THE DEAN'S OUTPOSTS
The first budget of family letters arrived the following week. Kit fairly
pounced on them when the mail carrier came up the walk, for she had been
watching anxiously at each delivery. After all, it was the first time she
had been away from home, and after the first excitement and novelty had
worn off, her heart, she told herself laughingly, "harked back to Dixie."
It seemed the Dean had written to her father on the night of her arrival,
and this was a surprise to Kit.
"It is a great relief to us all to know that you have made such a
favorable impression," Mr. Bobbins' letter read. "After all, it was
somewhat of an experiment, and I confess that I was rather sceptical of
the result, knowing the Dean as I do. Try to adapt yourself as much as
possible to the home conditions there, Kit. You know, we have always
lived somewhat of an easy-going life so far as discipline and set routine
go, and consequently you girls have been brought up in a happy-go-lucky
fashion. Do you remember what Emerson had inscribed over his study door?
'Whim.' The old Concord philosopher and Thoreau have been close pals of
mine, and I fear that I adopted at an early age the same motto. Be
considerate of all the Dean's notions, and make yourself as useful and
lovable as you can while you are with them, dear.
"The rebuilding of the house is going along splendidly, and we hope to
have our Christmas there. I have followed the old plan, but with some
improvements, I think, putting in a good furnace, and enlarging the
dining-room and kitchen. The veranda also will extend around three sides
of the house instead of two, and we are building the supports of field
stone. There will be an outdoor fireplace on the west side also, and I
know you will enjoy this."
Enjoy it? Kit stared ahead of her at the shady lawn. Miss Daphne was
bending over nasturtium beds gathering the black seeds, but instead, Kit
saw in a vision ahead a great hickory fire burning in the outdoor veranda
fireplace with the mystery of the night crooning low over the sleeping
hills. Her mother's letter came next. Kit read it with delight. She could
tell just exactly the mood the mother bird was in when she wrote, just how
her conscience pricked her for having been a party to Kit's plan.
"Of course, while the Dean's letter was very nice, still I am sure he felt
'put upon,' as Cousin Roxy would say. I am ever so sorry that we did not
write sooner, and tell them that you were coming. It rests with you now,
Kit, to make yourself so adaptable that they will forget all about the boy
they wanted. I have no objection to your staying for the winter term at
Hope College. Between ourselves, dear, our plans are a little unsettled
here. Father is certain that the house will be ready for us this winter,
but you know we have kept from him any worry about financial matters, and
I am afraid he figures on a wider latitude in expense than we can afford.
At the little farm here, and with you and Jean both away we could manage
very well. In order to rebuild at all, we had to part with some securities
which I had always hoped to save for you girls. It will be sad, won't it,
if the royal princesses have to be launched without wedding chests and
dowries?
"Make all the friends that you possibly can among your college mates. You
won't realize it now, but so many of these friendships become precious
lifelong ones. Billie is leaving this week for school. You remember Mr.
Howard, who came to look after our trees? He has been staying up at the
Judge's, and took a great interest in Billie. Instead of going back to
Blackwood Hall, Billie is going on to a school in Virginia, not far from
Washington, that Mr. Howard suggested sending him to. He is a great
believer in the value of environment that is associated with historic
traditions."
Kit read this last over twice, but could not agree with it at all. She had
always liked the pioneer outlook, the longing to break new trails, the
starting of little colonies in clearings of one's own making. If there was
an ivy around her castle, she wanted the joy of planting it herself, and
seeing it grow from her own efforts.
Jean had always told her that this came from the distaff side of the
family. There had been a Virginian ancestor long ago, who had broken away
from the conventional life on the big river estate, near Roanoke, and had
gone faring forth into the wilderness. This was Kit's favorite ancestor,
John Carisbrook. He had wandered far through the west, and had married a
girl in one of the outlying settlements along the Ohio River, a girl with
French blood in her, Gabrielle de la Chapelle. Kit always liked to believe
that it was from these two she had received her love of adventure, and of
trail blazing.
She had never felt an affinity with "haunts of ancient peace" like Jean
and Helen. Only that week she had been reading in one of the Dean's early
English histories of real rooftrees. How, in the earliest times, primitive
people built their houses around some selected giant oak or other king of
the forest, with the massive trunk itself upholding the structure. If she
could have done so, Kit would have gladly selected for herself her own
special tree in the forest primeval, rather than have fallen heir to any
ancestral castle such as Helen hankered for.
So, the little town perched high on the bluff above the lake had appealed
to her mightily. Although from a western standpoint it was quite old,
dating at least five years before the outbreak of the Civil War, from the
colonial standpoint it was a mere youngster.
"Historic tradition?" repeated Kit. "When all around here are the old
Indian trails, and the footprints left by the French explorers. I just
wish I could get Billie out here for a little while. He'll settle down in
some old school that thinks it is wonderful because John Smith built a
camp-fire on its site once upon a time, or Pocahontas planted corn in its
back field."
Kit sighed, tucked her mother's and father's letters in her sweater pocket
and started off for her favorite lookout point on the bluff. Here, with
Sandy crouching at her feet, she read the three letters from the girls.
Jean's was full of plans for her coming trip to New York, She was not
going to Boston this year, but Aunt Beth had promised her three months at
the Art school, and she was to take pupils besides, to help out expenses.
"You know, if the war had ended as we planned, I could have gone to Italy
with Carlota and the Countess, but the villa is still used as a hospital,
and though I am dying to go, Dad and mother won't hear of it. Don't I wish
I were twenty so I could do some Red Cross work and get over? It seems so
perfectly futile dabbling away at one's own little petty ambitions, with
humanity needing one so."
That was quite like Jean, Kit thought, glancing over the rest of the
letter hurriedly. Cousin Roxy had given a community social, and Mr. Howard
had interested Jean considerably, especially as he told her he was bound
for France the first of November. Jean was always so easily impressed
just the first few times she met a person. It took Kit a long time to
really admit a stranger to her circle of selected ones, and she had never
quite forgiven Stanley Howard for trespassing in the berry patch, even
though it had been in the cause of science. Besides, the last year, Jean
had seemed to grow somewhat aloof from the others. Perhaps it had been her
trips away from home, or her ambition. Kit could not precisely define the
change, but it was there, and she felt that Jean troubled herself
altogether too much over things unseen. One of Kit's favorite mottoes was
from Stevenson:
"In things immaterial, Davey, be soople."
Helen's letter was all about the opening of school, and Doris' asked
questions about Delphi.
"When you write, do tell us about the things that happen there, and not
just what you think about it. I don't like descriptions in books, I like
the talk part. You know what I mean, Kit. Has Uncle Cassius got any pets
at all?"
Kit laughed over this. Bless her heart, if she could only have seen Uncle
Cassius' pets. His stuffed mummy and horned toads, the chimpanzee skull
beaming at one from a dark corner, and the Cambodian war mask from
another. It seemed as if every time she looked around the house she found
something new, and with each curio there went a story. Oddly enough, the
Dean thawed more under Kit's persuasion when she begged for the stories
than at any other time. After each meal, it was his custom to take what he
called "four draws" in his study. Kit found at these times that he was in
his best humor. Relaxed and thoughtful, he would lean back in the deep
Morris chair between the flat-topped desk and the fireplace, and smoke
leisurely. Even his pipe had come from Persia, its amber stem very slender
and beautifully curved, its bowl a marvel of carving.
Kit sat pondering over her father's and mother's letters, after putting
those of the two girls away. School would begin in another week, and she
was to enter the sophomore preparatory, which corresponded to the second
year in high school back home. And yet, after what her father had
written, she felt that she was not giving the Dean a square deal.
The odor of tobacco came through the library window, and acting on the
spur of the moment, she stepped around the corner of the veranda and
perched herself on the window sill.
"Are you busy, Uncle Cassius?" Anybody who was well acquainted with Kit
would have suspected the gentleness of her tone, but the Dean looked over
at her with a little pleased smile. Her coming was almost an answer to his
reverie.
"Not at all, my dear, not at all. In fact, I was just thinking of you. I
am inclined to think after all that we will begin with the geological
periods. I wish you to get your data assembled in your mind on prehistoric
peoples before we take up any definite groups."
"That's all right," Kit answered, comfortably. "I don't mind one bit. I'll
do anything you tell me to, Uncle Cassius, because," this very earnestly,
"I do feel as if I hadn't played quite fair. I mean in coming out here,
and landing on you suddenly, without warning you I was a girl, and I want
to make up to you for it in every possible way. I'll study bones and ruins
and rocks, and anything you tell me to, but I want to make sure first that
you really like me. Just as I am, I mean, before you know for certain
whether all this is going to 'take.'"
The Dean glanced up in a startled manner and looked at the face framed by
the window quite as if he had never really given it an interested scrutiny
before. Not being inclined to sentiment by nature, he had regarded Kit so
far solely from the experimental standpoint. Since she had turned out to
be a girl, he had decided to make the best of it, and at least try the
effect of the course of instruction upon her. The personal equation had
never entered into his calculation, and yet here was Kit forcing it upon
him, quite as plainly as though she had said:
"Do you like me or don't you? If you don't I think I had better go back
home."
"Well, bless my heart," he said, rubbing his head. "I thought that we had
settled all that. Of course, my dear, the reason I preferred a boy was
because, well"--the Dean floundered,--"because scientists hold a consensus
of opinion that through--hem--through centuries of cultivation, I may say,
collegiate development,--the male brain offers a better soil, as it were,
for the--er--er----"
"The flower of genius?" suggested Kit, happily. "I don't think that's so
at all, Uncle Cassius, and I'll tell you why. You take it on the farm down
home. Dad says that our land in Gilead is no good because it's been worked
over and over, and it's all worn out, but if you plow deep and strike a
brand new subsoil you get wonderful crops. Just think what a lovely time
you'll have planting crops in my unplowed brain cells."
The first laugh she had ever heard came from the Dean's lips, although it
was more of a chuckle. His next question was apparently irrelevant.
"How do you think you're going to like Hope College?"
"All right," Kit responded, cheerfully. "I only hope it likes me. I've met
a few of the boys and girls through Rex and Aunt Daphne, and I like them
awfully well. You know, down home they're nice to you if they know who you
are, and all about your family. Cousin Roxy says it's better to have a
private burial lot well filled with ancestors than your name in the Social
Register. But out west here it seems as if they either like you or not.
Just when they first meet you, you're taken right into the fold on the
strength of what you are yourself. Rex said an awfully funny thing the
other day when Barty Browning declared that he had two Indian chiefs in
his family, and Rex asked me if we had a little 'tommyhawk' in our
family."
The door opened with a little, light, deprecating tap first from Miss
Daphne's finger-tips. She glanced around the side of it cautiously to be
sure she was not disturbing the Dean, and smiled whimsically when she saw
the two. The Dean's pipe had gone out, and he was leaning over the desk
listening as eagerly as though he had been a boy himself, while Kit, with
her hands clasped behind her head, chatted. Usually people conversed with
the Dean, they never chatted, and Miss Daphne realized that Kit had
already passed the outposts of the Dean's defenses.