CHAPTER I

E-text prepared by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy, Emmy, and the Project

Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (www.pgdp.net)

KIT OF GREENACRE FARM

by

IZOLA FORRESTER

The World Syndicate Publishing Co.

Cleveland, O. New York, N.Y.

George W. Jacobs & Company

1919

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. "NO TRESPASSING"

II. MRS. GORHAM SMELLS SMOKE

III. KIT RISES TO PROPHESY

IV. THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

V. SHEPHERD SWEETINGS

VI. EXPECTING "KIT"

VII. PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

VIII. AT THE SIGN OF THE MUMMY

IX. ALL SANDY'S FAULT

X. THE DEAN'S OUTPOSTS

XI. "KEEP OUT"

XII. KIT LOCATES A "FOUNDER"

XIII. ENTER THE ROYAL MUMMIES

XIV. IN HONOR OF MARCELLE

XV. THE FAMILY ADVISES

XVI. SHOPPING FOR SHAKESPEARE

XVII. HOPE'S PRIMROSE PATH

XVIII. STANLEY APOLOGIZES

XIX. THE COURT OF APPEAL

XX. HOGS AND HORACE

XXI. THE CIRCLE OF RA

XXII. HEADED FOR GILEAD

XXIII. THE DEAN SEES THE STAR

XXIV. THE TENTS OF GREENACRES

XXV. COAXING THE WILDERNESS

XXVI. PAYING GUESTS

XXVII. HELENITA'S SONG-BIRD

XXVIII. STANLEY PAYS AN OLD SCORE

XXIX. KIT GIVES HER BLESSING

XXX. FACING REALITY

CHAPTER I

"NO TRESPASSING"

Kit was on lookout duty, and had been for the past hour and a half. The

cupola room, with its six windows, commanded a panoramic view of the

countryside, and from here she had done sentry duty over the huckleberry

patch.

It lay to the northeast of the house, a great, rambling, rocky, ten acre

lot that straggled unevenly from the wood road down to the river. To the

casual onlooker, it seemed just a patch of underbrush. There were

half-grown birches all over it, and now and then a little dwarf spruce

tree or cluster of hazel bushes. But to the girls of Greenacres, that ten

acre lot represented a treasure trove in the month of August when

huckleberries and blueberries were ripe. Shad said knowing the proper time

to pick huckleberries was just born in one, so the girls had guarded the

old pasture from any marauding youngsters or wayside peddlers.

"You've got to keep a good eye out for them this year," Shad warned them.

"Last year wasn't good for huckleberries, apples or nuts, but this is

going to be a regular jubilee harvest. Them bushes up there are hanging so

full that you can put up quarts and quarts and quarts of them and send

huckleberry pies to the heathen all winter if you want to."

And he had likewise warned them that that particular berry patch had been

famous throughout the countryside ever since the days when Greenacres had

belonged to the Trowbridges. Several times when it had happened to be a

good year for the huckleberry crop, raiders had swept down and culled the

best of the harvest. Not from around the near-by villages had they come,

but from the small towns, ten or fifteen miles away.

"Them mill boys and girls," Shad declared, "just think that the Lord grows

things in the country for anybody to come along and pick. They don't pay

no more attention to a 'No Trespassing' sign than they would to a

woodchuck's tracks. The only thing to do is watch, and when you see 'em

turn in through the bars off the main road, you come down and let me know,

and telephone over for Hannibal Hicks to come and ketch 'em. Hannibal

ain't doin' nothin' to earn his fifteen dollars a year as constable 'round

here, and we ought to help him out if we can."

So to-day, it was Kit's turn to watch the huckleberry patch from the

cupola room, and along towards three o'clock she beheld a trig-looking

red-wheeled, black-bodied wagon, drawn unmistakably by a livery horse,

pull up at the pasture bars, and its driver calmly and shamelessly hitch

there. He took out of the wagon not a burlap bag, but a tan leather hand

bag of generous size, and also something else that looked like a capacious

box with a handle to it.

"Camouflage," said Kit to herself, scornfully. "He's going to fill them

with our berries, and then make believe he's selling books."

Down-stairs she sped with the news. Doris was out at the barn negotiating

peace terms with a half-grown calf that she had been trying to tame for

days, and which still persisted in butting its head every time she came

near it with friendly overtures. Jean and Helen had gone up to Norwich

with Mrs. Robbins for the day, and her father was out in the apple orchard

with Philemon Weaver, spraying the trees against the attacks of the gypsy

moths. Leastwise, Philemon held to spraying, but Mr. Robbins was anxious

to experiment with some of the newer methods advocated by the government.

All unconscious of Kit's intentions or Shad's eagerness to abet them, the

two rambled off towards the upland orchards. Kit had started Shad after

the trespasser, while she went back to telephone to Mr. Hicks. The very

last thing she had said to Shad was to put the vandal in the corn-crib and

stand guard over him until Mr. Hicks came.

"Don't you worry one bit, Miss Kit," the constable of Gilead Township

assured her over the wire. "I'll be there in my car in less than twenty

minutes. You folks ain't the only ones that's suffering this year from

fruit thieves, and it's time we taught these high fliers from town that

they can't light anywhere they like and pick what they like. I'll take him

right down to the judge this afternoon."

Kit sat by the open window and fanned herself with a feeling of triumphant

indignation. If Jean or Helen had been home, she knew perfectly well they

would have been soft-hearted and lenient, but every berry on every bush

was precious to Kit, and she felt that now was the appointed hour, as

Cousin Roxy would have said.

Inside of a few minutes, Shad came back, perspiring and red faced, but

filled with unholy glee. He dipped a tin bucket into the water pail.

"I've got him," he said, happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and

it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips

through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was

bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to

tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed

riotously at the recollection. "Did you call up Han Hicks?"

Kit nodded, looking out at the corn-crib. The midsummer sun beat down upon

it pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the barn.

"Do you suppose he'll survive, Shad? I'll bet a cookie it's a hundred and

six inside there."

"Do him good," retorted Shad. "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had

to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky

as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt on

him."

"Oh, Shad," exclaimed Kit. "I didn't want you to touch him, you know."

"I didn't," Shad laughed. "I just gave him a bit of sound scripture

reasoning, aided by fist persuasion when he was inclined to put up an

argument. I'll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and takes him

quietly off our hands. I reckon he didn't think we had any majesty of the

law here in Gilead."

Kit looked after his retreating figure somewhat dubiously. It was one

thing to act on the impulse of the moment and quite another to face the

consequences. Now that the prisoner was safe in the corn-crib, she

wondered somewhat uneasily just what her father would say when he found

out what she had done to protect the berry patch. But just now he was safe

in the upper orchard with old Mr. Weaver, deep in apple culture, and she

thought she could get rid of the trespasser before he returned.

Mrs. Gorham was in the kitchen putting up peaches. Her voice came with

droning, old-fashioned sweetness through the screen door.

"When I can read my title dear

To mansions in the skies,

I'll bid farewell to every fear,

And wipe my weeping eyes."

Kit slipped around the side drive behind the house out to the hill road.

Mr. Hicks would have to come from Gilead Green in this direction, and here

she sat on one of the high entrance posts, waiting and cogitating.

The woodbine that clambered over the two high, white posts was still

green, but scrambling along the ground were wild blackberry runners just

turning a rich brown crimson.

The minutes passed and still Mr. Hicks failed to appear. If Kit could have

visualized his journey hither, she might have beheld him, lingering here

and there along the country roads, stopping to tell the news to any

neighbor who might be working out his road tax in the lull of the season

between haying and harvest time. Beside him sat Elvira, his youngest,

drinking in every word with tense appreciation of the novelty. It was the

first chance Mr. Hicks had had to make an arrest during his term of

office, and as a special test and reward of diligence, Elvira had been

permitted to come along and behold the climax with her own eyes. But the

twenty minutes stretched out into nearly an hour's time and more, and

Kit's heart sank when she beheld her father strolling leisurely down the

orchard path, just as Mr. Hicks hove in sight.

Mr. Weaver hobbled beside him, smiling contentedly.

"Well, I guess we've got 'em licked this time, Jerry," he chuckled. "If

there's a bug or a moth that can stand that leetle dose of mine, I'll eat

the whole apple crop myself."

"Still, I'll feel better satisfied when Howard gets here, and gives an

expert opinion," Mr. Robbins rejoined. "He wrote he expected to be here

to-day without fail."

"Well, of course you're entitled to your opinion, Jerry," Mr. Weaver

replied doubtfully. "But I never did set any store at all by these here

government chaps with their little satchels and tree doctor books. I'd

just as soon walk up to an apple tree and hand it a blue pill or a shin

plaster."

Kit slid hastily down from the post as Mr. Hicks' black and white horse

turned in from the road.

"Hello," he called out, cheerily. "How be you, Jerry? Howdy, Philemon?

Miss Kit here tells me you've been harboring a fruit thief, and you've

caught him."

Kit's cheeks were bright red as she laid one hand on her father's

shoulder.

"Shad's got him right over in the corn-crib, Mr. Hicks. I haven't told

father yet, because it might worry him. It isn't anything at all, Dad,"

she added, hurriedly. "We girls have been keeping a watch on the berry

patch, you know, and to-day it was my turn to stand guard up in the

cupola. I just happened to see somebody over there after the berries, so I

told Shad to go and get him, and I called up Mr. Hicks."

Mr. Robbins shook his head with a little smile.

"I'm afraid Kit has been overzealous, Hannibal," he said. "I don't know

anything about this, but we'll go over to the corn-crib and find out what

it's all about."

Kit and Evie secured a good point of vantage up on the porch while the

others skirted around the garden over to the old corn-crib where Shad

stood sentinel duty.

"My, I like your place over here," Evie exclaimed, wistfully. "You've got

so many ornaments out-of-doors. Ma says she can't even grow a nasturtium

on our place without the hens scratching it up."

Kit nodded, but could not answer. Already she had what Cynthy Allen called

a "premonition" that all was not as it should be at the corn-crib. She saw

Shad stealthily and cautiously put back the wide wooden bars that held the

door, then Mr. Hicks, fully on the defensive with a stout hickory cane

held in readiness for any unseemly onslaught on the part of the culprit,

advanced into the corn-crib. Evie drew closer, her little freckled face

full of curiosity.

"Ain't Pop brave?" she whispered, "and he never made but two arrests

before in all his life. One was over at Miss Hornaby's when she wouldn't

let Minnie and Myron go to school 'cause their shoes were all out on the

ground, and the other time he got that French weaver over at Beacon Hill

for selling cider."

Still Kit had no answer, for over at the corn-crib she beheld the

strangest scene. Out stepped the prisoner as fearlessly and blithely as

possible, spoke to her father, and the two of them instantly clasped

hands, while Shad, Mr. Hicks and Philemon stared with all their might. The

next the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, and

Kit could see the stranger was regaling her father with a humorous view of

the whole affair. Shad tried to signal to her behind his back some

mysterious warning, and even Mr. Hicks looked jocular.

Kit leaned both hands on the railing, and stared hard at the trespasser.

He was a young man, dressed in a light gray suit with high sport boots. He

was, as Mrs. Gorham expressed it later, "light complected" and tanned so

deeply that his blonde, curly hair seemed even lighter. He lifted his hat

to Kit, with one foot on the lower step, while Mr. Robbins called up:

"Mr. Howard, my dear, our fruit expert from Washington, whom I was

expecting."

And Kit bowed, blushing furiously and wishing with all her heart she might

have silenced Evie's audible and disappointed ejaculation:

"Didn't he hook huckleberries after all?"