A HOUSE OF MYSTERY
As though to completely take the joy out of life for us, no other cars
came along, as we had expected they would. The sway-backed roadster
with the crazy name and queer-looking driver seemed to have the whole
highway to itself. And that was strange, we thought, puzzled.
Why had the road been closed to all the cars except this one? Or, to
put it another way, if the road had been closed to the general traffic,
for certain reasons, how had the one car gotten permission to come
through?
It was dusk now. And as though cheered up by the cooler air of early
nightfall, the crickets and locusts were tuning it up to beat the cars.
Or maybe, was my crazy thought, they were hooting at us in derision
as we passed. I could imagine, as we trudged along, hungry and fagged
out, that we looked not unlike some rare piece of junk that the cat had
dragged in. I know I felt that way.
Once or twice we caught sight of a scuttling rabbit. And now that the
bushes beside the hard road were lost in creeping shadows, I began to
pick out moving eyes. Hunks of green glass set close together.
Poppy had joked with me about putting in the night here, though at the
time neither of us had thought that we might in all fact have to do
that very thing. But now the outlook was against us. We seemed to be a
million miles from nowhere. Did snakes and sand lizards, I wondered,
have green eyes? Br-r-r-r! If it came about, to our further grief, that
we had no other choice than to stick it out all night in the open, it
was my clever little decision to roost in a tree--that and nothing else
but. I wasn’t so well supplied with spare legs and arms that I cared to
run the chance of having one chawed off and hurriedly digested by some
green-eyed monster while I snoozed on a bed of sand burs. I guess not.
Certainly, I checked up on the day’s adventures, so different from our
dreams, a fellow’s fortunes were easily turned upsidedown. Only that
morning we had set forth on our trip with lilting hearts, as the saying
is. Everything was sunshine and chocolate drops. But were we lilting
now? Not so you could notice it. I had the beaten feeling, as I dragged
myself along, that I had lilted my last lilt.
“Poppy,” I suffered, feeling that it was time for some more nonsense,
“if the worst comes to the worst, and I go down first, you can have my
jigsaw and football shoes--only the jigsaw needs a new leather belt.”
“Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along,” the other sang, to
cheer me up.
“Say, Poppy,” I breathed, clinging to his arm, my eyes far away, “what
is heaven like?”
“Be yourself, kid,” he shoved at me. “You aren’t Little Eva.”
“I wish now that I had taken lessons on a harp,” I tremoloed, “instead
of a shoehorn. If only we could look ahead and know what the Fates have
in store for us. Eh, kid?”
“Jerry,” came warmly, as the leader slipped an arm around me, “you’re
a regular little sunbeam. For no matter how hard we get bumped, your
stock of silly gab never dries up. I don’t know how I ever could get
along without you. Certainly, it wouldn’t be the same old world.”
Well, that was pretty nice of him, I thought. I appreciated the hug,
too!
“If you want to,” I puckered up, looking at him with my soul in my
eyes, “you can kiss your little sunbeam ... once.”
“Go on!” he shoved.
I was about to unhinge some more of my crazy gab, when all of a sudden
the leader gave a whoop and scooted down the road.
“Here’s a signboard, Jerry. ‘New Zion ten miles,’” he read.
“Ten miles!” I groaned.
“We can make it.”
“But look at the road!” I wailed. “It’s nothing but sand. We’ll slip
back faster than we can go ahead.”
“Then we’ll walk backwards,” came the quick grin.
“Ten miles!” I suffered anew. “It’s no use, Poppy,” I waggled weakly,
as a sort of climax to my little act. “I’m done for. Remember, kid,
the jigsaw’s yours. And you’ll find my book of patterns and seven new
blades under the dog house. Good-by, Poppy. You meant well in bringing
me here. But you didn’t know, old pal. So I forgive you. And if you
can’t make the jigsaw saw ask Dad to help you, for he’s almost as
clever at sawing hunks out of his finger tips as I am.”
“I’ll ‘jigsaw’ you in the seat of the pants if you don’t come on and
shut up,” he told me.
Seesawing together, the moon had been lifted into sight by the sinking
sun. And now we could trace the winding course of the sandy road
leading to New Zion. As I have hinted in an earlier paragraph, it was
_some_ road. Sand to the right of us, sand to the left of us and sand
in front of us, as Lord Tennyson would have written it in poetry. But
as I trudged along beside the leader I tried to grin and bear it.
“A light, Jerry!” he suddenly yipped. “There’s a farmhouse up ahead of
us. We’re saved now, old kid.”
There was indeed a house up ahead of us, on the right-hand side of
the road. We could see it in the moonlight. But as we hurried toward
it, in livelier spirits, I couldn’t make myself believe that it was a
farmhouse. Certainly, it was no ordinary farmhouse. For it was much too
showy. I could count three stories and an attic. It was a stone house,
too. And even if it had been built years and years ago, when labor and
plaster were peddled around at bargain rates, I could not doubt that it
had cost a fortune.
Who had been crazy enough, I wondered, curious over the unusual place,
to build a house like this at the very end of the world? It didn’t fit
into the waste landscape at all. Still, was my contented thought, the
better the house the better the meal. It ought to work out that way. So
we really were in luck to strike a place like this instead of a shack,
which would have better matched the country.
Not only was the house itself built of stone, but it was inclosed by a
stone wall at least three feet high. Where the private road turned in,
smoothly graveled, the wall was lifted into a huge arched gateway.
Looking in, I thought curious-like of the magic palace that the genii
had built for Aladdin.
“Is it real?” I asked Poppy’s opinion, wondering if it would be safe
for us to go in. “Or is it a mirage, as you read about in stories of
people crossing the desert?”
“Tell me what you see,” laughed the other, as puzzled over the unusual
place as I was, “and I’ll tell you what I see.”
“A beautiful three-story stone house,” I checked off, “with fancy
jiggers all over it, to make it showy, and a stone wall in front, with
a big gateway, like a cemetery.”
“That’s exactly what I see, too. So I guess it’s real enough. But it
beats me,” the puzzled leader concluded, matching my thoughts, “to find
a place like this in a country where there aren’t even farmhouses.”
Leg weary and hollow under our belts, it had been our intention to buy
a meal here, late as it was, and if possible rent a bed for the night.
Certainly, done up as we were from our first unsatisfactory day on
the road, it was all right for us to draw on our emergency fund. The
next night, when we were on the other road where the automobiles were,
and playing in luck again, we would try working for our supper and
breakfast, as we had planned on doing. But not to-night.
It struck me, though, as I stood there looking at the peculiar house,
that this was no place to buy a meal. If we were admitted into the
house at all it would be without pay. For only a very wealthy man could
have built a place like this. And what would a dollar or two of our
money mean to him?
Still, unless we wanted the people to think that we were tramps, it
would be better for us to offer to pay for our supper, I told Poppy,
than to ask for it. So of this determination we turned in through the
big gate and mounted the front steps.
The door that we came to was set in a framework of glass, in the old
colonial way, and taking a squint inside, I saw a long, wide, dimly-lit
hall, the walls and ceiling of which were fixed up with fancy dark
wood panels. It was a swell house, all right, as swell on the inside,
with its beautiful walls and old furniture, as it was on the outside.
And more than ever I wondered at its being here. It must have a queer
history, I told myself.
“Clang!” went the old-fashioned knocker. And I stepped back now, out
of sight, for a small, quick-footed woman of considerable age had come
briskly into sight, carrying a hand lamp. I saw her set the lamp on a
small table close to the door. In her blue and white kitchen apron, she
didn’t look very high-toned, like the big house, yet, to that point, I
liked her best the way she was. She had a sort of motherly look. Her
gray hair was combed tight to her head, which she carried very straight
on her shoulders, and even before I got a close look at her I knew that
her eyes were gray, too. I was to learn soon that they were very bright
eyes, sparkling as she talked--and could she _talk_! Oh, boy!
The door was opened without hesitation. Yet at sight of us the woman
seemed to be startled, even disappointed. She was looking for some one
else, I figured.
“It’s just two boys,” Poppy spoke up quickly, noticing that the older
one was trying to look over our shoulders. “We haven’t had any supper.
And seeing your light, as we were hoofing it for New Zion, we wondered
if you wouldn’t be kind enough to sell us something to eat.”
“Laws-a-me!” cried the little old woman, with a nervous, excited
gesture. “If you’ve got money, keep it. You don’t have to pay for a
meal in _this_ house, not while _I’m_ here, though how long I’ll be
here I can’t say.”
“That’s fine,” says Poppy in good manners. “But we don’t want to be
cheap about it.”
“Samantha Ann _Danver_ Doane is my name,” the woman ran on, “_Danver_
being my maiden name, and a name I’m justly proud of, I want you to
know. While it probably isn’t anything to boast of, and certainly
nothing to be ashamed of, I’ll confess to you, as I have to other
people, it being my nature to be frank and open, that I’m only a poor
relation of the man who built this house and lived in it until his
sudden death, the ninth of last August. So now you know who I am, and
you understand what I mean when I say I don’t know how long I’ll be
here.... Who did you say you were?”
Poppy gave our names and explained about the closed highway. All the
time he was talking the woman talked, too. It was kind of funny. But I
kept a straight face. For even if old people are queer, you can’t laugh
at them to their face. I guess not. Mother and Dad would jerk me out of
my skin if I ever did a trick like that.
“When you first knocked,” the woman ran on, and I was getting wise to
her lively eyes now, “I thought it was Miss Ruth. ‘There,’ says I to
myself, as I dropped my work in the kitchen, ‘it would be just like
that dear jolly girl to call me to the door and then jump into my
arms.’ While I am a poor relation of the Danvers, as I say, I want you
to know that I’m very proud of my stock, and consequently Miss Ruth is
very dear to me, though I don’t like her mother, and never did. The
proud piece! But, laws-a-me, Miss Ruth is the _dearest_ girl, just
about the age of you boys, and just like her pa and her grandpa, too.”
Talk like that takes a lot of air. But in stopping to get her wind, the
little old lady didn’t waste any time.
“_He_ was the commonest and kindest man I ever knew in all my life,
with all of his great wealth--meaning Mr. Corbin Danver, who built
this mammoth house and died here--and how his son, Harold, could have
quarreled with him, and let the quarrel stand to the separation of the
two branches of the family, is more than _I_ can figure out. But a lot
of queer things happen in this world--and in the best of families, our
own unexcepted.”
“Yes, indeed,” says Poppy, feeling, I guess, that to be polite he ought
to say something.
The woman then switched her thoughts to us and smiled as though she had
seen worse-looking guys.
“As I say, I didn’t expect to find two _boys_ when I opened the door,
but you are none the less welcome, if that is in good form as coming
from a poor relation. And you’re hungry, you say! Well, just come with
me to the kitchen and I’ll see what I can find for you. I haven’t had
supper myself, figuring I’d wait until Pa and Miss Ruth got here, so
I may take a bite with you for company’s sake, for Pa may not get
here for another hour. _Such_ an old car as we have! But it’s all we
can afford. You never know what is liable to happen to it when you
start out. A wheel ran off the day we came here, which was a week ago
yesterday. Oh, dear! It’s awful to be poor. I sometimes wonder how
it would seem to be a _rich_ relation for once instead of a _poor_
relation.... Do you like cold meat sandwiches? Or shall I fry some
potatoes?”
“Don’t go to any bother,” Poppy told her quickly. “For anything in the
way of grub is good enough for us.”
Having followed the woman to the kitchen, we now watched her, grinning
at each other, while she worked and talked. Her hands and tongue moved
together, though for the most part what she said passed over our
heads. She kept referring to “Miss Ruth” and “Pa.” “Miss Ruth’s ma,”
we learned, had been a _Hardy_ before her marriage into the _Danver_
family. And considering her stock she was acting much too big for her
shoes--whatever that was. But “Miss Ruth’s pa” was a gentleman of
_real_ stock--a _Danver_, if you please! And “Miss Ruth” herself was
just like her pa and her grandpa.
What interested us more than the woman’s chatter was the fine supper
that she set out for us. Boy, did food ever taste so good to us! I’d
be ashamed to tell you how many sandwiches we ate. But however much
we stuffed ourselves, we didn’t eat half enough to suit the little old
lady, who, having talked all the time she was getting the “eats” ready,
was still talking. Her one great ambition, it seemed to me, was to tell
all she knew!
Once she left us, to see if “Pa and Miss Ruth” were coming. We heard
her open the front door and go outside.
“She sure has a limber tongue,” grinned Poppy, murdering his tenth
sandwich. “But she’s all right,” he tacked on hastily, not wanting me
to get a wrong idea of what he meant.
“What do you make out of her talk?” says I, looking around the big
kitchen, which was as fine a kitchen as I ever had been in.
“As I understand it, she and ‘Pa,’ her husband, came here a week ago to
open up this house, which had been closed since the funeral--whoever it
was that died here.”
“I got that part--it was Miss Ruth’s grandfather, Mr. Corbin Danver. He
was the man who built this place.”
“But who is Miss Ruth?”
“Some girl who’s coming here on a visit, I guess.”
“‘Pa’ went to the train to meet her, huh?”
“That’s the way I understand it.”
Poppy laughed.
“Say, Jerry, I wonder if that wasn’t ‘Pa’ in the old car.”
“He was headed this way, all right.”
“Still,” the leader turned the thought around in his mind, “it couldn’t
have been him. For the man who passed us in the Galloping Snail could
easily have gotten here ahead of us. Besides, he was alone.”
“Don’t forget about the goose,” I grinned.
“A goose isn’t a girl.”
“A lady goose is,” I joked, “when she’s young.”
“You’re a goose yourself!”
The woman was nervous when she came back to the kitchen.
“Dear me!” she cried. “I’m beginning to worry about Pa. For it’s almost
ten o’clock. Do you suppose he’s lost?”
“Doesn’t he know the roads around here?” I inquired.
“_Him?_ Pa is dumb, if I must admit it, as one who has lived with him
for more than forty years. _He_ isn’t a Danver,” came proudly, “it’s
_me_ who is. _He’s_ a Doane, and the Doanes, from Cyril Doane down, are
a thick-headed lot, though I hoped well for Pa when I married him. But
it’s a fact, _he_ wouldn’t know how to put on his shirt if I didn’t
yank him into it. However, he’s a good husband in some ways. For one
thing, he never talks back to me. But it’s _me_ who has to do all the
planning. His head might just as well be made of wood for all the use
he makes of it. I never can depend on him. The other day I sent him
to Neponset Corners for some _baking_ powder and he ended up in Sandy
Ridge where he bought _bug_ powder. Powder! That was all he could
keep in his mind at one time--he knew I had said _powder_--but could
he think of _baking_ powder?--no, _bug_ powder! That’s Pa for you. No
wonder I worry about him when he’s out of my sight. And I wish now that
I hadn’t trusted him to go to Pardyville alone.”
“We came through Pardyville this afternoon,” says Poppy, by way of
conversation.
“Like as not,” came the further worry, “he’ll go to the wrong depot.
Oh, dear! What wouldn’t I give to hear one of his old tires blow up
out in front--just to know that he was home safe and sound. Suppose
something should happen to Miss Ruth!--and her coming here secretly.
What would her ma say? I sometimes think she shouldn’t have planned to
come here without telling her ma. And to that point, _why_ she wants
to come here, so secret-like, is a mystery to _me_. But when I got her
letter, asking me to come over with Pa to open the house, I didn’t say
‘no.’ That was little enough for a body to do for one’s rich relation,
I thought--and you always get something for it. As I said to Pa last
night, ‘Pa, _why_ is Miss Ruth so anxious to come here all of a sudden?
What is her object? Kept away from her grandpa’s funeral by her ma, who
never got over the quarrel, is she anxious now to come here, on her way
to boarding school, out of respect for the dead?’ But you might as well
talk to a hitching post as to talk to Pa. All _he_ ever says is ‘yes’
and ‘no,’ and half the time he doesn’t know enough to say that if I
don’t tell him to.”
I was thinking to myself, sort of grinning-like, that maybe all “Pa”
ever had a chance to say was “yes” and “no.” But, of course, I kept
shut on my thoughts. For I know my manners.
As we finished our supper, the droning voice of a clock came down the
stairs. I began to count the slow strokes.
“Listen!” the woman breathed, and I saw that a quick change had come
over her. She looked frightened--as though she expected something
to rush in and grab her. “... seven ... eight ... nine ... ten,”
she counted. There was a short deep silence. Then something slammed
upstairs. “What is it?” she cried, looking back and forth at us.
“Sounded like a door,” says Poppy.
“I know it’s a door. And I suspect that it’s the door of the chamber
where Miss Ruth’s grandpa died. But what makes it _slam_? And always
when the clock strikes ten! It does that every night. As I told Pa
the second time it happened, there’s something queer going on in this
house--something that neither he nor I can understand. Miss Ruth isn’t
coming here in a mere whim. She has a _reason_. Has she learned why
her grandpa left her the keys of this house? Does she know what is in
the will, which is to be read here Wednesday night? Certainly, when
she gets here, and I expect her any minute now, I hope that she tells
me the truth. For if there’s anything I hate it’s to be around people
who have secrets. _Me?_--I never had a secret in all my life. I don’t
believe in secrets. And that is one reason why I set my foot down when
Pa wanted to join the Masons. I wasn’t going to have _him_ know things
that _I_ didn’t know.”
Poppy was sitting beside the telephone. And when it suddenly jingled he
jumped as though he had been shot.
“Laws-a-me!” cried the woman nervously. “I wonder what now?”