Strawberry Acres Part 2

Alighting from her mother's carriage in front of the Winona apartments in Henley Street, Josephine Burnside dismissed her coachman and hurried eagerly into the florid vestibule.

"I don't see how Sally endures this sort of thing," she thought, for the hundredth time since the Lane house, near her own in Grosvenor Place, had been sold. The door-latch clicked promptly in answer to her ring, and at the top of the third flight she met Sally.

"I was sure it was you! I'm so glad! I'm all alone," was Sally's joyful welcome; and the next minute Josephine found herself inside the small pa.s.sage, her outer garments being forcibly removed, and herself borne into the little living-room and established in Uncle Timothy's reading chair, which was the most comfortable one in the place.

"Sewing--as usual? What are you making now? Something lovely out of nothing at all, I suppose?"

"Of course. It's a convenient accomplishment. You didn't know that four and a half yards of Swiss muslin would make a whole frock, did you? Well, it will--under some conditions." And Sally proudly held up the work of her hands, a nearly finished product at which her friend, attired at the moment in some fifteen yards of silk, stared in amazement.

"Sally Lunn! You didn't--you couldn't! It's not skimpy in the least. You must have pieced out with something else. But where?"

"The remains of my old one, re-enforced underneath, and used where the least wear will come on it. It's not an exact match, but I don't think it will show."

"Show! Not a bit. But I thought putting old and new wash goods together wouldn't do."

"I've shrunk the new, and, as I told you, re-enforced the old with some very thin, cheap lawn. I shall wash it myself--with the ends of my fingers, and my eyes looking the other way. Find the old parts!"

Thus challenged, Josephine brought a pair of very bright black eyes to bear upon the pretty frock, turning it over critically, and after some search discovered the resourceful trick which had made the whole lower half of the skirt and part of the sleeves out of the old muslin.

"You genius!" she cried. "I wish I were half as clever as you." She regarded her friend with the genuine admiration and affection which had carried the comradeship of the two girls safely through the test of the Lanes' altered fortunes.

"How good it is to have you back!" said Sally, returning the look. "You haven't half told me about your winter."

"Yes--but never mind that just now," said Josephine. "I've come to hear about you. Jarvis met Max this morning, heard the news, and told it at luncheon. I simply flew down to show you how glad I am, and to hear more.

Tell me, is it a beautiful old place, and shall you go there to live? I suppose I've seen it, but I've forgotten."

"It's a forlorn old place, dreadfully run down, but I want to live in it. The boys won't hear of it--as yet. We've only been there once.

We're going again Sat.u.r.day--you know that's the only time they can all get away."

"What fun. Can't I go, too? There must be something nice about it, or you wouldn't want to live there."

"There's a locked door in it," said Sally, smiling, as her thoughts turned to the mystery. She described the finding of the door to Josephine, who exclaimed:

"I must be there to see it opened! What do you suppose you'll find?"

"Dust and empty shelves, Max says. Blue-beard's murdered wives, says Bob.

Alec guesses a lot of broken-backed chairs and a desk with the hinges off. Uncle Timothy thinks it merely leads to the roof. But the steps from the attic do that."

"What do _you_ think?"

"I think everything," admitted Sally, "from antique mirrors and old clothes to empty flower pots and battered and rons. I'm prepared for anything--except the empty shelves. Why should the door be locked so securely if there's nothing behind it?"

"Why, indeed? I don't know why, but my imagination shudders deliciously at the thought of seeing it opened. May I go on Sat.u.r.day? May Jarvis go?

He wanted me to ask. He's having a bad time with his eyes again, can't read, and pines for something to do. A locked closet will interest him."

"Of course you may both go, if you'll get Jarvis to promise not to throw any cold water on my schemes."

"He's not likely to discourage any of your schemes, you know well enough.

Hasn't he always taken your part, even against me, since we used to quarrel over which should have the shady side of the sand pile? 'Sun won't hurt your gipsy face, Joey,' he'd say. 'Give Sally the shade, like a gentleman.'"

Both girls laughed. Then Sally grew sober. "Seems to me it's only a little while since Jarvis had his last siege with his eyes," she observed. "Are they quite as bad again?"

"He's not shut up in the dark this time, but has to wear blue goggles in the daytime, is forbidden reading and writing absolutely for weeks, and goes to Doctor Meyer every other day for treatment. He's getting as rampageous as a caged lion, and vows he'll go off to the South Seas, or Labrador, or some other place where books and libraries and literary work won't tantalize him. He'd go to-morrow, I believe, if it weren't for mother. She can't bear the idea."

"It was that last awful year's work at college," said Sally regretfully.

"Why did he ever conceive the idea of doing two years' work in one--and why did his friends let him do it?"

"I know--that's what we all say now. So does he."

"Of course he must go Sat.u.r.day; tell him I particularly want him."

"That will please him. Now do tell me about the whole place," and Josephine settled herself to listen.

Long before Sally had finished, her friend was as eager as herself to see the old house, and was planning with all the help of a vivid imagination what it would be like when it should be "restored." When she went away, just before Sally set about getting dinner for her family, it was with a.s.surances that she and her brother would help Sally, to the best of their ability, to realize her hopes.

This a.s.surance was renewed when, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the Lanes met the Burnsides at the appointed hour to take the trolley-car. With the exception of Uncle Timothy, they were all there, even Max, who had declared his only interest in the place was to sell it. But, hearing that Jarvis Burnside was to inspect it, he had decided to point out to Jarvis the impracticability of making a home out of the property--unless for some rich man who might be induced to buy it at a figure worth while. He sat beside Jarvis in the car, talking to him, as Sally could see, in a way intended to prejudice him against the place.

But as the party left the car, Jarvis joined Sally, smiled at her from behind the ugly goggles which half disguised a face by no means ugly, and said in an undertone:

"I believe I'm in possession of all the facts. From now on I intend to let the fancies have full play."

"Good for you! I knew you'd never desert me, no matter how much in the wrong I might be," answered Sally, gratefully.

Jarvis had been a fourth brother to her for so long that it seemed a matter of course for her to depend upon his support, but she appreciated it when occasionally the real brothers failed to remember how lonely the young sister was, with no mother at hand to love or advise her. All but Bob. He, the youngest of the family, was like a faithful dog, always beside her when the others jeered or reproached, and always her strongest, most faithful, ally.

"The walking is better today," Sally called out, as they started. Max, true to his cause, promptly denied the truth of this statement. Josephine came to the rescue.

"Who cares what the walking is like, on an April day like this?" she challenged Max. "Isn't the air glorious? And won't it be lovely, across the bridge and along the river, as soon as the leaves are out?"

Max was escorting Josephine, and as they turned the bend in the road he pointed out to her the boundary lines of the estate. She asked him about the values of land in this neighbourhood and the possibilities of making such a place profitable.

"You sound like a business woman," was his comment. "Thinking of investing out here? You ought to get Sally to talk the place up to you. She estimates that by raising violets on the whole forty-two acres and selling them to the florists in town we can be millionaires the first year."

"Why not, at a dollar a bunch?" laughed Josephine. "And think how picturesque your property will look, all a soft purple in the sunshine!"

"Won't it!" agreed Max. "There, that's the house. I suppose you're prepared to fall into ecstasies with Sally on the door-step, and dance a reel with her down the hall."

"Of course I am. But what I really came for is the locked door."

"The door! I believe Sally's forgotten the subject of her dreams. We haven't a tool, any more than we had a week ago."

"Haven't we though?" shouted Bob, from the rear. He began to extract various implements from his pockets on the spot. Sally herself waved her shopping-bag. Jarvis Burnside pulled off his glove and began to search his own pockets.

"I think we'll effect an entrance," he declared, and produced a curious-looking skeleton key. "This will open any ordinary lock."

Josephine said everything Sally could have hoped for about the exterior of the house, and a few things more. It did seem a little less forlorn than before, the effect, perhaps, of the April sunshine, which lighted its red brick walls into warm and cheerful hues. Jarvis, within the door, removed his goggles and blinked approvingly at the fine colonial features of the wood-work, the lines of the stairway, and the proportions of the fireplace.