The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors Part 5

A tale was told in the neighborhood that once Miss Ella had neglected or forgotten to contradict Miss Louise on some vital subject such as whether it was or was not going to rain, and Miss Louise was so uneasy that she sent post haste for Dr. Allison.

"I was afraid it was a stroke or something," whimpered Miss Louise. She worried herself into a sick headache before the doctor arrived, and then the fat one had to go to bed and take the medicine and Miss Ella was forced to repent of her misbehavior by nursing her sister. Dr.

Allison left strict injunctions that she was not to worry her poor sister again by agreeing with her.

Grantly was filled with fine old furniture and all kinds of curios. A great-uncle had been a traveler in the Orient and many were the teakwood cabinets and jade ornaments; curious j.a.panese prints; Chinese embroidered fans and screens; bronze Buddhas; rare vases with inlaid flowers and birds; Toby jugs and lacquered teapots; quaint armor, swords and daggers; everything in fact that might be found in an old house that a traveler had once called home.

"Does Tempy dust all these beautiful things?" asked Mrs. Carter, who was quite carried away by the wonders in her landladies' home.

"Bless you, no! She doesn't dare to touch a one of them," laughed Miss Louise. "Ella dusts the high ones, I dust the low." She said it quite with the air of the song:

"You take the high road, I'll take the low."

With all of its beauties, Grantly was undergoing a process of slow decay. Lack of paint and neglected leaks were getting in their insidious work. There never seemed to be money enough for the owners to afford the needed repairs, and if there ever was any money at all, they could never come to an agreement on which repairs were the most urgent.

The overseer's house was suffering in the same way. A kind of dry rot had attacked portions of it. Weather-boarding was so loose in places that Bobby could pull it off. Steps groaned and floors creaked; shutters had lost fastenings; putty had dropped from the window panes, which were insecurely held in place with tacks; mop-boarding and floors had parted company many years before. All of these little details had escaped the inexperienced eyes of Douglas and Helen when they decided that this was the place of all others to spend the winter. Dr. Wright, who had accompanied them, had been more noticing, but had wisely decided to say nothing, as he wanted his patient to become interested in tinkering at small jobs, and he could see that this little farm would keep Mr. Carter busy.

The ladies of Grantly had promised to have everything in order before the tenants should arrive, but disagreeing on which workman they should employ, the time had slipped by and nothing had been done.

The pump to the well had lost its sucker and had to be primed before water could be got. This meant that the person who pumped must remember to fill a can of water and leave it for the next pumper. The yard gate shut with difficulty and opened with more. The stovepipe in the kitchen had a large hole in one side and if the wind shifted, so did the smoke, seeking an outlet through the nearest aperture.

All of these disagreeable features dawned gradually on our girls. They saw nothing to be complained of in those rare October days. Accustomed as they had become to camp life, they made light of any inconveniences.

Their father was happy and getting better every day, so any small hardships that might fall to their share were to be lightly borne.

CHAPTER V.

VALHALLA

That was the name Nan gave to the little winter home.

"Valhalla is the place where the dead warriors go, and that is what we all of us are after the day's work is done."

Commuting at first was very tiring for both Nan and Lucy. Catching trains was hard on their nerves and the trip seemed interminable, but in a few weeks they fell into the att.i.tude of mind of all commuters and just accepted it as part of the daily routine. It became no more irksome than doing one's hair or brushing one's teeth.

The girls made many friends on the train and before the winter was over really enjoyed the time spent going to and from school. Billy Sutton was Nan's devoted cavalier. He managed, if possible, to sit by her and together they would study. He helped her with her mathematics, and she, quick at languages, would correct his French exercises. Those were sad mornings for Billy when the seat by Nan was taken before they reached Preston. He cursed his luck that Preston should not have been beyond Grantly instead of a station nearer to town. Coming home he always saw to it that no "fresh kid" got ahead of him in the choice of seats. He would get to the station ahead of time and watch with eagle eye for Nan's sedate little figure; then he would pounce on her like a veritable eagle and possess himself of her books and parcels. Thereafter no power could have separated him from her short of the brakeman who cruelly called out: "P-errr-reston!"

Billy's younger sister Mag was of great a.s.sistance to her big brother in his manoeuvres. She struck up a warm friendship with Lucy, and since the two younger girls were together, what more natural than that he and Nan should be the same?

"How would you like me to run you over to see Lucy for a while this afternoon?" he would ask in the lordly and nonchalant manner of big brothers, and Mag would be duly grateful, all the time laughing in her sleeve, as is the way with small sisters.

The only person who ever got ahead of Billy on the homeward voyage was Count de Lestis. That man of the world with lordly condescension permitted Billy to carry all the books and parcels and then quietly appropriated the seat by Nan. That was hard enough, but what was harder was to see how Nan dimpled under the compliments the count paid her, and how gaily she laughed at his wit, and how easily she held her own in the very interesting conversation into which they plunged. Billy, boiling and raging, could not help catching bits of it. Actually Nan was quoting poetry to the handsome foreigner. With wonder her schoolboy friend heard her telling the count of how she had gone up in an aeroplane the preceding summer and what her sensations were. She had never told him all these things.

"And why is it you like so much to fly?" the count asked. "Is it merely the physical sensation?"

"Oh no, there is something else. I'll tell you a little bit of poetry I learned the other day from a magazine. That is the way I feel, somehow:

"'Well, good-by! We're going!

Where?

Why there is no knowing Where!

We've grown tired, we don't know why, Of our section of the sky, Of our little patch of air, And we're going, going!

Where?

"'Who would ever stop to care?-- Far off land or farther sea Where our feet again are free, We shall fare all unafraid Where no trail or furrow's made-- Where there's room enough, room enough, room enough for laughter!

And we'll find our Land o' Dreaming at a long day's close, We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--perhaps, who knows?

To-morrow--or the next day--or maybe the day after!

"'So good-by! We're going!

Why?

O, there is no knowing Why!

Something's singing in our veins, Something that no book explains.

There's no magic in your air!

And we're going, going!

Where?

"'Where there's magic and to spare!

So we break our chains and go.

Life? What is it but to know Southern cross and Pleiades, Sunny lands and windy seas; Where there's time enough, time enough, time enough for laughter!

We'll find our Land o' Dreaming, so away! Away!

We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--or at least we may-- Tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe the day after!'"

Nan Carter was a very charming girl at any time, but Nan Carter reciting poetry was irresistible. So the count found her. Her eyes looked more like forest pools than ever and the trembling Billy was very much afraid the handsome n.o.bleman was going to fall into said pools. He gritted his teeth with the determination to be on the spot ready to pull him out by his aristocratic and well-shod heels if he should take such a tumble.

"Ah, you have the wanderl.u.s.t, too! I'd like to go with you to your Land o' Dreaming." Fortunately Billy did not hear this remark, as the brakeman opened the door at this juncture and shouted the name of a station.

For once Billy was glad when the brakeman finally called: "P-err-reston!" If he had to get out, so had the hated count. He never had taken as much of a fancy to de Lestis as the other members of the neighborhood had, anyhow, and now he knew why he had never liked him.

"He is a selfish, arrogant foreigner," he raged on in his boyish way.

"He might have let me sit with Nan part of the way, anyhow."

Nan went home quite pleased with the interesting conversation she had had on the train. The count was rapidly becoming a warm friend of the family. Everybody liked him but Lucy, and she had no especial reason for disliking him.

"He's got no time for me and I guess that's the reason," she said when questioned. "Mag doesn't cotton to him much, either."

"Well, I should think you would be glad for Father to have somebody to talk to," said Helen. "You and Mag are too young to have much in common with a grown-up gentleman."

"Pooh, Miss Grandmother! I'm most as old as Nan and he cottons to her for fair. I know why he doesn't think much of Mag and me--it is because he knows we know he is nothing but a Dutchman."

"Dutchman! Nonsense! Dutchmen proper come from Holland and Count de Lestis is a Hungarian."

"Well, he can talk Dutch like a Prussian, anyhow. You oughter hear him jabbering with that German family that live over near Preston. He brings old Mr. Blitz newspapers all the time and they laugh and laugh over jokes in them; at least, they must be jokes to make them laugh so."

"Of course the count speaks German. He speaks a great many languages,"

declared Helen with the dignified air that she thought necessary to a.s.sume when she and Lucy got in a discussion.

"Well, what's the reason he ain't fighting for his country? Tell me that! Mag says that Billy says that if his country was at war you wouldn't catch him buying farms in strange countries, like this de Lestis. He says he'd be in the fight, if he couldn't do anything but beat a drum."