Kitabı oku: «The Girls of Hillcrest Farm: or, The Secret of the Rocks», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XIII
LYDDY DOESN’T WANT IT
“Who is this Mr. Spink?” asked Lydia Bray the following morning, as they prepared for church.
It was a beautiful spring morning. There had been a pattering shower at sunrise and the eaves were still dripping, while every blade of the freshly springing grass in the side yard–which was directly beneath the girls’ window–sparkled as though diamond-decked over night.
The old trees in the orchard were pushing both leaf and blossom–especially the plum and peach trees. In the distance other orchards were blowing, too, and that spattered the mountainside with patches of what looked to be pale pink mist.
The faint tinkling of the sheep-bells came across the hills to the ears of Lyddy and ’Phemie. The girls were continually going to the window or door to watch the vast panorama of the mountainside and valley, spread below them.
“Who is this Mr. Spink?” repeated Lyddy.
Her sister explained what she knew of the man who–once a poorhouse boy–was now counted a rich man and the proprietor of Diamond Grits, the popular breakfast food.
“He lived here at Hillcrest as a boy, with grandfather,” ’Phemie said.
“But what’s that got to do with his coming up here now–and at night?”
“And with Mr. Pritchett?” finished ’Phemie.
“Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Pritchett about it. They surely weren’t after vinegar so late at night,” Lyddy observed.
But ’Phemie did not prolong the discussion. In her secret thoughts the younger Bray girl believed that it was Cyrus Pritchett and Mr. Spink whom she had heard about the old house the night she and Lyddy had first slept at Hillcrest.
There was no use worrying Lyddy about it, she told herself.
A little later the roan ponies appeared with the Pritchett buckboard. Instead of Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter, however, the good lady’s companion on the front seat was Lucas, who drove.
“Oh, dear me!” cried Lyddy. “I hope we haven’t turned Miss Pritchett out of her seat. Surely we three girls could have squeezed in here on the back seat.”
“Nope,” said Mrs. Pritchett. “That ain’t it, at all. Sairy ain’t goin’ to church this mornin’.”
“She’s not ill?” asked Lyddy.
“I dunno. She ain’t got no misery as I can find out; but she sartainly has a grouch! A bear with a sore head in fly time would be a smilin’ work of Grace ’side of Sairy Pritchett ever since she come home from the Temperance Club las’ night.”
“Oh!” came from ’Phemie.
“Why – She surely isn’t angry because we went home early?” cried Lyddy. “My sister, you see, got nervous – ”
“I reckon ’taint that,” Lucas hastened to say. “More likely she’s sore on me.”
“’Tain’t nawthin’ of the kind, an’ you know it, Lucas,” declared his mother. “Though ye might have driven ’round by the schoolhouse ag’in and brought her home.”
“Wal, I thought she’d ride back with school teacher. She went with him,” returned Lucas, on the defensive.
“She walked home,” said Mrs. Pritchett, shortly. “I dunno why. She won’t tell me.”
“I hope she isn’t ill,” remarked the unconscious Lyddy.
But Lucas cast a knowing look over his shoulder at ’Phemie and the latter had hard work to keep her own countenance straight.
“Well,” said Mrs. Pritchett, more briskly, “ye can’t always sometimes tell what the matter is with these young gals. They gits crotchets in their heads.”
She kept up the fiction that Sairy was a young and flighty miss; but even ’Phemie could no longer laugh at her for it. It was the mother’s pitiful attempt to aid her daughter’s chances for that greatly-to-be-desired condition–matrimony.
The roads were still muddy; nevertheless the drive over the ridge to Cornell Chapel was lovely. For some time the girls had been noting the procession of carriages and wagons winding over the mountain roads, all verging upon this main trail over the ridge which passed so close to Hillcrest.
Lucas, driving the ponies at a good clip, joined the procession. Lyddy and ’Phemie recognized several of the young people they had met the night before at the Temperance Club–notably the young men.
Joe Badger flashed by in a red-wheeled buggy and beside him sat the buxom, red-faced girl who had voiced her distaste for the city-bred newcomers right at the start. Badger bowed with a flourish; but his companion’s nose was in the air.
“I never did think that Nettie Meyers had very good manners,” announced Mrs. Pritchett.
They overtook the schoolmaster jogging along behind his old gray mare. He, likewise, bowed profoundly to the Bray girls.
“I am afraid you did not enjoy yourself last night at the club, Miss Bray,” he said to Lyddy, who was on his side of the buckboard, as Lucas pulled out to pass him. “You went home so early. I was looking for you after it was all over.”
“Oh, but you are mistaken,” declared Lyddy, pleasantly. “I had a very nice time.”
As they drove on Mrs. Pritchett’s fat face became a study.
“And he never even asked arter Sairy!” she gasped. “And he let her come home alone last night. Humph! he must ha’ been busy huntin’ for you, Miss Bray.”
Lucas cast oil on the troubled waters by saying:
“An’ I carried Miss Lyddy and Miss ’Phemie away from all of ’em. I guess all the Pritchetts ain’t so slow, Maw.”
“Humph! Wa-al,” admitted the good lady, somewhat mollified, “you hev seemed to ’woke up lately, Lucas.”
The chapel was built of graystone and its north wall was entirely covered with ivy. It nestled in a grove of evergreens, with the tidy fenced graveyard behind it. The visitors thought it a very beautiful place.
Everybody was rustling into church when they arrived, so there were no introductions then. The pastor was a stooped, gray old man, who had been the incumbent for many years, and to the Bray girls his discourse seemed as helpful as any they had ever heard.
After service the girls of Hillcrest Farm were introduced to many of the congregation by Mrs. Pritchett. Naturally these were the middle-aged, or older, members of the flock–mostly ladies who knew, or remembered, the girls’ mother and Aunt Jane. Indeed, it was rather noticeable that the young women and girls did not come forward to meet Lyddy and ’Phemie.
Not that either of the sisters cared. They liked the matrons who attended Cornell Chapel much better than they had most of the youthful members of the Temperance Club.
Some of the young men waited their chance in the vestibule to get a bow and a smile of recognition from the newcomers; but only the schoolmaster dared attach himself for any length of time to the Pritchett party.
And Mrs. Pritchett could not fail to take note of this at length. The teacher was deep in some unimportant discussion with Lyddy, who was sweetly unconscious that she was fanning the fire of suspicion in Mrs. Pritchett’s breast.
That lady finally broke in with a loud “Ahem!” following it with: “I re’lly don’t know what’s happened to my Sairy. She’s right poorly to-day, Mr. Somers.”
“Why–I–I’m sorry to hear it,” said the startled, yet quite unsuspicious teacher. “She seemed to be in good health and spirits when we were on our way to the club meeting last evening.”
“Ya-as,” agreed Mrs. Pritchett, simpering and looking at him sideways. “She seems to have changed since then. She ain’t been herself since she walked home from the meeting.”
“Perhaps she has a cold?” suggested the teacher, blandly.
“Oh, Sairy is not subject to colds,” declared Mrs. Pritchett. “But she is easily chilled in other ways–yes, indeed! I don’t suppose there is a more sensitive young girl on the ridge than my Sairy.”
Mr. Somers began to wake up to the fact that the farmer’s wife was not shooting idly at him; there was “something behind it!”
“I am sorry if Miss Sairy is offended, or has been hurt in any way,” he said, gravely. “It was a pity she had to walk home from the club. If I had known – ”
“Wa-al,” drawled Mrs. Pritchett, “you took her there yourself in your buggy.”
“Indeed!” he exclaimed, flushing a little. “I had no idea that bound me to the necessity of taking her home again. Her brother was there with your carriage. I am sure I do not understand your meaning, Mrs. Pritchett.”
“Oh, I don’t mean anything!” exclaimed the lady, but very red in the face now, and her bonnet shaking. “Come, gals! we must be going.”
Both Lyddy and ’Phemie had begun to feel rather unhappy by this time. Mrs. Pritchett swept them up the aisle ahead of her as though she were shooing a flock of chickens with her ample skirts.
They went through the vestibule with a rush. Lucas was ready with the ponies. Mrs. Pritchett was evidently very angry over her encounter with the teacher; and she could not fail to hold the Bray girls somewhat accountable for her daughter’s failure to keep the interest of Mr. Somers.
She said but little on the drive homeward. There had been something said earlier about the girls going down to the Pritchett farm for dinner; but the angry lady said nothing more about it, and Lyddy and ’Phemie were rather glad when Hillcrest came into view.
“Ye better stop in an’ go along down to the house with us,” said the good-natured Lucas, hesitating about turning the ponies’ heads in at the lane.
“Oh, we could not possibly,” Lyddy replied, gracefully. “We are a thousand times obliged for your making it possible for us to attend church. You are all so kind, Mrs. Pritchett. But this afternoon I must plead the wicked intention of writing letters. I haven’t written a line to one of my college friends since I came to Hillcrest.”
Mrs. Pritchett merely grunted. Lucas covered his mother’s grumpiness by inconsequential chatter with ’Phemie while he drove in and turned the ponies so that the girls could get out.
“A thousand thanks!” cried ’Phemie.
“Good-day!” exclaimed Lyddy, brightly.
Mrs. Pritchett’s bonnet only shook the harder, and she did not turn to look at the girls. Lucas cast a very rueful glance in their direction as he drove hastily away.
“Now we’ve done it!” gasped ’Phemie, half laughing, half in disgust.
“Why! whatever is the matter, do you suppose?” demanded her sister.
“Well, if you can’t see that– ”
“I see she’s angry over Sairy and the school teacher–poor man! But what have we to do with that?”
“It’s your fatal attractiveness,” sighed ’Phemie. Then she began to laugh. “You’re a very innocent baby, Lyd. Don’t you see that Maw Pritchett thought–or hoped–that she had Mr. Somers nicely entangled with Sairy? And he neglected her for you. Bing! it’s all off, and we’re at outs with the Pritchett family.”
“What awful language!” sighed Lyddy, unlocking the door. “I am sorry you ever went to work in that millinery shop, ’Phemie. It has made your mind–er–almost common!”
But ’Phemie only laughed.
If the Pritchett females were “at outs” with them, the men of the family did not appear to be. At least, Cyrus and his son were at Hillcrest bright and early on Monday morning, with two teams ready for plowing. Lyddy had a serious talk with Mr. Pritchett first.
“Ya-as. That’s good ’tater and truckin’ land behind the barn. It’s laid out a good many years now, for it’s only an acre, or so, and we never tilled it for corn. It’s out o’ the way, kinder,” said the elder Pritchett.
“Then I want that for a garden,” Lyddy declared.
“It don’t pay me to work none of this ‘off’ land for garden trucks,” said Cyrus, shortly. “Not ’nless ye want a few rows o’ stuff in the cornfield jest where I can cultivate with the hosses.”
“But if you plant corn here, you must plant my garden, too,” insisted Lyddy, who was quite as obstinate as the old farmer. “And I’d like to have a big garden, and plenty of potatoes, too. I am going to keep boarders this summer, and I want to raise enough to feed them–or partly feed them, at least.”
“Huh! Boarders, eh? A gal like you!”
“We’re not rich enough to sit with idle hands, and I mean to try and earn something,” Lyddy declared. “And we’ll want vegetables to carry us over winter, too.”
Lucas had been listening with flushed and anxious face. Now he broke in eagerly:
“You said I could till a piece for myself this year, Dad. Lemme do it up here. There’s a better chance to sell trucks in Bridleburg than there has been. I’ll plow and take care of two acres up here, if Miss Lyddy says so, for half the crops, she to supply seed and fertilizer.”
“Will–will it cost much, Lucas?” asked Lyddy, doubtfully.
“That land’s rich, but it may be sour. Ain’t that so, Dad? It won’t take so very much phosphate; will it?”
Cyrus was slower mentally than these eager young folk. He had to think it over and discuss it from different angles. But finally he gave his consent to the plan and advised his son and Lyddy how to manage the matter.
“You kin git your fertilizer on time–six or nine months–right here in Bridleburg. That gives you a chance to raise your crop and market it before paying for the fertilizer,” he said. “You’ll have to get corn fertilizer, too, in the same way. But ’most ev’rybody else on the ridge does the same. We ain’t a very fore-handed community, and that’s a fac’.”
At noon Lyddy and ’Phemie talked over the garden project more fully with Lucas. They planned what early seeds should be planted, and Lucas began plowing that particular piece behind the barn right after dinner.
Lyddy had very little money to work with, but she believed in “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She told Lucas to purchase a bag of potatoes for planting the next day when he went to town, and he was to buy a few papers of early garden seeds, too.
And when Lucas came back with the potatoes he brought a surprise for the Bray girls. He drove into the yard with a flourish. ’Phemie looked out of the window, uttered a scream of joy and surprise, and rushed out to receive her father in her strong young arms as he got down from the seat.
How feeble and tired he looked! ’Phemie began to cry; but Lyddy “braced up” and declared he looked a whole lot better already and that Hillcrest would cure him in just no time.
“And that foolish ’Phemie is only crying for joy at seeing you so unexpectedly, Father,” said Lyddy, scowling frightfully at her sister over their father’s bowed head as they helped him into the house.
Lucas hovered in the background; but he could not help them. ’Phemie saw, however, that the young farmer fully appreciated the situation and was truly sympathetic.
The change in Mr. Bray’s appearance was a great shock to both girls. Of course, the doctor at the hospital had promised Lyddy no great improvement in the patient until he could be got up here on the hills, where the air was pure and healing.
Aunt Jane had come as far as the junction with him; but he had come on alone to Bridleburg from there, and the agent at the station had telephoned uptown to tell Lucas that the invalid wished to get to Hillcrest.
“I’m all right; I’m all right!” he kept repeating. But the girls almost carried him between them into the house.
“The doctors said you could do more for me up here than they could do for me there,” panted Mr. Bray, smiling faintly at his daughters, who hovered about him as he sat before the crackling wood fire in the kitchen.
“And Aunt Jane never told us you were coming!” gasped Lyddy.
“What’s the odds, as long as he’s here?” demanded ’Phemie.
“Why, I shall soon be my old self again up here,” Mr. Bray declared, hopefully. “Now, don’t fuss over me, girls. You’ve got other things to do. That young fellow who brought me up here seems to be your chief cook and bottle-washer, and he wants to speak to you, I reckon,” for Lucas was waiting to learn where he should put the potatoes and other things.
Mr. Bray knew all about the boarding house project and approved of it. “Why, I can soon help around myself. And I must do something,” he told them, that evening, “or I shall go crazy. I couldn’t endure the rest cure.” But it was complete rest that he had to endure for several days after his unexpected arrival.
The girls gave up their room to their father, and went upstairs to sleep. ’Phemie had to admit that even she was glad there was at last somebody else in the house. Especially a man!
“But I never have thought to ask Mr. Pritchett about his being up here with that Spink man last Saturday night,” Lyddy said, sleepily.
“You’d better let it drop,” advised ’Phemie. “We don’t want to get the whole Pritchett family down on us.”
“What nonsense! Of course I shall ask him,” declared her sister.
But as it happened something occurred the following day to quite put this small matter out of Lyddy’s mind. The postman brought the first letter in answer to their advertisement. Lyddy was about to tear open the envelope when she halted in amazement. The card printed in the corner included the number of Trimble Avenue right next to the big tenement house in which the Brays had lived before coming here to Hillcrest.
“Isn’t that strange?” she murmured, and read the card again:
Commonwealth Chemical Company
407 Trimble Avenue
Easthampton
“Right from the very next door!” sparkled ’Phemie. “Don’t that beat all!–as Lucas says.”
But Lyddy had now opened the letter and read as follows:
“L. Bray, Hillcrest Farm, Bridleburg P. O.
“Dear Madam:
“I have read your advertisement and believe that you offer exactly what my father and I have been looking for–a quiet, home-like boarding house in the hills, and not too far away for me to get easily back and forth. If agreeable, we shall come to Bridleburg Saturday and would be glad to have you meet the 10:14 train on its arrival. If both parties are suited we can then discuss terms.
“Respectfully,“Harris Colesworth.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Lyd?” demanded her sister, in amazement.
But Lyddy Bray did not explain. In her own mind she was much disturbed. She was confident that the writer of this note was the “fresh” young fellow who had always been at work in the chemical laboratory right across the air-shaft from her kitchen window!
Of course, it was quite by chance–in all probability–that he had answered her advertisement. Yet Lyddy Bray had an intuition that if she answered the letter, and the Colesworths came here to Hillcrest, trouble would ensue.
She had hoped very much to obtain boarders, and to get even one thus early in the season seemed too good to be true. Yet, now that she had got what she wanted, Lyddy was doubtful if she wanted it after all.
CHAPTER XIV
THE COLESWORTHS
Mr. Bray fell in with the boarder project, as we have seen, with enthusiasm. Although he could do nothing as yet, his mind was active enough and he gaily planned with ’Phemie what they should do and how they should arrange the rooms for the horde of visitors who were, they were sure, already on their way to Hillcrest.
“Though Lyd won’t show the very first letter she’s received in answer to our ad.,” complained the younger sister. “What’s the matter with those folks, Lyddy? Do they actually live right there near where we did on Trimble Avenue?”
“That was a loft building next to us,” said their father, curiously. “Who are the people, daughter?”
“Somebody by the name of Colesworth. The Commonwealth Chemical Company office. It’s about an old man to stay here.”
“One man only!” exclaimed ’Phemie.
“With a young man–the one who writes–to come up over Sundays, I suppose,” acknowledged Lyddy, doubtfully.
“Goody!” cried her sister. “That sounds better.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, ’Phemie!” chided Lyddy, with some asperity.
But Mr. Bray only laughed. “I guess I can play ‘he-chaperon’ for all the young men who come here,” he said. “Your sister is only making fun, Lydia.”
But Lyddy was more worried in secret about the Colesworth proposition than she was ready to acknowledge. She “just felt” that Harris Colesworth was the young man who had helped them the evening of the fire in the Trimble Avenue tenement.
“He found out our name, of course, and when he saw my advertisement he knew who it was. He may even have found out where we were going when we left for the country. In some way he could have done so,” thought Lyddy, putting the young man’s character before her mind in the very worst possible light.
“He is altogether too persistent. I hope he is as energetic in a better way–I hope he attends to his business as faithfully as he seems to attend to our affairs,” continued Lyddy, bitterly.
“I don’t suppose this idea of his father coming up here into the hills is entirely an excuse for him to become familiar with–with us. But it looks very much like it. I–I wonder what kind of a man old Mr. Colesworth can be?”
Lyddy ruminated upon the letter she had received all that day and refused to answer it right away. Indeed, as far as she could see, the letter did not really need an answer. This Harris Colesworth spoke just as though he expected they would be only too glad to meet him on Saturday with a rig.
“And, if it were anybody else, I suppose I would be glad to do so,” Lyddy finally had to admit. “I suppose that ‘beggars mustn’t be choosers’; and if this Harris Colesworth isn’t a perfectly proper young man to have about, father will very quickly attend to his case.”
Really, Lyddy Bray thought much more about the Colesworths than her sister and father thought she did. After being urged by ’Phemie several times she finally allowed her sister to reply to the letter, promising to have a carriage at the station for the train mentioned in Harris Colesworth’s letter.
Of course, this meant hiring Lucas Pritchett and the buckboard. Lucas was at Hillcrest a good deal of the time that week. He got the garden plowed and the early potatoes planted, as well as some few other seeds which would not be hurt by the late frosts.
Mr. Bray got around very slowly; at first he could only walk up and down in the sun, or sit on the porch, well wrapped up.
Like most men born in the country and forced to be city dwellers for many years, John Bray had longed more deeply than he could easily express for country living. He appreciated the sights and sounds about him–the mellow, refreshing air that blew over the hills–the sunshine and the pattering rain which, on these early spring days, drifted alternately across the fields and woods.
With the girls he planned for the future. Some day they would have a cow. There was pasture on the farm for a dozen. And already Lyddy was studying poultry catalogs and trying to figure out a little spare money to purchase some eggs for hatching.
Of course they had no hens and at this time of the year the neighbors were likely to want their own setting hens for incubating purposes. Lyddy sounded Silas Trent, the mail-carrier, about this and Mr. Trent had an offer to make.
“I tell ye what it is,” said the garrulous Silas, “the chicken business is a good business–if ye kin ’tend to it right. I tried it–went in deep for incubator, brooders, and the like; and it would have been all right if I didn’t hafter be away from home so much durin’ the day.
“My wife’s got rheumatiz, and she can’t git out to ’tend to little chicks, and for a few weeks they need a sight of attention–that’s right. They’d oughter be fed every two hours, or so, and watched pretty close.
“So I had ter give it up last year, an’ this year I ain’t put an egg in my incubator.
“But if I could git ’em growed to scratchin’ state–say, when they’re broiler-size–I sartainly would like it. Tell ye what I’ll do, Miss. I’ll let ye have my incubator. It’s 200-egg size. In course, ye don’t hafter fill it first time if ye don’t wanter. Put in a hundred eggs and see how ye come out.”
“But how could I pay you?” asked Lyddy.
“I’ll sell ye the incubator outright, if ye want to buy. And I’ll take my pay in chickens when they’re broiler-size–say three months old.”
“What do you want for your incubator?” queried Lyddy, thoughtfully.
“Ten dollars. It’s a good one. And I’ll take a flock of twenty three-months-old chicks in pay for it–fifteen pullets and five cockerels. What kind of hens do you favor, Miss Bray?”
Lyddy told him the breed she had thought of purchasing–and the strain.
“Them’s fine birds,” declared Mr. Trent. “For heavy fowl they are good layers–and when ye butcher one of ’em for the table, ye got suthin’ to eat. Now, you think my offer over. I’ll stick to it. And I’ll set the incubator up and show ye how to run it.”
Lyddy was very anxious to venture into the chicken business–and here was a chance to do it cheaply. It was the five dollars for a hundred hatching eggs that made her hesitate.
But Aunt Jane had shown herself to be more than a little interested in the girls’ venture at Hillcrest Farm, and when she expressed the keys of the garret chests and bureaus to Lyddy–so that the girl could get at the stores of linen left from the old doctor’s day–she sent, too, twenty-five dollars.
“Keep it against emergencies. Pay it back when you can. And don’t let’s have no talk about it,” was the old lady’s characteristic note.
Lyddy was only doubtful as to whether this desire of hers to raise chickens was really “an emergency.” But finally she decided to venture, and she wrote off for the eggs, sending the money by a post-office order, and Lucas brought up Silas Trent’s incubator.
Friday night Trent drove up to Hillcrest and spent the evening with the Brays. He set the incubator up in the little washhouse, which opened directly off the back porch. It was a small, tight room, with only one window, and was easily heated by an oil-lamp. The lamp of the incubator itself would do the trick, Trent said.
He leveled the machine with great care, showed Lyddy all about the trays, the water, the regulation of heat, and gave her a lot of advice on various matters connected with the raising of chicks with the “wooden hen.”
They were all vastly interested in the new vocation and the evening passed pleasantly enough. Just before Trent went, he asked:
“By the way, what’s Jud Spink doing up this way so much? I seen him again to-day when I came over the ridge. He was crossin’ the back of your farm. He didn’t have no gun; and, at any rate, there ain’t nothin’ in season jest now–’nless it’s crows,” and the mail-carrier laughed.
“Spink?” asked Mr. Bray, who had not yet gone to bed. “Who is he?”
“Lemuel Judson Spink,” explained ’Phemie. “He’s a man who used to live here with grandfather when he was a boy–when Spink was a boy; not grandfather.”
“He’s a rich man now,” said Lyddy. “He owns a breakfast food.”
“Diamond Grits,” added ’Phemie.
“He’s rich enough,” grunted Trent. “Rich enough so’t he can loaf around Bridleburg for months at a time. Been here now for some time.”
“Why, could that be the Spink your Aunt Jane told me once made her an offer for the farm?” asked Mr. Bray, thoughtfully.
“For Hillcrest?” cried ’Phemie. “Oh, I hope not.”
“Well, child, if she could sell the place it would be a good thing for Jane. She has none too much money.”
“But why didn’t she sell to him?” asked Lyddy, quite as anxious as her sister.
“He didn’t offer her much, if anything, for it.”
“Ain’t that like Jud?” cackled Trent. “He is allus grouching about the old doctor for being as tight as the bark to a tree; but when it comes to a bargain, Jud Spink will wring yer nose ev’ry time–if he can. Glad Mis’ Hammon’ didn’t sell to him.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want Hillcrest very much,” said Mr. Bray, quietly.
“He don’t want nothin’ ’nless it’s cheap,” declared Trent. “He’s picked up some mortgage notes, and the like, on property he thinks he can foreclose on. Got a jedgment against the Widder Harrison’s little place over the ridge, I understand. But Jud Spink wouldn’t pay more’n ha’f price for a gold eagle. He’d claim ’twas second-hand, if it warn’t fresh from the mint,” and the mail-carrier went off, chuckling over his own joke.
Both Lyddy and ’Phemie forgot, however, about the curious actions of Mr. Spink, or his desire to buy Hillcrest, in their interest in the coming of the only people who had, thus far, answered their advertisement for boarders.
Lucas met the 10:14 train on Saturday morning, and before noon he drove into the side yard with an old gentleman and a young man on the rear seat of the buckboard.
Before this the two girls, working hard, had swept and garnished the whole lower floor of the big farmhouse, save the east wing, which was locked. Indeed, Lyddy had never ventured into the old doctor’s suite of offices, for she couldn’t find the key.
A fire had been laid and was burning cheerfully in the dining-room–that apartment being just across the square side entrance hall from the kitchen. Lyddy was busy over the cooking arrangements when the visitors arrived, and ’Phemie was giving the finishing touches to the table in the dining-room.
But Mr. Bray, leaning on his cane, met the Colesworths as they alighted from the buckboard. Lucas drove away at once, promising to return again with the team in time to catch the four-fifty train back to town.
Lyddy found time to peep out of the kitchen window. Yes! there was that very bold young man who had troubled her so much–at times–while they lived in Trimble Avenue.
He met Mr. Bray with a warm handshake, and he helped his father up the wide stone steps with a delicacy that would have pleased Lyddy in anybody else.
But she had made up her mind that Harris Colesworth was going to be a very objectionable person to have about, and so she would not accept his friendly attitude or thoughtfulness as real virtues. He might attract the rest of the family–already ’Phemie was standing in the door, smiling and with her hand held out; but Lyddy Bray proposed to watch this young man very closely!
