Peggy Raymond's Vacation Part 5

From the very start the big brick fireplace in the living-room had held an irresistible fascination for the Terrace girls, accustomed as they were to the unromantic register. And when five days of their outing had pa.s.sed and no fire had been kindled on the blackened hearth, Priscilla thought they were missing golden opportunities, and said so.

"The last of June isn't the best time in the year for open fires,"

suggested Peggy. "But I do think that to-night seems a little cooler.

Perhaps we might have a fire and not swelter."

"We could roast apples, couldn't we?" Amy cried. "And chestnuts. Only there aren't any chestnuts."

"And just a few very wormy apples," added Ruth. "But we can tell stories, and sit around in a circle, and not have any light in the room, except the light of the fire."

The prospect was so alluring that supper was dispatched in haste, and one or two of the girls went so far as to suggest letting the dishes wait over till the next day. But as Peggy expressed horror at this unhousewifely proceeding, and Amy called attention to the fact that left-over dishes are doubly hard to wash, the motion failed to carry.

Five pairs of busy hands made short work of the necessary task, and when the dishes were out of the way, and Peggy was conducting Dorothy up-stairs to bed, the others made a rush to the woodshed and filled their gingham ap.r.o.ns with pine knots and shavings.

Dorothy suspecting delights from which she was to be excluded, was inclined to make slow work of undressing, and relieved the tedium of the process by frantic demonstrations of affection. "Wish you'd go to bed with me, Aunt Peggy. 'Cause I love you so awfully."

"Oh, this isn't bedtime for big girls. They won't be sleepy for a long while yet."

"I won't be sleepy for a long while, either. Won't you sit beside my bed, Aunt Peggy, 'cause I'm 'fraid. If a bear should come--"

"Oh, Dorothy, don't think so much about bears. Think about the little angels that watch good children when they are asleep."

Dorothy fell into a fit of musing. "I wish those little angels would play with me when I was awake, 'stead of watching me when I was asleep.

Say, Aunt Peggy, which would you rather have, wings or roller-skates?"

Peggy steered the conversation away from this delicate question to Dorothy's prayers, which Dorothy galloped through with cheerful irreverence. On the "Amen" her eyes flashed open.

"Now, Aunt Peggy, you've got to tack down my eyelids, same as my mamma does."

"Why, of course." Peggy patiently kissed the long-lashed lids shut, stimulated by Dorothy's cheerfully impersonal comments on her performance, and even drove a few extra "tacks," in quite unnecessary spots, as, for example, the corners of Dorothy's roguish mouth, and the dimple showing in the curve of her pink cheek. And by that time even Dorothy could think of no further excuses for detaining her.

Down-stairs the preliminary steps to the realization of the romance of a real wood fire on a real hearth had proved prosaic enough. In the beginning the fire had frankly sulked, and instead of blazing up brightly, had emitted clouds of smoke out of all proportion to its size.

Every one was coughing as Peggy came into the room, and handkerchiefs were busy wiping tears from br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, so that outwardly the scene was anything but joyous. But the draught from the open windows finally stimulated the lazy chimney to greater exertions, and just as Peggy crossed the threshold, a brave little flame leaped up from the smoking, smouldering ma.s.s, and a cheery crackle made music plainly audible above the chorus of coughing.

"Lovely!" cried Peggy, and warmed her hands at the blaze as if it had been midwinter. "As long as I didn't have any of the trouble of making the fire, I'll brush up the shavings and things."

"I'm not sure but you've got the worst end of it," remarked Priscilla, casting a dismayed glance about her. "How in the world did shavings get scattered over this room from one end to the other?"

As no one had anything to offer in explanation, Peggy went to find the dustpan and was absent for some minutes. By this time the fire was blazing merrily, and throwing off an amount of heat quite unnecessary for a mild June evening. Even while the girls were exchanging congratulations on their success, it was to be noticed that they did not form a compact circle about the fireplace, but sat in the most remote corners of the room, and fanned themselves with newspapers.

"It's the strangest thing," announced Peggy returning, "I can't find the dustpan high or low."

Amy jumped. "Didn't she bring it back?"

"Who? Not Mrs Snooks?"

"Yes, she came when you'd gone to pay Mrs. Cole, and she said she'd send her little girl back with it in half an hour or so."

"It's certainly strange," said Peggy, giving evidences of exasperation, "that when we've only one of a thing, that's exactly what Mrs. Snooks wants to borrow. Of course it's nice for neighbors to help one another out, especially in a place like this where you are so far from a store.

If it was baking-powder, I wouldn't say a word. But a dustpan."

"It was baking-powder yesterday," suggested Amy. "Sweep the shavings into a corner, Peg, and let's start on the stories. Now, Aunt Abigail, here's your chance to shine."

"Oh, yes, Aunt Abigail," echoed Peggy, for it had early been decided that Amy should not be allowed a monopoly in the use of that affectionate t.i.tle. "We've heard you were the best ever, since the woman in the Arabian Nights--what was her name--Scheherezade,--and we want to know if Amy was exaggerating."

Aunt Abigail smiled complacently.

"What sort of story do you want?" she asked. "Something pathetic, or a story of adventure, or a humorous story or a ghost story or--"

An approving shout interrupted her. "Oh, a ghost story, Aunt Abigail!"

Priscilla clapped her hands. "Isn't this simply perfect! The firelight on the wall, and shadows flickering, and then a ghost story to crown everything. Do make it a creepy one, Aunt Abigail."

Aunt Abigail hardly needed urging along that line. She had been an omnivorous reader all her days, and from books, as well as from what she had picked up on her travels, she had acquired an unsurpa.s.sed collection of weird incidents which she now began to recount with dramatic effect.

The girls sat spellbound, and when, at the conclusion of the first story, a faint little wail sounded from the distance, the general start was indicative of tense nerves.

But it was only Dorothy, awake and standing at the head of the stairs.

"Aunt Peggy!"

"Go back to bed, darling."

"But, Aunt Peggy, what d'you s'pose those little angels have done now?

They've bited me right on my fourhead."

"Oh, my!" Peggy ran up the stairs, to a justly aggrieved Dorothy, indicating an inflamed lump on her forehead, as a proof of misplaced confidence. Peggy lit the candle and after some search discovered a swollen mosquito, perched on the head of Dorothy's bed, ready to resume operations at the first opportunity. Gluttony had lessened his natural agility, and at Peggy's avenging hand he paid the penalty of his crime.

Peggy lingered to correct Dorothy's misapprehension, and then went down-stairs, to find another blood-curdling tale in progress, and the girls sitting breathless, while the firelight threw fantastic shapes upon the wall, and the shadows looked startlingly black by contrast.

Ten o'clock was the sensible bedtime decided on in Dolittle Cottage, but on this occasion the big clock chimed ten unheeded. Apparently Aunt Abigail's repertoire was far from being exhausted. She had rung the changes on all the familiar horrors in a dozen stories, and yet no one seemed willing to have her stop. It was quarter of eleven when Peggy remarked reluctantly: "Girls, if we're going to get up any time to-morrow, we'd better-be going to bed."

The suggestion was not received with enthusiasm. Priscilla declared that she wasn't a bit sleepy, and the others all echoed the statement. Then Aunt Abigail was appealed to, for just one more, and complied without any pretence of reluctance. Aunt Abigail was enjoying herself hugely, and it was characteristic of her amiable irresponsibility that it never occurred to her that there might be undesirable consequences, from thus stimulating the vivid imaginations of a party of sensitive girls.

It was very near midnight when at last they filed up-stairs to bed. The fire was out, after having played its part so efficiently as to render it necessary to open to its widest extent every door and window in the cottage. It was a rather silent crowd that climbed the stairs. The girls went to their respective rooms without any of the laughter and gay chatter which usually characterized the hour of retiring. Peggy said to herself that they were all too tired to talk.

But Amy knew better. While Peggy shared Dorothy's quarters, and Priscilla and Claire occupied the room next to Aunt Abigail's, Amy and Ruth were tucked into a snug little box of a bedroom on the opposite side of the hall. As Amy hastily lighted the candle on the little table at the side of the bed, she turned a perturbed face on her roommate.

"Oh, why did I let her do it?" she exclaimed tragically. "Why did I ever listen? I know I'm not going to sleep a wink to-night."

"Why, Amy, what nonsense!" Ruth remonstrated, but she was aware that her heartbeats had quickened. It was one thing to listen to Aunt Abigail's harrowing recitals, in a room made cheerful by firelight and companionship, and another to recall the same horrors in comparative solitude. "You're not foolish enough to believe in things of that sort,"

Ruth remarked, with a brave effort to maintain her air of superiority.

"No, I'm not foolish enough to _believe_ in them," Amy acknowledged, "but I'm foolish enough so they scare me dreadfully. Oh, dear! Won't I be glad when it is to-morrow!"

She repeated the wish a little later, when both girls were in bed, and Ruth answered her a trifle tartly that it _was_ very nearly to-morrow, and that she wanted to go to sleep some time before morning, if Amy didn't. Then for a matter of thirty minutes silence reigned. The hour was late and the girls were tired. In spite of her gloomy prophecy, Amy was surprised and pleased to find a delicious drowsiness creeping over her.

All at once she sat up in bed. "Ruth," she exclaimed in a frightened whisper, "what was that?"

"What was what?"

"That rustling noise."