The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Happy VentureThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Happy VentureAuthor: Edith Ballinger PriceRelease date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11216]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Thaadd and PG Distributed Proofreaders*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY VENTURE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Happy VentureAuthor: Edith Ballinger PriceRelease date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11216]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Thaadd and PG Distributed Proofreaders
Title: The Happy Venture
Author: Edith Ballinger Price
Author: Edith Ballinger Price
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11216]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Thaadd and PG Distributed Proofreaders
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY VENTURE ***
Now can you see it? Now?
I TALES IN THE RAIN
II HAVOC
III UP STAKES
IV THE FINE OLD FARMHOUSE
V THE WHEELS BEGIN TO TURN
VI THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HEDGE
VII A-MAYING
VIII WORK
IX FAME COMES COURTING
X VENTURES AND ADVENTURES
XI THE NINE GIFTS
XII "ROSES IN THE MOONLIGHT"
XIII "THE SEA IS A TYRANT"
XIV THE CELESTINE PLAYS HER PART
XV MARTIN!
XVI ANOTHER HOME-COMING
"Now can you see it? Now?"
The Maestro sat down beside Kirk
The slack length of it flew suddenly aboard
"Phil--Phil!" Kirk was saying then
'Now can you see it? Now?'
"How should I your true love know,From another one?By his cockle hat and staff,And his sandal shoon..."
It was the fourth time that Felicia, at the piano, had begun the old song. Kenelm uncurled his long legs, and sat up straight on the window-seat.
"Why on earth so everlasting gloomy, Phil?" he said. "Isn't the rain bad enough, without that dirge?"
"The sky's 'be-weeping' him, just the way it says," said Felicia. She made one complete revolution on the piano-stool, and brought her strong fingers down on the opening notes of another verse.
"He is dead and gone, ladie,He is dead and--"
Kenelm sat down again in the window-seat. He knew that Felicia was anxious about their mother, and he himself shared her anxiety. The queer code of fraternal secrecy made him refrain from showing any sign of this to his sister, however. He yawned a little, and said, rather brusquely:
"This rain's messing up the frost pretty well. There shouldn't be much left of it by now."
"Crocuses soon ..." Felicia murmured. She began humming to an almost inaudible accompaniment on the piano:
"Ring, ting, it is the merrie springtime...."
The rain rolled dully down the clouded window-panes and spattered off the English-ivy leaves below the sill. They quivered up and down on pale stems--bright, waxed leaves, as shining as though they had been varnished.
Kirk drifted in and made his way to Felicia.
"She's better," he observed. "She said she was glad we were having fun." He frowned a little as he ran his finger reflectively down Felicia's sleeve. "But she's bothered. She has think-lines in her forehead. I felt 'em."
"You have a think-line in your own forehead," said Felicia, promptly kissing it away. "Don'tyoubother."
"Where's Ken?" Kirk demanded.
"In the window-seat."
Thither Kirk went, a tumble of expectancy, one hand before him and his head back. He leaped squarely upon Ken, and made known his wishes at once. They were very much what Kenelm expected.
"See me a story--a long one!"
"Oh, law!" Kenelm sighed; "you must think I'm made of 'em. Don't crawl all over me; let me ponder for two halves of a shake."
Kirk subsided against his brother's arm, and a "think-line" now became manifest on Kenelm's brow.
"See me a story"--Kirk's own queer phrase--had been the demand during most of his eight years. It seemed as though he could never have enough of this detail of a world visible to every one but himself. He must know how everything looked--even the wind, which could certainly befelt, and the rain, and the heat of the fire. From the descriptions he had amassed through his unwearied questioning, he had pieced out for himself a quaint little world of color and light,--how like or unlike the actuality no one could possibly tell.
"Blue is a cool thing, like water, or ice clinking in your glass," he would say, "and red's hot and sizzly, like the fire."
"Very true," his informants would agree; but for all that, they could not be sure what his conception might be of the colors.
Things were so confusing! There, for instance, were tomatoes. They were certainly very cool things, if you ate them sliced (when you were allowed), yet you were told that they were as red as red could be! And nothing could have been hotter than the blue tea-pot, when he picked it up by its spout; but that, to be sure, was caused by the tea. Yet thehotwasn't any color; oh, dear!
Ken had not practised the art of seeing stories for nothing. He plunged in with little hesitation, and with a grand flourish.
"My tale is of kings, it is," he said; "ancient kings--Babylonian kings, if you must know. It was thousands and thousands of years ago they lived, and you'd never be able to imagine the wonderful cities they built. They had hanging gardens that were----" Felicia interrupted.
"It's easy to tell where you gotthisstory. I happen to know where your marker is in the Ancient History."
"Never you mind where I got it," Ken said. "I'm trying to describe a hanging garden, which is more than you could do. As I was about to say, the hanging gardens were built one above the other; they didn't really hang at all. They sat on big stone arches, and the topmost one was so high that it stuck up over the city walls, which were quite high enough to begin with. The tallest kinds of trees grew in the gardens; not just flowers, but big palm-trees and oleanders and citron-trees, and pomegranates hung off the branches all ready to be picked,--dark greeny, purpley pomegranates all bursting open so that their bright red seeds showed like live coals (do you think I'm getting this out of the history book, Phil?), and they werethis-shaped--" he drew a pomegranate on the back of Kirk's hand--"with a sprout of leaves at the top. And there were citrons--like those you chop up in fruit-cake--and grapes and roses. The queen could sit in the bottomest garden, or walk up to the toppest one by a lot of stone steps. She had a slave-person who went around behind her with a pea-cock-feathery fan, all green and gold and beautiful; and he waved the fan over her to keep her cool. Meanwhile, the king would be coming in at one of the gates of the city. They were huge, enormous brass gates, and they shone like the sun, bright, and the sun winked on the king's golden chariot, too, and on the soldiers' spears.
"He was just coming home from a lion-hunt, and was very much pleased because he'd killed a lot of lions. He was really a rather horrid man,--quite ferocious, and all,--but he wore most wonderful purple and red embroidered clothes, the sort you like to hear about. He had a tiara on, and golden crescents and rosettes blazed all over him, and he wore a mystic, sacred ornament on his chest, round and covered all over with queer emblems. He rode past the temple, where the walls were painted in different colors, one for each of the planets and such, because the Babylonish people worshipped those--orange for Jupiter, and blue for Mercury, and silver for the moon. And the king got out of his chariot and climbed up to where the queen was waiting for him in the toppest gar--"
"Don't you tell me they were so domestic and all," Felicia objected. "They probably--"
"Who's seeing this story?" Ken retorted. "You let me be. I say, the queen was waiting for him, and she gave him a lotus and a ripe pomegranate, and the slaves ran and got wine, and the people with harps played them, and she said--Here's Mother!"
Kirk looked quite taken aback for a moment at this apparently irrelevant remark of the Babylonian queen, till a faint rustle at the doorway told him that it was his own mother who had come in.
She stood at the door, a slight, tired little person, dressed in one of the black gowns she had worn ever since the children's father had died.
"Don't stop, Ken," she smiled. "What did she say?"
But either invention flagged, or self-consciousness intervened, for Kenelm said:
"Blessed if I know what shedidsay! But at any rate, you'll agree that it was quite a garden, Kirky. I'll also bet a hat that you haven't done your lesson for to-morrow. It's notyourEaster vacation, if it is ours. Miss Bolton will hop you."
"Think of doing silly reading-book things, after hearing all that," Kirk sighed.
"Suppose you had to do cuneiform writing on a dab of clay, like the Babylonish king," Ken said; "all spikey and cut in, instead of sticking out; much worse than Braille. Go to it, and let Mother sit here, laziness."
Kirk sighed again, a tremendous, pathetic sigh, designed to rouse sympathy in the breasts of his hearers. It roused none, and he wandered across the room and dragged an enormous book out upon the floor. He sprawled over it in a dim corner, his eyes apparently studying the fireplace, and his fingers following across the page the raised dots which spelled his morrow's lesson. What nice hands he had, Felicia thought, watching from her seat, and how delicately yet strongly he used them! She wondered what he could do with them in later years. "They mustn't be wasted," she thought. She glanced across at Ken. He too was looking at Kirk, with an oddly sober expression, and when she caught his eye he grew somewhat red and stared out at the rain.
"Better, Mother dear?" Felicia asked, curling down on a footstool at Mrs. Sturgis's feet.
"Rather, thank you," said her mother, and fell silent, patting the arm of the chair as though she were considering whether or not to say something more. She said nothing, however, and they sat quietly in the falling dusk, Felicia stroking her mother's white hand, and Ken humming softly to himself at the window. Kirk and his book were almost lost in the corner--just a pale hint of the page, shadowed by the hand which moved hesitantly across it. The hand paused, finally, and Kirk demanded, "What's 'u-g-h' spell?"
"It spells 'Ugh'!" Ken grunted. "What on earth are you reading? Isthatwhat Miss Bolton gives you!"
"It's not my lesson," Kirk said; "it's much further along. But I can read it."
"You'll get a wigging. You'd better stick to 'The cat can catch the mouse,'et cetera."
"I finished thatyearsago," said Kirk, loftily. "This is a different book, even. Listen to this: 'Ugh! There--sat--the dog with eyes--as--big as--as--'"
"Tea-cups," said Felicia.
"'T-e-a-c-' yes, itistea-cups," Kirk conceded; "how did you know, Phil?--'as big as tea-cups,--staring--at--him. "You're a nice--fellow," said the soldier, and he--sat him--on--the witch's ap-ron, and took as many cop--copper shillings--as his--pockets would hold.'"
"So that's it, is it?" Ken said. "Begin at the beginning, and let's hear it all."
"Ken," said his mother, "that's in the back of the book. You shouldn't encourage him to read things Miss Bolton hasn't given him."
"It'll do him just as much good to read that, as that silly stuff at the beginning. Phil and I always read things we weren't supposed to have reached."
"But for him--"Mrs. Sturgis murmured; "you and Phil were different, Ken. Oh, well,--"
For Kirk had turned back several broad pages, and began:
"There came a soldier marching along the highroad--one, two! one, two!..."
Little by little the March twilight settled deeper over the room. There was only a flicker on the brass andirons, a blur of pale blossoms where the potted azalea stood. The rain drummed steadily, and as steadily came the gentle modulations of Kirk's voice, as the tale of "The Tinder-Box" progressed.
It was the first time that he had ever read aloud anything so ambitious, and his hearers sat listening with some emotion--his mother filled with thankfulness that he had at last the key to a vast world which he now might open at a touch; Ken, with a sort of half-amazed pride in the achievements of a little brother who was surmounting such an obstacle. Felicia sat gazing across the dim room.
"He's reading us a story!" she thought, over and over; "Kirk 's reading to us, without very many mistakes!" She reflected that the book, for her, might as well be written in Sanskrit. "I ought to know something about it," she mused; "enough to help him! It's selfish and stupid not to! I'll ask Miss Bolton."
The soldier had gone only as far as the second dog's treasure-room, when Maggie came to the door to say that supper was ready. From between the dining-room curtains came the soft glow of the candles and the inviting clink of dishes. "'He threw--away all the copper--money he had, and filled his--knapsack with silver,'" Kirk finished in a hurry, and shut the book with a bang.
"I wouldn't have done that," he said, as Felicia took the hand he held out for some one to take; "I should think all the money he could possibly get would have been useful."
"You've said it!" Ken laughed.
"Yes," Mrs. Sturgis murmured with a sigh, "all the money one can getisuseful. You read it very beautifully, darling--thank you."
She kissed his forehead, and took her place at the head of the table, where the candles lit her gentle face and her brown eyes--filled now, with a sudden brimming tenderness.
The town ran, in its lower part, to the grimy water-front, where there was ever a noise of the unloading of ships, the shouts of teamsters, and the clatter of dray-horses' big hoofs on bare cobblestones. Ken liked to walk there, even on such a dreary March day as this, when the horses splashed through puddles, and the funnels of the steamers dripped sootily black. He had left Felicia in the garden, investigating the first promise of green under the leaf-coverlet of the perennial bed. Kirk was with her, questing joyously down the brick path, and breathing the warm, wet smell of the waking earth.
Ken struck down to the docks; even before he reached the last dingy street he could see the tall masts of a sailing-ship rising above the warehouse roofs. It was with a quickened beat of the heart that he ran the last few steps, and saw her in all her quiet dignity--theCelestine, four-masted schooner. It was not often that sailing vessels came into this port. Most of the shipping consisted of tugs with their barges, high black freighters, rust-streaked; and casual tramp steamers battered by every wind from St. John's to Torres Straits. TheCelestinewas, herself, far from being a pleasure yacht. Her bluff bows were salt-rimed and her decks bleached and weather-bitten. But she towered above her steam-driven companions with such stalwart grace, such simple perfection, that Ken caught his breath, looking at her.
The gang-plank was out, for she lay warped in to one of the wharves, and Ken went aboard and leaned at the rail beside a square man in a black jersey, who chewed tobacco and squinted observantly at the dock. From this person, at first inclined to be taciturn, Ken learned that theCelestinewas sailing the next night, bound for Rio de Janeiro, "and mebbe further." Rio de Janeiro! And here she lay quietly at the slimy wharf, beyond which the gray northern town rose in a smoky huddle of chimney-pots.
Behind Ken, some of the crew began hoisting the foresail to dry. He heard the rhythmic squeak of the halliards through the sheaves, and the scrape of the gaff going up.
"Go 'n lend 'em a hand, hoy, since yer so gone on it," the jerseyed one recommended quite understandingly. So Ken went and hauled at a rope, and watched the great expanse of sodden gray canvas rise and shiver and straighten into a dark square against the sky. He imagined himself one of the crew of theCelestine, hoisting the foresail in a South American port.
"I'd love to roll to RioSome day before I'm old..."
The sail rose steadily to the unsung chorus. Ken was quite happy.
He walked all the way home--it was a long walk--with his head full of plans for a seafaring life, and his nostrils still filled with the strange, fascinating, composite smell of the docks.
Felicia met him at the gate. She looked quite done for, he thought, and she caught his sleeve.
"Wherehaveyou been?" she said, with a queer little excited hitch in her voice. "I've been almost wild, waiting for you. Mother's headache is horribly worse; she's gone to bed. A letter came this morning, I don't know what, but I think it has something to do with her being so ill. She simply cries and cries--a frightening sort of crying--and says, 'I can't--can't!' and wants Father to tell her what to do."
They were in the hall by this time.
"WantsFather!" Ken said gravely. "Have you got the doctor, Phil?"
"Not yet; I wanted to ask you."
"Get him--quick."
Ken ran upstairs. Halfway, he tumbled over something crouched beside the banisters. It was Kirk, quite wretched. He caught Ken's ankle.
"Mother's crying," he said; "I can hear her. Oh,dosomething, Ken!"
"I'm going to," said his brother. "Don't sit here in the dark and make yourself miserable."
He recollected that the landing was no darker for Kirk than any other place, and added: "You're apt to be stepped on here--I nearly smashed you. Hop along and tell Maggie that I'm as hungry as an ostrich." But however hungry Ken may have been as he trudged home from the docks, he was not so now. A cold terror seized him as he leaned above his mother, who could not, indeed, stop her tears, nor tell him more than that she could not bear it, she could not. Ken had never before felt quite so helpless. He wished, as much as she, that his father were there to tell them what to do--his tall, quiet father, who had always counseled so well. He breathed a great thankful sigh when the doctor came in, with Felicia, white faced, peeping beside his shoulder. Ken said, "I'm glad you'll take charge, sir," and slipped out.
He and Felicia stood in Kirk's room, silently, and after what seemed an eternity, the doctor came out, tapping the back of his hand with his glasses. He informed them, with professional lack of emotion, that their mother was suffering from a complete nervous breakdown, from which it might take her months to recover.
"Evidently," said he, "she has been anxious over something, previous to this, but some definite shock must have caused the final collapse."
He was a little man, and he spoke drily, with a maddening deliberation. "There was a letter--this morning," Felicia said, faintly.
"It might be well to find the letter, in order to ascertain the exact nature of the shock," said the doctor.
Ken went to his mother's room and searched her desk. He came back presently with a legal envelop, and his face was blank and half uncomprehending. The doctor took the paper from him and skimmed the contents.
"Ah--hm. 'United Stock ... the mine having practically run out ... war causing further depreciation ... regret to inform you, ...hm, yes. My dear young people, it appears from this that your mother has lost a good deal of money--possibly all her money. I should advise your seeing her attorney at once. Undoubtedly he will be able to make a satisfactory adjustment."
He handed the paper back to Ken, who took it mechanically. Then, with the information that it would be necessary for their mother to go to a sanatorium to recuperate, and that he would send them a most capable nurse immediately, the doctor slipped out--a neat little figure, stepping along lightly on his toes. "Can you think straight, Ken?" Felicia said, later, in the first breathing pause after the doctor's departure and the arrival of the brisk young woman who took possession of the entire house as soon as she stepped over the threshold.
"I'm trying to," Ken replied, slowly. He began counting vaguely on his fingers. "It means Mother's got to go away to a nervous sanatorium place. It means we're poor. Phil, we may have to--I don't know what."
"What do they do with people who have no money?" Felicia asked dismally. "They send them to the poor-farm or something, don't they?"
"Don't talk utter bosh, Phil! As if I'd ever let you or Kirk go to the poor-farm!"
"Kirk!" Felicia murmured. "Suppose they took him away! They might, you know--the State, and send him to one of those institutions!"
"Oh, drop it!" snapped Ken. "We don't even know how much money it is Mother's lost. I don't suppose she had it all in this bally mine. Whoisher attorney, anyway!"
"Mr. Dodge,--don't you remember? Nice, with a pink face and bristly hair. He came here long ago about Daddy's business."
There was a swift rush of feet on the stairs, a pause in the hallway, and Kirk appeared at the door.
"I told Maggie," said he, "and supper's ready. And what'sspeciallynice is the toast, because I made it myself--only Norah told me when it was done."
Ken and Felicia looked at one another, and wondered how much supper they could eat. Then Ken swung Kirk to his shoulder, and said:
"All right, old boy, we'll come and eat your toast."
"Is the crackly lady taking care of Mother?" Kirk asked over a piece of his famous toast, as they sat at supper.
"Yes," said Felicia. "Her name's Miss McClough. Why, did you meet her?"
"She said, 'Don't sit in people's way when you see they're in a hurry,'" said Kirk, somewhat grieved. "Ididn't know she was coming. I don't think I like her much. Her dress creaks, and she smells like the drug-store."
"She can't help that," said Ken; "she's taking good care of Mother. And I told you the stairway was no place to sit, didn't I!"
"I've managed to find outsomething," Ken told Felicia, next day, as lie came downstairs. "Mother would talk about it, in spite of Miss McThing's protests, and I came away as soon as I could. She says there's a little Fidelity stock that brings enough to keep her in the rest-place, so she feels a little better about that. (By the way, she tried to say she wouldn't go, and I said she had to.) Then there's something else--Rocky Head Granite, I think--that will give us something to live on. We'll have to see Mr. Dodge as soon as we can; I'm all mixed up."
They did see Mr. Dodge, that afternoon. He was nice, as Felicia had said. He made her sit in his big revolving-chair, while he brought out a lot of papers and put on a pair of drooping gold eye-glasses to look at them. And the end of the afternoon found Ken and Felicia very much confused and a good deal more discouraged than before. It seemed that even the Rocky Head Granite was not a very sound investment, and that the staunch Fidelity was the only dependable source of income.
"And Mother must have that money, of course, for the rest-place," Felicia said. "For Heaven's sake, don't tell her," Ken muttered.
His sister shot him one swift look of reproach and then turned to Mr. Dodge. She tried desperately to be very businesslike.
"What do you advise us to do, Mr. Dodge?" she said. "Send away the servants, of course."
"And Miss Bolton," Ken said; "she's an expensive lady."
"Yes, Miss Bolton. I'll teach Kirk--I can."
"How much is the rent of the house, Mr. Dodge, do you know?" Ken asked. Mr. Dodge did know, and told him. Ken whistled. "It sounds as though we'd have to move," he said.
"The lease ends April first," said the attorney.
"We could get a little tiny house somewhere," Felicia suggested. "Couldn't you get quite a nice one for six hundred dollars a year?"
This sum represented, more or less, their entire income--minus the expenses of Hilltop Sanatorium.
"But what would you eat?" Mr. Dodge inquired gently.
"Oh, dear, that's true!" said Felicia. And clothes! Whatdoyou think we'd better do?"
"You have no immediate relatives, as I remember?" Mr. Dodge mused.
"None but our great-aunt, Miss Pelham," Ken said, "andshelives in Los Angeles."
"She's very old, too," Phil said, "and lives in a tiny house. She's not at all well off; we shouldn't want to bother her. And there is Uncle Lewis."
"Oh,him!" said Ken, gloomily.
"It takes three months even to get an answer from a letter to him," Felicia explained. "He's in the Philippines, doing something to Ignorants."
"Igorrotes, Phil," Ken muttered.
"He sounds unpromising," Mr. Dodge sighed. "And there are no friends who would be sufficiently interested in your problem to open either their doors or their pocket-books?"
"We don't know many people here," Felicia said. "Mother hasn't gone out very much for several years."
Ken flushed. "And we'd rather people didn't open anything to us, anyhow," he said.
"Except, perhaps, their hearts," Mr. Dodge supplemented, "or their eyes, when they see your independent procedure!" He tapped his knee with his glasses. "My dear children, I suggest that you move to some other house--perhaps to some quaint little place in the country, which would be much less expensive than anything you could find in town. Your mother had best go away, as the doctor advises--she will be much better looked after, and of course she mustn't know what you do. I'll watch over this Rocky Head concern, and you may feel perfectly secure in the Fidelity. And don't hesitate to ask me anything you want to know, at any time."
He rose, pushing back his papers.
"Don't we owe you something for all this, sir?" Ken asked, rather red.
Mr. Dodge smiled. "One dollar, and other valuable considerations," he said.
Kenelm brought out his pocketbook, and carefully pulled a dollar bill from the four which it contained. He presented it to Mr. Dodge, and Felicia said:
"Thank you so very, very much!"
"You're very welcome," said the attorney, "and the best of luck to you all!" When the glass door had closed behind the pair, Mr. Dodge sat down before his desk and wiped his glasses. He looked at the dollar bill, and then he said--quite out loud--
"Poor, poor dears!"
That night, Kenelm could not sleep. He walked up and down his room in the dark. His own head ached, and he could not think properly. The one image which stood clearly out of the confusion was that of theCelestine, raising gracious spars above the house-tops. The more he thought of her, the more a plan grew in his tired mind. The crew of theCelestinemust be paid quite well--he could send money home every week from different ports--he could send gold and precious things from South America. There would be one less person to feed at home; he would be earning money instead of spending it.
He turned on his light, and quickly gathered together his hockey sweater, his watch-cap, and an old pair of trousers. He made them into a bundle with a few other things. Then he wrote a letter, containing many good arguments, and pinned it on Felicia's door. He tiptoed downstairs and out into the night. From the street he could see the faint green light from his mother's room, where Miss McClough was sitting. He turned and ran quickly, without stopping to think.
No one was abroad but an occasional policeman, twirling his night-stick. On the wharves the daylight confusion was dispelled; there was no clatter of teaming, no sound but the water fingering dank piles, and the little noises aboard sleeping vessels. But theCelestinewas awake. Lights gleamed aboard her, men were stirring, the great mass of her canvas blotted half the stars. She was sailing, that night, for Rio de Janeiro.
Ken slipped into the shadow of a pile-head, waiting his chance. His heart beat suffocatingly; his hands were very cold. Quietly he stepped under the gang-plank, swung a leg over it, drew himself aboard, and lay flat on deck beside the rail of theCelestinein a pool of shade. A man tripped over him and stumbled back with an oath. The next instant Ken was hauled up into the light of a lantern.
"Stowaway, eh?" growled a squat man in dungaree. "Chuck him overboard, Sam, an' let him swim home to his mamma."
In that moment, Ken knew that he could never have sailed with theCelestine, that he would have slipped back to the wharf before she cast loose her hawsers. He looked around him as if he had just awakened from sleep-walking and did not know where he found himself. He gazed up at the gaunt mainmast, black against the green night sky, at the main topsail, shaking still as the men hauled it taut.
"I'm not a stowaway," he said; "I'm going ashore now."
He walked down the gang-plank with all the dignity he could muster, and never looked behind him as he left the wharf. He could hear the rattle of theCelestine'stackle, and theboom, boomof the sails. Once clear of the docks he ran, blindly.
"Fool!" he whispered. "Oh, what a fool! what a senseless idiot!"
The house was dark as he turned in at the gate. He stopped for an instant to look at its black bulk, with Orion setting behind the chimney-pots.
"I was going to leave them--all alone!" he whispered fiercely. "Good Heavens!"
He removed the letter silently from Felicia's door,--he was reassured by seeing its white square before he reached it,--and crept to his own room. There a shadowy figure was curled up on the floor, and it was crying.
"Kirk! What's up?" Ken lifted him and held him rather close.
"You weren't here," Kirk sniffed; "I got sort of rather l-lonely, so I thought I'd come in with you--and the b-bed was perfectly empty, and I couldn't find you. I t-thought you were teasing me."
"I was taking a little walk," Ken said. "Here, curl up in bed--you're frozen. No, I'm not going away again--never any more, ducky. It was nice in the garden," he added.
"The garden?" Kirk repeated, still clinging to him. "But you smell of--of--oh, rope, and sawdust, and--and, Ken, your face is wet!"
Mrs. Sturgis protested bitterly against going away. She felt quite able to stay at home. To be sure, she couldn't sleep at all, and her head ached all the time, and she couldn't help crying over almost everything--but it was impossible that she should leave the children. In spite of her half-hysterical protests, the next week saw her ready to depart for Hilltop with Miss McClough, who was to take the journey with her.
"You needn't worry a scrap," laughed Felicia, quite convincingly, at the taxi door. "We've seen Mr. Dodge, and there'll be money enough. You just get well as quick as ever you can."
"Good-by, my darlings," faltered poor Mrs. Sturgis, quite ready to collapse again. "Good-by, Kirk--my precious, precious baby! How can I!"
And the taxicab moved away, giving them just one glimpse of their mother with her poor head on Miss McClough's capable shoulder.
"Well," Ken remarked, "here we are."
And there was really nothing more to be said on the subject.
Such a strange house! Maggie and Norah gone; Felicia cooking queer meals--principally poached eggs--in the kitchen; Miss Bolton failing to appear every morning at ten o'clock as she had done for the last three years; Mother gone, and not even a letter from her--nothing but a type-written report from the physician at Hilltop.
Gone also, as Kirk discovered, was the lowboy beside the library door. It was a most satisfactory piece of furniture. From its left-hand corner you could make a direct line to the window-seat. It also had smoothly graceful brass handles, and a surface delicious to the touch. When Kirk, stumbling in at the library door, failed to encounter it as usual, he was as much startled as though he had found a serpent in its stead. He tried for it several times, and when his hands came against the bookshelves he stopped dead, very much puzzled and quite lost. Felicia found him there, standing still and patiently waiting for the low-boy to materialize in its accustomed place.
"Where is it!" he asked her.
"It's not there, honey," she said. "We're going to a different house, and it's sent away."
"A different house! When? Whatdoyou mean?"
"We've finished renting this one," said Felicia. "We thought it would be nice to go to another one--in the country. Oh, you'll like it."
"How queer!" Kirk mused. "Perhaps I shall. But I don't know about this corner; it used to be covered up. Please start me right."
She did so, and then ran off to attend to a peculiar pudding which was boiling over on the stove. She had not told him that the low-boy was sent away to be sold. When she and Ken had discovered the appalling sum it would cost to move the furniture anywhere, they heartbrokenly concluded that the low-boy and various other old friends must go to help settle the accounts of Miss Bolton and the nurse.
"There are some things," Ken stoutly pronounced, however, "that we'll take with us, if I have to go digging ditches to support 'em. And some we'll leave with Mr. Dodge--I know he won't mind a few nice tables and things."
For the "different house" was actually engaged. Mr. Dodge shook his head when he heard that Ken had paid the first quarter's rent without having even seen the place.
"Fine old farm-house," said the advertisement; "Peach and apple orchards. Ten acres of land. Near the bay. Easy reach of city. Only $15.00 per month."
There was also a much blurred photograph of the fine old farm-house, from which it was difficult to deduce much except that it had a gambrel roof.
"But it does sound quite wonderful," Felicia said to the attorney. "We thought we wouldn't go to see it because of its costing so much to travel there and back again. But don't you think it ought to be nice? Peach and apple orchards,--and only fifteen dollars a month!"
"I dare say it is wonderful," said Mr. Dodge, smiling. "At any rate, Asquam itself is a very pretty little bayside place--I've been there. Fearfully hard to get your luggage, but charming once you're there. Don't forget me! I'll always be here. And you'd better have a little more cash for your traveling expenses."
"I hope it really came out of our money," Ken said, when he saw the cash.
Nothing but a skeleton of a house, now. No landmarks at all were left for Kirk, and he tumbled over boxes and crates, and lost himself in the bare, rugless halls. The beds that were to be taken to Asquam were still set up,--they would be crated next day,--but there was really nothing else left in the rooms. Three excited people, two of them very tired, ate supper on the corner of the kitchen table--which was not going to the farm-house. That house flowered hopefully in its new tenants' minds. Felicia saw it, tucked between its orchards, gray roof above gnarled limbs, its wide stone door-step inviting one to sit down and look at the view of the bay. And there would be no need of spending anything there except that fifteen dollars a month--"and something for food," Felicia thought, "which oughtn't to be much, there in the country with hens and things."
It amused Kirk highly--going to bed in an empty room. He put his clothes on the floor, because he could find no other place for them. Felicia remonstrated and suggested the end of the bed.
"Everything else you own is packed, you know," said she. "You'd better preserve those things carefully."
"Sing to me," he said, when he was finally tucked in. "It's the last night--and--everything's so ugly. I want to pretend it's just the same. Sing 'Do-do, petit frère,' Phil."
Felicia sat on the edge of the bed and sang the little old French lullaby. She had sung it to him often when she was quite a small girl, and he a very little boy. She remembered just how he used to look--a cuddly, sleepy three-year-old, with a tumble of dark hair and the same grave, unlit eyes. He was often a little frightened, in those days, and needed to hold a warm substantial hand to link him with the mysterious world he could not see.
"Do-do, p'tit frère, do-do."
His hand groped down the blanket, now, for hers, and she took it and sang on a bit unsteadily in the echoing bareness of the dismantled room.
A long time afterward, when Kenelm was standing beside his window looking out into the starless dark, Felicia's special knock sounded hollowly at his door.
She came over to him, and stood for a while silently. Then she turned and said suddenly in a shy, low voice:
"Oh, Ken, I don't know how you feel about it, but--but, I think, whatever awful is going to happen, we must try to keep things beautiful for Kirk."
"I guess we must," Ken said, staring out. "I'd trust you to do it, old Phil. Cut along now to bed," he added gruffly; "we'll have to be up like larks tomorrow."