Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 9

Then Julie chimed in with: "Jane, please come and see it."

The older girl, who was feeling terribly sorry for herself, rose languidly and went with the small sister. The boys followed.

"Why, what a nice room this is!" Dan, truly pleased, remarked. Then anxiously, and in his voice there was a note that was almost imploring, he asked: "Jane, dear, don't you think you can be comfortable in here?"

The girl's heart was touched by the tone more than the words, and she turned away that she might not show how near, how very near, she had been to crying out her unhappiness. It was hardship to her to be in a log cabin where there were none of the luxuries and conveniences to which she had been used. She smiled at her brother, but he saw her lips tremble. He was tempted to tell her to go back to civilization, since it was all going to be so hard for her, but something prompted him to wait one week.

Inwardly he resolved: "If Jane is not happy here by one week from today, I am going to insist that she return to Newport and to the friend Merry for whom she cares so much."

But Jane, too, had been making a resolve, and so when she spoke her voice sounded more cheerful.

"It is a nice room," she said. "That wide window has a wonderful view of the mountains and the valley." It was hard to keep from adding, "If anyone cares for such a view, which I do not."

But instead she looked up at the rafters. "What are those great bundles that are hanging up there?" she inquired.

Dan laughed. "Why, those bundles, Dad said, contain the mattress and bedding which he and mother stored away. They are wrapped in canvas and so he expected that we would find them in good condition."

"But how are we to get them?" Julie wanted to know.

Gerald's quick eyes found the answer to that.

"Look-it!" he cried, pointing. "There's a ladder nailed right against the back wall. I'll skin up that in two jiffs. Give me your knife, Dan. I'll cut the ropes."

The boy was soon sliding along a rafter. "Out of the way down below there!" he shouted the warning. "Here they come!"

There was a soft thud, followed by another as the two great bundles fell to the floor. An excellent mattress was in one of them and clean warm blankets in the other.

"Now, I'll get the sheets from the packing trunk and a pillow case, and in less than no time at all we'll have a fine bed in our lady's chamber."

Dan led Jane to another large comfortable though rustic chair as he said:

"The rest of us are going to pretend that you are a princess today and we are going to wait upon you. By tomorrow, when you have had a long sleep, perhaps you will want to be a mountain girl."

Again there was the yearning note in his voice. How he hoped that Jane would want to stay, but a week would tell.

Jane was quite willing to pretend that she was a princess and be waited upon, and so half an hour later, when the bed in her room was made, she consented to lie down and try to make up the many hours of sleep that she had lost on the train. Hardly had her head touched the pillow before she was sound asleep. Two of her windows, that swung inward, were wide open and a soft mountain breeze wafted to her the scent of the pines. Even though she was not conscious of it, the peace of the mountains was quieting her restless soul. She had supposed that, as soon as she were alone, she would sob out her unhappiness, but her weariness had been too great, and not a tear had been shed.

Julie reported that Jane had gone right to sleep and Dan's face brightened. Surely his sister-pal would feel better when she awakened and how could she help loving it all, so high up on their wonderful mountain.

The younger children had gone on another trip of exploration, and soon burst back into the big living-room with the information that on the other side of the cabin there were two smaller bedrooms and a real kitchen.

Dan held up a warning hand and framed the word "quiet" with his lips, and so the excited children took his hands and dragged him from the deep easy chair where he had sought to rest for a moment and showed him what lay behind the two doors on the other side of the cabin. "Aren't these little bedrooms the cunningest?" Julie whispered. "See the front one has a bed in it like Jane's and the other has the cot. But there are three of us, so what shall we do?" Julie's brown eyes were suddenly serious and inquiring.

"That's easy!" Dan told her. "Dad said there were several cots. See, there they are, hanging up on the rafters. I shall take one of those and put it out on the wide front porch. That's where I want to sleep. I don't want to be shut in by walls. And Julie may have this pretty front room with the bed and Gerald the other. Now, let's get them made up, just as quietly as we can. Then we will unpack the supplies that you got from the store, Julie, and prepare a noon meal."

The cots were untied from the rafters and one was placed on the porch in the position chosen by Dan, then the bedding was put on all of them and it was 11 o'clock and the sun was riding hot and high above the mountain when Julie, suddenly becoming demure, announced that she wanted Dan to go to sleep also, and that she and Gerald would get the lunch.

The older boy did not require much urging and when he saw the eager light in the eyes of the little girl, who had in the beginning supposed that she alone was to be the one to take care of him, he decided to do as she wished. Julie had had six months' training with her grandmother, who believed that a girl could not begin too young to learn how to cook, and she had often boasted that she had a very apt pupil.

He soon heard the children whispering and laughing happily at the back of the cabin, then a door was closed softly and the lad heard only the soughing in the pine trees close to the porch and the humming of the winged insects far and near. Then he, too, fell into a much needed slumber.

CHAPTER XIII.

TWO LITTLE COOKS

The kitchen of the log cabin had one window and a door which opened out into what Gerry called the "back-yard part of their ledge." It was only about fifty feet to the very edge, and Gerry crept on hands and knees to look over, that he might see where their "back-yard went." He lifted a face filled with awe and beckoned his sister to advance with caution.

Lying flat, the two children gazed over the rim of the ledge, straight down a wall of rock, far below which the road could be seen curving.

"Ohee!" Julie drew back with a shudder. "What if our cabin should slide right off this shelf that it's built on?"

"It can't, if it wants to," the boy told her confidently. "We're safe here as anything. That's two ways a bear can't come," he continued; "but on the other side, where the creek is, and in front, where the stone steps are, I suppose the bear came in one of those two ways."

The small girl looked frightened. "Oh, Gerry," she said, "what if a bear should come again? What would we do?"

"Why, Dan would shoot it, just the way Dad did," the boy replied with great a.s.surance. His big brother was his hero, and that he could not perform any feat required was not to be thought of for one moment.

"But Dan hasn't a gun, has he?" Julie was not yet convinced.

"Indeed he has, silly. Do you s'pose Dad would let us come into this wild country without guns? Dan has two in his trunk. One's a big fellow! Dad let me hold it once, and, Oh, boy, I'm telling you it's a heavy one. I most had to drop it, and I've got bully muscle. Look at what muscle I've got!"

Gerry crooked his bare arm, but his sister turned away impatiently, saying: "Oh, I don't want to! You make me feel what muscle you've got most every day."

Julie returned to the kitchen, but Gerry followed, and, if he were offended by her lack of interest in his brawniness, he did not show it.

He was far too interested in the subject under discussion. "That big gun I was telling you about is the very one Dad used when he shot the grizzly, and if it shot one bear, then of course it can shoot another bear."

The little girl was convinced. That seemed clear reasoning, but she interrupted when the boy began again, by saying: "Gerald Abbott, do stop telling bear stories, and help me clean up this kitchen. Jane won't be any more use than nothing and we might as well do things and pretend she isn't here, the way I wish she wasn't."

"I sort of wish she hadn't come, myself," Gerry confessed. "Now, let's see. Here's a cupboard all nailed up. I guess I can pull out the nails, but first I'd better make a fire in this old stove. I'll have to fetch in some wood."

"No, you won't! Not just at first. There's a box full behind the stove.

Big, knotty pieces; pine, I suppose; but maybe we do need some kindling.

Then bring me some water from the creek and I'll wash up everything. Dad said we'd find some dishes in the cupboard, if they hadn't been stolen."

"Gee, I hope they haven't!" The boy, who was as handy about a home as was his small sister, soon had a fire in the stove, and then, having found a pail, he went to the creek, stealing around past the front porch and under his sister's window as quietly as he possibly could. Although dry twigs creaked and snapped, the two sleepers did not waken.

Such fun as those youngsters had putting the kitchen in order. In the cupboard they found all of the dishes which their father had mentioned.

Although the china was coa.r.s.e, the green fern pattern was attractive.

Gerald, standing on a chair, handed it out, piece by piece, to the small girl, who put them in hot, sudsy water and then dried them till they shone. Gerald, meantime, was washing the shelves. Then they replaced the dishes and stood back to admire their handiwork.

"Oh, aren't we having fun?" Julie chuckled. "Now, we're all ready to get the lunch."

It was one o'clock when Julie went to waken Jane, and Gerald, at the same time, went out on the porch where Dan had been sleeping, but the older boy was sitting up on the edge of his cot drinking in the beauty of the scene which, to him, was an ever-changing marvel. He sprang up, wonderfully refreshed, and going to the packing trunk, he procured a towel.

"h.e.l.lo, Jane," he called brightly to the tall girl, who appeared in the open door. Then he gave a long whistle. "Sister," he exclaimed, love and admiration ringing in his voice, "I hope that Jean Sawyer, who is coming to dine with us day after tomorrow, has a heart of adamant. I pity him if he hasn't! I honestly never saw anyone so beautiful as you are, with the flush of slumber on your cheeks and your eyes so bright."

Jane came out smiling. This was the sort of adulation she desired and required, but her brother felt a twinge of guilt, for, even as he had been talking, he had seen in memory a slender, alert little creature with eyes, star-like in their dusky radiance, gazing out at him from under dark, curling lashes.

But they were so unlike, these two, he told himself. The one proud, imperious, ultra-civilized; the other, a wild thing, untamed, or so she had appeared to him in that one moment's glance, a native of the mountains.