,” Douglas assured them.
Bill and Lewis exchanged sly glances, for the truth of the matter was they had killed several in the early days when they were breaking ground for the pavilion—had killed and kept mum on the subject.
“Girls are just as afraid of dead snakes as alive ones, so let’s keep dark about them,” Lewis had said, and they had also sworn Josh to secrecy.
“There is one thing to be remembered about snakes,” said Dr. Wright, “most snakes, at least,that they are as afraid of you as you are of them and they are seldom the aggressors; that is, they do not consider themselves so. They strike when they think that you have encroached on their trail. If you look carefully where you walk, there is no danger ever of being bitten by a snake, and very few snakes will come deliberately where you are. I will wager anything that Josh here has never stepped on a snake.”
“We uns done it onct but Maw lambasted we uns with a black snake whip fer not lookin’ whar we uns trod, so’s ain’t never had no accident since. Maw, she said if the har of a dog was good fer the bite, that a black snake whip would jest about cure we uns fer most gittin’ bit by a rattler.”
“Oh, he didn’t bite you, then?”
“Naw, ’cause we uns war jes up from the measles an’ Maw had put some ole boots on we uns. Maw says that the best cure for snake bite is to have the measles an’ wear ole boots so you uns don’t git bit.”
“Very sound reasoning,” laughed Dr. Wright.“In the mountains, top boots or leggins would cure all snake bites.”
“Helen wouldn’t wear her leggins,” declared Bobby, “’cause she said you couldn’t come attorney-generaling her about her clothes, and mustard don’t help cold gravy none, anyhow.”
“Oh, Bobby!” gasped Helen.
“So it won’t, Bobby,” said Dr. Wright, somewhat mystified as to the hidden meaning of mustard and cold gravy but feeling sure that there was some significance in it. He did not interpret it as did Mrs. Bardell the cryptic notes from Mr. Pickwick concerning tomato sauce as being love messages, but well knew that they were more nearly proofs of dislike if not hate from Helen.
“Nothing can help cold gravy in my opinion,” drawled Nan, “not even heating it up.”
“How about cold shoulders?” asked the doctor.
“Or icy mitts?”
“Or glacial reserve?”
“Or chilling silence?” Suggestions from different ones of the picnickers.
“What will melt frigid replies?”
“Or frozen glances?”
“Hot air!” from Bill. “Melt anything.” And then he gave a laugh at his own wit that bid fair to dislodge the great rock so delicately balanced in the Devil’s Gorge.
“Let’s go explore the Devil’s Gorge now!” suggested Helen, springing to her feet, forgetting all about her fatigue, only thankful for the foolishness that had been started by Nan to hide her sister’s embarrassment. What would Dr. Wright think of her? He must have understood very well what Bobby meant by attorney-generaling, if the mustard and cold gravy was a mystery.
The girls held back when they looked down the frightful abyss so well named, but the spinster educators went on, determined to get geological specimens if they died for it, and Helen, in a spirit of bravado, leaped ahead of the exploring party and sprang down the rocks like a veritable mountain goat. Her cheeks were still glowing over the remarks of that enfant terrible, Bobby.
“Be careful, Helen!” called Lewis Somerville, who had constituted himself squire of spinstersand was helping those intrepid geologists down the slippery rocks. Helen tossed her head at her cousin and went on in her mad descent, swinging from rock to rock with the occasional help of a scrub oak that had somehow gained foothold on the barren boulders.
“Look out for snakes, Helen!” cried Douglas, who had turned back with the rest of the party.
But Helen heeded nothing and seemed bent on reaching the lowest point of the chasm. It flashed across her mind that she was a little like the Englishman. He was trying to escape from the buzzing and roaring in his head while she was in a mad race with her conscience. Why should she be so unkind and sharp with Dr. Wright? She didn’t know.
She could hear the people above talking and their voices seemed thin and far away, so deep had she penetrated into the gorge.
“Jest a leetle below whar Miss Helen is standing was whar they picked up the Englishman,” she could hear Josh’s peculiar mountain voice recite before the party moved off back toward thetemporary camp where they had had luncheon. The ladies on science bent, their squire, Dr. Wright and she were the only explorers left.
“Right down there is where that poor man fell,” she said to herself. “I don’t believe it was suicide, either,” and then she blushed for agreeing with Dr. Wright. “But it would be so easy to fall from any of these slippery crags. He might have been on the opposite cliff, which is certainly a precarious spot, and vertigo might have attacked him, and he might have gone over backwards, clutching at the scrub oaks as he fell, and gone down, down—why, what is that hanging in the tree there?”
Something was certainly caught in the branches of a dwarf tree that clung to the unfriendly rocks with determined roots—something that looked like a wallet, but she could not be sure.
“Lewis!” she called, but Lewis was so taken up with hanging by his toes and reaching for a particularly rare specimen of fern that one of thedames wanted for her collection, that he did not hear her calling.
“Will I do?” asked Dr. Wright from somewhere above her.
“Oh, no, I thank you. I don’t want anything.” And then the buzzing conscience started up and she said more cordially, “I see something hanging in a scrub oak over there that I am going to get.”
“Let me get it for you,” and the young doctor started to swing himself down the cliff to the ledge where Helen was standing.
Before he reached her, however, she had determined to make the attempt herself. It was not much of a jump for one as athletic as Helen. It was several feet below where she was standing and the gorge narrowed at that point, making little more than a step across to the opposite ledge.
She gave a flying leap and landed safely, clutching the scrub oak in whose branches the wallet was lodged. Dr. Wright reached the spot where she had been standing just as she touched the rock below. He could not help admiring hergrace and athletic figure as she made the jump, although his heart was sore at her persistent unkindness to him. He did not want to find her attractive and determined to let this visit to the camp be his last. She seemed to think that he had courted the power of attorney that had been thrust upon him, or why should she have said whatever she had said that had caused Bobby’s prattling? It was thoroughly ungenerous of her and unkind and he for one was not going to place himself in a position to have to endure it. The other members of the family were so very nice to him that he did not relish letting the summer go by without visiting them again—and Bobby—dear little shover. He could but confess, however, that their kindness was outweighed in his heart by Helen’s unkindness, and he determined to stay away.
A second after Helen had made her triumphant leap, she gave a sharp cry. Dr. Wright started toward her and his keen gaze saw an ugly snake gliding away across the rocks, disappearing in a crevice.
“My God, Helen! Did he bite you?” No bitterness now was in the young man’s heart as he jumped the chasm and landed by Helen’s side, just as she sank trembling to the ground.
She said afterwards it was not because it hurt so much, only for a moment was the pain intense, but she felt a kind of horror as though the poison had penetrated her very soul. She was filled with fear that could only have been equalled by Susan’s dread of hants.
“Where is it?” the doctor questioned with a voice of such sympathy and tenderness that Helen’s thoughts went back to a time in her childhood when she had her tonsils removed. When she came from under the anesthetic, her father was holding her hand and he spoke to her in just such a tone.
“My heel! Just above the shoe!” she gasped.
“Take off your shoe and stocking as quick as you can.”
She obeyed without question and Dr. Wright, with a deftness surprising in a man, twisted a handkerchief around her ankle just above the injuredspot, and so tightly did he bind it, that it was all Helen could do to keep from crying out.
“I know it hurts, but we have to bear it.”
His “we” made her feel in some way that it hurt him, too. But what was he doing? Without a word he had knelt and had his mouth to the wound and was sucking out the poison.
Helen hid her face in her hands. It took only a moment and then the kind voice said: “Now we have a little more to stand.” He quickly opened his miniature case and, handing her a tiny phial, told her to take two of the pellets, which she did, while he got out a small hard alcohol lamp and lighted it. Then, producing the proper instruments from the wonderful case, he proceeded to cauterize the wound. Helen gritted her teeth and made not one murmur.
“Your father’s own daughter,” was all he said as he put up his instruments, but that was as music in the ears of Helen. He then produced a small bottle from another pocket and washed out his own mouth with a thoroughness that explained his exceedingly perfect teeth.
“The wound is a very slight one and I truly believe you will have absolutely no trouble, but you must take every precaution and be very quiet for a day or so. Lewis and I together will carry you up to Josephus. A snake bite can be of little consequence if it is taken hold of immediately. Can you stand the ligature a little tighter?”
“Ye—s!”
“Ah, I see it is tight enough. You can put your stocking on again, but first I must make assurance doubly sure and cut out a great hole where the rascal attacked you. There might be poison in it.” He deftly bandaged the injured ankle with a roll of gauze he produced from yet another pocket, first treating the wound with iodine. “I wish I had some permanganate of potash but I fancy the work is already done and the iodine will be all right. He got you on the Achilles tendon. I wonder if it is your only vulnerable spot, too.”
“No, it is not. I am full of vulnerable spots! Oh, Dr. Wright, I am not nearly so mean as I seem. I am so sorry I was so rude to you—I—Iam going to be better. I am sorry I did not wear the leggins and I am sorry I did not look where I was stepping—I am sorry I jumped over the gorge when I saw you coming. I just did it to irritate you. I am sorry to have caused you all this trouble and I am so grateful to you that I can hardly——” but here Helen actually blubbered, something that she never did.
“Why, you poor little girl! I haven’t a doubt that I have been as horrid as you have thought I was and dictatorial and interfering and mean—and everything. Please forgive me and suppose we just be the good friends that somehow I believe we were cut out to be, you and Bobby and I;” and he took the girl’s hand in his and patted it gently while she wept on.
“Can’t you stop crying, honey?”
“I be—be—believe I could if I had a handkerchief, but I’ve lost mine.”
“And mine is made into a ligature. Would a few yards of gauze help any?” And then they both laughed while he unwound the gauze.
All of this had taken but a few minutes andLewis and the scientific devotees had no idea that anything so terrifying as a snake bite was going on. They came in view just as Helen dried her eyes on the few yards of gauze.
“Hello! What’s up?”
“Oh, Lewis, a snake bit me!”
“Gee! A rattler?”
Dr. Wright held up a warning finger behind Helen’s back.
“He got out of the way so fast we did not get a good look at him, but it is not a bad bite, and everything has been done that could be done, and now Miss Helen is going to take one more of these little green pellets and you and I are going to carry her up to Josephus.”
The ladies were very solicitous and anxious to do anything in their power, but they were calm and quiet and Helen thanked her stars that the rest of the party had gone back and not ventured so far into the gorge.
“It would have been awful to have them buzzing all around me, yelling and screaming and squealing,” she said to herself, and then thethought came to her of the horror all the girls had of snakes and the consternation her accident would cause among the week-enders. But why need they know? It was her own fault that she had been bitten, and such a thing need never happen again if only proper precautions were taken, such as leggins and looking where you stepped and keeping away from the Devil’s Gorge, where snakes were sure to abound.
“Dr. Wright, do you think it would be possible to keep this thing perfectly quiet? I am so afraid that my being bitten by a snake would give our camp such a bad name that it would be a failure from now on.”
“Of course it could be kept quiet. What do you think, Somerville?”
“Me! Why, I’m game to keep my mouth shut.”
“We agree with you perfectly, Miss Carter, and will say nothing at all in regard to the accident,” the spinsters assured her, and they looked so kind and sensible that Helen’s heart was warmed to them and she wondered that she hadnot noticed before what very intelligent, good faces both of them had.
“All right,” said Dr. Wright, “it is perfectly ethical for a physician to keep his patient’s malady to himself. Miss Helen Carter is suffering from an injury to her ankle. If the inquisitive choose to make of it a sprain it is their own affair. Now, Lewis, how shall we manage? It will be pretty awkward for us to make a basket of our hands going up this cliff,” and with that he stooped and picked Helen up in his arms, and with no more exertion than if she had been Bobby, he made his way up the mountain.
“Would it hurt me to walk? I can’t bear to be so much trouble.”
“It is best to keep very quiet. I am pretty sure there is going to be no trouble, but I must have you behave just exactly as though there was.”
“Lewis, you get Douglas off by herself and let her know what it was, but wait until we are back in camp. Tell her so she won’t be scared, and let her know it is all right before you let her know what it is.”
“I believe the rattlesnake is called crotalus horridus,” said one of the wise ladies.
Dr. Wright wished she would stop talking about snakes and especially rattlers, as he wanted to get Helen’s mind off the terrifying occurrence.
“We are not sure this was a rattlesnake,” he said.
“I think it was,” she whispered to him. “I remember as I jumped I heard something that sounded like dry leaves.” Did the young man hold her closer to him or was it just a fancy on her part?
“It knocks me all up to think about it,” he muttered. “I am glad, so glad I followed you.”
“I am, too!”
A wave of crimson flooded the young man’s face. He didn’t know why, but his blood was singing in his veins and his breath came quickly. If it had not been for the presence of the respectable spinsters, he was sure he would have had to kiss that piquant face so close to his.
“Come on, Doc, my time now to take up the white man’s burden. Helen is no featherweightand you are red in the face and panting from carrying her this far.”
“Not a bit of it!” and Dr. Wright held on to his burden while Lewis endeavored to relieve him.
“Well, let’s cut the baby in two, like my Aunt’s favorite character in history.”
“If I give up, it will be for the same reason the woman in the Bible did,” laughed Dr. Wright. “You remember it was the woman who had the right who gave up?”
The spinsters were still talking about the habits and customs of the horridus crotalus.
“They know so much and keep piling on so much more, I fancy if they didn’t give out some of their learning, they would bust,” whispered Lewis, as he grasped his cousin in a bear hug and started to finish the journey to the temporary camp.
“Do you remember a limerick, I think Oliver Hereford’s?” asked Helen:
“‘There was once a homo teetotalusWho stepped on a horridus crotalus,“Hic!” clavit in pain,“I’ve got ’em again!”Ejacit this homo teetotalus.’”
“‘There was once a homo teetotalusWho stepped on a horridus crotalus,“Hic!” clavit in pain,“I’ve got ’em again!”Ejacit this homo teetotalus.’”
“‘There was once a homo teetotalusWho stepped on a horridus crotalus,“Hic!” clavit in pain,“I’ve got ’em again!”Ejacit this homo teetotalus.’”
There was a great outcry from the party when Helen appeared in the arms of Lewis with an ostentatious bandage on her ankle, so that the verdict of a sprain was established without the attending physician’s having to perjure himself with a false diagnosis.
Helen was looking very pale and tired, and thankful indeed was she for the bony back of Josephus, that was destined to bear her home. She and Bobby both found room on the patient old mule, who started off with his usual bird-like spirit, seemingly proud of his fair burden.
“I am afraid we are too much for Josephus,” Helen said to Josh.
“Naw’m! Josephus is proud to tote the likes of you allses. He is jes’ a been tellin’ we uns that he is thankful his short leg is up the mounting so Miss Helen will ride mo’ easy like.”
“Well, I’ll give him some sugar when we get home,” laughed Helen.
Dr. Wright kept close by the side of the mule wherever the trail permitted and once or twice held out his hand to feel the pulse of the patient. That is the danger of snake bite: that the pulse may become feeble. The old treatment of whisky, drunk in large quantities, is now thought to have been the cause of more deaths from snake bites than the bites themselves. Persons unaccustomed to liquor could not stand the large doses that were poured down them by well-meaning friends. The present day treatment is: strychnia to keep up the pulse and the thorough burning out of the wound, after it has been sucked by a healthy mouth.
A sprained ankle is nothing to dampen the spirits of youth and so the crowd went back as gaily as it came. Helen could not help thinking how differently they would have behaved had they known the true inwardness of her having to ride on the back of the mule that reminded her of nothing so much as a saw-horse. Had they understoodthat a rattlesnake had taken a nip out of her tendon Achilles, it would have put an end to their cheerfulness and also an end to their week-end boarders if she was not mistaken.
“Suppose it is going to do me as it did old Uncle Snake-bit Peter we used to see up at Wytheville,” she said to herself, “with his leg all drawn up and shrivelled.” She got giddy at the thought and then it was that Dr. Wright, who seemed to know exactly what was in her mind, put out his hand and felt her pulse and then gave her another tiny pellet. He looked so good and so dependable and seemed so confident that all was going well with her, she felt she must perforce have faith in him.
“‘I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help,’” came to her lips, and she whispered the text softly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” she blushed, “I was talking to myself.”
“You were blowing down my neck,” said Bobby, who was perched in front of her. “Ifyou were whiskering to me, I didn’t hear what you said. ’Tain’t perlite to whisker in comp’ny, and, ’sides, I always tell my ’ployer what you say ’bout him, anyhow.”
Helen was silent. Would she ever be able to live down all the unkind things she had said about Dr. Wright? How could he be so nice to her? Of course, she understood that he had done what any physician would have done in treating the wound, although he might have called Lewis Somerville to do the extremely objectionable part of the process of cleaning the bite. Since Lewis was a cousin and in the mountains as protector to her and her sisters, it might have been up to him to render first aid, since the tendon Achilles is so situated that it would take a contortionist to administer treatment to oneself. If Dr. Wright had only done his duty as laid down in the code of medical ethics, he certainly had a wonderfully pleasing sick room manner and his patients must one and all give him praise for sympathy and understanding.
“Gwen done promised me’n Josh to have somegingerbread made by the time we gits back from hiking,” broke in Bobby. “I is a-hopin’ that all this joltin’ is gonter shake down my lunch some, ’cause sho’s you’s born I don’t want what I done et. If Josephus stumbles agin I reckon my stomick will growl an’ then I’m most sho’ I kin hole a leetle mo’ if it’s gingerbread. Gwen kin make the bes’es’ an’ sof’es’ an’ blackes’ gingerbread what I ever et.”
At the mention of Gwen, Helen’s thoughts went back to the Devil’s Gorge where her father had met such a tragic end, and the wallet she had seen in the branches of the scrub oak tree flashed in her mind’s eye.
“The wallet! The wallet! We forgot to get it out of the tree,” she exclaimed.
“By Jove! So we did! Somehow, other things seemed more important.”
“I wonder what it was. It might have been in the Englishman’s pocket, and when he fell down the cliff, it might have got caught in the branches of the scrub oak. I wish I knew.”
Camp looked very peaceful and homelike whenthe hikers returned. The card players were still at it and seemed all unconscious of the lengthening shadows. Mrs. Tate took occasion while she was dummy to embrace her offspring and to suggest that she put witchhazel on her sunburned countenance. The bachelor uncle played through his no trump hand before he could assure himself of his niece’s safety. Miss Lizzie Somerville had felt no uneasiness about the crowd, because was not her beloved Lewis taking care of them? She was somewhat concerned when she learned that her favorite among the girls had sprained her ankle but thanked her stars that it was only a sprain and not a snake bite or something terrible.
“I have a dread of snakes,” she said as she stood over Helen in the tent where Dr. Wright had tenderly borne her, and where she lay on her cot, thankful indeed to be off the sharp back of Josephus and at rest on what was not exactly a luxurious bed but very comfortable to her tired bones. “It was a blessing that Dr. Wright was with you and could bind up your ankle so nicely. Does it pain you much, child?”
“No’m, not much! Not at all right now.”
“Well, as I said before, I am thankful it was not a snake bite as I was sure none of you had carried whisky with you, and that is the only thing to use when a snake bites you, so I have always been told. No matter what your habits or convictions are, you must drink whisky if a snake bites you. Am I not right, doctor?”
“Well, whisky is better than nothing, but there are things that are better than whisky,” smiled the young man, wishing that Miss Somerville would get away from the painful subject and realizing more than ever how wise Helen had been to conceal the real cause of her being out of the running. “Strychnia is the treatment of modern science, as it is more efficacious than whisky to keep up the pulse.” He felt Helen’s pulse while he was talking, which seemed to Miss Somerville rather unnecessary concern for a sprained ankle, and she went off murmuring to herself: “‘There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea four, which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpentupon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.’”
Douglas came in, white and scared. Lewis had broken the news to her as gently as possible, but the sound of snake bite was a terrible one to her young ears. She, too, remembered old Uncle Snake-bit Peter and his withered limb.
“Helen, Helen!” she cried and burst into tears.
“Why, Douglas, buck up! Dr. Wright says I am doing splendidly and there is nothing to fear. He did everything that could be done, and because he was right on the spot, it was attended to so quickly that the poison could not get into my system. I feel fine, and mean to be up a great deal sooner than I would if it had been just a common sprain. We must keep it dark, though, and not let a soul know it is anything but what they think it is.”
Douglas was reassured by the calm confidence of the doctor and relieved, indeed, to see that Helen was meaning to obey him in everything.
“She had better stay perfectly quiet for several days just to be sure, and I will treat the poor heelwhere I had to cauterize it. That will, of course, be sore for a while.”
“All right,” said Helen with unaccustomed meekness, “but I did think I might get up to-morrow. But I’ll be good as I want to get well, perfectly well, so I can go to the Devil’s Gorge again and get the wallet.”
“But would you venture there again?”
“Certainly! But next time I’ll wear high shoes and leggins and look where I step. I think I deserve some of Aunt Mandy’s black snake whip as a punishment. I do wish I knew what was in that wallet—if it was a wallet.”
The doctor smiled and left the tent to the sisters, who clung to each other with all the affection they had. They realized what they meant to one another more than they ever had before, now that this thing had occurred that might have proved very serious.
“We mustn’t let a soul know what the trouble is, Douglas. Of course, you realize it would send our week-end boarders anywhere but to the mountains.”
“Yes, I see it would, just the way they all talk about snakes. I tell you one thing, though—we must make leggins obligatory for hikers. Maybe it would be well to order a few extra pair when we order the blankets for those persons, like Tillie Wingo, who will not do what they are told.”
“I believe so, too. And now, honey, please get Gwen to bring me something very simple for my supper. I believe I’ll join the bread and milk club to-night and not try to eat anything heavy. I feel so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open. I do hope I am not going to dream about snakes. I’d sleep better if I only knew what was in the wallet I saw hanging in the tree.”
Perhaps Helen might have slept better had she known what was in the wallet, but it would have been difficult. Dr. Wright, accompanied by Douglas, crept silently into the tent just before the camp broke up for the night and found her pulse absolutely normal. His patient was sleeping so peacefully that he sought his hammock thoroughly contented with the treatment he had administered in the first case of snake bite that he had met in his practice.
Dawn was in the neighborhood of four o’clock. It was so still it seemed impossible that thirty persons were camping on that mountain side. The night noises had ceased. Katy-dids and tree-frogs, who had been making as much clatter as though they had been getting out a morning paper, had gone home to rest until it should be time to commence on the next edition.
This lull between night and morning lasted only a few moments and then there was “the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds.” At the first sleepy note, Dr. Wright stirred in the hammock which he had stretched tightly between two giant pines a little way from the camp. He had told himself he was to awake at dawn, and now that he had done it, what was it all about? He lay still for a few moments drowsily drinking in the beauties of the dawn. A mocking bird had constituted himself waker-up of the bird kingdom since he could speak all languages. He now began to call the different bird notes and was sleepily answered from bush and tree. When he felt that a sufficient number was awake to make it worth his while, he burst into a great hymn of praise and thanksgiving; at least that was what it seemed to the young doctor, the only human being awake on that mountain side.
“I’d like to join you, old fellow, I’m so thankful that Helen is safe,” and then he remembered why he had set himself the task of waking at dawn.
He slid from his hammock and in a short whilewas taking the trail of the day before, back to the Devil’s Gorge. It seemed but a short walk to the athletic young man as he swung his long legs, delighting in the exercise. He reached the gorge in much less than half the time it had taken the hikers of yesterday.
The morning light was clear and luminous but the gorge was as gruesome as ever. Sun light never penetrated its gloom, and Dr. Wright noticed that no birds seemed to sing there. He let himself carefully down the cliff, practicing what he had preached and looking where he stepped. In the exact spot where Helen had jumped, he saw a snake coiled as though waiting for another pretty little gray shoe to come his way.
“It may not be the same snake,” muttered the young man, “but I am going to presume it is and kill him if I can.”
He was standing on the ledge where Helen had been when she called to Lewis Somerville, just before the fatal leap. The wallet was in plain view, caught in a crotch of the scrub oak, and the hateful snake was curled up directly under thetree as though put there by some evil magician to guard a secret treasure.
“You needn’t look at me with your wicked eyes. I am going to kill you if I can, and why, I don’t know, because I believe in a way you have done me a pretty good turn. Helen trusts me now, at least!”
He raised a great bowlder over his head and with a sure aim hurled it down on the serpent, who was even then making his strange rattle like dry leaves in the wind.
“That was your swan song, old boy,” and so it was. The snake was crushed by the blow, only his tail sticking out, twitching feebly, the rattle vibrating slowly, making a faint lonesome sound.
“I think I’ll take this for a souvenir!” The doctor got out one of his ever ready instruments and deftly extracted the rattle from the now harmless reptile. “Some day we may laugh over this,” but I don’t know why this made him blush as it did, there all by himself in the Devil’s Gorge.
The rattle in his pocket, he started back up thecliff, when he suddenly remembered his quest. “Well, by Jove, it looks as though that mysterious wallet was destined to be left in the branches of the dwarf oak!” he exclaimed, as he made his way back down to the spot and this time got the leather wallet. It was very tightly wedged into the tree, in fact, it had become incorporated, as it were, into the growth of the tree, and one of the gnarled and twisted limbs had to be cut away before he could free the object of his morning walk.
It was a bulky pocket-book, made of alligator skin which, because of its toughness, had evidently been able to withstand the weather that Dr. Wright felt sure it must have had to undergo for years, judging by the way the branches of the tree had grown around it.
“I won’t open it now, but will take it to Helen. It was her find and I am not going to jump her claim.”
The camp was stirring when he returned. Much shouting from the bath-house assured him that the boys were undergoing a shower of thefreezing mountain water. He waited until the last glowing, damp-haired youth filed out and then took a sprinkle himself, which refreshed him greatly but left him so hungry that the delightful odors from the open air kitchen almost maddened him. Roe herring he was sure of,—that is always unmistakable; hot rolls were holding their own in the riot of smells; bacon was asserting itself; there was a burnt sugar effect that must mean fried June apples; and threading its way through the symphony of fragrance and rising supreme over all was a coffee motive.
“Do you blame any one for stealing food when he is hungry?” he asked Gwen, whom he found in the pavilion setting the tables. “I don’t.”
“You have been up a long time, sir. I saw you a little after four on the trail near Aunt Mandy’s.”
“Were you up then?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I always get up early to milk and put the cabin in order before I come over here. It will be a little while before breakfast. Shall I get you a cup of coffee now?”
“That would be very kind of you! I am famished, and perhaps a cup of coffee would keep me from disgracing myself when breakfast is ready.”
Gwen had changed a great deal in the few weeks since she had come so shyly from behind the bowlder to offer herself as factotum to Lewis and Bill. She still had the modest demeanor, but had lost her extreme shyness and also much of her primness. She was now a more natural girl of fourteen, thanks to Nan and Lucy, who had tried to make her feel at home with them. Shoes and stockings had helped her to recover from her timidity. She had always had an idea that people were looking at her bare feet. Over her skimpy little dress she now wore a bungalow apron, which was vastly becoming to her Puritan type of beauty. The first money she made had been spent on shoes and aprons. Helen had wanted to present her with these things, but Gwen and Josh were alike in wanting nothing they had not honestly earned.
As the girl came towards the doctor, bearingin her steady little brown hands a tray with a smoking cup of coffee and a hot buttered roll, just to tide him over until breakfast, he thought he had never seen a more attractive child.
“And it wasn’t because she was feeding me, either,” he said to Helen later on, “but because she had such a fine upstanding look to her and because her hand was so capable and steady and her gaze so open and honest. No great lady, trained in the social graces, could have handed one a cup of coffee with more assurance and ease of manner.”
“Miss Helen was asking for you,” said Gwen, as she put down the delectable tray.
“Oh, is she all right?” and the physician jumped up, ready to leave his untasted food if he were needed.
“Oh, yes, she is as well as can be, and when I took her some coffee early this morning, she told me she had slept so well and was famished for food. I am going to straighten up her tent just as soon as the girls are out of it, so you can go in to see her. I told her I had seen you takinga walk at four o’clock. She wants to see you.”
“I wonder if heavenly messengers wear blue aprons and tennis shoes,” the young man said to himself, “because if they do, I am sure Gwen is one of them.” He patted his breast pocket to make sure the bulky wallet was there, hoping it held in some way good for the little English girl but determined to say nothing about it until Helen had her first peep.
“Can it be possible that I am falling in love with Helen?” he muttered. “She is not more than seventeen, and, besides, it was only yesterday that I determined never to put myself in the way of being insulted by her again so long as I should live. Here I am starving to death (this roll and coffee will be only a drop in the bucket of my great appetite) and still I’d rather go see her than eat the breakfast I can smell cooking. I promised the father and mother to look after the children while they were taking my prescription, and this is a fine way to do it: to fall in love with one of them! Besides, Helen is not abit prettier than Douglas, not so clever as Nan, and so spoiled that she can be certainly very disagreeable, but still—still—she is Helen—and Bobby loves her best of all. Anyhow, I think I’ll eat my breakfast first before I go to her, since she does not need my professional services.”
“I never see folks eat like these here week-enders,” declared Oscar, as breakfast progressed and he came to the kitchen for more hot rolls. He also brought directions from Douglas for Susan to scramble a dish of eggs for some of the late comers who found nothing but herring tails for their portion of a dish ever dear to the heart of all Virginians.
“I don’t see how the young ladies ’spects to clar nothin’ out’n their ventur’some if’n all the payin’ guests eats ekal to these here,” said Susan, as she took another pan of rolls out of the oven and put a skillet on the stove to get hot for the eggs. “I’s done been to many springs an’ sich with Mis Carter when I was a-nussin’ of Bobby an’ I never yet seed any of the pr’ietors knock up a dish er eggs fer no sleepy haids. Fus’ come,fus’ serve, an’ las’ come satisfy theyselves with herrin’ tails an’ coffee drugs. Miss Gwen done made three pots er coffee already an’ she mought jes’ as well be pourin’ it down the bottomless pit fer all the showin’ it’s done made. If’n these folks is gonter eat all mornin’, I’d like ter know whin we’s ter git the dishes washed.”
“Well, dey won’t need no scrapin’,” laughed Oscar, as he bore away the plates heaped with crusty turnovers. “I been a-bettin’ on Mr. Bill Tinsley, but looks lak Dr. Wright kin hole his own with the bes’ of them.”
“One thing sho,” grumbled Susan, who had the customary bad humor of the Sunday morning cook, “th’ain’t no use’n a clock up’n in this here camp. Whin you gits through with breakfast, it’s time ter begin dinner.”