The Camerons of Highboro Part 1

The Camerons of Highboro.

by Beth B. Gilchrist.

CHAPTER I

ELLIOTT PLANS AND FATE DISPOSES

Now and then the accustomed world turns a somersault; one day it faces you with familiar features, the next it wears a quite unrecognizable countenance. The experience is, of course, nothing new, though it is to be doubted whether it was ever staged so dramatically and on so vast a scale as during the past four years. And no one to whom it happens is ever the same afterward.

Elliott Cameron was not a refugee. She did not trudge Flemish roads with the pitiful salvage of her fortunes on her back, nor was she turned out of a cottage in Poland with only a sackful of her household treasures. Nevertheless, American girl though she was, she had to be evacuated from her house of life, the house she had been building through sixteen petted, autocratic years. This is the story of that evacuation.

It was made, for all the world, like any Pole's or Serbian's or Belgian's; material valuables she let pa.s.s with glorious carelessness, as they left the silver spoons in order to salvage some sentimental trifle like a baby-shoe or old love-letters. Elliott took the closing of her home as she had taken the disposal of the big car, cheerfully enough, but she could not leave behind some absurd little tricks of thought that she had always indulged in. She was as strange to the road as any Picardy peasant and as bewildered, with--shall I say it?--considerably less pluck and spirit than some of them, when the landmarks she had lived by were swept away. But they, you see, had a dim notion of what was happening to them. Elliott had none. She didn't even know that she was being evacuated. She knew only that ways which had always worked before had mysteriously ceased working, that prejudices and preoccupations and habits of mind and action, which she had spent her life in acc.u.mulating, she must now say good-by to, and that the war, instead of being across the sea, a thing one's friends and cousins sailed away to, had unaccountably got right into America itself and was interfering to an unreasonable extent in affairs that were none of its business.

Father came home one night from a week's absence and said, as he unfolded his napkin, "Well, chicken, I'm going to France."

They were alone at dinner. Miss Reynolds, the housekeeper, was dining out with friends, as she sometimes did; nights that, though they both liked Miss Reynolds, father and daughter checked with a red mark.

"To France?" A little thrill p.r.i.c.ked the girl's spine as she questioned. "Is it Red Cross?"

"Not this time. An investigation for the government. It may, probably will, take months. The government wants a thorough job done. Uncle Samuel thinks your ancient parent competent to hold up one end of the thing."

"Stop!" Elliott's soft order commandeered all her dimples.

"I won't have you maligning my father, you naughty man! Ancient parent, indeed! That's splendid, isn't it?"

"I rather like it. I was hoping it would strike you the same way."

"When do you go?"

"As soon as I can get my affairs in shape--I could leave to-morrow, if I had to. Probably I shall be off in a week or ten days."

"I suppose the government didn't say anything about my investigating something, too?"

"Now you mention it, I do not recollect that the subject came up."

She shook her head reprovingly, "That _was_ an omission! However, I think I'll go as your secretary."

Mr. Cameron smiled across the table. How pretty she was, how daintily arch in her sweetness! "That arrangement would be entirely satisfactory to me, my dear, but I am not taking a secretary. I shall get one over there, when I need one."

"But what can I go as?" pursued the girl. "I'd like to go as something."

Heavens! she looked as though she meant it! "I'm afraid you can't go, Lot, this time."

She lifted cajoling eyes. "But I want to. Oh, _I_ know! I can go to school in Paris."

Her little air of having settled the matter left him smiling but serious. "France has mouths enough to feed without one extra school-girl's, chicken."

"I don't eat much. Are you afraid of submarines?"

"For you, yes."

"I'm not. Daddies dear, _mayn't_ I go? I'd love to be near you."

"Positively, my love, you may not."

She drew down the corners of her mouth and went through a bewitching imitation of wiping tears out of her eyes. But she wasn't really disappointed. She had been fairly certain in advance of what the verdict would be. There had been a bare chance, of something different--that was all, and it didn't pay to let chances, even the barest, go by default. So she crumbled her warbread and remarked thoughtfully, "I suppose I can stay at home, but it won't be very exciting."

Her father seemed to find his next words hard to say. "I had a notion we might close the house. It is rather expensive to keep up; not much point in doing so just for one, is there? In going to France I shall give my services."

"Of course. But the house--" The delicate brows lifted. "What were you thinking of doing with me?"

"Dumping you on the corner. What else?" The two laughed together as at a good joke. But there was a tightening in the man's throat. He wondered how soon, after next week, he would again be sitting at table opposite that vivacious young face.

"Seriously, Lot, I met Bob in Washington. He was there on conservation business. When he heard what I was contemplating, he asked you up to Highboro. Said Jessica and he would be delighted to have you visit them for a year. They're generous souls. It struck me as a good plan.

Your uncle is a fine man, and I have always admired his wife. I've never seen as much of her as I'd have liked. What do you say to the idea?"

"Um-m-m." Elliott did not commit herself. "Uncle Bob and Aunt Jessica are very nice, but I don't know them."

"House full of boys and girls. You won't be lonely."

The piquant nose wrinkled mischievously. "That would never do. I like my own way too well."

He laughed. "And you generally manage to get it by hook or by crook!"

"I? You malign me. You _give_ it to me because you like me."

How adorably pretty she looked!

He laughed again. "You've got your old dad there, all right. Yes, yes, you've got him there!"

"Didn't I tell you just now that you mustn't call my father old?"

"So you did! So you did! Well, well, the truth will out now and then, you know. _Could_ you inveigle Jane into giving us more b.u.t.ter?--By the way, here's a letter from Jessica. I found it in the stack on my desk to-night. Better read it before you say no."

"Oh, I will," Elliott received the letter without enthusiasm. "Very good of her, I'm sure. I'll write and thank her to-morrow; but I think I'll go to Aunt Nell's."

"Just as you say. You know Elinor better. But I rather incline to Bob and Jess. There is something to be said for variety, Lot."

"Yes, but a year is so long. Why, Father Cameron, a year is three hundred and sixty-five whole days long and I don't know how many hours and minutes and--and seconds. The seconds are awful! Daddles darling, I never could support life away from you in a perfectly strange family for all those interminable seconds!"

"Your own cousins, chicken; and they wouldn't seem strange long. I've a notion they'd help make time hustle. Better read the letter. It's a good letter."

"I will--when I don't have you to talk to. What's the matter?"

"Bless me, I forgot to tell Miss Reynolds! Nell's coming to-night.

Wired half an hour ago."