Kitabı oku: «Our Next-Door Neighbors», sayfa 5

Chapter XII
“ Too Much Polydores ”

The next morning at breakfast, Beth announced that she and Rob were going to spend the day camping in the woods.

Silvia and I tried not to look significantly at each other, but Beth was very keen.

“We will take Diogenes with us,” she instantly added.

“Oh, no!” protested Silvia. “He’ll be such a bother. And then he can’t walk very far, you know.”

“He’ll be no bother,” persisted Beth. “And we’ll borrow the little cart to draw him in.”

“Yes,” acquiesced Rob. “We sure want Diogenes with us.”

“I’ll have them put up a lunch for you,” proposed Silvia.

“No,” Rob objected. “We are going to forage and cook over a fire in the woods.”

“Then,” I proposed to Silvia with alacrity, “we’ll have our first day alone together–the first we have had since the Polydores came into our lives. I’ll rent the ‘autoo’ again, and we will go through the country and dine at some little wayside inn.”

“Get the ‘autoo’, now, Lucien,” advised Beth privately, “and make an early start, so Rob and I can take supplies from the store without arousing Silvia’s suspicions.”

“I don’t believe,” said Silvia disappointedly, when we were “autooing” on our way, “that they are in love after all, or that he has proposed, or that he is going to.”

“Where did you draw all those pessimistic inferences from?” I asked.

“From their both being so keen to take Diogenes with them.”

“Diogenes would be no barrier to their love-making,” I told her. “He couldn’t repeat what they said; at least, not so anyone could understand him.”

Many miles away we came upon a picturesque little old-time tavern where we had an appetizing dinner, and then continued on our aimless way. It was nearly ten o’clock when we returned to the hotel, where the owner of the “autoo” was waiting.

Rob came down the roadway.

“Where’s Beth?” asked Silvia.

“She has gone to bed. The day in the open made her sleepy.”

When Silvia had left us, the old farmer said with a chuckle: “I can’t offer you another swig of stone fence.”

“It’s probably just as well you can’t,” I replied.

“I’d like to be introduced to one,” said Rob, who appeared to be somewhat downcast. “I sure need a bracer.”

“What’s the matter, Rob?” I asked when we were lighting our pipes. “A strenuous day? Two in rapid ‘concussion’ with the Polydores must be nerve-racking.”

“Yes; I admit there seemed to be ‘too much Polydores.’ We all had a happy reunion, and I devoted the forenoon to the entertainment of the famous family so I could be entitled to the afternoon off to spend with Beth. At noon we built a fire and cooked a sumptuous dinner. Beth baked up some things to keep them supplied a couple of days longer. After dinner I asked her to go for a row. She insisted on taking Diogenes along, and the others all followed us on a raft. So I decided to cut the water sports short, and Beth and I started for a walk in the woods. Three or more were constantly right on our trail. I begged and bribed, but to no avail. They were sticktights all right, and,” he added morosely, “she seemed covertly to aid and abet them. When we started for home, I found that the young fiends had broken the cart, so I had to carry Diogenes most of the way, and of course he bellowed as usual at being parted from the whelps.”

“They aren’t such ‘fine little chaps’ after all,” I couldn’t resist commenting. “Familiarity breeds contempt, you see. I am sorry Diogenes had so much of their society. He’ll be unendurable tomorrow. Well, you had some day!”

“So did the Polydores. Demetrius and Diogenes fell in the fire twice. Emerald threw a finger out of joint, but Ptolemy quickly jerked it into place. Pythagoras was kicked off the raft twice, following a mutiny. Demetrius threw a lighted match into the vines and set fire to the house. They said it was a ‘beaut of a day’, though, and urged us to come tomorrow and repeat the program. By the way, they went across the lake on their raft yesterday and bought a tent of some campers. They have pitched it in the woods beyond the house.”

When I went upstairs Silvia met me disconsolately.

“He didn’t propose,” she said disappointedly. “She wouldn’t let him.”

“Did you wake her up to find out?” I asked.

“She hadn’t gone to bed and she wasn’t sleepy. She was trimming a hat.”

“Why wouldn’t she let him propose, if she cares for him?” I asked perplexedly.

“Well, you see,” explained Silvia, “that when a girl–a coquette girl like Beth–is as sure of a man as she is of Rob, she gets a touch of contrariness or offishness or something. She said it would have been too prosaic and cut and dried if they had gone away for a day in the woods and come back engaged. She wants the unexpected.”

“Do you think she loves him?” I asked interestedly.

“She doesn’t say so. You can’t tell from what she says anyway. Still, I think she is hovering around the danger point.”

“She’d better watch out. Rob isn’t the kind of a man who will stand for too much thwarting,” I replied.

“If he’d only play up a little bit to some one else, it would bring things to a climax,” said my wife sagely.

“There’s no one else to play up to. The blonde left today because it was so slow here.”

“Maybe some new girl will come tomorrow,” said Silvia, “or there’s that trim little waitress who is waiting her way through college. He gave her a good big tip yesterday. I think I will give him a hint.”

“It wouldn’t help any. He wouldn’t know how to play such a game if you could persuade him to try. He’d probably tell the girl his motive in being attentive to her and then she’d back out. Maybe, after all, Beth doesn’t love him.”

“I think she does,” replied my wife, “because she is getting absent-minded. She let Diogenes go too near the fire. His shoes are burned, his hair singed, and his dress scorched. He woke up when I came in and he was so cross. He acted just the way he does when he is with his brothers.”

Chapter XIII
Rob’s Friend the Reporter

Silvia’s vague prophecy was fulfilled. When the event of the day, the arrival of the stage, occurred, a solitary passenger alighted, a slim, alert, city-cut young woman.

She looked us all over–not boldly, but with a business-like directness as if she were taking inventory of stock, or acting as judge at a competition. When her blue eyes lighted on Rob, they darkened with pleasure.

“Oh, Mr. Rossiter!” she exclaimed, “this is better than I hoped for.”

They shook hands with the air of being old acquaintances, and he introduced her to us as “Miss Frayne, from my home town.”

She went into the office, registered, and sent her bag to her room. Then she asked Rob if she might have a talk with him.

They walked away together down to the shore and she was talking to him quite excitedly. Rob suddenly stopped, threw back his head and laughed in the way that it is good to hear a man laugh.

“Miss Frayne must be a wit,” observed Beth dryly.

I looked at her keenly. Something in her eyes as she gazed after the retreating couple told me that Silvia’s surmise was right, and that Miss Frayne might be just the little punch needed to send Beth over the danger point.

“I rather incline to the belief that Ptolemy told the truth in the first place,” she continued, and then looked disappointed because I did not contradict her.

I decided not to reveal, for the present anyway, what I knew of Miss Frayne, of whom I had often heard Rob speak.

“She can’t be going to stay long,” said Silvia hopefully. “She didn’t bring a trunk.”

“She doesn’t need one,” replied Beth. “She is probably one of those mannish girls who believe in a skirt and a few waists for a wardrobe.”

When Rob and the newcomer returned, he seemed to be monopolizing the conversation in a very emphatic and earnest manner. As they came up the steps to the veranda, we heard her say:

“Very well, Mr. Rossiter, I will do just as you say. I have perfect confidence in your judgment.”

They passed on into the hotel and Beth jumped up and went down toward the lake.

“Did you ever hear Rob speak of this Miss Frayne?” asked Silvia.

“Often. She is engaged to his cousin, and is a reporter on a big newspaper.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Oh, Lucien,” she continued before I could speak, “were you really shrewd enough to see which way the wind was blowing?”

“Sure. After you set my sails for me last night.”

Just then Rob came out of the hotel.

“Say, Lucien, I want to see you a minute. Come on down the road.”

“We’ve got some work ahead,” he said when we were out of Silvia’s hearing.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Miss Frayne is up–and doing. What do you suppose her paper sent her here for?”

“For a rest, or to write up the mosquitoes of H. H.”

“H. H. is all right, only it happens they stand for Haunted House.”

“Not really?”

“Yes, really. The rumors of the house and the ghost, greatly elaborated, of course, reached the Sunday editor of the paper Miss Frayne is on, and he sent her up here to revive the story of the murder, translate the ghost, and get snapshots of the house. She was quite keen to have me take her there at once, so she could commence her article, but I headed her off, so she wouldn’t discover the summer boarders at the hotel annex. I assured her that daytime was not the time to gather material and the only way she could get a proper focus on the ghost and acquire the thrills necessary for an inspiration was to see the place first by night.”

“If she would view Fair Melrose aright,” I quoted, “she must visit it in the pale moonlight, but you were very clever to delay her visit long enough for us to get over there and warn the enemy. If she had gone down there and caught the Polydores unawares, she would have come back here and revealed our secret, and there would be the end of Silvia’s vacation.”

“To tell the truth, Lucien, I wasn’t thinking so much of that as I was of Miss Frayne’s interests. You see she has come a long ways for a story and if it collapsed from her ghostly expectations to a showdown of four healthy boys, the blow might mean a good deal to her in a business way. I think we had better let Ptolemy plant a ghost just once more for her. You know you made him take a reef in the flapping of ghostly garments. Can’t we resurrect the specter and restore the wails just for tonight, and bring her over here at the witching hour?”

“Sure we will,” I agreed heartily. “She shall have her ghost and all the trappings. It will give the Polydores the time of their lives.”

“Let’s go over there now and put Ptolemy next so he can get busy on his spirits.” We went down to the shore and pulled off. Midway across the lake, Rob suddenly rested on his oars and asked:

“Where did Beth go?”

“Back to first principles,” I replied. “She thinks, judging from your excited, earnest manner in addressing Miss Frayne and your rushing frantically away for a walk with her before she had removed the travel dust, that Ptolemy was quite correct, after all, in declaring you to be a ‘ladies’ man.’”

“Didn’t you explain to her who Miss Frayne was?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “I am on my vacation and I am not doing any explaining, professionally or otherwise.”

He swung the boat around.

“Starboard!” I cried. “Don’t you know a trump card when you see it?”

Again he rested on his oars and stared at me.

“What do you mean, Lucien? If you have a grain of hope for me, please let me in.”

I repeated Silvia’s theories.

“I am not going to win her that way,” he said slowly, “not by playing a part.”

“Well,” I declared, “if you go back to the hotel now, you can’t explain Miss Frayne to Beth, because she went for a walk with old Professor Treadtop.”

He turned the boat again.

“Silvia won’t come to the Haunted House, will she?” he asked.

“No, indeed. Nothing would induce her to.”

“Then you bring Miss Frayne here tonight and I’ll bring Beth. And I’ll be sure that there are no double boats lying around loose. I’ll have two at the dock, see?”

“I see your system,” I replied, “but I am not sure how I can explain Miss Frayne to Silvia. Silvia is not in the least narrow-minded, but still to leave the hotel at midnight with a perfectly strange young woman–”

“You can tell her I want a clear field for Beth. She will see it is in a good cause.”

The Polydores greeted us rapturously and roughly. When I had restored order, and they were once more right side up, I addressed the chief of the bandits.

“Ptolemy,” I began, “a young lady, who is a reporter for a big newspaper, has come from many miles away to write up the haunted house and the ghost, and they will be pictured out in the Sunday edition.”

Ptolemy’s eyes glistened, and “Them Three” were instantly “at attention.”

“Oh, say, stepdaddy,” begged the young chief, “let me play ghost right for her, just once, will you?”

“You may for tonight,” I said, “but you will have to be very careful and not overdo the matter, for she isn’t the kind that is easily fooled. She’s had to keep her eyes and wits sharpened, else she wouldn’t be on a newspaper, so I want you to be very careful and not bungle. Make a neat job of it.”

“I’ll do it up brown, you bet!” he cried gleefully.

“Naw, do it up white,” drawled Pythagoras.

“Show me your ghost stuff by daylight,” I demanded, “and let me see how you are going to rig him up.”

He brought forth a head and shoulders and arms that were ghastly even in sunlight, and proceeded to explain them.

“I got this skull out of father’s study, and the arms came off a skeleton mother had in her antiquities. I dressed them up in a pillow case and the white cotton gloves are Huldah’s. I can get some phosphorus in the woods and put it in the eyes. And Demetrius bought two electric flashlights yesterday, and Pythagoras can snap them once in a while from the lower windows.”

“You are some little property man,” said Rob in admiration. “But tell me who produces those heart-rending shrieks?”

“That was Pythagoras who did the high ones. And Em came in with low groans. Show ’em, boys.”

Pythagoras uttered high-trebled, thin-toned whines and ever and anon Emerald added a basso profundo accompaniment, making a combination that was most trying to the ears at close range.

“I don’t know,” said Rob, “as I want Beth subjected to such a realistic performance. We will loiter in the distance.”

“Your rehearsal,” I assured Ptolemy, “is very good, but you must remember that Miss Frayne is used to encountering things far more terrible than ghosts. She may insist on coming right in here to investigate. Of course, if she does, I can’t refuse or she’ll think I am afraid, or else that I put up a fake ghost here, myself.”

“We’ll lock the door with a chair,” suggested Emerald.

“She’ll be quite capable of breaking into a little house like this, but I’ll keep her back until you have time to haul in your ghost and make a quick and quiet getaway by a back window. Then another thing, she’ll be over here tomorrow morning to take some pictures of the house, so by sunrise I want you all to take up your abode in the tent you have in the woods and stay there until I come and tell you the coast is clear.”

“We’re dead on,” assured Ptolemy. “I’m glad there’s going to be something doing. We’re getting tired of being here alone. I had to tie Demetrius up this morning. He was bound to go over to the hotel and see mudder.”

“Don’t one of you dare to make such an attempt,” I said peremptorily. “You keep right on here for a few days. Some of us, either Rob, or Beth and I will drop over every day. If you play your ghost just as I tell you and keep out of sight, I’ll bring you over some ice cream tomorrow.”

“Bring me a bigger bat.”

“Bring me a mitt.”

“Bring me a boat,” came in chorus from Ptolemy, Emerald, and Demetrius.

“What’ll you give me to stay here?” asked Pythagoras, who was a born bargain-driver.

“I’ll give you a licking if you don’t stay,” was the only offer he gleaned from me.

“Be good boys,” adjured the softhearted Rob, “and I’ll bring you everything I can find at the hotel.”

It was long past the luncheon hour when we returned. We found Miss Frayne wondering at Rob’s sudden disappearance and Beth was accordingly mystified.

I planted myself directly in front of Miss Frayne.

“May I take you to the haunted house tonight at the yawning churchyard hour?” I asked. “I am most eminently fitted to be your guide, for I was the first one of this assembly to see the ghost in toto.”

“He saw it over a stone fence,” remarked Rob.

“Indeed you may, thank you very much,” she said enthusiastically.

Silvia’s face was a study.

“And will you come with me, Beth?” asked Rob. “Of course, the ghost is an old story to us, but we really should hover in Lucien’s wake out of regard to the conventions.”

“Is Miss Frayne interested in ghosts?” asked Beth.

Miss Frayne turned and answered the question.

“Not personally,” she admitted frankly, “but the newspaper I am on is, and they sent me up here to get a story.”

“Oh, you are a reporter?”

“Yes; on the Times.”

“She won’t be one long, though,” asserted Rob cheerfully, “because she is going to marry my cousin in the fall.”

Beth’s expression remained neutral at the announcement, but I noticed throughout the afternoon that she was extremely affable toward Miss Frayne, and that she had the whiphand again with Rob, and meanwhile he seemed to be gathering a grim determination to do or die.

“Lucien, how did you come to ask Miss Frayne to go to that awful place tonight?” asked Silvia when we had gone to our room for a siesta, which seemed impossible by reason of the bellowing of Diogenes, who balked at being required to lie down.

“Rob asked me to,” I informed her, when I had cowed Diogenes, “so he could have a free field for Beth. I believe he planned this expedition so he could storm the citadel.”

She reflected.

“Well, maybe he is wise. Girls like Beth have to be taken by storm sometimes. I shouldn’t wonder if Rob could be a bit of a bully, too, but–”

She ended her speculations in a shriek.

“Oh, Lucien! Diogenes has jumped out the window.”

We rushed down stairs, Silvia informing the guests in transit of the awful catastrophe.

Silvia paused at the door opening on to the veranda.

“I can’t see him,” she said faintly, closing her eyes. “You’ll have to tend to it alone, Lucien.”

Beth was already at the telephone, which connected with the country doctor’s. Rob joined me. We located our window, and began hunting underneath for the pieces.

“Where in the world do you suppose he landed?” asked Rob.

Just then the missing one came around the house clasping a bologna sausage in his fist.

“Ye Gods and little Polydores!” exclaimed Rob.

I caught Diogenes by the arm and rushed him in to Silvia.

I found her in company with an old colored mammy, who was laundress for the hotel.

“Sho’,” she was saying, “I done gwine by de windah with ma baby cab full o’ cloes, an’ dis yer white chile done come tumblin’ down an’ fall right in ma cab. Now, what do you think o’ dat? I reckon I was nevah so done clean skeert afoah in ma life. An’ ef de chile didn’t grab one of ma bolognas and done git out de cab an’ run around de house.”

“Oh,” cried Silvia, “poor little baby! Come to mudder. Lucien, where are you going with him?”

I had picked up the acrobatic Polydore and was going up the stairs two at a time. I gained our room, locked the door and proceeded to give the “poor little baby” all that was coming to him. Now and then above his howls, I heard Silvia’s plaintive protests outside the door, but I finished my job completely and satisfactorily, and laid the penitent Polydore in his little bed. Then I went out into the hall, feeling better than I had in months.

Silvia essayed to pass me, but I took her arm and led her to a recess in the hall.

“I am convinced,” I told her, “that we have Diogenes as a permanent pensioner on our hands, so it was up to me to show him where to get off. You can’t go to him for a quarter of an hour.”

We went down stairs and I was sure I read suppressed regret in the faces of most of the guests at learning of the soft place in which Diogenes’ lot had been cast. Silvia tearfully told Rob and Beth of my cruelty.

“Do him good!” approved Rob heartily.

“How mean men are!” declared Beth indignantly. “I am going up and comfort the poor little thing.”

I held up the key to the room with a grin, and she had to content herself by making unkind remarks about me.

At the expiration of the allotted time, I handed Silvia the key. She took it from me without a word or a look. It was quite evident I was in wrong.

In half an hour my wife came down, carrying Diogenes, who, dressed in fresh white clothes, was a good picture of an angel child. She passed me and went to a remote corner of the veranda and sat down. When he spied me, he leaped from her arms and ran to me.

“Ocean,” he said propitiatingly, “me love oo.”

I took him up. His arms clasped about my neck, and over his curly head, I winked at Silvia and Beth.

Rob roared.