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Transcriber’s note:
Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
JOHN BARING’S HOUSE
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY ELSIE SINGMASTER
WHEN SARAH SAVED THE DAY
WHEN SARAH WENT TO SCHOOL
GETTYSBURG
KATY GAUMER
EMMELINE
THE LONG JOURNEY
THE LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER
JOHN BARING’S HOUSE
BASIL EVERMAN
ELLEN LEVIS
BENNETT MALIN
THE HIDDEN ROAD
A BOY AT GETTYSBURG
BRED IN THE BONE
KELLER’S ANNA RUTH
‘SEWING SUSIE’
WHAT EVERYBODY WANTED
VIRGINIA’S BANDIT
YOU MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK
A LITTLE MONEY AHEAD
THE YOUNG RAVENELS
SWORDS OF STEEL
THE MAGIC MIRROR
THE LOVING HEART
RIFLES FOR WASHINGTON
* * * * * *
[Illustration: ELIZABETH AND HERBERT]
JOHN BARING’S HOUSE
by
ELSIE SINGMASTER
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1920, by Elsie Singmaster Lewars
All Rights Reserved Including the Right to Reproduce
This Book or Parts Thereof in Any Form
TO
JAMES ARTHUR SINGMASTER, JUNIOR
Contents
I. A NEW HOME 1
II. “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH US?” 19
III. “I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT!” 38
IV. A JOURNEY IN VAIN 54
V. AN ALARMING MESSAGE 74
VI. ANOTHER VAIN JOURNEY 89
VII. “MAMMY’S BOY” 106
VIII. BLACK SMITH’S BARGAIN 123
IX. HERBERT PUTS TWO AND TWO TOGETHER 138
JOHN BARING’S HOUSE
Chapter I
A NEW HOME
Sitting on the doorstep, Elizabeth Scott leaned her head against the
stone wall of the old house. The June twilight was closing in and a
hard day’s work was done. Three meals had been prepared and half of the
large garden had been hoed and weeded. Feeling that their gardening
knowledge was limited, Elizabeth and her brother made up by an excess
of cultivation.
A tall, slender boy came round the corner of the house and called
“Elizabeth!” There was a dependent quality in his voice; one would
have guessed that he was a good deal younger and a good deal less
enterprising than the sister whom he addressed.
“Yes, Herbert!” Elizabeth looked up smilingly. Her voice was soft
like his, but the words were briskly and firmly spoken. Briskness and
firmness were two of Elizabeth’s most noticeable qualities. Those who
opposed her called her firmness stubbornness.
There was another quality expressed in her voice--an intense affection
for the brother whom she addressed.
“Aren’t you going to bed, Elizabeth?”
“Not yet. Come and sit down.”
Herbert dropped to the doorstep beside his sister. His motions still
showed the effect of a long illness from which he had not entirely
recovered.
“Are you very tired, Herbert?”
“Not very.”
For a long time both were quiet. The old house seemed gradually to sink
into the woodland which rose behind it against the wall of the higher
mountains, the shadows of night crept over the miles of fields and
orchards which dropped to the distant plain, the garden between the
house and the road was blotted out, and the old oak trees on the other
side came closer and closer. In the woods whip-poor-wills called, and
once an owl flapped low above the doorstep. At that Herbert started and
Elizabeth spoke reassuringly.
“Nothing but an owl, dear! He looked like a great moth, didn’t he?
Herbert, when we can, we must restore the old driveway. It used to come
in from the road in a beautiful curve to the door. Then the garden can
be moved, and I believe if we’d cut away that clump of poor trees we
could sit here on our own doorstep and see Gettysburg. Think of it,
Herbert!”
“Yes,” said Herbert. His voice expressed pleasure, but a qualified
pleasure.
“I can’t make it seem _real_,” said Elizabeth.
“If we can only succeed!”
“Of course we shall succeed!” Any one listening to Elizabeth would have
said “Of course!” “In the first place, we have this house, blessed,
substantial old thing that it is, only occasionally occupied during
forty years and yet habitable after a little mending of the roof. John
Baring’s character can be seen in the way he built his house. I’m more
proud of him every day. Then we have the acres and acres of woodland
behind us, and our garden--think of the produce we have to sell
to-morrow! And soon we shall have our orchard,--_our_ orchard, Herbert.
They say that men within a few miles have sold a single crop for ten
thousand dollars. It will mean work and saving and then comfort for all
our lives. Why, we are the most fortunate people in the world!”
Herbert looked back over his shoulder into the dark hall. At the other
end a door opened against the black wall of the woodland.
“Doesn’t it make you nervous to think of those men prowling round with
their guns and dogs?”
“Not at all. They’ll have to be warned away. I suppose they’re so used
to roaming about that they think the place is theirs. I’m not so much
afraid of them as I am of their big dogs running over the garden.”
“What is that noise, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth listened intently. Herbert often heard alarming noises. There
was a soft rustle of leaves near at hand.
“A deer, I guess,” she answered cheerfully, “or some other wild
thing--nothing to hurt us, I’m sure. I cannot see why our people ever
went away from here. Grandfather Baring was a man of standing--why,
this must have been the finest place for miles around! Wait till
we have a new portico and a little paint on the woodwork and some
shrubbery! I should think mother would have been continually homesick.”
“Did she ever say she was?”
“No. When I asked her she used to tell me what she remembered hearing
people say about the battle. She was not a talkative person. But all
these years the taxes have been paid and there wasn’t even always a
renter.”
“Do you think she believed we should ever come back? Do you--” Herbert
interrupted himself. “There is some one looking at us now!”
“Where?”
“There’s a man at the edge of the woods with a big dog and a gun!”
Elizabeth turned her head. The moon had risen and its rays shone on
a long object of bright steel. This object was not pointed in the
direction of the two on the doorstep; it slanted backward from the
shoulder which supported it, but it was none the less menacing.
Elizabeth sprang up, a short, somewhat stocky, swiftly moving figure.
“Well, neighbor!” she said loudly. “How are you this evening?”
The man drew back into the shadows, but he was not to be allowed to
slink away. Elizabeth went closer to him.
“Aren’t you a neighbor?” she persisted.
“Not close,” was the sullen answer.
“Have you lived about here a long time?”
“’Bout’s long as I’ve lived anywhere.” It was impossible to tell
whether this was a humorous way of saying that he had lived here
always, or whether it was meant to indicate that he was a wanderer.
“We are going to stay here,” went on Elizabeth. “After a while when our
orchard is set out, we shall need a good deal of help. Could you give
us a hand sometimes?”
“No.”
“Do you know any one who could?”
“No.”
“We really belong here,” explained Elizabeth pleasantly.
The stranger seemed startled.
“What do you mean by that?”
“This was our grandfather’s place. We were born in the West, but our
people are gone, and so we have come back. We’re going to raise apples.
The fields in front of the house are to be turned into an orchard.”
It seemed that the stranger could take in but one thought at a time.
“Your gran’paw lived here?”
“Yes.”
“What mought ’a’ been his name?”
“John Baring was his name. Did you ever hear of him?”
“I heard of him.” The answer, begun near at hand, receded into the
shadows, as man and dog disappeared.
Elizabeth returned to the doorstep.
“I told him our pedigree and our intentions. If he had stayed a little
longer, I should have told him to keep out of our woodland. Now, my
dear, it’s time for bed.”
Herbert rose stiffly.
“Everything is ready, isn’t it, Elizabeth?”
“Yes, everything; the onions and the radishes and the lettuce and the
peas.”
“Doesn’t it make you a little uncomfortable to think of going about
peddling things from door to door to strange people?”
“Not a bit! It’s just as honorable to sell onions as diamonds or books.
I’m so proud of my garden sass, I’d drive to the gate of the White
House and offer it there. And I don’t mean my patrons to be strangers,
I mean them to be friends. It’s quite time that we made acquaintances.”
Herbert sighed as he went into the house. Elizabeth stood for a while
looking at the illuminated landscape and thinking, not of the morrow or
of the menacing gun, but of a deeper source of anxiety. Would Herbert
never get well and grow up to be a man? She did not mind hard work, but
she wished now to share responsibility. He was anxious to do his part,
but he was like a child, requiring direction and encouragement.
It was well that the wagon was already packed with the produce which
Elizabeth meant to offer, because in the morning she had but one
thought--she would see the battle-field of Gettysburg. Her curiosity
had been only half gratified by her mother’s answers to her questions
and her meager accounts in her school histories had told her little
more. She meant to try to find books which described the battle, so
that looking from her doorstep she should be able to picture to herself
in detail the conflict which, she believed, had saved her country. She
was intensely patriotic; long ago she had hung from one of the upper
windows of the old house a little flag.
The brother and sister spoke but seldom as they drove down the hills.
The morning was clear and bright, they were young, and a great
adventure awaited them. It seemed to Elizabeth that each old farmhouse
must have some patriotic significance, that each old tree could tell
tales of valor.
“I wish I knew what had happened on this road!” said she.
Herbert shivered.
“Do you suppose there was _fighting_ here?”
“It’s very likely,” said Elizabeth. “There’s got to be fighting,” she
went on a little impatiently. “Everything we have has been fought and
suffered for, Herbert. Why, look!”
She pulled the old horse up and climbing out of the wagon went to the
side of the road.
“Here is a marker with an inscription on it!”
Even Herbert showed interest.
“Do you think Joe’ll stand?” he asked.
“Either that or he’ll lie down,” answered Elizabeth gayly. “He won’t
run, that’s certain.”
Together the two read the inscription:
First Shot at Gettysburg
July 1, 1863, 7.30 A.M.
By Captain Jones, Lieut. Riddler and Serg. Shafer
* * * * *
Fired by Captain Jones with Serg. Shafer’s Carbine
Co. E.
8th Illinois Cavalry
* * * * *
Erected 1886
Then they climbed silently back into the wagon.
A few miles farther on more elaborate monuments greeted their eager
eyes, a Union general on horseback and a Union officer, booted and
spurred, standing with field-glasses in hand, looking earnestly and
inquiringly toward the west from which Elizabeth and Herbert had come.
“The Confederates must have come by our house!” said Herbert.
At the brow of the next hill they saw Gettysburg, spread before them.
Beyond another rise they could see white marble shafts. To the right a
tall building lifted its cupola above the trees of a thick grove.
“This must be the Seminary,” said Elizabeth. “You remember there was a
Seminary Ridge!”
Old Joe traveled slowly down the leafy avenue and at the first house
stopped of his own accord. He had been a huckster’s horse, a fact which
accounted for various peculiarities.
Elizabeth went into the yard and offered her wares to a lady on the
porch. She had looked at Herbert hopefully, but he made no sign of
intending to act as agent.
“Good-morning. Do you need any vegetables?”
“Why, yes,” answered the lady. “I shall be glad to have vegetables. Now
that we have a curb market in the town, no one stops here.”
“We have onions and peas and lettuce and radishes.”
The lady came out to inspect the wares.
“They’re fine! I’ll have some of each.”
When the bargain was complete, Elizabeth, in friendly fashion, told who
she was. The crisp bill in her hand was an earnest of future success.
“Our grandfather was John Baring who lived in one of the old houses
between here and Chambersburg. It stands a little back from the road on
the first steep hill above Cashtown. Perhaps you’ve seen it?”
The lady did not say. She looked curiously at Elizabeth.
“We mean to live there and raise apples. We came early in the spring
and planted our garden and it has grown splendidly. You are our first
customer. When would you like another supply? The day after to-morrow?”
The lady hesitated. Her expression had changed. Then she began to speak
rapidly.
“There is a curb market, you know. I don’t know whether you will
find much business. Many people have their own gardens.” She seemed
to realize the contradiction between her first enthusiasm and this
deterring advice, for she no longer looked at Elizabeth. “Perhaps you
had better try to sell your produce at Chambersburg.”
Elizabeth was mystified and a little hurt.
“Thank you,” said she as she climbed back into the wagon.
She stopped at the next house and the next. At both, before she
offered her wares she told her name and her grandfather’s name. She
sold nothing, however, in spite of her friendliness. It could not be
possible that her friendliness repelled these people!
From the porch of one large house a kindly old gentleman walked to meet
her, book in hand.
“No, thank you,” he said before she had time to speak. “We have a
garden. But you have fine-looking vegetables and I wish you luck.”
He even waved his hand as they drove away. Elizabeth liked him because
of his smile and she wished that she might stop and talk to him; he
would probably know all about the battle.
As for the old gentleman, he liked Elizabeth and spoke of her to
his family. “A capable-looking soul, not pretty, exactly, but with
unexpectedly blue eyes. She looked like an interesting girl.”
“Now, Sherlock Holmes,” said the old gentleman’s daughter. “How did
you make that out? You are always finding interesting persons.”
“From the way she looked at the book which I had in my hand.”
Elizabeth made no more sales. In the end she disposed of the remainder
of her goods at a store and turned Joe’s head homeward. Herbert was
depressed by their bad luck.
“Perhaps it is all a mistake!”
Elizabeth slapped the lines on Joe’s back. Unconsciously she had taken
them from Herbert and as unconsciously he had handed them to her. It
was too late now to return them, but the next responsibility, however
great or small, Herbert must shoulder.
“Of course it isn’t a mistake! They were just supplied, that is all.
We’ll go on a day when there is no curb market.”
In encouraging Herbert, she forgot her own disturbance of mind. “We
have ten dollars, at any rate, and that is as good as found.”
The June afternoon had grown cool; as the two drove across the grass to
the doorway of the stone house the shadows of the mountain lay darkly
about them. The house looked larger; it might have appeared, to one who
did not love it, sinister. In the stone above the door the name John
Baring was deeply carved; it seemed to Elizabeth suddenly to have no
relation to her; it looked strange as even familiar words may look at
times. But she spoke in her usual soft, brisk tone.
“To-morrow we’ll try Chambersburg. It is so much larger and there will
not be so many gardens. Stable your war-horse, Herbert, and I’ll make
waffles for supper.”
Elizabeth went into her room, originally a sitting-room behind the
larger parlor with windows opening toward the woods. On the floor lay a
piece of paper which had not been there when she went away. She picked
it up and carried it to the window.
“What in the world!” she cried. With difficulty she deciphered the
awkward writing.
This ant no place to rase apels. Nor yit for those what are kin to
John Baring.
As if to add the last touch of melodrama to his warning, the author had
executed a sketch of what was intended to be a skull and cross-bones.
Elizabeth looked at the paper and turned it over. After a while she
heard the sound of Herbert’s footsteps and knew that in a second she
would hear the familiar “Elizabeth!” This was not a responsibility to
be shared with frightened Herbert. She laid the paper under the scarf
on her bureau and crossed the hall to the kitchen, and there, as she
moved about gathering her materials for supper, she had astonished and
bitter thoughts.
“I didn’t make friends with the neighbors at first because I thought
they might feel under obligations to help us! I thought that was the
Eastern way!” She looked out into the darkening woods. “This is a
polite neighborhood into which we have moved!” said she.