JOHN MASSEY'S LANDLORD
The story had come to an end, but the boy and girl still waited as
though to hear more.
"But do oak trees grow to be so old?" Oliver inquired at last, looking
out at the moving shadow of the great tree that had now covered the
doorstone.
"Yes, three hundred years is no impossible age for an oak. All the old
grants of land speak of an oak tree on this hill as one of the
landmarks."
"How did you know?" began Oliver, and then broke off, with a sudden
jerk of recollection: "Oh, I forgot all about it--my train!"
He snatched out his watch and stood regarding it with a rueful face.
He had missed the train by more than half an hour.
"Were you going away?" asked Polly sympathetically. "We are always
missing trains like that, daddy and I. Won't they be surprised to see
you come back!"
"They--they didn't know I was going," returned Oliver. "They are
wondering now where I am." He was too much agitated to keep from
doing his thinking out loud. "I must be getting back. Thank you for
the story. Good-by."
He was gone before they could say more, leaving Polly, in fact, with
her mouth open to speak and with the Beeman looking after him with an
amused and quizzical grin, as though he recognized the symptoms of an
uneasy conscience.
"We never asked him to come again," Polly lamented.
To which her father answered, "I believe he will come, just the same."
The smooth machinery of Cousin Jasper's house must have been thrown
out of gear for a moment when the car came round to the door and
Oliver failed to appear. It was running quietly and noiselessly again,
however, by the time he returned. Janet was curled up in a big
armchair in the library, enjoying a book, when he came in. She looked
up at him rather curiously, but only said:
"Eleanor Brighton's mother telephoned at half past three that Eleanor
had been detained somewhere, she didn't quite know where. She was very
apologetic and hoped we would come some other time. I walked down the
road to look for you, but you weren't in sight. I met such a strange
man, coming in at the gate; he turned all the way around on the seat
of his cart to stare at me. I didn't like him."
She did not press Oliver with questions and, as a result, he sat down
beside her and told her the whole tale of his afternoon's adventures,
with a glowing description of the Beeman and Polly.
"I must take you there to see them," he said, "I can't wait to show
you how things look from that hill. And you should see the bees, and
the little house, and hear the wind in the big tree. We will go
to-morrow."
When Cousin Jasper appeared for dinner, Oliver felt somewhat
apprehensive, but to his relief no questions were asked him. Their
cousin listened rather absently while Janet explained why the proposed
visit had not been made, and he offered no comment. He looked paler
even than usual, with deeper lines in his face, and he sat at the end
of the long table, saying little and eating less. Afterward he sat
with them in the library, still restless and uneasy and speaking only
now and then, in jerking sentences that they could scarcely follow. It
was an evident relief to all three of them when the time came to say
good night.
Oliver looked back anxiously over his shoulder, as their cousin
returned to his study and as they, at the other end of the long room,
went out into the hall.
"Something has happened to upset him more than usual," he said. "Do
you think he could have guessed what I intended to do?"
Janet shook her head emphatically.
"He couldn't have guessed," she declared. "Even now I can hardly
believe it of you, myself, Oliver."
Oliver, rather ashamed, was beginning to wonder at himself also.
They had fallen into the habit of going upstairs early to the
comfortable sitting room into which their bedrooms opened. It was
their own domain, a pleasant, breezy place, with deep wicker chairs,
gay chintz curtains, flower boxes, and wide casements opening on a
balcony. They had both found some rare treasures among the books
downstairs and liked to carry them away for an hour of enjoyment
before it was bedtime.
Oliver settled himself comfortably beside a window, opened his book,
but did not immediately begin to read. His eyes wandered about the
perfectly appointed room, stared out at the moonlit garden, and then
came back to his sister.
"Why aren't we happy here, Janet?" he questioned. "It seems as though
we had everything to make us so."
"Because he isn't happy," returned his sister, with a gesture toward
the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must
even then be sitting alone.
"But why isn't he happy? There is everything here that he could wish
for." Oliver added somewhat bitterly, after a pause: "Why don't
grown-up people tell us things? It is miserable to be old enough to
notice when affairs go wrong but not to be old enough to have them
explained."
"Perhaps," said Janet hopefully, "we will be able to prove that we
deserve to know. I think that you will, anyway, and then you can tell
me."
It was not only the younger members of the household who were
struggling with mystery that night, however. Before they had been
reading many minutes, there came a discreet tap at the door and
Hotchkiss appeared upon the threshold. Oliver was wondering what a boy
unused to butlers was supposed to say or do on the occasion of such a
visit, and even Janet, better at guessing the etiquette of such
matters, seemed at a loss. And so also was Hotchkiss, as it presently
began to be evident.
If the butler had been of the regulation variety, he might perhaps
have known how to ask a few respectful questions without a change of
his professional countenance and have gained his information without
betraying its significance. But as it was, he had for the moment put
off the wooden, expressionless face that he was supposed to wear at
his work, and was openly anxious and disturbed.
"We're troubled about Mr. Peyton, Mrs. Brown and I," he began, coming
frankly to the point at once. "He had a queer visitor to-day, one who
has just been coming lately and who always leaves him upset. I wonder
if you saw him, a thin man with a brown face and a kind of a way with
him, somehow, in spite of his bad clothes."
"Did he drive a shambling old horse?" inquired Oliver, remembering
suddenly the person he had noticed on the road, "and a wagon that
rattled as though it were twenty years old? Yes, we both saw him."
"Had you ever seen him before?" Hotchkiss asked eagerly, and seemed
disappointed when Oliver replied:
"No, we had never laid eyes on him before to-day."
"It is just in the last few weeks that he has been coming here so
often," the man went on. "Before that he came rarely and we didn't
think so much about him. I can remember the first time I saw him, soon
after I had come to Mr. Peyton, a year ago. The fellow rang the bell
as bold as anything, but when I saw that rickety outfit drawn up to
the steps, I was about to tell him that the other entrance was the
place for him. He must have read my eye--he's a sharp one--for he
said, 'Your master won't thank you for turning me away, when I'm a
member of the family,' and sure enough, there was Mr. Peyton behind me
in the hall telling me to bring him in. He was nervous and put out
with everybody after the man was gone, and he is more and more upset
each time he comes. And the fellow begins to come often. I thought
that if he was a member of the family you might know who he was--and
how we could get rid of him."
The heat of the last words put an end to any possible thought that
the man's questions were prompted by a servant's unwarranted curiosity
concerning his master. It was plain that Cousin Jasper was a
well-beloved employer and that the two chief persons of his household
had been laying their heads together over the mystery of his evident
trouble.
Hotchkiss was about to tell them more, when a bell, sounding below,
summoned him away. There was an interval during which they tried to
return to their books, but found their minds occupied with thoughts of
what the butler had said. Who could this man be, whom they had both
noticed and both set down as odious, and whose coming seemed to have
such an unhappy effect upon Cousin Jasper? A relative? It did not seem
possible. Presently Hotchkiss was at the door again, more troubled
than ever.
"Mr. Peyton wants the motor, but it's Jennings' evening off and he has
gone to town," he said. "Didn't I hear you tell him, Mr. Oliver, that
you knew how to drive that make of car?"
Oliver had, indeed, dropped such a hint two days before, hoping that
the dullness of his visit might be lightened by his being invited to
take the car out for a spin. The statement had fallen on quite
unheeding ears in Cousin Jasper's case, but had been treasured up by
the butler.
"Yes, I can drive it," agreed Oliver, rather doubting whether Cousin
Jasper would really desire him as a chauffeur. He got up and went
downstairs, to find his cousin waiting in the hall, so nervous and
impatient that he made no other comment than:
"We must make haste."
Oliver hurried out to the garage, backed out the heavy car, paused
under the portico for Cousin Jasper to climb in beside him, and sped
away down the drive.
"Which way?" he asked, as they came out through the gate, and was
directed along the road he had followed that afternoon.
"You may go as fast as you like, I am in a hurry," was Cousin Jasper's
unexpected permission, so that Oliver, nothing loath, let out the car
to its full speed. It was very dark, for the moon had gone under a
cloud. The road, showing vaguely white through the blackness, was
nearly empty and the tree trunks flashed by, looking unreal in the
glare of the lamps, like the cardboard trees of a scene on the stage.
The big car hummed and the wind sang in Oliver's ears, but for only
the briefest moment, for they seemed to come immediately to a
crossroad, where Cousin Jasper bade him turn. A slower pace was
necessary here, for the going was rough and uneven, yet not so
difficult as that of the narrower lane in which they presently found
themselves. Here the machine lurched among the deep ruts, rustled
through high grass and low-hanging trees, and finally came to a stop
before a gate.
"No, wait here," directed Cousin Jasper as Oliver made a move to get
out. "I shall not be gone very long."
He climbed out and jerked at the gate, which, one hinge being gone,
opened reluctantly to let him pass. He stalked away, a tall, awkward
figure in the brilliant shaft of light from the lamps, walking with a
fierce, determined dignity up the path that disappeared into the dark.
Oliver felt a sudden rush of pity for him and of shame that he had so
nearly deserted him.
"It must be hard," he thought, "to be so miserable and anxious, and to
have no one to talk it over with. And I do wonder what is the matter?"
He waited an hour--and another. He had dimmed his lamps and could see
vaguely the outline of a house, with one dull light in a window. A dog
barked somewhere beyond the gate, and presently a child began crying.
It cried a very long time, then at last was quiet, but still no one
came. Oliver fell asleep finally against the comfortable leather
cushions, and slumbered he knew not how long before he was aroused by
the protesting creak of the broken gate. He thought, as he was waking,
that a man's voice, high-pitched with anger, was talking in the dark,
but when he had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he saw no one but
Cousin Jasper.
"I had not thought it would be so long," was all his cousin said as he
got in, and after that there was no word spoken until they entered
their own gate and rolled up to the door.
"You drive well for a boy. Good night," said Cousin Jasper as he
climbed out and entered the house. In his hurried, awkward way, he was
attempting to express his gratitude, but he had managed to say the
wrong thing.
"For a boy, indeed," snorted Oliver, as he guided the car into the
door of the garage, and repeated it as he went up the stairs to his
room: "For a boy!"
The big clock in the hall was solemnly striking one.
Oliver was wondering, as he came down to breakfast next morning, what
his cousin would say in explanation of their midnight expedition, but
discovered that Cousin Jasper had adopted the simple expedient of
saying nothing at all. The matter was not even referred to until just
as they were leaving the table, and then only indirectly.
"I should have thought of it before," their host said, "that it might
give you some pleasure to take out the car. Use it every day, if you
wish, and take Jennings or not, just as it suits you. I have real
confidence in your driving, Oliver."
It was surprising how completely matters were put upon another footing
by what he had said. If Cousin Jasper had confidence in him, Oliver
thought, he need no longer feel like a neglected outsider, one who was
of no use or worth in the household.
"Get your hat, Janet," he urged promptly.
He had not an instant's hesitation in deciding where they would go
first.
Just as Cousin Jasper was entering his study he turned back to say:
"Now about your Cousin Eleanor----"
But Oliver either did not or would not hear, as he sped away toward
the garage. Perhaps Cousin Jasper understood the smile that Janet gave
him, for he smiled himself and said no more.
In the very shortest time possible, Oliver and Janet were bowling
along the smooth white road with all the blue and golden sunlight of a
cool June morning about them. Oliver laughed when he thought of his
dusty progress along that way the day before. There was little danger
of his running away now, for the dreaded Cousin Eleanor was quite
forgotten and he was certain that the time would not pass slowly since
he had acquired this splendid new plaything.
He wondered, as the highway spun away beneath the swift wheels, which
of the crossroads that he passed was the one that he had traveled the
evening before, but the night had been so dark and their speed so
great that he was quite unable to decide. It was only after exploring
a good many of Medford Valley's lesser thoroughfares, after awkward
turns in narrow byroads that proved to be mere blind alleys, that they
began to come closer and closer to the foot of the hill. Not being
able to find a direct path, Oliver finally drew up beside the low
stone wall and plunged, on foot, through the high grass of the
orchard.
"Wait until I see if they are here," he instructed Janet, "and then I
will come back for you."
His new acquaintances were sitting on the bench beside the doorway as
he came up the hill, Polly in a very trim blue dress and without her
apron, but the Beeman in his same dilapidated overalls. The girl had a
notebook on her knee and was putting down records at her father's
dictation.
"Here is our friend in need, of yesterday," said the Beeman cordially
as Oliver came up the path, "but we can't put him to work to-day
because we are just about to set off to fetch some new beehives. There
are more colonies than I thought that need dividing, and I find I am
out of hives."
"Let me get them for you," Oliver offered at once, and explained the
presence of his sister in the car below.
"Polly can go with you to show you the way," the Beeman agreed
willingly. "John Massey, who makes our hives for us, lives a good many
miles away, at the upper end of Medford Valley. I shall be glad to
save the time of going myself. Come to the top of the hill, so that I
can point out the direction of the road to you."
They took the little path beyond the house, leading upward to the very
summit of the hill. In the direction from which Oliver had come, up
the gentler incline of the southern slope, the view was narrowed by
the woods and the orchard, showing only the long vista that led away
toward the high ridge opposite and the blue dip of shining sea. On
the eastern face of the hill, however, the ground fell away steeply to
a sweep of river and a broad stretch of green farming country. It lays
below like a vast sunken garden, with great square fields for lawns
and clumps of full-leaved, rounded trees for shrubbery. The
yellow-green of wheat and the blue-green of oats stretched out, a
smooth expanse that rippled and crinkled as the wind and the sweeping
shadow of a cloud went slowly down the valley. There were no country
houses of high-walled, steep-roofed magnificence here, only
comfortable farm dwellings with wide eaves and generous barns, a few
with picturesque, pointed silos and slim, high-towering windmills.
"Most of that farming land belongs to your Cousin Jasper," the Beeman
said, while Oliver, too intent upon staring at the view below him,
failed to wonder how he happened to know so much of their affairs.
"That whole portion of the valley was waste, swampy ground at one
time; it was an uncle of Jasper Peyton's who drained the land thirty
years ago and built dikes to keep the river back. He arranged to rent
it out to tenant farmers, for he said one man should own the whole to
keep up the dikes and see that the stream did not come creeping in
again. Medford River looks lazy and sleepy enough, but it can be a
raging demon when the rains are heavy and the water comes up. Your
cousin owns all of it still except for a portion up there at the bend
of the stream. That has passed out of his hands lately. It is at the
far end, on the last farm, that John Massey lives."
Oliver from this vantage point could pick out the intricate succession
of lanes and highroad that he must take to cross the river and reach
John Massey's place, showing from here as only a dot of a gray house
at the angle of the stream. The sunshine was very clear and hot over
the valley below, but the oak tree spread its broad shadow all about
them and bowed its lofty head to a fresh, salt-laden wind.
"See how still the trees are along the river," said the Beeman, "but
the oak tree is never quiet. The breeze comes past that gap in the
hills, yonder where you can look through to the sea, and it seems
never to stop blowing. So we call this place the Windy Hill."
The three set off on their errand very gayly in the big car, although
Polly and Janet, in the back seat together, were a little shy and
silent at the very first. At the end of a mile, however, they were
beginning to warm toward each other and had set up a brisk chatter
before they had gone three.
"I knew Janet would like Polly," Oliver was thinking. "She is the sort
of girl I like myself, not like Cousin Eleanor. The kind that makes
you feel that your clothes and your manners are all wrong and that you
haven't anything to say--those are the girls I can't stand."
He quite forgot that this harsh judgment of his unknown relative was
not based upon any real evidence.
When they reached the floor of the valley they found it as level as a
table, with a straight road running from end to end, along which they
sped in a whirling cloud of dust. Other cars passed them, driven by
prosperous farmers, the growl and clatter of motor tractors sounded
from the fields on either hand. Halfway up the valley the character of
the places seemed to change, the houses had the look of needing paint,
the weeds were taller along the fences, and there were no silos nor
tractors to be seen. As they neared John Massey's house, the road came
close to the river, with the high, grass-covered bank of earth that
was the dike rising at their left as they drove along.
They were obliged to stop where some horses were walking in the road
ahead of them and seemed slow in making way. The big gray and brown
creatures were dragging huge flat stones, each hooked to the traces
with an iron chain, scuffling and scraping along in the dust.
"I'm sorry," said the sunburned man who drove the last team, looking
back to where the car waited in the road. "We'll make room in a
minute, but the horses are doing all they can."
"We are in no hurry," responded Oliver. "Where are you taking the
stones and what are they for?"
"To mend the dike, quite a way downstream. It takes a lot of patching
to keep banks like these whole and strong, but they guard some
valuable land. The dike looks as though it needed repairs up here at
this end, but nobody does much to it. Mr. Peyton has us go over his
section of the banks every year."
The horses moved forward, leaving room for them to pass, and the car
went on.
John Massey's house was the last one at the end of the road, a little
place with a roof that needed new shingles and with sagging steps
leading up to the door. Oliver, with some difficulty, squeezed the big
car through the gate and followed the rutty driveway to the open space
behind the house. There was a stretch of grass, a well, two straggling
apple trees, and a row of beehives. An inquisitive cow came to the
gate of the barnyard and thrust her head over it to stare at them with
the frank curiosity of a country lady who sees little of strangers.
"Here is John Massey," said Polly, as a rather heavy-faced, shabby man
with kindly blue eyes came out of one of the barns. "My father gave
him some of these beehives and taught him how to make new ones. He is
very clever at it, and it means a good deal to him to make ours, for
he is very poor. He works very hard on his farm, but it never seems to
be much of a success."
The hives were brought out and paid for and stowed in the back of the
car. Oliver was just making ready for the somewhat difficult feat of
backing the car around in the narrow space between house and barn,
when there came a rattling of wheels through the gate and a loud,
rasping voice was heard calling for John Massey.
"That's Mr. Anthony Crawford," said the farmer, who had been standing
by the car admiring wistfully its shining sides and heavy tires. "He
owns this place and he comes up here nearly every day to see how I'm
farming it. I don't accomplish much with him always around to give me
sharp words and never a dollar for improvements. I've told him a
hundred times that the dike ought to be looked after this year or
we'll be having a flood, but he always says he guesses it will hold.
Yes, sir, I'm coming."
The calls had grown too loud to be disregarded, although it was plain
that John Massey was in no haste to obey the summons. In a moment the
owner of the voice came jingling and rattling around the corner of the
house, the same narrow-faced, gray-eyed man that Oliver had met on the
road, driving the same bony, knock-kneed horse.
"Whoa, there, whoa!" cried the driver, for the old white steed had
caught sight of the car and was testifying to its dislike of it by
grotesque prancings and sidlings that threatened to wreck the
ramshackle trap. "Here, get out of my way!" he ordered Oliver, "that
is, if you know how to handle that snorting locomotive that you think
you're driving."
Red with anger, Oliver started his engine and embarked upon a
maneuver that was difficult at best, and, under the present
unfavorable circumstances, proved to be nearly impossible. He turned
the car half round, collided with a pigsty, backed into the barnyard
fence, and narrowly missed taking a wheel off Anthony Crawford's
decrepit wagon. That gentleman assisted the process with jeering
remarks and criticisms, while Oliver grew redder and redder with fury
and embarrassment. At last, however, the car was turned and stood for
a moment in the driveway, facing the white horse which seemed to have
resigned itself to the presence of the puffing monster and to be very
reluctant to move.
"I have got out of your way, now will you be good enough to get out of
mine?" said Oliver very slowly, lest the rage within him should break
out into open insult.
In spite of his anger he could not help noticing that the man before
him moved with a curious easy grace, and that when he smiled, with a
white flash of teeth, he was almost attractive. It was impossible to
deny that, except for his thin lips and his hard gray eyes, he was
handsome.
"He must be about Cousin Jasper's age," Oliver thought as he sat
looking at him while the other stared in return.
"I should like to pass," the boy persisted, since the other made no
move.
"So you shall, Mr. Oliver Peyton," returned the man, "only don't
expect me to move as fast or as gracefully as you did. You wonder how
I know your name, I suppose. Well, if that precious Cousin Jasper of
yours and mine were a little more outspoken about his affairs, you
would know all about me. If you want to know where I live, just look
over the back wall of your cousin's garden. Do it some time when he
isn't looking, for he doesn't love to think of what lies behind that
wall where the fruit trees are trained so prettily and where the trees
and shrubs grow so high."
He had made way at last and the car moved forward, but he turned to
shout a last bitter word after them.
"If you want to know one of your Cousin Jasper's meanest secrets, look
over the wall."