CHAPTER XII.THE RETURN.
With the exception of her three best friends, Billie Campbell had never met people who pleased her so much on short acquaintance as the Hooks and their guest. It had not taken them half an hour to bridge over the gap of unfamiliarity.
“What is it?” she asked of Maggie Hook, Richard’s small, whimsical sister, black haired, black eyed, with quick alert movements like a bird’s.
“I can tell you exactly the reason,” replied Maggie. “It’s because we all belong to the road. There is a bond between us. We go Gypsying in our van and you go Gypsying in your car. We be all of one blood like Kipling’s Mowgli and the animals in the jungle.”
“Only we aren’t the real thing as much asyou,” said Billie modestly. “The ‘Comet’ is a dear old thing, but he’s not a house.”
“You wouldn’t enjoy it if he were,” said Maggie. “A motor traveling van would never do. You see the point of this kind of life is that it’s lazy and contemplative. We just amble along and it doesn’t matter whether we make ten miles or five. We are not attempting long distance records. We are just getting intimate with the ups and downs of the country; the streams and rivers; the little valleys and bits of green by the roadside. Sometimes, if we find a place that’s secluded enough, a little glen or a grove that screens off the road, we stay there for several days.”
“But what do you do?”
“We all do the things we like best. Richard reads and takes long walks or fishes, if there is a stream. I clean the van from top to bottom and polish everything up and bake a cake in the little oven. Then I darn all the stockings and mend the clothes.”
Billie laughed.
“You’re not a Gypsy,” she said, “if you are a black-eyed wanderer. They never mend or clean anything. But what does Miss Swinnerton like to do? Is she fond of housework, too?”
“Amy? No, not specially. She sketches and paints in water colors, and botanizes, and looks for bits of stones and rocks which she examines through a glass, and translates French and generally potters around. She’s always busy. She can do anything from making an omelette to painting a picture.”
Billie turned her eyes half wistfully toward the plump brown-haired Amy Swinnerton. She felt suddenly very inefficient and worthless.
“I can’t do anything,” she said, frowning. “I’m ashamed of myself.”
“You can run a motor car and keep it in order,” answered the new friend. “I never knew another girl who could.”
“That’s ground into me by experience. ButI hate sewing. I’m not a good cook and I can’t draw or paint or play the piano. We met a girl this summer who has been brought up in a cabin on the mountain and has never been to school in her life, who knows a lot more than I do.”
Billie told what little she knew of the strange history of Phoebe.
“It would make a wonderful story,” observed Maggie. “I should like to put it into a book.”
“Do you write, too?” asked Billie eagerly.
Maggie blinked her dark, bright eyes.
“When you see my name appear in book reviews and magazines and things, then you’ll know I write,” she replied.
This conversation occurred the next morning at breakfast. Billie had risen at dawn and repaired the “Comet” and the motor party was soon now to start on its homeward journey.
Richard Hook presently joined his sister and Billie. Sitting cross-legged on the ground attheir feet, he munched a bacon sandwich and sipped black coffee from a tin cup. He reminded Billie of one of Shakespeare’s wise fools. All he lacked were the cap and bells. His whimsical, humorous eyes were rather far apart; his dark hair, cropped close, stood up straight over his forehead. His nose was distinguished in shape and his flexible mouth turned up at the corners. He talked slowly with a sort of twang like a farmer from the east coast and there was a kind of hidden humor under whatever he said. He had charming old-world manners, and an old-fashioned way of saying “I thank you,” or “Permit me, ma’am,” or “At your service, ma’am.” He was really quite a delightful person, they unanimously decided; and so was his sister and so was her friend.
Billie wondered what Richard Hook’s work was; or whether perhaps he was still in college. She wondered a great many things about him, and she felt quite sure that he was not well off. Presently she said:
“It’s too bad when we are all just beginning to be friends that we must part so soon. Why can’t you turn old Dobbin right about face and come back and see us at Camp Sunrise?”
“Why not, indeed?” answered Richard.
“Do come,” urged Billie, never dreaming that in giving this invitation she had been moved by something stronger than her own friendly wish to know more of these nice people, and that destiny itself had a hand in the business.
Richard Hook took a little calendar from his pocket and contemplated it gravely.
“Another month has perished with her moon,” he remarked. “We’re in August, little sister. Did you realize that? I see no reason why we shouldn’t travel toward Sunrise Camp before——”
“Before——” repeated Maggie, and the brother and sister exchanged a swift glance.
“Then you do accept,” exclaimed Billie joyfully.
“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Richard, “if you think old Dobbin can climb the hill.”
“Of course he can,” replied Billie.
“But, Richard, do you think we dare?” asked Maggie in a low voice.
Richard’s mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes gave a humorous blink.
“We dare anything,” he said. “Pray excuse this little aside, Miss Billie. It’s only that we are obliged to consider certain complications that arise to vex us at times. I think we can easily arrange to go to Camp Sunrise.”
Billie was more certain than ever that money was the complication. But surely that was an inexpensive way of spending one’s vacation, provided one owned the van and the horse.
“How much longer does your vacation last, Mr. Hook?” she asked.
“It depends. My boss is a very notionate old party. He might let me go wandering on like this for several weeks longer or he might suddenlydecide to send for me, and I should have to go hiking back in the midst of my holiday.”
Maggie laughed, and Billie wondered what kind of work this unusual young man did that sent out sudden calls in the very middle of hard-earned vacations.
However, it was arranged that the caravanners should meander back toward Sunrise Camp and in the course of time stop there for a visit.
“They are delightful young people,” Miss Campbell said. “I don’t know who they are, I’m sure, nor what the young man does, but I find them quite the most charming young people with the exception of my own that I ever met.”
“It’s rather strange about his work,” remarked Dr. Hume. “I don’t know what he does now, but he wishes above all things to be a farmer, he informed me. He’s always looking for farms as he journeys along the road. That’s one of the reasons why he got the van, in order to seethe country and decide where he’d like best to locate.”
They were not so merry on the journey back as they had been on the trip of the morning before. For one reason those who had slept in open camp had not had off their clothes for twenty-four hours, and all of them felt the crying need of baths after the two dusty journeys. But there was another reason besides these physical ones. They were beginning to feel conscience-stricken about Alberdina. How had she taken their long, unexplained absence? Would she still be singing “Ach, mein lieber Augustine!” when they returned, and would there be a long clothes line bowed under the weight of clean white linen bleaching in the sun ready to be ironed? So restless did they grow under these speculations, that they did not pause for lunch and, urging the “Comet” to the limit of his speed, they reached home a little before noon. Alberdina was there. Thank heavens for that. Theycould see her plainly as they turned the curve in the road. But her appearance was not promising. Perched on her head was that absurd comedy hat. She was sitting down, quite low, on the iron-bound trunk, in fact, leaning on her large cotton umbrella, as one prepared to depart on a journey.
If you have ever lived in a remote spot with an uncertain maid, you will recall how apologetic you were to her for your own shortcomings.
“Oh, dear, what shall I say to her?” exclaimed Miss Campbell. “She looks as if she were ready to go this minute.”
“Why can’t we tell her the truth? We simply couldn’t help it,” said Billie. “She ought not to be angry over something we couldn’t control.”
“You don’t know them, but I’ll just brazen it out. I know we’re entirely dependent on the creature for the comforts of life, but I won’t let her bully me. Well, Alberdina,” she called, as the car drew up at the camp door, “have you been lonesome?”
“Lonesome?” repeated Alberdina, not moving from her ridiculous trunk. “I no time haf had for lonesomes. Many peoples to dis house come—crazy peoples—men and vimmen, hein? They haf my moneys took already yesterday! Ach, Gott! They haf me tied wid ropes. They have nogged and nogged in the night times. Dos vimmens, I hear the boice already yet. I no lig dees place. I to my home go bag to-day. Dey have robbed dis house. Dey haf made to turn red dos vite clothes.”
In dead silence they descended from the motor car and filed into the house to investigate Alberdina’s wild, incoherent story.
There were certainly signs of an invasion in the locker rooms, everything tipsy turvy on the floor. Alberdina showed them the ropes that had bound her. With rivers of tears she mentioned her loss of ten dollars.
“And the red clothes?” asked Billie doubtfully.
This had been reserved to the last by the wily-innocentSwiss girl. With cries of sorrow they beheld their underclothing and blouses all tinged a deep pink.
Suddenly Miss Campbell marched up and stood in front of the girl with a very cold steely look in her cerulean eyes.
“Answer me this instant,” she said, “and speak the truth. You boiled those clothes with a red silk handkerchief?”
Alberdina broke down and wept copiously.
“I knew not about dos red,” she exclaimed.
“But when you saw the clothes were turning red, why didn’t you take them off the fire?” asked Billie.
“I did nod see.”
“Not see? And why not, pray?” demanded Miss Campbell.
“I was asleeb and when I wog, I was wit rope tied.”
“Who cut the rope?” asked Dr. Hume, beginning to doubt the whole story.
“A gentlemans who mag to play music on the zither.”
“Phoebe’s father!” exclaimed the girls.
They glanced at each other with a wild surmise.
“It couldn’t have been——”
“No, no, I’m sure he never would——”
“Hush,” said Ben, “here comes Phoebe.”
The mountain girl, looking pale and distraught, her hair flying, her face and hands scratched from contact with brambles, rushed into their midst.
“My father,” she cried. “He has been lost all night. I have looked and looked and I cannot find him. Oh, if he should be in the marshes——”
She fell on her knees at Billie’s feet and broke into sobbing.
CHAPTER XIII.BILLIE AND THE DOCTOR.
Several things had to be done before any steps could be taken to find Phoebe’s father. First Alberdina must be roundly scolded for her carelessness about the clothes and then placated with a ten dollar bill to compensate her for her loss. There must be lunch prepared for hungry travelers, and Phoebe, herself, must be given food and made to rest. In the meantime they questioned her concerning her father’s movements. He had left the cabin with his zither the morning of the day before and had not been seen since, except when he had appeared at the camp and cut Alberdina’s bonds.
“Has he ever stayed away before at night?” asked Dr. Hume.
“No, never. When he is not weaving basketsor carving, he is very restless and often is away for hours, but he always comes back before bed time. He never forgets me. That is why I am so uneasy now,” she went on, clasping and unclasping her hands in the agony of her uncertainty.
“Phoebe,” said the doctor, “what is it that gives you strength to do your day’s work, even if it means walking across a mountain in the hot sun carrying a heavy basket?”
Phoebe lowered her eyes and a flush spread over her sunburned face.
“I forgot,” she said. “I was so unhappy that I forgot. It has helped me, oh, so many times when we have had no money. Many times we have been snowed in on the mountain without food and it has always come. It saved us from the Lupos. I was lonesome and it brought me friends.” She glanced at the girls busily preparing lunch and at Ben and Percy talking in low voices on the porch.
“Don’t you think it will help you now?”
“It has left me. I can’t find it,” replied poor Phoebe. “It is because I am so frightened. It never comes if you are frightened.”
“My child,” said the good doctor, “you are worn out. You must have lunch and take a good rest. In the meantime we will do everything we can to find your father. Perhaps he has lost his way and is wandering in the woods somewhere.”
“No,” said Phoebe, shaking her head miserably, “he never loses his way. He knows the trails better than I do myself.”
The doctor himself brought Phoebe a tray of lunch. She was ravenously hungry.
“The poor little thing hasn’t eaten for hours,” he thought, glancing at her covertly, as he returned with a basin of water, a soft towel and Miss Campbell’s private bottle of eau de cologne. When she had finished eating, he made her stretch out on the divan while he gave her faceand hands and wrists an aromatic bath. Never before had Phoebe been ministered to and waited on. She smiled at the doctor with dumb gratitude.
“When people are hungry and tired and discouraged, they have a pretty hard time holding on to their faith, Phoebe,” he said. “Even when they haven’t anything to worry about, it’s hard enough. You go to sleep now and I promise you we will start on the search for your father at once.”
Phoebe raised her eyes gratefully to his. In those clear brown depths she read strength, gentleness and sympathy. She felt she was looking into the face of an angel with a shiny bald head and shaggy red-gray eyebrows.
“I believe God sent you,” she said, and in a few moments dropped off into a deep exhausted sleep.
After luncheon or dinner, whatever that meal might be called in camp, Percy got out his motorcycle and proceeded to the Antler’s Inn to ask for news of Phoebe’s father. Ben took the trail to Indian Head and Billie and Dr. Hume went down to the village in the motor car to drum up a search party or find guides to help them scour the mountains. In neither attempt were they in the least successful.
On the way down the mountain, Billie decided to unburden herself of something that had been on her mind for a long time.
“You have never seen Phoebe’s father, have you, Dr. Hume?”
The doctor shook his head.
“Have you ever heard of a case like his? I mean forgetting one’s past.”
“Oh, yes. I have seen a number of cases. The patient usually loses his memory altogether in time and goes insane.”
“But he’s not insane, doctor. He’s not even going insane. Really and truly, except about always trying to find a physician, his brain is as clear as anybody’s.”
The doctor smiled. He liked this earnest, enthusiastic girl who was always doing things for other people and modestly disclaiming credit. There was something masculine in her disregard for small things and the largeness of her views.
“A very nice man has instilled her with extremely big ideas about life,” he reflected. “She is furthermore a wholesome, healthy young creature with a high order of intelligence and a very warm, tender heart.”
So much engaged was he in his diagnosis of Billie’s character that he had almost forgotten the subject of the conversation when she spoke up again rather timidly.
“What I’m driving at is this, doctor, and I’ve been thinking about it for days. Don’t you think you could operate on Phoebe’s father, put a silver plate on his skull or lift whatever’s pressing on his memory bump? Don’t you think you could undertake it, doctor? I know you are a famous surgeon. Papa wrote that tome long ago, but I knew it before he told me. I could tell just from seeing and being with you that you were a great man.”
The doctor laughed over these artless compliments.
“Are you a mind reader, Miss Billie?”
“But you will undertake it, doctor?” she urged.
“We must first catch our man, my child, and then have a look at him. A good many things would have to be considered: whether he would consent himself; whether he would be able to stand the shock of a serious operation, and whether he may not have some disease an operation wouldn’t help; paralysis or softening of the brain.”
“At any rate, you will undertake it?” cried Billie joyfully.
“Do you wish it so much?” he asked, watching her face as she guided the car down the steep road.
“I do, I do! Think what it would mean to Phoebe to have this mystery cleared; think what it would mean to him, too!”
“I was thinking of it,” answered the doctor gravely. “That’s just the point. Suppose Phoebe’s father would not thank me for bringing his past back? Suppose, after all, he would be happier in this state than with his memory restored. Do you realize that a man like that, a man of education and refinement, I mean, must have had some very good reason for hiding himself away in these mountains? That he may have been flying from something?”
The enthusiasm died out of Billie’s face.
“Oh, Dr. Hume,” she began, “I hadn’t thought of that. Indeed, I couldn’t connect anything of the sort with Phoebe and her father. They are not a bit like that.”
“You never can tell. The people who have given way to some wild impulse that will cause them everlasting regret are not always bad people by any means. His reasons for hiding himselfand his wife in a cabin in these mountains of course may have been entirely innocent; or he may have hoped to find oblivion and forgetfulness up here out of the world. If I give him back his memory, providing of course I can do it, I may give him the very thing he is running away from.”
“Don’t you think he has been punished enough and that Phoebe ought to have a chance?” argued Billie.
“Is there anything to prevent Phoebe’s having a chance without knowing her father’s past?” asked the doctor.
“Nothing, except there would always be that mystery hanging over her. Don’t you think it would be very unpleasant not to know who you were or even your father’s name?”
“I am a living example to the contrary,” said the doctor with a laugh. “My father and mother were really my adopted parents. They took me out of an orphan asylum when I was a little lad about five years old. I remember it vividly.Afterwards they had other children, but they always treated me like a beloved eldest son. I never knew any difference and I never bothered my head about my real parents. Whoever they were, they had died or shuffled me off on an institution. My adopted mother was the finest woman I have ever known and if Hume isn’t my real name, it doesn’t matter. I shall do everything I can to make it an honored one.”
“You are a wonderful man, doctor,” exclaimed Billie, quite overcome by this bit of confidence about his past. “It was because you were so fine that they were good to you. Perhaps God picked you out from all the other orphans to have a good home because he saw what fine material there was in you.”
“No indeed, my dear young lady,” laughed the doctor. “It was just a matter of chance. The little orphans were like the two women sitting in the market place. The one was taken and the other left. If they chose me for anything, it was solely and entirely because I had brown eyes.”
“You may say what you please,” protested Billie. “They looked deeper than that, I am certain.”
“Simply luck, Miss Billie. I have always been lucky. The fellows at college called me ‘Lucky Bill.’ But to return to the original subject of the discussion: I don’t want to disappoint an unselfish, fine young woman like you,—you see I can pay compliments, too,——” he added, watching the flush of pleasure mount to Billie’s face; “I don’t want to make any promises about this man I can’t carry out, but I promise this much: I will do what I can.”
“Thank you a thousand times, Dr. Hume,” said Billie gratefully. “I would just like to shake hands with you if I could, but you see I have to guide the ‘Comet.’ It will be a wonderful thing to give a man back his senses after eighteen years.”
“Maybe so; maybe not,” answered the doctor as the car turned into the village street.
They stopped in front of the only hostelry in the place, a cheap two-story wooden house with a horse trough in front of it. Here usually could be found several guides for camping trips and driving parties, and here Dr. Hume looked for help in rescuing Phoebe’s father.
The owner of the house, a thin sallow-faced man with pale shifting eyes came out to speak to them.
“You ain’t meanin’ it’s old crazy Frenchy you’re after?” he asked. “I don’t wonder he’s lost if it’s him.”
“That’s the man,” answered Dr. Hume, “but I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I guess he’s got wind he’s suspected of settin’ Razor Back Mountain on fire and he’s vamoosed. He ought to be shut up anyhow. He’s a dangerous character runnin’ around the country.”
Billie was shocked and angry.
“He is not,” she burst out. “I know Mr.—Mr. French quite well——”
The man broke into a loud rasping laugh.
“Mr. French!” he repeated.
“He’s incapable of setting a mountain on fire and he is as gentle and courteous as possible.”
There was another laugh. This time it came from within the house and Billie and the doctor recognized the voice of Mr. Lupo.
“You’re a friend of Lupo, I see,” remarked the doctor looking very hard at the man.
“I guess that’s none of your affair,” answered the other angrily. “And nothin’ agin’ him nor me either, for the matter o’ that.”
The doctor lifted his eyebrows.
“I’d like to hire two or three guides. Are there any about?”
“There ain’t no guides connected with this here establishment goin’ to go huntin’ for crazy Frenchy,” announced the man roughly, “if that’s what you’re wantin’ with them. Most of ’em is fightin’ the flames anyhow.”
The doctor sat silently for a moment looking at the mountaineer, whose eyes shifted uneasily under his steady gaze.
“I would advise you and your friend, Lupo, not to meddle too much in this affair,” he said, as the inn keeper with a snarling laugh shuffled back into the house.
Billy turned the automobile and they went slowly down the street.
“If we were in the Kentucky or the Virginia mountains, I should call this a feud,” remarked the doctor, “but up here there is something more than a revenge for a quarrel two generations old that creates a situation of this kind. That man has got some ugly reason for withholding his guides. He’s a sinister looking wretch, and no man with a shifting pair of eyes can be trusted around the corner.”
“But what are we to do?” asked Billie.
“If we can’t get guides,—we’ll just go alone,” answered Dr. Hume. “I think we’ll have to find your Mr. French, Miss Billie, seeing that a lot of cut-throats are trying to keep us from doing it.”
CHAPTER XIV.CHANCE NEWS.
Billie and the doctor were indeed in something of a quandary as to what to do about Phoebe’s father. It was evident from further inquiry that the tide of general opinion had been turned against Crazy Frenchy; not one soul could be interested in the search for him, not even after an offer of liberal pay.
“He ain’t no good anyhow,” one man said. “He and his daughter holds themselves above common people even when they don’t have enough to keep body and soul together. They lives on property that ain’t theirs by rights, and they don’t belong in this section of the country. The father’s crazy and the neighborhood will be glad to git rid of him.”
“An’ I’d jes’ like to mention,” added anotherman, “the people as takes up for ’em ain’t goin’ to find it no ways a easy proposition.”
Certainly Lupo had enlisted the sympathies of the entire village in his own behalf.
“I told your friend at the hotel a moment ago,” said the doctor, “that he and Lupo had better be careful how they meddled in this business. If you don’t want to engage yourself to me to find this unfortunate man, you have a perfect right to refuse. It’s only a common act of kindness at any rate. But I would warn you that if you and your friends intend to make trouble, you will get into trouble. That’s all.”
The mountaineer scowled.
“We can prove he set Razor Back on fire,” he said. “He was seen in the neighborhood prowling about with a can of oil yesterday morning.”
“At what time?” demanded Billie quickly.
“I don’t know the exact hour, lady, but it was some time in the forenoon.”
“Well,” ejaculated Billie angrily, “that shows how much evidence you have to go upon. There’s not a word of truth in it and you have no right to spread that wicked report founded on a falsehood. Mr. French was at Sunrise Camp just about that time and he couldn’t have got anywhere near Razor Back Mountain in hours. We have a witness to prove what we say.”
“It may not have been forenoon, come to think of it,” said the man doggedly.
“Nonsense,” exclaimed the exasperated Billie, as the “Comet” dashed away with a contemptuous honk-honk, leaving the defeated mountaineer standing in the middle of the road.
Only one person was awake in all the camp when the doctor and Billie returned: Alberdina, busy ironing pink-tinted clothes in the lean-to. Miss Campbell and the girls were napping on the upper porch and Phoebe still slept on a couch in the living room, while Ben and Percy had notreturned from their search for news of her father.
“Miss Billie,” remarked the doctor, “if you will be kind enough to fix me up a lunch, I think I’ll pack my knapsack and start on the road again. I can’t say how long I shall be gone, but you mustn’t be uneasy if I don’t get back for a day or two. The boys will look after you and if you have any real trouble, you had better telegraph your father. If possible, try and keep Phoebe right here. Those men will go no further than threats in regard to us. They know we are too powerful for them, but I couldn’t say the same for that poor girl and her father. I suppose jealousy and Lupo’s treachery are the motives behind it. The father does better work than any of them can do and the mountaineers resent the difference between them, whatever it is, birth, breeding, education. But we can’t judge them by the usual standards, of course. They have never had any chances, these people,shut in by this wall of mountains. There is not much inspiration to be charitable and kind, living in one of these little shanties during the long cold winters. It’s a pretty fine nature that doesn’t get warped and narrowed by the life.”
“Phoebe’s didn’t,” thought Billie, while she sliced bread for the doctor’s lunch.
After he had departed with his staff and his telescope and his knapsack, Billie sat down in a steamer chair under the trees and began to think. She lifted her eyes to the wall of mountains now mystical and unreal under their mantle of blue shadow. How could treachery and hatred and jealousy exist where there was so much beauty? It seemed to her that she had only to look about her to be inspired and uplifted; but Billie was too young to realize that it takes more than scenery to furnish that kind of inspiration.
“I am not tired and I am not sleepy,” she thought. “Must I sit here all the afternoon waiting for the others to wake?” She glanced at herwatch. “Only a quarter to three. Why can’t I take a walk? It’s against the rules as laid down by papa for women members, but that was only a joke anyhow and I shan’t go far.”
Billie chose a trail they often took after supper for the reason that it was brought to an early finish by the bed of a creek dry in summer, though probably a brave stream in the spring after the thaws. But it was a pretty walk, tunneled through the forest, carpeted with dried pine needles and bordered on either side by ferns.
Strolling along, Billie thought of many things; of the mountain on the other side of Indian Head on which fires had started and where bands of men were now fighting the flames. That was a dreadful thing to do, to set a forest on fire; a crime against nature as well as against man. She thought of Phoebe’s father, perhaps injured, or worse, who could tell? Then with a mental leap she thought of Richard Hook and his sisterMaggie; the charm of their personalities; their simplicity; their joy in living. Billie wondered if she could be happy if she were poor, really quite poor. It was rather fun cooking, with Alberdina to clean up after them. It was only for a little while and it was just a sort of game.
“It would be a dog’s life to keep up forever,” thought Billie, “but Richard and Maggie Hook would never admit it. They make the best of being poor and pretend that living like Gypsies is the most delightful way of spending one’s vacation. I think they are just fine. There is Phoebe, too. How well she has got on without anything, education, money, friends. She is wonderful.”
Who was Phoebe? Who was her father? Were they not mysterious people? When the veil was lifted at last, Billie felt convinced that it would disclose no ordinary identity. They had the marks of distinguished people in exile. There was a look of family about them both that no ragged attire could disguise.
Toward the end of the trail, Billie saw an old woman hobbling toward her, leaning on a stout stick. She looked remarkably like one of the aged forest trees unexpectedly come to life. A gnarled, brown, weather-beaten old creature she was, who reminded Billie of a dwarfed apple tree she had seen in Japan, a little old bent thing said to have been over two hundred years old. Attached to the woman’s waist was a pocket apron bulging with herbs, camomile and catnip, wood sorrel and sassafras root.
“Now, if Mary were here,” thought Billie, “she would at once make a story of this: ‘The Princess and the Old Witch.’ I am sure Mary would call me a princess,” she added modestly.
When the young girl and the old witch met, they paused without exactly knowing why. The herb gatherer had a strange, small, yellow face, crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles.
“Good afternoon,” said Billie politely, not knowing what else to say.
The old woman waved aside this greeting with her stick.
“You come from Sunrise Camp?” she asked in a voice as cracked as her face was wrinkled.
Billie nodded.
“I bring message. You look for somebody?”
“Yes,” replied Billie eagerly.
“You not find him now. Too much enemies.”
“Where is he?” she demanded.
No answer came to this question.
“You will not tell me?”
“No tell,” answered the old creature.
“Is he ill or hurt?”
The herb gatherer touched her forehead.
“He safe,” she answered. “But people not safe who look for him. Too much enemies.”
After that not another word could Billie get out of the obstinate old creature.
Who had sent her? Who was looking after Phoebe’s father, if he were hurt or a prisoner? Could not Phoebe see him? Nothing would she reply to all these questions.
The old woman waved aside this greeting with her stick.The old woman waved aside this greetingwith her stick.—Page212.
“I’m much obliged for that much anyhow,” said Billie at last. “You must be tired and hungry. Won’t you come back to the camp and let me give you——” she paused to consider. What could an old stunted apple tree like? Somehow it didn’t seem as if she could live on real food. “Will you drink a cup of tea?” she added hastily.
The wrinkled face remained inscrutable.
“Or coffee?”
“Coffee?” repeated the old soul, and suddenly without the faintest warning, smiled and Billie smiled back.
“I can make delicious strong coffee,” announced the girl proudly. “You will come, won’t you?”
“I come,” answered the herb-gatherer. “Coffee? I come!”
They walked briskly back to camp, this ill-assorted couple, and it was not long before Billie had established her companion in a chair under the trees and the coffee pot on the kerosenestove, where it was soon sending out a fragrant aroma.
“Don’t you get very tired gathering herbs on the mountains?” asked Billie, by way of making conversation.
“When I tired, I rest,” answered the other briefly.
Presently Billie brought out a tray with a cup and saucer, sugar and cream and some thin slices of buttered bread. From the upper gallery there came to her the low hum of conversation. The sleepers had awakened and were getting bathed and dressed.
“Do you know Phoebe?” she asked, while she poured the coffee.
The herb-gatherer smacked her lips and sniffed the air expectantly. “I’ve seen her.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for her to lose her father? She is very unhappy.”
“No sugar,” exclaimed the old woman, ignoring the question. “Good!” she exclaimed. “Fine coffee!”
Presently Billie poured out another cup and finally another.
“You like coffee, don’t you?” she said.
“This fine coffee.”
“We send away for it. The village coffee is not good.”
“I never tasted the like before.”
“If you will answer me a question,” said Billie suddenly, “I will get my father to send you enough of this coffee to last all winter.”
The old woman picked up the coffee pot and drained it to the last drop.
“If I tell,” she said, warmed and stimulated by the hot drink, “it make lot trouble.”
“Trouble for whom?”
“Much trouble for all.”
“All I am to say to Phoebe then is that her father is in good hands and she is not to look for him?”
The herb-gatherer nodded.
“How soon will he be coming back?”
She shook her head and seizing her staff, rose to go.
“Are you a friend of the Lupos?”
There was no answer. Billie tried again.
“Did Mrs. Lupo ever go back to her husband?”
“Lupo very angry. She not go back.”
“She needn’t stay away on our account. My cousin forgave her long ago.”
“I go now,” announced the old woman, not taking the slightest notice of Billie’s remarks.
“I am very much obliged to you for the news of Phoebe’s father. Every time you bring us any news, you may have coffee, and if you show us where he is,—quite secretly, you know,—you shall have a great deal of coffee and money, too.”
“I go now,” repeated the strange old creature, pretending not to understand Billie’s offer, and she promptly took her leave without another word.
Billie gathered up the tray and the coffee things and carried them into the kitchen.
“It looks like rain, Alberdina. I think we had better eat indoors to-night,” she said.
Something, perhaps the east wind charged with wet, had made her feel dispirited and uneasy. She was homesick for her father and she wished that Dr. Hume had not gone away. She almost wished they had never set eyes on Phoebe and her father at all. How complicated life had suddenly become! They were just a party of well-meaning campers taking a summer holiday on the mountainside, meaning no harm to anybody on earth; and having done a little kindness to a poor girl and her half-crazed father, they had obtained the enmity of an entire village. How cruel and ignorant these people were! How warped and uncharitable!
“Have Percy and Ben got back yet?” asked Nancy, appearing at the door of the lean-to in a fresh blue linen dress, her hair all dewy from her bath, her eyes bright and clear from the long rest.
“Heavens, Nancy, you make me feel like a dusty old shoe,” exclaimed Billie, realizing for the first time that she was tired and hot and crushed. “No, no one has come and Dr. Hume has gone to look for Phoebe’s father.” Then she told Nancy of the experiences of the afternoon.
“If the old woman spoke the truth all we have to do is to lie low and say nothing, like Br’er Rabbit,” said Nancy.
“Do you know what I intend to do, Nancy,” announced Billie, glancing through the open door at Phoebe in the distance on the divan. “Phoebe’s awake. You see she’s sitting up. I am going to set her fears at rest about her father first. Then I’m going to take her upstairs and after she’s bathed, I’ll dress her in some of my things. She shall swallow her pride. Cousin Helen shall ask her to visit us until her father is able to come back, and to-morrow I mean to take her down to the village in the ‘Comet.’ She shall wear my best and only pink linen. Won’t she be stunning?I’m glad I took your advice and brought it along now, and we’ll just show these people that Phoebe is not a poor ragged mountain girl.”
“Take anything of mine you want,” said Nancy generously. “Phoebe’s taller than I am, but she can wear my ‘undies,’ I suppose.”
“I think I have plenty,” replied Billie, “that is, if Alberdina Schoenbachler ever gets through ironing the pink wash.”
Phoebe was a good deal cheered by the message of the old herb gatherer.
“Oh, yes, I know her quite well. She likes me. Once when I had a fever she came and nursed me for several days and gave me herb tea.”
Phoebe also submitted to being dressed up, after a good deal of persuasion.
“You know we are under a great obligation to you and you must give us a chance to get rid of a little of it,” Billie said. “Besides, Dr. Hume said that on no account were you to leave thecamp. You wouldn’t like to disobey him, would you?”
“No, no,” Phoebe answered, and finally permitted herself to be led to the women’s quarter of the camp, where for the first time in her life she bathed in a porcelain bath tub, with scented soap and toilet water and sweet smelling talcum powder and violet ammonia and all kinds of women’s luxuries at her service on a hand shelf by the tub.
When Billie proudly led Phoebe downstairs that evening, the others, already gathered around the supper table, were filled with amazement. Instead of the ragged, disheveled mountain girl, they saw a beautiful young woman in a white duck skirt and a muslin blouse. Her throat rose like a slender column from the lace yoke of the blouse and her soft hair was rolled into a loose knot on her neck.
“I know now she is a princess,” said Mary.
Ben and Percy, returned from their search, had brought no news.