The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 24

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, 'Phemie!" chided Lyddy, with some asperity.

But Mr. Bray only laughed. "I guess I can play 'he-chaperon' for all the young men who come here," he said. "Your sister is only making fun, Lydia."

But Lyddy was more worried in secret about the Colesworth proposition than she was ready to acknowledge. She "just felt" that Harris Colesworth was the young man who had helped them the evening of the fire in the Trimble Avenue tenement.

"He found out our name, of course, and when he saw my advertis.e.m.e.nt he knew who it was. He may even have found out where we were going when we left for the country. In some way he could have done so," thought Lyddy, putting the young man's character before her mind in the very worst possible light.

"He is altogether too persistent. I hope he is as energetic in a better way--I hope he attends to his business as faithfully as he seems to attend to _our_ affairs," continued Lyddy, bitterly.

"I don't suppose this idea of his father coming up here into the hills is entirely an excuse for him to become familiar with--with _us_. But it looks very much like it. I--I wonder what kind of a man old Mr. Colesworth can be?"

Lyddy ruminated upon the letter she had received all that day and refused to answer it right away. Indeed, as far as she could see, the letter did not really need an answer. This Harris Colesworth spoke just as though he expected they would be only too glad to meet him on Sat.u.r.day with a rig.

"And, if it were anybody else, I suppose I would be glad to do so," Lyddy finally had to admit. "I suppose that 'beggars mustn't be choosers'; and if this Harris Colesworth isn't a perfectly proper young man to have about, father will very quickly attend to _his_ case."

Really, Lyddy Bray thought much more about the Colesworths than her sister and father thought she did. After being urged by 'Phemie several times she finally allowed her sister to reply to the letter, promising to have a carriage at the station for the train mentioned in Harris Colesworth's letter.

Of course, this meant hiring Lucas Pritchett and the buckboard. Lucas was at Hillcrest a good deal of the time that week. He got the garden plowed and the early potatoes planted, as well as some few other seeds which would not be hurt by the late frosts.

Mr. Bray got around very slowly; at first he could only walk up and down in the sun, or sit on the porch, well wrapped up.

Like most men born in the country and forced to be city dwellers for many years, John Bray had longed more deeply than he could easily express for country living. He appreciated the sights and sounds about him--the mellow, refreshing air that blew over the hills--the sunshine and the pattering rain which, on these early spring days, drifted alternately across the fields and woods.

With the girls he planned for the future. Some day they would have a cow. There was pasture on the farm for a dozen. And already Lyddy was studying poultry catalogs and trying to figure out a little spare money to purchase some eggs for hatching.

Of course they had no hens and at this time of the year the neighbors were likely to want their own setting hens for incubating purposes. Lyddy sounded Silas Trent, the mail-carrier, about this and Mr. Trent had an offer to make.

"I tell ye what it is," said the garrulous Silas, "the chicken business is a good business--if ye kin 'tend to it right. I tried it--went in deep for incubator, brooders, and the like; and it would have been all right if I didn't hafter be away from home so much durin' the day.

"My wife's got rheumatiz, and she can't git out to 'tend to little chicks, and for a few weeks they need a sight of attention--that's right. They'd oughter be fed every two hours, or so, and watched pretty close.

"So I had ter give it up last year, an' this year I ain't put an egg in my incubator.

"But if I could git 'em growed to scratchin' state--say, when they're broiler-size--I sartainly would like it. Tell ye what I'll do, Miss. I'll let ye have my incubator. It's 200-egg size. In course, ye don't hafter fill it first time if ye don't wanter. Put in a hundred eggs and see how ye come out."

"But how could I pay you?" asked Lyddy.

"I'll sell ye the incubator outright, if ye want to buy. And I'll take my pay in chickens when they're broiler-size--say three months old."

"What do you want for your incubator?" queried Lyddy, thoughtfully.

"Ten dollars. It's a good one. And I'll take a flock of twenty three-months-old chicks in pay for it--fifteen pullets and five c.o.c.kerels.

What kind of hens do you favor, Miss Bray?"

Lyddy told him the breed she had thought of purchasing--and the strain.

"Them's fine birds," declared Mr. Trent. "For heavy fowl they are good layers--and when ye butcher one of 'em for the table, ye got suthin' to eat. Now, you think my offer over. I'll stick to it. And I'll set the incubator up and show ye how to run it."

Lyddy was very anxious to venture into the chicken business--and here was a chance to do it cheaply. It was the five dollars for a hundred hatching eggs that made her hesitate.

But Aunt Jane had shown herself to be more than a little interested in the girls' venture at Hillcrest Farm, and when she expressed the keys of the garret chests and bureaus to Lyddy--so that the girl could get at the stores of linen left from the old doctor's day--she sent, too, twenty-five dollars.

"Keep it against emergencies. Pay it back when you can. And don't let's have no talk about it," was the old lady's characteristic note.

Lyddy was only doubtful as to whether this desire of hers to raise chickens was really "an emergency." But finally she decided to venture, and she wrote off for the eggs, sending the money by a post-office order, and Lucas brought up Silas Trent's incubator.

Friday night Trent drove up to Hillcrest and spent the evening with the Brays. He set the incubator up in the little washhouse, which opened directly off the back porch. It was a small, tight room, with only one window, and was easily heated by an oil-lamp. The lamp of the incubator itself would do the trick, Trent said.

He leveled the machine with great care, showed Lyddy all about the trays, the water, the regulation of heat, and gave her a lot of advice on various matters connected with the raising of chicks with the "wooden hen."

They were all vastly interested in the new vocation and the evening pa.s.sed pleasantly enough. Just before Trent went, he asked:

"By the way, what's Jud Spink doing up this way so much? I seen him again to-day when I came over the ridge. He was crossin' the back of your farm.

He didn't have no gun; and, at any rate, there ain't nothin' in season jest now--'nless it's crows," and the mail-carrier laughed.

"Spink?" asked Mr. Bray, who had not yet gone to bed. "Who is he?"

"Lemuel Judson Spink," explained 'Phemie. "He's a man who used to live here with grandfather when he was a boy--when _Spink_ was a boy; not grandfather."

"He's a rich man now," said Lyddy. "He owns a breakfast food."

"Diamond Grits," added 'Phemie.

"He's rich enough," grunted Trent. "Rich enough so't he can loaf around Bridleburg for months at a time. Been here now for some time."

"Why, could that be the Spink your Aunt Jane told me once made her an offer for the farm?" asked Mr. Bray, thoughtfully.

"For Hillcrest?" cried 'Phemie. "Oh, I hope not."

"Well, child, if she could sell the place it would be a good thing for Jane. She has none too much money."

"But why didn't she sell to him?" asked Lyddy, quite as anxious as her sister.

"He didn't offer her much, if anything, for it."

"Ain't that like Jud?" cackled Trent. "He is allus grouching about the old doctor for being as tight as the bark to a tree; but when it comes to a bargain, Jud Spink will wring yer nose ev'ry time--if he can. Glad Mis' Hammon' didn't sell to him."

"Perhaps he didn't want Hillcrest very much," said Mr. Bray, quietly.

"He don't want nothin' 'nless it's cheap," declared Trent. "He's picked up some mortgage notes, and the like, on property he thinks he can foreclose on. Got a jedgment against the Widder Harrison's little place over the ridge, I understand. But Jud Spink wouldn't pay more'n ha'f price for a gold eagle. He'd claim 'twas second-hand, if it warn't fresh from the mint," and the mail-carrier went off, chuckling over his own joke.

Both Lyddy and 'Phemie forgot, however, about the curious actions of Mr.

Spink, or his desire to buy Hillcrest, in their interest in the coming of the only people who had, thus far, answered their advertis.e.m.e.nt for boarders.

Lucas met the 10:14 train on Sat.u.r.day morning, and before noon he drove into the side yard with an old gentleman and a young man on the rear seat of the buckboard.

Before this the two girls, working hard, had swept and garnished the whole lower floor of the big farmhouse, save the east wing, which was locked.

Indeed, Lyddy had never ventured into the old doctor's suite of offices, for she couldn't find the key.