SHEPHERD SWEETINGS
That was the end of August. Cousin Roxy heartily approved of the plan, and
said no doubt the fire down at Greenacres had been a direct dispensation
of Providence.
"You were all of you settling down into a rut before it happened, and the
old place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know you couldn't have
afforded it, Jerry, if it hadn't been for the fire insurance money coming
in so handy like. Now, you'll all move back the first part of the winter,
with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the wind to whistle
through. Jean will be started off on her path of glory, and I don't think
Kit's a mite too young to be fluttering her wings a bit. Land alive,
Elizabeth, you ought to be so thankful that you've got children with any
get up and get to them in this day and age. The Judge and I were saying
just the other night it seems as if most of the young folks up around
here haven't got any pluck or initiative at all. They're born to feel that
they're heirs of grace, and most of them are sure of having a farm or
wood-lot in their own right, sooner or later."
So the steamer trunk stood open most of the time, and Kit prepared for her
pilgrimage to Delphi. Mr. Robbins was inclined to take it as rather a good
joke on the Dean, but the mother bird could not get over a certain little
feeling of conscience in the matter, perhaps because she could remember
her own visit with her uncle and aunt, and still retained a certain
feeling of veneration for the two old people. But the rest of the family
pinned its faith on Kit's persuasive adaptability.
Helen and Doris, especially, felt that, if anything, the Robbins family
was conferring a high favor on the "Oracle of Delphi." Kit had always been
the starter and organizer ever since they could remember, and Helen
especially dreaded going back to school without her.
"Piney and Sally will go over with you," Kit told her, cheerfully, "and
just think of the wonderful letters you'll have from me, Helenita. Miss
Cogswell says that I always shine best when I wield the pen of a ready
writer, and I'll tell you all the news of Hope College. By the way, mother
told me last night that she's pretty sure in those little family colleges
they run a 'prep' department, which takes in the last two years of high
school. Perhaps I could persuade them that the great-grandniece of Cassius
Cato would be a deserving object of their consideration. Don't forget to
pack my skates, Helen. I loaned them to you last, and they're hanging in
your closet."
Cousin Roxy decided to have a farewell party, two nights before Kit left,
and the girls were delighted. Any party launched by Cousin Roxy promised
novelty and excitement.
A big dancing platform was built on the lawn under the great elms, and
rows of Japanese lanterns hung like glowworms all among the branches.
Cady Graves was there with his violin, and called out for the dancing, but
Jean took the piano between times in the house, and the girls and boys
gathered around her, Billie leading in the old college songs they all knew
best.
It really seemed as though there were a special moon hung up in the August
sky just for the occasion. It was so richly luminous, and as Doris said,
so near you. The children had been playing forfeits, and in Gilead you
played games at parties until you were at least twenty. Piney Haddock was
giving out the forfeits, sitting blindfolded on a chair, while Jean held
them over her head, calling out with each one:
"Heavy, heavy hangs over your head,
What shall the owner do to redeem it?"
Whereupon Piney would have to respond interestedly,
"Fine or superfine?"
It happened that Kit's little turquoise forget-me-not ring was the
particular forfeit dangling over Piney's head, when Billie stuck his head
in at the open window with a couple of other boys, and Piney lifted her
chin at the sound of his voice.
"She must catch Billie Ellis, and bring him back to kneel at my feet, and
hand over his forfeit."
Billie had evaded this, escaping with Banty Herrick, and the big Peckham
boy, to show them his Belgian hares. Billie never had liked kissing games,
and one of the Judge's favorite stories was how he had tried to give
Billie a birthday party once, when he was seven years old. Most of the
guests were the Judge's friends, with a small scattering of youngsters,
and it appeared that just as the Judge had lined up some sweet-faced old
ladies to kiss Billie, Billie had been found missing. Later he was
located, clad only in overalls, leading the whole string of other children
to a ruined sawmill that stood on a winding stream below the house.
So to-night the spirit of adversity whirled him about from the driveway,
and he sped down the long lane with Kit in fast pursuit. Overhead the
mulberry trees met in a leafy arcade, and out of the hazel thicket a
whippoorwill called, flying low down the lane after the two darting forms,
as if it were trying to find out what the excitement was about at that
time of night. At the turn of the lane there were three apple trees, early
Shepherd Sweetings, and here Billie slipped down and lay breathing
heavily, his hands hunting for windfalls in the tall grass. Kit passed him
by, speeding the full length of the lane, and bringing up at the end of
the log-run, before the old mill.
"Billie Ellis, you come out of there," she called. "I've got my slippers
wet already chasing after you, and I'm not going to climb all over those
old timbers hunting for you."
Only the whippoorwill answered, calling now from a clump of elderberry
bushes close by the water's edge, and while she stood listening, there was
the dull splash in the pond where some big bullfrog had taken alarm at her
coming.
Billie gathered a goodly supply of apples, and stole after her in the
shadows.
"Well, I'm not going to stay out here all night waiting for you," Kit
said, decisively, addressing the wide dark entrance to the mill, when all
at once there came his voice, directly behind her shoulder.
"Why didn't you try to catch me? I was resting back under the apple tree.
Let's sit down over the falls and eat some. If Piney's waiting for me to
kneel in front of her, she'll wait all night. I'd like to see myself
kneeling in front of a girl!"
The words had hardly left his lips, before Kit played an old-time
schoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him about
with an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although they were just
about of an age, she was taller and stronger, and Billie shook himself
ruefully when he rose.
"You always catch a fellow off guard," he said.
"Do you good," she retorted serenely. "Ever since you went away to school,
you've had a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I don't know what will
become of you after I've gone away, and there's no one who really knows
how to make you behave. Aren't these apples bully though? Do you suppose
they'll mind very much if we stay just a few minutes? Don't you love this
old pond, Billie? Remember your flat-bottomed boat that always leaked when
we used to go fishing in it. How I hated to take turns bailing it out."
Billie dipped into his inner coat pocket and drew forth a little leather
bill fold, somewhat sheepishly.
"I've got a snap shot here that I wanted you to take out with you. It's
funny you just happened to speak about it. That hat nearly covered your
face, but anybody could tell it was you, Kit. It was the day we got caught
in the rain, when we were out after pickerel, and when the sun came out,
Ben came along, and snapped us with my camera."
Kit took the little photograph in her hand. There was plenty of light to
see it by. The little old, red, flat-bottomed boat out in midstream, with
Billie standing, barelegged to his knees, straddling from the stem seat to
the rear middle one, while he strove persuasively with a big pickerel. Kit
was half kneeling in the other end of the boat, bailing for dear life,
dressed in an old middy and wash skirt, with a boy's farm hat pulled low
over her eyes.
"Wouldn't it be strange, Billie, if either of us were famous some day,"
she said, thoughtfully, "and this picture would just be priceless? You
know, that's one thing awfully nice about us two. We've always appreciated
each other so much. I know you're going to be somebody special. Maybe it
will just be in natural history, but I wish it were exploring, or
something awfully adventurous."
Billie laughed comfortably, perching himself just below her on the heavy
timbers of the old sluice gate.
"Grandfather says I have a great responsibility on my shoulders, because
I'm the last of the Ellis family. He says there's always been an Ellis in
the State Legislature at Hartford, ever since there was a Legislature,
and just as soon as I'm old enough, he's going to set me to reading law.
Gee, I wish he wouldn't. Think of being shut up all day long in an
office."
Far down the lane they heard the others calling them and Kit sprang up,
scattering the apples as she did so.
"I'd forgotten all about the party," she exclaimed. "Anyway, I'm glad we
had a chance to talk, because I won't see you again before I leave. If I
were you, I'd just read and study everything I could lay my hands on about
entymology, all the time I was in school, and then when the Judge sees
that you're in dead earnest about it, he'll let you go on if Cousin Roxy
says so. I heard Dad say that Mr. Howard knew more about insects than any
man he'd ever met, and that he was considered one of the coming experts in
government work. Why, Billie, it's just like a great surgeon or doctor,
who is able to discover a certain germ that can be used as a toxin, only
you doctor Mother Nature."
"I know," Billie agreed, enthusiastically. "There was some fellow who
discovered the cause of the wheat blight in the south a few years ago, and
somebody else is trying to land whatever is killing our chestnuts off.
Kit, you're a bully pal. If it wasn't for you, I don't know whether I'd
ever have seen a chance to win out or not, but you do spur a fellow on."
Kit laughed, and tagged him on the shoulder as she broke into a run.
"You're it," she cried. "Don't give any one else the credit for starting
you off in the way you know you ought to go. Just take a good deep breath
and race for it."