THE HOUSE OF HAPPINESS
Haven Home was brilliantly lighted, for it was Christmas eve, and
Grace had made good her promise to ask the Overland Riders to spend
the holiday week with her and Tom.
Haven Home was a house of happiness on that wonderful Christmas eve,
for, up in the nursery, lay a little pink and white bundle of
humanity over which the Overlanders bent—that is, the girls did—and
worshiped at the shrine of Grace Harlowe’s own little daughter, now
less than four weeks old. For that bit of humanity the whole party
had come laden with gifts, not forgetting many beautiful things for
Yvonne, Grace’s adopted daughter—the child that Grace had rescued
from the cellar of a deserted village amid the crashing of exploding
German shells in the great world war—now a beautiful young woman.
Hamilton White was there, big, brown and manly, a figure that
attracted attention where-ever he went; Jim Haley was there, too,
with a load of peanuts that required a wagon to carry them from the
express office.
Elfreda had brought her adopted daughter, now home from a finishing
school, and a different child she was from the daughter of the Mad
Hermit that the Overlanders had taken to their hearts some years
before.
But where was Stacy Brown? No one could answer the question. Stacy
had not even replied to the invitation to join the Christmas party,
and there was disappointment, for no reunion of the Overlanders
could be complete without the fat boy.
Emma Dean was monopolizing “Hamilton” most of the time, and Nora
confided to Grace that she actually believed it was going to be a
“match,” but Grace shook her head and smiled.
And then Stacy arrived!
The fat boy made his usual dramatic entrance at a moment when he
knew attention would be centered on him. It was.
Stacy was in full evening dress, carrying an opera hat, which he
crushed and popped open with one hand as he shook hands and bowed
with a grace that was unsuspected by his companions.
“Did you stop at the hotel to get into those glad rags?” demanded
Hippy.
“We wondered why you were so late,” said Grace. “It never occurred
to us that you would stop to dress before coming up to the house.
Why, if you felt that you must dress, did you not come here? Your
room has been ready for several days.”
“Dress? Who said I stopped to dress? I dressed this morning before
leaving home.”
“Stacy!” cried Nora in a horrified tone.
“Well?”
“You don’t mean that you wore your evening clothes all day on the
train?” demanded Nora.
“Sure I did. I didn’t want to put them in my suit case and wrinkle
them all up, so I wore them. Anything wrong about that?”
There was silence for a few seconds, then the Overlanders broke out
in peals of laughter.
“Say, I want to see the kid. _He_ won’t laugh at me, I’ll bet,” said
Stacy.
“Wrong gender, young man,” observed Hippy.
“Of course you shall see him,” cried Grace, linking her arm in
Stacy’s and leading him upstairs, with the entire Overland party
following.
Two little blue eyes looked up at him as Stacy gazed, and popped his
crush hat at the bundle of pink and white until the nurse took it
away from him indignantly.
“The perfect picture of Grace, isn’t she?” bubbled Emma.
“Oh, I don’t know. Cute little monkey, isn’t she?”
“Young man, you come downstairs,” ordered Hippy, collaring Stacy and
leading him away, while the Overlanders followed laughing. The
merriment had begun with the arrival of Stacy.
Dinner was announced as they reached the drawing room, and it was a
dinner that Stacy Brown did full justice to. It did the Overlanders’
hearts good to see him eat.
“How you ever managed to develop such an appetite, short of
starvation, is a thing that I have many times wondered at,” teased
Tom.
“Develop it! I didn’t. It’s a gift,” was the fat boy’s quick
response. “I was born with it, and I don’t know why you folks are
always making fun of me,” he retorted, appearing to be very much
hurt.
“That is because you are always making fun of yourself,” reminded
Emma.
“Not when you are about,” mumbled Stacy.
And so the merriment went on.
At the close of the dinner Hamilton White made his mine report. The
mother lode of “Lost Mine” had just recently been tapped when work
was suspended for the winter, to be resumed in the early spring, he
said. The mining engineer in charge of the work was authority for
the statement that it would undoubtedly pan out a big fortune. White
said he had the expert’s detailed report which they could look over
at their leisure.
“So J. Elfreda is a rich woman, eh?” said Stacy, regarding her
solemnly.
“Yes, rich in the sense that I have such friends as these,” answered
Elfreda, her eyes moist as she glanced at the eager, flushed faces
about her. “Gold is not riches—friendship is. As for the riches of
the ‘Lost Mine’ I have with me a transfer of title to the property,
signed, sealed and delivered, providing as follows:
“One eighth to the new baby.
“One eighth to my adopted daughter ‘Little Silver.’
“One eighth to Yvonne.
“One eighth each to Grace, Nora and Emma.
“And—” Elfreda paused, and in a subdued voice added, “one eighth
each for myself and for my husband to be.” A flush slowly grew into
her cheeks as J. Elfreda Briggs bent her eyes on the paper from
which she was reading.
“Your—your what?” stammered Nora, as all eyes were fixed on Miss
Briggs’ face.
“My husband to be!” Elfreda raised her eyes, eyes full of happiness,
to her friends. “I am to wed Mr. White in the early spring. You, my
beloved friends, are the first to be told. Why should you not be
first?”
“Oh, Hamilton, isn’t that perfectly wonderful!” cried Emma.
Emma had broken the ice, the dead silence that, for a few seconds,
had followed Elfreda Briggs’ announcement, and then the exclamations
and the congratulations fairly overwhelmed Elfreda and Hamilton
White.
Everything else was forgotten.
“Well, old chappie, what have _you_ got to say for _yourself_?”
demanded Hippy Wingate, frowning on “Ham” White.
“Only that I am the most fortunate of men,” answered Hamilton White
gravely.
“Never mind, Emma,” spoke up Grace smilingly as she looked into the
flushed face of Emma Dean. “I have named the baby—I just now named
her, and her name is Emma Grace Harlowe Gray.”
“Oh, the poor kid,” wailed Stacy. “To go through life with a name
like that! My heart of hearts bleeds for her.”
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” struck up Tom Gray, whereupon Grace
ran to her piano and joined with the accompaniment, and the old
house resounded to the rollicking song until the nurse came down,
her face wearing a deep frown.
“Please, please!” she begged. “You have awakened the baby.”
The song stopped.
“Well, we are all set now except for Stacy Brown and Emma Dean. They
are our hopeless bachelors,” declared Hippy.
“Bachelors! I guess not,” retorted Stacy. “Emma and I have decided
to tie up, too.”
The Overlanders shouted. They thought it was one of Stacy’s jokes.
Then the Overlanders began to realize that Stacy was not joking.
“But how do you two expect to get along—you are fighting all the
time?” wondered Nora.
“The difference between us and some others is that we will have done
all our fighting before we were married. Am I right, Emma?”
“Yes, Stacy dear,” replied Emma, blushing furiously.
“When did all this take place?” asked Grace.
“Oh, we got engaged by the correspondence-school plan,” Stacy
informed her.
“The idea! Children like you two getting married,” objected Nora.
“Children? Huh! I’m twenty-three, and Emma—” Stacy shrugged his
shoulders. “Well, let her speak for herself. Anything else—anyone
got any questions to ask?”
“Yes,” spoke up Elfreda. “If I may do so without offense, I should
like to know what you propose to do after you marry Emma?”
“Nothing!” with rising inflection in his voice. “I have money, my
little wife will have more, and we two will live a life of
distinguished and elegant leisure.”
“You poor turtle doves,” chortled Hippy Wingate.
The merry moments that followed failed to soothe the wakeful baby
upstairs. After the excitement over the startling announcements had
abated, Grace proposed that they dress the Christmas tree, and,
following that, they danced for an hour, and the wonderful evening
came to a close—for all except Stacy and Emma. The two strolled out
on the snow-covered lawn of Haven Home, hand in hand, with the moon
beaming down upon them, and a million diamonds sparkling at their
feet.
“Stacy dear, do you remember that night up in the North Woods when
the Overlanders were preparing to leave for home? Do you remember
what Hippy asked me as a snowbird chirped high up in a great tree,
just as one is now chirping in that apple tree yonder?” asked Emma.
“I remember,” nodded Stacy.
“Hippy asked me, ‘Emma, what is the little bird saying to-night?’ I
answered, ‘He is wishing us all a merry, merry Christmas and a glad,
happy new year.’ That is what the snowbird is saying to us from the
old apple tree to-night, isn’t he, Stacy dear?”
“You bet, kid. Wise guys, those snowbirds,” he observed as they
turned and strolled back towards the house. “We are going to be
happy, aren’t we, Emma?”
“Going to be? Why, we are happy now, dear. Say good-night to me out
here,” she whispered as they reached the veranda.
Stacy did so. He said good-night several times before they went
indoors. Emma Dean’s eyes were bright and her cheeks wore a rosy
glow when she faced her companions in the drawing room a moment
later.
The Overland Riders smiled. They understood.
THE END