But the town itself was much behind the times–being one of those old-fashioned New England settlements left uncontaminated by the mill interests and not yet awakened by the summer visitor, so rife now in most of the quiet villages of the six Pilgrim States.
The rambling wooden structure with its long, unroofed platform, which served Bridleburg as a station, showed plainly what the railroad company thought of the town. Many villages of less population along the line boasted modern station buildings, grass plots, and hedges. All that surrounded Bridleburg’s barrack-like depôt was a plaza of bare, rolled cinders.
On this were drawn up the two ’buses from the rival hotels–the “New Brick Hotel,” built just after the Civil War, and the Eagle House. Their respective drivers called languidly for customers as the passengers disembarked from the train.
Most of these were traveling men, or townspeople. It was only mid-forenoon and Lyddy did not wish to spend either time or money at the local hostelries, so she shook her head firmly at the ’bus drivers.
“We want to get settled by night at Hillcrest–ifwe can,” she told ’Phemie. “Let’s see if your baggage and freight are here, first of all.”
She waited until the station agent was at leisure and learned that all their goods–a small, one-horse load–had arrived.
“You two girls goin’ up to the old Polly Phelps house?” ejaculated the agent, who was a “native son” and knew all about the “old doctor,” as Dr. Apollo Phelps had been known throughout two counties and on both sides of the mountain ridge.
“Why, it ain’t fit for a stray cat to live in, I don’t believe–that house ain’t,” he added. “More’n twenty year since the old doctor died, and it’s been shut up ever since.
“What! you his grandchildren? Sho! Mis’ Bray–I remember. She was the old doctor’s daughter by his secon’ wife. Ya-as.
“Well, if I was you, I’d go to Pritchett’s house to stop first. Can’t be that the old house is fit to live in, an’ Pritchett is your nighest neighbor.”
“Thank you,” Lyddy said, quietly. “And can you tell me whom we could get to transport our goods–and ourselves–to the top of the ridge?”
“Huh? Why! I seen Pritchett’s long-laiged boy in town jest now–Lucas Pritchett. He ain’t got away yet,” responded the station agent.
“I ventur’ to say you’ll find him up Market Street a piece–at Birch’s store, or the post-office. This train brung in the mail.
“If he’s goin’ up light he oughter be willin’ to help you out cheap. It’s a six-mile tug, you know; you wouldn’t wanter walk it.”
He pointed up the mountainside. Far, far toward the summit of the ridge, nestling in a background of brown and green, was a splash of vivid white.
“That’s Pritchett’s,” vouchsafed the station agent. “If Dr. Polly Phelps’ house had a coat of whitewash you could see it, too–jest to the right and above Pritchett’s. Highest house on the ridge, it is, and a mighty purty site, to my notion.”
The Bray girls walked up the village street, which opened directly out of the square. It might have been a quarter of a mile in length, the red brick courthouse facing them at the far end, flanked by the two hotels. When “court sat” Bridleburg was a livelier town than at present.
On either hand were alternately rows of one, or two-story “blocks” of stores and offices, or roomy old homesteads set in the midst of their own wide, terraced lawns.
There were a few pleasant-looking people on the walks and most of these turned again to look curiously after the Bray girls. Strangers–save in court week–were a novelty in Bridleburg, that was sure.
Market Street was wide and maple-shaded. Here and there before the stores were “hitching racks”–long wooden bars with iron rings set every few feet–to which a few horses, or teams, were hitched. Many of the vehicles were buckboards, much appreciated in the hill country; but there were farm wagons, as well. It was forone of these latter the Bray girls were in search. The station agent had described Lucas Pritchett’s rig.
“There it is,” gasped the quick-eyed ’Phemie, “Oh, Lyd!dolook at those ponies. They’re as ragged-looking as an old cowhide trunk.”
“And that wagon,” sighed Lyddy. “Shall we ride in it? We’ll be a sight going through the village.”
“We’d better wait and see if he’ll take us,” remarked ’Phemie. “But I should worry about what people here think of us!”
As she spoke a lanky fellow, with a lean and sallow face, lounged out of the post-office and across the walk to the heads of the disreputable-looking ponies. He wore a long snuff-colored overcoat that might have been in the family for two or three generations, and his overalls were stuck into the tops of leg-boots.
“That’s Lucas–sure,” whispered ’Phemie.
But she hung back, just the same, and let her sister do the talking. And the first effect of Lyddy’s speech upon Lucas Pritchett was most disconcerting.
“Good morning!” Lyddy said, smiling upon the lanky young farmer. “You are Mr. Lucas Pritchett, I presume?”
He made no audible reply, although his lipsmoved and they saw his very prominent Adam’s apple rise and fall convulsively. A wave of red suddenly washed up over his face like a big breaker rolling up a sea-beach; and each individual freckle at once took on a vividness of aspect that was fairly startling to the beholder.
“YouareMr. Pritchett?” repeated Lyddy, hearing a sudden half-strangled giggle from ’Phemie, who was behind her.
“Ya-as–I be,” finally acknowledged the bashful Lucas, that Adam’s apple going up and down again like the slide on a trombone.
“You are going home without much of a load; aren’t you, Mr. Pritchett?” pursued Lyddy, with a glance into the empty wagon-body.
“Ya-as–I be,” repeated Lucas, with another gulp, trying to look at both girls at once and succeeding only in looking cross-eyed.
“We are going to be your nearest neighbors, Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, briskly. “Our aunt, Mrs. Hammond, has loaned us Hillcrest to live in and we have our baggage and some other things at the railway station to be carted up to the house. Will you take it–and us? And how much will you charge?”
Lucas just gasped–’Phemie declared afterward, “like a dying fish.” This was altogether too much for Lucas to grasp at once; but he had followedLyddy up to a certain point. He held forth a broad, grimed, calloused palm, and faintly exclaimed:
“You’re Mis’ Hammon’s nieces? Do tell! Maw’ll be pleased to see ye–an’ so’ll Sairy.”
He shook hands solemnly with Lyddy and then with ’Phemie, who flashed him but a single glance from her laughing eyes. The “Italian sunset effect,” as ’Phemie dubbed Lucas’s blushes, began to fade out of his countenance.
“Can you take us home with you?” asked Lyddy, impatient to settle the matter.
“I surely can,” exclaimed Lucas. “You hop right in.”
“No. We want to know what you will charge first–for us and the things at the depôt?”
“Not a big load; air they?” queried Lucas, doubtfully. “You know the hill’s some steep.”
Lyddy enumerated the packages, Lucas checking them off with nods.
“I see,” he said. “We kin take ’em all. You hop in—”
But ’Phemie was pulling the skirt of her sister’s jacket and Lyddy said:
“No. We have some errands to do. We’ll meet you up the street. That is your way home?” and she indicated the far end of Market Street.
“Ya-as.”
“And what will you charge us?”
“Not more’n a dollar, Miss,” he said, grinning. “I wouldn’t ax ye nothin’; but this is dad’s team and when I git a job like this he allus expects his halvings.”
“All right, Mr. Pritchett. We’ll pay you a dollar,” agreed Lyddy, in her sedate way. “And we’ll meet you up the street.”
Lucas unhitched the ponies and stepped into the wagon. When he turned them and gave them their heads the ragged little beasts showed that they were a good deal like the proverbial singed cat–far better than they looked.
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you here?” observed Lyddy to her sister, as the wagon went rattling down the street. “Yet it seems you don’t wish to ride through Bridleburg in Mr. Pritchett’s wagon.”
“My goodness!” gasped ’Phemie, breathless from giggling. “I don’t mind the wagon. Buthe’sa freak, Lyd!”
“Sh!”
“Did you ever see such a face? And those freckles!” went on the girl, heedless of her sister’s admonishing voice.
“Somebody may hear you,” urged Lyddy.
“What if?”
“And repeat what you say to him.”
“Andthatshould worry me!” returned ’Phemie, gaily. “Oh, dear, Lyd! don’t be a grump. This is all a great, big joke–the people and all. And Lucas is certainly the capsheaf. Did you ever in your life before even imagine such a freak?”
But Lyddy would not join in her hilarity.
“These country people may seem peculiar to us, who come fresh from the city,” she said, with some gravity. “But I wonder if we don’t appear quite as ‘queer’ and ‘green’ to them as they do to us?”
“We couldn’t,” gasped ’Phemie. “Hurry on, Lyd. Don’t let him overtake us before we get to the edge of town.”
They passed the courthouse and waited for Lucas and the farm wagon on the outskirts of the village–where the more detached houses gave place to open fields. No plow had been put into these lower fields as yet; still, the coming spring had breathed upon the landscape and already the banks by the wayside were turning green.
’Phemie became enthusiastic at once and before Lucas hove in view, evidently anxiously looking for them, the younger girl had gathered a great bunch of early flowers.
“They’re mighty purty,” commented the youngfarmer, as the girls climbed over the wheel with their muddy boots and all.
’Phemie, giggling, took her seat on the other side of him. She had given one look at the awkwardly arranged load on the wagon-body and at once became helpless with suppressed laughter. If the girls she had worked with in the millinery store for the last few months could see them and their “lares and penates” perched upon this farm wagon, with this son of Jehu for a driver!
“I reckon you expect to stay a spell?” said Lucas, with a significant glance from the conglomerate load to Lyddy.
“Yes–we hope to,” replied the oldest Bray girl. “Do you think the house is in very bad shape inside?”
“I dunno. We never go in it, Miss,” responded Lucas, shaking his head. “Mis’ Hammon’ never left us the key–not to upstairs. Dad’s stored cider and vinegar in the cellar under the east ell for sev’ral years. It’s a better cellar’n we’ve got.
“An’ I dunno what dad’ll say,” he added, “to your goin’ up there to live.”
“What’s he got to do with it?” asked ’Phemie, quickly.
“Why, we work the farm on shares an’ we was calc’latin’ to do so this year.”
“Our living in the house doesn’t interfere with that arrangement,” said Lyddy, quietly. “Aunt Jane told us all about that. I have a letter from her for your father.”
“Aw–well,” commented Lucas, slowly.
The ponies had begun to mount the rise in earnest now. They tugged eagerly at the load, and trotted on the level stretches as though tireless. Lyddy commented upon this, and Lucas flushed with delight at her praise.
“They’re hill-bred, they be,” he said, proudly. “Tackle ’em to a buggy, or a light cart, an’ up hill or down hill means the same to ’em. They won’t break their trot.
“When it comes plowin’ time we clip ’em, an’ then they don’t look so bad in harness,” confided the young fellow. “If–if you like, I’ll take you drivin’ over the hills some day–when the roads git settled.”
“Thank you,” responded Lyddy, non-committally.
But ’Phemie giggled “How nice!” and watched the red flow into the young fellow’s face with wicked appreciation.
The roads certainly had not “settled” after the winter frosts, if this one they were now climbing was a proper sample. ’Phemie and Lyddy held on with both hands to the smooth board whichserved for a seat to the springless wagon–and they were being bumped about in a most exciting way.
’Phemie began to wonder if Lucas was not quite as much amused by their unfamiliarity with this method of transportation as she was by his bashfulness and awkward manners. Lyddy fairly wailed, at last:
“Wha–what a dread–dreadful ro-o-o-ad!” and she seized Lucas suddenly by the arm nearest to her and frankly held on, while the forward wheel on her side bounced into the air.
“Oh, this ain’t bad for a mountain road,” the young farmer declared, calmly.
“Oh, oh!” squealed ’Phemie, the wheel on her side suddenly sinking into a deep rut, so that she slid to the extreme end of the board.
“Better ketch holt on me, Miss,” advised Lucas, crooking the arm nearest ’Phemie. “You city folks ain’t useter this kind of travelin’, I can see.”
But ’Phemie refused, unwilling to be “beholden” to him, and the very next moment the ponies clattered over a culvert, through which the brown flood of a mountain stream spurted in such volume that the pool below the road was both deep and angry-looking.
There was a washout gullied in the road here.Down went the wheel on ’Phemie’s side, and with the lurch the young girl lost her insecure hold upon the plank.
With a screech she toppled over, plunging sideways from the wagon-seat, and as the hard-bitted ponies swept on ’Phemie dived into the foam-streaked pool!
Lucas Pritchett was not as slow as he seemed.
In one motion he drew in the plunging ponies to a dead stop, thrust the lines into Lyddy’s hands, and vaulted over the wheel of the farm wagon.
“Hold ’em!” he commanded, pulling off the long, snuff-colored overcoat. Flinging it behind him he tore down the bank and, in his high boots, waded right into the stream.
Poor ’Phemie was beyond her depth, although she rose “right side up” when she came to the surface. And when Lucas seized her she had sense enough not to struggle much.
“Oh, oh, oh!” she moaned. “The wa–water is s-so cold!”
“I bet ye it is!” agreed the young fellow, and gathering her right up into his arms, saturated as her clothing was, he bore her to the bank and clambered to where Lyddy was doing all she could to hold the restive ponies.
“Whoa, Spot and Daybright!” commandedthe young farmer, soothing the ponies much quicker than he could his human burden. “Now, Miss, you’re all right—”
“All r-r-right!” gasped ’Phemie, her teeth chattering like castanets. “I–I’m anythingbutright!”
“Oh, ’Phemie! you might have been drowned,” cried her anxious sister.
“And now I’m likely to be frozen stiff right here in this road. Mrs. Lot wasn’t a circumstance to me. She only turned to salt, while I am be-be-coming a pillar of ice!”
But Lucas had set her firmly on her feet, and now he snatched up the old overcoat which had so much amused ’Phemie, and wrapped it about her, covering her from neck to heel.
“In you go–sit ’twixt your sister and me this time,” panted the young man. “We’ll hustle home an’ maw’ll git you ’twixt blankets in a hurry.”
“She’ll get her death!” moaned Lyddy, holding the coat close about the wet girl.
“Look out! We’ll travel some now,” exclaimed Lucas, leaping in, and having seized the reins, he shook them over the backs of the ponies and shouted to them.
The remainder of that ride up the mountain was merely a nightmare for the girls. Lucas allowedthe ponies to lose no time, despite the load they drew. But haste was imperative.
A ducking in an icy mountain brook at this time of the year might easily be fraught with serious consequences. Although it was drawing toward noon and the sun was now shining, there was no great amount of warmth in the air. Lucas must have felt the keen wind himself, for he was wet, too; but he neither shivered nor complained.
Luckily they were well up the mountainside when the accident occurred. The ponies flew around a bend where a grove of trees had shut off the view, and there lay the Pritchett house and outbuildings, fresh in their coat of whitewash.
“Maw and Sairy’ll see to ye now,” cried Lucas, as he neatly clipped the gatepost with one hub and brought the lathered ponies to an abrupt stop in the yard beside the porch.
“Hi, Maw!” he added, as a very stout woman appeared in the doorway–quite filling the opening, in fact. “Hi, Maw! Here’s Mis’ Hammon’s nieces–an’ one of ’em’s been in Pounder’s Brook!”
“For the land’s sake!” gasped the farmer’s wife, pulling a pair of steel-bowed spectacles down from her brows that she might peer through them at the Bray girls. “Ain’t it a mite airly for sech didoes as them?”
“Why, Maw!” sputtered Lucas, growing red again. “She didn’tgofor to do it–no, ma’am!”
“Wa-al! I didn’t know. City folks is funny. But come in–do! Mis’ Hammon’s nieces, d’ye say? Then you must be John Horrocks Bray’s gals–ain’t ye?”
“We are,” said Lyddy, who had quickly climbed out over the wheel and now eased down the clumsy bundle which was her sister. “Can you stand, ’Phemie?”
“Ye-es,” chattered her sister.
“I hope you can take us in for a little while, Mrs. Pritchett,” went on the older girl. “We are going up to Hillcrest to live.”
“Take ye in? Sure! An’ ’twon’t be the first city folks we’ve harbored,” declared the lady, chuckling comfortably. “They’re beginnin’ to come as thick as spatters in summer to Bridleburg, an’ some of ’em git clear up this way— For the land’s sake! that gal’s as wet as sop.”
“It–it was wet water I tumbled into,” stuttered ’Phemie.
Mrs. Pritchett ushered them into the big, warm kitchen, where the table was already set for dinner. A young woman–not soveryyoung, either–as lank and lean as Lucas himself, was busyat the stove. She turned to stare at the visitors with near-sighted eyes.
“This is my darter, Sairy,” said “Maw” Pritchett. “She taught school two terms to Pounder’s school; but it was bad for her eyes. I tell her to git specs; but she ’lows she’s too young for sech things.”
“The oculists advise glasses nowadays for very young persons,” observed Lyddy politely, as Sairy Pritchett bobbed her head at them in greeting.
“So I tell her,” declared the farmer’s wife. “But she won’t listen to reason. Ye know how young gals air!”
This assumption of Sairy’s extreme youth, and that Lyddy would understand her foibles because she was so much older, amused the latter immensely. Sairy was about thirty-five.
Meanwhile Mrs. Pritchett bustled about with remarkable spryness to make ’Phemie comfortable. There was a warm bedroom right off the kitchen–for this was an old-fashioned New England farmhouse–and in this the younger Bray girl took off her wet clothing. Lyddy brought in their bag and ’Phemie managed to make herself dry and tidy–all but her great plaits of hair–in a very short time.
She would not listen to Mrs. Pritchett’s advice that she go to bed. But she swallowed a bowlof hot tea and then declared herself “as good as new.”
The Bray girls had now to tell Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter their reason for coming to Hillcrest, and what they hoped to do there.
“For the land’s sake!” gasped the farmer’s wife. “I dunno what Cyrus’ll say to this.”
It struck Lyddy that they all seemed to be somewhat in fear of what Mr. Pritchett might say. He seemed to be a good deal of a “bogie” in the family.
“We shall not interfere with Mr. Pritchett’s original arrangement with Aunt Jane,” exclaimed Lyddy, patiently.
“Well, ye’ll hafter talk to Cyrus when he comes in to dinner,” said the farmer’s wife. “I dunno how he’ll take it.”
“Weshould worry about how he ‘takes it,’” commented ’Phemie in Lyddy’s ear. “I guess we’ve got the keys to Hillcrest and Aunt Jane’s permission to live in the house and make what we can off the place. What more is there to it?”
But the older Bray girl caught a glimpse of Cyrus Pritchett as he came up the path from the stables, and she saw that he was nothing at all like his rotund and jolly wife–not in outward appearance, at least.
The Pritchett children got their extreme heightfrom Cyrus–and their leanness. He was a grizzled man, whose head stooped forward because he was so tall, and who looked fiercely on the world from under penthouse brows.
Every feature of his countenance was grim and forbidding. His cheeks were gray, with a stubble of grizzled beard upon them. When he came in and was introduced to the visitors he merely grunted an acknowledgment of their names and immediately dropped into his seat at the head of the table.
As the others came flocking about the board, Cyrus Pritchett opened his lips just once, and not until the grace had been uttered did the visitors understand that it was meant for a reverence before meat.
“For wha’ we’re ’bout to r’ceive make us tru’ grat’ful–pass the butter, Sairy,” and the old man helped himself generously and began at once to stow the provender away without regard to the need or comfort of the others about his board.
But Maw Pritchett and her son and daughter seemed to be used to the old man’s way, and they helped each other and the Bray girls with no niggard hand. Nor did the shuttle of conversation lag.
“Why, I ain’t been in the old doctor’s house since he died,” said Mrs. Pritchett, reflectively.“Mis’ Hammon’, she’s been up here two or three times, an’ she allus goes up an’ looks things over; but I’m too fat for walkin’ up to Hillcrest–I be,” concluded the lady, with a chuckle.
She seemed as jolly and full of fun as her husband was morose. Cyrus Pritchett only glowered on the Bray girls when he looked at them at all.
But Lyddy and ’Phemie joined in the conversation with the rest of the family. ’Phemie, although she had made so much fun of Lucas at first, now made amends by declaring him to be a hero–and sticking to it!
“I’d never have got out of that pool if it hadn’t been for Lucas,” she repeated; “unless I could have drunk up the water and walked ashore that way! And o-o-oh! wasn’t it cold!”
“Hope you’re not going to feel the effects of it later,” said her sister, still anxious.
“I’m all right,” assured the confident ’Phemie.
“I dunno as it’ll be fit for you gals to stay in the old house to-night,” urged Mrs. Pritchett. “You’ll hafter have some wood cut.”
“I’ll do that when I take their stuff up to Hillcrest,” said Lucas, eagerly, but flushing again as though stricken with a sudden fever.
“There are no stoves in the house, I suppose?” Lyddy asked, wistfully.
“Bless ye! Dr. Polly wouldn’t never have a stove in his house, saving a cook-stove in the kitchen, an’ of course, that’s ate up with rust afore this,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “He said open fireplaces assured every room its proper ventilation. He didn’t believe in these new-fangled ways of shuttin’ up chimbleys. My! but he was powerful sot on fresh air an’ sunshine.
“Onct,” pursued Mrs. Pritchett, “he was called to see Mis’ Fibbetts–she that was a widder and lived on ’tother side of the ridge, on the road to Adams. She had a mis’ry of some kind, and was abed with all the winders of her room tight closed.
“‘Open them winders,’ says Dr. Polly to the neighbor what was a-nussin’ of Mis’ Fibbetts.
“Next time he come the winders was down again. Dr. Polly warn’t no gentle man, an’ he swore hard, he did. He flung up the winders himself, an’ stamped out o’ the room.
“It was right keen weather,” chuckled Mrs. Pritchett, her double chins shaking with enjoyment, “and Mis’ Fibbetts was scart to death of a leetle air. Minute Dr. Polly was out o’ sight she made the neighbor woman shet the winders ag’in.
“But when Dr. Polly turned up the ridge road he craned out’n the buggy an’ he seen the windersshet. He jerked his old boss aroun’, drove back to the house, stalked into the sick woman’s room, cane in hand, and smashed every pane of glass in them winders, one after another.
“‘Now I reckon ye’ll git air enough to cure ye ’fore ye git them mended,’ says he, and marched him out again. An’ sure ’nough old Mis’ Fibbetts got well an’ lived ten year after. But she never had a good word for Dr. Polly Phelps, jest the same,” chuckled the narrator.
“Well, we’ll make out somehow about fires,” said Lyddy, cheerfully, “if Lucas can cut us enough wood to keep them going.”
“I sure can,” declared the ever-ready youth, and just here Cyrus Pritchett, having eaten his fill, broke in upon the conversation in a tone that quite startled Lyddy and ’Phemie Bray.
“I wanter know what ye mean to do up there on the old Polly Phelps place?” he asked, pushing back his chair, having set down his coffee-cup noisily, and wiped his cuff across his lips. “I gotta oral contract with Jane Hammon’ to work that farm. It’s been in force year arter year for more’n ten good year. An’ that contract ain’t to be busted so easy.”
“Now, Father!” admonished Mrs. Pritchett; but the old man glared at her and she at once subsided.
Cyrus Pritchett certainly was a masterful man in his own household. Lucas dropped his gaze to his plate and his face flamed again. But Sairy turned actually pale.
Somehow the cross old man did not make Lyddy Bray tremble. She only felt angry that he should be such a bully in his own home.
“Suppose you read Aunt Jane’s letter, Mr. Pritchett,” she said, taking it from her handbag and laying it before the farmer.
The old man grunted and slit the flap of the envelope with his greasy tableknife. He drew his brows down into even a deeper scowl as he read.
“So she turns her part of the contract over to you two chits of gals; does she?” said Mr. Pritchett, at last. “Humph! I don’t think much of that, now I tell ye.”
“Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, firmly, “if you don’t care to work the farm for us on half shares, as you have heretofore with Aunt Jane, pray say so. I assure you we will not be offended.”
“And what’ll you do then?” he growled.
“If you refuse to put in a crop for us?”
“Ya-as.”
“Get some other neighboring farmer to do so,” replied Lyddy, promptly.
“Oh, you will, eh?” growled Cyrus Pritchett,sitting forward and resting his big hands on his knees, while he glared like an angry dog at the slight girl before him.
The kitchen was quite still save for his booming voice. The family was evidently afraid of the old man’s outbursts of temper.
But Lyddy Bray’s courage rose with her indignation. This cross old farmer was a mere bully after all, and there was never a bully yet who was not a moral coward!
“Mr. Pritchett,” she told him, calmly, “you cannot frighten me by shouting at me. I may as well tell you right now that the crops you have raised for Aunt Jane of late years have not been satisfactory. We expect a better crop this year, and if you do not wish to put it in, some other neighbor will.
“This is a good time to decide the matter. What do you say?”
Mrs. Pritchett and Sairy really were frightened by Lyddy Bray’s temerity. As for Lucas, he still hung his head and would not look at his father.
Cyrus Pritchett had bullied his family so long that to be bearded in his own house certainly amazed him. He glared at the girl for fully a minute, without being able to formulate any reply. Then he burst out with:
“You let me ketch any other man on this ridge puttin’ a plow inter the old doctor’s land! I’ve tilled it for years, I tell ye—”
“And you can till it again, Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, softly. “You needn’t holler so about it–we all hear you.”
The coolness of the girl silenced him.
“So, now it’s understood,” she went on, smiling at him brightly. “And we’ll try this year to make a little better crop. We really must get something more out of it than the taxes.”
“Jane Hammon’ won’t buy no fertilizer,” growled Mr. Pritchett, put on the defensive–thoughhe couldn’t tell why. “An’ ye can’t grow corn on run-down land without potash an’ kainit, and the like.”
“Well, you shall tell us all about that later,” declared Lyddy, “and we’ll see. I understand that you can’t get blood from a turnip. We want to put Hillcrest in better shape–both in and out of the house–and then there’ll be a better chance to sell it.”
Cyrus Pritchett’s eyes suddenly twinkled with a shrewd light.
“Does Jane Hammon’ really want to sell the farm?” he queried.
“If she gets a good offer,” replied Lyddy. “That’s what we hope to do while we’re at Hillcrest–make the place more valuable and more attractive to the possible buyer.”
“Ha!” grunted Cyrus, sneeringly. “She’ll get a fancy price for Hillcrest–not!”
But that ended the discussion. “Maw” Pritchett looked on in wonder. She had seen her husband beaten in an argument by a “chit of a girl”–and really, Cyrus did not seem to be very ugly, or put out about it, either!
He told Lucas to put the ponies to the wagon again, and to take the Bray girls and their belongings up to Hillcrest; and to see that they were comfortable for the night before he came back.
This encouraged Mrs. Pritchett, when Lyddy took out her purse to pay for their entertainment, to declare:
“For the good land, no! We ain’t goin’ to charge ye for a meal of vittles–and you gals Dr. Polly Phelps’s own grandchildren! B’sides, we want ye to be neighborly. It’s nice for Sairy to have young companions, too. I tell her she’ll git to be a reg’lar old maid if she don’t ’sociate more with gals of her own age.”
Sairy bridled and blushed at this. But she wasn’t an unkind girl, and she helped ’Phemie gather their possessions–especially the latter’s wet clothing.
“I’m sure I wish ye joy up there at the old house,” said Sairy, with a shudder. “But ye wouldn’t ketch me.”
“Catch you doing what?” asked ’Phemie, wonderingly.
“Stayin’ in Dr. Phelps’s old house over night,” explained Sairy.
“Why not?”
The farmer’s daughter drew close to ’Phemie’s ear and whispered:
“It’s ha’nted!”
“What?” cried ’Phemie.
“Ghosts,” exclaimed Sairy, in a thrilling voice.“All old houses is ha’nted. And that’s been give up to ghosts for years an’ years.”
“Oh, goody!” exclaimed ’Phemie, clasping her hands and almost dancing in delight. “Do you mean it’s a really, truly haunted house?”
Sairy Pritchett gazed at her with slack jaw and round eyes for a minute. Then she sniffed.
“Wa-al!” she muttered. “I re’lly thought you wasbright. But I see ye ain’t got any too much sense, after all,” and forthwith refused to say anything more to ’Phemie.
But the younger Bray girl decided to say nothing about the supposed ghostly occupants of Hillcrest to her sister–for the present, at least.
There was still half a mile of road to climb to Hillcrest, for the way was more winding than it had been below; and as the girls viewed the summit of the ridge behind Aunt Jane’s old farm they saw that the heaped-up rocks were far more rugged than romantic, after all.
“There’s two hundred acres of it,” Lucas observed, chirruping to the ponies. “But more’n a hundred is little more’n rocks. And even the timber growin’ among ’em ain’t wuth the cuttin’. Ye couldn’t draw it out. There’s firewood enough on the place, and a-plenty! But that’s ’bout all–’nless ye wanted to cut fence rails, or posts.”
“What are those trees at one side, near the house?” queried Lyddy, interestedly.
“The old orchard.There’syour nearest firewood. Ain’t been much fruit there since I can remember. All run down.”
And, indeed, Hillcrest looked to be, as they approached it, a typical run-down farm. Tall, dry weed-stalks clashed a welcome to them from the fence corners as the ponies turned into the lane from the public road. The sun had drawn a veil of cloud across his face and the wind moaned in the gaunt branches of the beech trees that fringed the lane.
The house was set upon a knoll, with a crumbling, roofed porch around the front and sides. There were trees, but they were not planted near enough to the house to break the view on every side but one of the sloping, green and brown mountainside, falling away in terraced fields, patches of forest, tablelands of rich, tillable soil, and bush-cluttered pastures, down into the shadowy valley, through which the river and the railroad wound.
Behind Hillcrest, beyond the outbuildings, and across the narrow, poverty-stricken fields, were the battlements of rock, shutting out all view but that of the sky.
Lonely it was, as Aunt Jane had declared; butto the youthful eyes of the Bray girls the outlook was beautiful beyond compare!
“Our land jines this farm down yonder a piece,” explained Lucas, drawing in the ponies beside the old house. “Ye ain’t got nobody behind ye till ye git over the top of the ridge. Your line follers the road on this side, and on the other side of the road is Eben Brewster’s stock farm of a thousand acres–mostly bush-parsture an’ rocks, up this a-way.”
The girls were but momentarily interested in the outlook, however. It was the old house itself which their bright eyes scanned more particularly as they climbed down from the wagon.
There were two wings, or “ells.” In the west wing was the kitchen and evidently both sitting and sleeping rooms, upstairs and down–enough to serve all their present needs. Aunt Jane had told them that there were, altogether, twenty-two rooms in the old house.
Lucas hitched his horses and then began to lift down their luggage. Lyddy led the way to the side door, of which she had the key.
The lower windows were defended by tight board shutters, all about the house. The old house had been well guarded from the depredations of casual wayfarers. Had tramps passed this way the possible plunder in the old house hadpromised to be too bulky to attract them; and such wanderers could have slept as warmly in the outbuildings.
Lyddy inserted the key and, after some trouble, for the lock was rusty, turned it. There was an ancient brass latch, and she lifted it and pushed the door open.
“My! isn’t it dark–and musty,” the older sister said, hesitating on the threshold.
“Welcome to the ghosts of Hillcrest,” spoke ’Phemie, in a sepulchral voice.
“Oh, don’t!” gasped Lyddy.
She had not been afraid of Cyrus Pritchett, but ’Phemie’s irreverence for the spirits of the old house shocked her.
“All right,” laughed the younger girl. “We’ll cut out the ghosts, then.”
“We most certainlywill. If I met a ghost here I’d certainly cut him dead!”
’Phemie went forward boldly and opened the door leading into the big kitchen. It was gloomy there, too, for the shutters kept out most of the light. The girls could see, however, that it was a well-furnished room. They were delighted, too, for this must be their living-room until they could set the house to rights.
“Dust, dust everywhere,” said ’Phemie, making a long mark in it with her finger on the dresser.
“Butonlydust. We can get cleaned up here all right by evening. Come! unhook the shutters and let in the light of day.”
The younger girl raised one of the small-paned window sashes, unbolted the shutter, and pushed both leaves open. The light streamed in and almost at once Lucas’s head appeared.
“How does it look to ye–eh?” he asked, grinning. “Gee! the hearth’s all cleared and somebody’s had a fire here.”
“It must have been a long time ago,” returned Lyddy, noting the crusted ashes between the andirons.
“Wa-al,” said Lucas, slowly. “I’ll git to work with the axe an’ soon start ye a fire there, B-r-r-r! it’s cold as a dog’s nose in there,” and he disappeared again.
But the sunlight and air which soon flooded the room through all the windows quickly gave the long-shut-up kitchen a new atmosphere.
’Phemie already had on a working dress, having changed at the Pritchett house after her unfortunate ducking; Lyddy soon laid aside her own better frock, too.
Then they found their bundle of brooms and brushes, and set to work. There was a pump on the back porch and a well in the yard. During all these empty years the leather valve of thepump had rotted away; but Lucas brought them water from the well.
“I kin git the shoemaker in town to cut ye out a new leather,” said the young farmer. “He’s got a pattern. An’ I can put it in for ye. The pump’ll be a sight handier than the well for you two gals.”
“Now, isn’t he a nice boy?” demanded Lyddy of her sister. “And you called him a freak.”
“Don’t rub it in, Lyd,” snapped ’Phemie. “But it is hard to have to accept a veritable gawk of a fellow like Lucas–for that’s what heis!–as a sure-enough hero.”
This was said aside, of course, and while Lucas was doing yeoman’s work at the woodpile. He had brought in a huge backlog, placed it carefully, laid a forestick and the kindling, and soon blue and yellow flames were weaving through the well-built structure of the fire. There was a swinging crane for the kettle and a long bar with hooks upon it, from which various cooking pots could dangle. Built into the chimney, too, was a brick oven with a sheet-iron door. The girls thought all these old-fashioned arrangements delightful, whether they proved convenient, or not.
They swept and dusted the old kitchen thoroughly, and cleaned the cupboards and pantry-closet. Then they turned their attention to thehalf bedchamber, half sitting-room that opened directly out of the kitchen. In these two rooms they proposed to live at first–until their father could join them, at least.
There was an old-time high, four-post bed in this second room. It had been built long before some smart man had invented springs, and its frame was laced from side to side, and up and down, like the warp and woof of a rug, with a “bedrope” long since rotted and moth-eaten.
“My goodness me!” exclaimed ’Phemie, laughing. “That will never hold you and me, Lyd. We’ll just have to stuff that old tick with hay and sleep on the floor.”
But Lucas heard their discussion and again came to their help. Lyddy had bought a new clothesline when she purchased her food supplies at the city department store, and the clever Lucas quickly roped the old bedstead.
“That boy certainly is rising by leaps and bounds in my estimation,” admitted ’Phemie, in a whisper, to her sister.
Then came the problem of the bed. Lyddy had saved their pillows from the wreck of the flat; but the mattresses had gone with the furniture to the second-hand man. There might be good feather beds in the farmhouse attic; AuntJane had said something about them, Lyddy believed. But there was no time to hunt for these now.
“Here is a tick,” ’Phemie said again. “What’ll we fill it with?”
“Give it to me,” volunteered Lucas. “One of the stable lofts is half full of rye straw. We thrashed some rye on this place last year. It’s jest as good beddin’ for humans as it is for cattle, I declare.”
“All right,” sighed ’Phemie. “We’ll bed down like the cows for a while. I don’t see anything better to do.”
But really, by sunset, they were nearly to rights and the prospect for a comfortable first night at Hillcrest was good.
Lucas’s huge fire warmed both the kitchen and the bedroom, despite the fact that the evening promised to be chilly, with the wind mourning about the old house and rattling the shutters. The girls closed the blinds, made all cozy, and bade young Pritchett good-night.
Lyddy had paid him the promised dollar for transporting their goods, and another half-dollar for the work he had done about the house that afternoon.
“And I’ll come up in the mornin’ an’ bring ye the milk an’ eggs maw promised ye,” said Lucas,as he drove away, “and I’ll cut ye some more wood then.”
There was already a great heap of sticks beside the hearth, and in the porch another windrow, sheltered from any possible storm.
“We’re in luck to have such good neighbors,” sighed Lyddy, as the farm wagon rattled away.
“My! but we’re going to have good times here,” declared ’Phemie, coming into the house after her and closing and locking the door.
“It’s a long way off from everybody else,” observed the older sister, in a doubtful tone. “But I don’t believe we shall be disturbed.”
“Nonsense!” cried ’Phemie. “Let’s have supper. I’m starved to death.”
She swung the blackened old tea-kettle over the blaze, and moved briskly about the room laying the cloth, while Lyddy got out crackers and cheese and opened a tin of meat before she brewed the comforting cup of tea that both girls wanted.
However, theywerealone–half a mile from the nearest habitation–and if nothing else, they could not help secretly comparing their loneliness with the tenement in the city from which they had so recently graduated.
’Phemie was very bold–until something really scared her–and then she was quite likely to lose her head altogether. Lyddy was timid by nature, but an emergency forced her courage to high pressure.
They both, however, tried to ignore the fact that they were alone in the old house, far up on the mountainside, and a considerable distance from any neighbor.
That was why they chattered so all through supper–and afterward. Neither girl cared to let silence fall upon the room.
The singing of the kettle on the crane was a blessing. It made music that drove away “that lonesome feeling.” And when it actually bubbled over and the drip of it fell hissing into the fire, ’Phemie laughed as though it were a great joke.
“Such a jolly thing as an open fire is, I declare,” she said, sitting down at last in one of the low, splint-bottomed chairs, when the supper dishes were put away. “I don’t blame GrandfatherPhelps for refusing to allow stoves to be put up in his day.”
“I fancy it would take a deal of wood to heat the old house in real cold weather,” Lyddy said. “But itischeerful.”
“Woo-oo! woo-oo-oo!” moaned the wind around the corner of the house. A ghostly hand rattled a shutter. Then a shrill whistle in the chimney startled them.
At such times the sisters talked all the faster–and louder. It was really quite remarkable how much they found to say to each other.
They wondered how father was getting along at the hospital, and if Aunt Jane would surely see him every day or two, and write them. Then they exchanged comments upon what they had seen of Bridleburg, and finally fell back upon the Pritchetts as a topic of conversation–and that family seemed an unfailing source of suggestion until finally ’Phemie jumped up, declaring:
“What’s the use of this, Lyd? Let’s go to bed. We’re both half scared to death, but we’ll be no worse off in bed—And, b-r-r-r! the fire’s going down.”
They banked the fire as Lucas had advised them, put out the lamp, and retired with the candle to the bedroom. The straw mattress rustled as though it were full of mice, when thesisters had said their prayers and climbed into bed. ’Phemie blew out the candle; but she had laid matches near it on the high stand beside her pillow.
“I hope therearefeather beds in the garret,” she murmured, drowsily. “This old straw issoscratchy.”
“We’ll look to-morrow,” Lyddy said. “Aunt Jane said we could make use of anything we found here. But, my! it’s a big house for only three people.”
“It is,” admitted ’Phemie. “I’d feel a whole lot better if it was full of folks.”
“I have it!” exclaimed Lyddy, suddenly. “We might take boarders.”
“Summer boarders?” asked her sister, curiously.
“I–I s’pose so.”
“That’s a long way ahead. It’s winter yet,” and ’Phemie snuggled down into her pillow. “Folks from the city would never want to come to an old house like this–with so few conveniences in it.”
“Welike it; don’t we?” demanded Lyddy.
“I don’t know whether we do yet, or not,” replied ’Phemie. “Let’s wait and see.”
’Phemie was drowsy, yet somehow she couldn’t fall asleep. Usually she was the first of the twoto do so; but to-night Lyddy’s deeper breathing assured the younger sister that she alone was awake in all the great, empty house.
And Sairy Pritchett had intimated that Hillcrest was haunted!
Now, ’Phemie didn’t believe in ghosts–not at all. She would have been very angry had anyone suggested that there was a superstitious strain in her character.
Yet, as she lay there beside her sleeping sister she began to hear the strangest sounds.
It wasn’t the wind; nor was it the low crackling of the fire on the kitchen hearth. She could easily distinguish both of these. Soon, too, she made out the insistent gnawing of a rat behind the mopboard. That long-tailed gentleman seemed determined to get in; but ’Phemie was not afraid of rats. At least, not so long as they kept out of sight.
But there were other noises. Once ’Phemie had all but lost herself in sleep when–it seemed–a voice spoke directly in her ear. It said:
“I thought I’d find you here.”
’Phemie started into a sitting posture in the rustling straw bed. She listened hard.
The voice was silent. The fire was still. The wind had suddenly dropped. Even the rat had ceased his sapping and mining operations.
What had frightened Mr. Rat away?
He, too, must have heard that mysterious voice. ’Phemie could not believe she had imagined it.
Was that a rustling sound? Were those distant steps she heard–somewhere in the house? Did she hear a door creak?
She slipped out of bed, drew on her woollen wrapper and thrust her feet into slippers. She saw that it was bright moonlight outside, for a pencil of light came through a chink in one of the shutters.
Lyddy slept as calmly as a baby–and ’Phemie was glad. Of course, it was all foolishness about ghosts; but she believed there was somebody prowling about the house.
She lit the candle and after the flame had sputtered a bit and began to burn clear she carried it into the kitchen. Their little round alarm clock ticked modestly on the dresser. It was not yet ten o’clock.
“Not the ‘witching hour of midnight, when graveyards yawn’–and other people do, too,” thought ’Phemie, giggling nervously. “Surely ghosts cannot be walking yet.”
Indeed, she was quite assured that what she had heard–both the voice and the footsteps–were very much of the earth, earthy. There was nothing supernatural in the mysterious sounds.
And it seemed to ’Phemie as though the steps had retreated toward the east ell–the other wing of the rambling old farmhouse.
What was it Lucas Pritchett had said about his father using the cellar under the east wing at Hillcrest? Yet, what would bring Cyrus Pritchett–or anybody else–up here to the vinegar cellar at ten o’clock at night?
’Phemie grew braver by the minute. She determined to run this mystery down, and she was quite sure that it would prove to be a very human and commonplace mystery after all. She opened the door between the kitchen and the dark side hall by which they had first entered the old house that afternoon. Although she had never been this way, ’Phemie knew that out of this square hall opened a long passage leading through the main house to the east wing.
And she easily found the door giving entrance to this corridor. But she hesitated when she stood on the threshold, and almost gave up the venture altogether.
A cold, damp breath rushed out at her–just as though some huge, subterranean monster lay in wait for her in the darkness–a darkness so dense that the feeble ray of her candle could only penetrate it a very little way.
“How foolish of me!” murmured ’Phemie.“I’ve come so far–I guess I can see it through.”
She certainly did not believe that the steps and voice were inside the house. The passage was empty before her. She refused to let the rising tide of trepidation wash away her self-control.
So she stepped in boldly, holding the candle high, and proceeded along the corridor. There were tightly closed doors on either side, and behind each door was a mystery. She could not help but feel this. Every door was a menace to her peace of mind.
“But I willnotthink of such things,” she told herself. “I know if thereisanybody about the house, it is a very human somebody indeed–and he has no business here at this time of night!”
In her bed-slippers ’Phemie’s light feet fell softly on the frayed oilcloth that carpeted the long hall. Dimly she saw two or three heavy, ancient pieces of furniture standing about–a tall escritoire with three paneled mirrors, which reflected herself and her candle dimly; a long davenport with hungry arms and the dust lying thick upon its haircloth upholstery; chairs with highly ornate spindles in their perfectly “straight up and down,” uncomfortable-looking backs.
She came to the end of the hall. A door faced her which she was sure must lead into the eastwing. There, Aunt Jane had said, old Dr. Polly Phelps had had his office, consultation room, and workshop, or laboratory. ’Phemie’s hand hesitated on the latch.
Should she venture into the old doctor’s rooms? The greater part of his long and useful life had been spent behind this green-painted door. ’Phemie, of course, had never seen her grandfather; but she had seen his picture–that of a tall, pink-faced, full-bodied man, his cheeks and lips cleanly shaven, but with a fringe of silvery beard under his chin, and long hair.
It seemed to her for a moment as though, if she opened this door, the apparition of the old doctor, just as he was in his picture, would be there to face her.
“You little fool!” whispered the shaken ’Phemie to herself. “Go on!”
She lifted the latch. The door seemed to stick. She pressed her knee against the panel; it did not give at all.
And then she discovered that the door was locked. But the key was there, and in a moment she turned it creakingly and pushed the door open.
The air in the corridor had been still; but suddenly a strong breeze drew this green door wide open. The wind rushed past, blew out the candle, and behind her the other door, which shehad left ajar, banged heavily, echoing and reechoing through the empty house.
’Phemie was startled, but she understood at once the snuffing of her candle and the closing of the other door. She only hoped Lyddy would not be frightened by the noise–or by her absence from her side.
“I’ll see it through, just the same,” declared the girl, her teeth set firmly on her lower lip. “Ha! driven away by a draught–not I!”
She groped her way into the room and closed the green door. There was a match upon her candlestick and she again lighted the taper. Quickly the first room in this east wing suite was revealed to her gaze.
This had been the anteroom, or waiting-room for the old doctor’s patients. There was a door opening on the side porch. A long, old-fashioned settee stood against one wall, and some splint-bottomed chairs were set stiffly about the room, while a shaky mahogany table, with one pedestal leg, occupied the center of the apartment.
’Phemie was more careful of the candle now and shielded the flame with her hollowed palm as she pushed open the door of the adjoining room.
Here was a big desk with a high top and drop lid, while there were rows upon rows of drawersunderneath. A wide-armed chair stood before the desk, just as it must have been used by the old doctor. The room was lined to the ceiling with cases of books and cupboards. Nobody had disturbed the doctor’s possessions after his death. No younger physician had “taken over” his practice.
’Phemie went near enough to see that the desk, and the cupboards as well, were locked. There was a long case standing like an overgrown clock-case in one corner. The candle-light was reflected in the front of this case as though the door was a mirror.
But when ’Phemie approached it she saw that it was merely a glass door with a curtain of black cambric hung behind it. She was curious to know what was in the case. It had no lock and key and she stretched forth a tentative hand and turned the old-fashioned button which held it closed.
The door seemed fairly to spring open, as though pushed from within, and, as it swung outward and the flickering candle-light penetrated its interior, ’Phemie heard a sudden surprising sound.
Somewhere–behind her, above, below, in the air, all about her–was a sigh! Nay, it was more than a sigh; it was a mighty and unmistakable yawn!
And on the heels of this yawn a voice exclaimed:
“I’m getting mighty tired of this!”
’Phemie flashed her gaze back to the open case. Fear held her by the throat and choked back the shriek she would have been glad to utter. For, dangling there in the case, its eyeless skull on a level with her own face, hung an articulated skeleton; and to ’Phemie Bray’s excited comprehension it seemed as though both the yawn and the apt speech which followed it, had proceeded from the grinning jaws of the skull!