LOOKING FORWARD
"I don't believe you've heard a word I've been saying, Jack Welles!"
The boy on his knees before the tangled fishing tackle spread out on
the lowest porch step, looked up alertly.
"Sure I heard," he protested. "Something or other is 'perfectly
adorable.'"
Rosemary laughed. She had been sitting in the porch swing and now she
came and camped on the middle step, chin in hand, regardless of the hot
sunshine that turned her bronze hair to red gold.
"I suppose I did say that," she admitted. "But it really is, Jack. I
don't believe Mother would call it an exaggeration."
Jack Welles frowned at a tangle of line. "I heard you," he said again,
"but I didn't get where this place is--I saw you and your mother going
off with Hugh in the car this morning," he added.
"I'll untangle that for you," offered Rosemary, holding out her hand
for the line. "We went to see Rainbow Hill and now Mother is crazy to
go there for the summer. Hugh is as pleased as pleased can be, for he
wants her to go somewhere before Mr. Greggs starts the work here."
"Where's Rainbow Hill?" asked Jack, watching the slim fingers as they
worked at the waxed silk thread so woefully knotted.
"That's the best part of the whole plan," Rosemary assured him, taking
his knowledge of a plan for granted. "It's only about eight or nine
miles from here and twelve from Bennington. Hugh can easily come out
in the car. You must have seen the house, Jack--it is right on the
tip-top of that hill to the right, the little white clapboarded house
you see as soon as you pass the cross-roads."
"I've seen it," said Jack.
"Well, you may have seen it, but you can't tell how lovely it is until
you go through it," declared Rosemary, winding a free length of line
about her slender wrist for safe-keeping. "There's no front porch--you
step into the living-room right from the lawn. But there is a side
porch with awnings and screens that Mother will just love."
"Where are the folks who live there?" demanded the practical Jack.
"They're going to California, to visit their married daughter,"
Rosemary explained. "They're patients of Hugh's--Mr. and Mrs. Hammond.
And they wanted to rent the house because they didn't like the idea of
closing it for almost three months with all their nice furniture and a
piano and everything in it. So--wasn't it lucky--they happened to ask
Hugh if he knew of anyone who would rent the place furnished and he saw
right away it would be just the thing for us."
"Whereupon they insisted that he take it as a gift, with a maid and two
butlers thrown in," recited Jack, who knew in what affection Doctor
Hugh's patients held him.
"Not exactly," dimpled Rosemary, "but they did say that if Mother would
live there during the summer they would consider it a favor and
wouldn't dream of charging rent. Mrs. Hammond said she knew she
wouldn't have to worry about her things if Doctor Hugh's mother would
be there to look after them. But, of course, Hugh wouldn't listen to
that--he said business was business and as soon as he and Mr. Hammond
had the rent fixed, Hugh took Mother and me to see Rainbow Hill. And
it's too lovely for words."
"Any butlers?" suggested Jack.
"Not a butler," answered Rosemary firmly. "Winnie beats all the
butlers I ever saw--or read about," she emended, remembering that her
actual experience with butlers was limited.
"Winnie won't take kindly to pumping water from the well every
morning," said Jack, sorting fish hooks with a practised hand.
"There's no water to pump," was the prompt and cheerful response.
"It's an old-fashioned house, but the plumbing is new--Hugh found that
out before he even mentioned Rainbow Hill to Mother. It will be such
fun to show the place to Sarah and Shirley--I can hardly wait."
Jack looked up at the vivid, glowing face above him.
"I can imagine Sarah let loose on a farm," he said drily. "They'd
better tie up the pigs and nail down the cows--I wouldn't trust that
girl within ten feet of a live animal."
"You think you're smart, Jack Welles!" broke in the wrathful voice of
Sarah as that young person hurled herself around the side of the house
and confronted them indignantly. "You think you're smart, don't you?"
"'Scuse me, Sarah, I didn't know you were within hearing distance,"
apologized Jack with proper contriteness. "Don't be mad at me, Sally,
for here you are going away--when are you going?"
"Monday," said Sarah sullenly.
"You're going away Monday," went on Jack, "and you may not see me till
September; can't we part friends, Sarah?"
Sarah regarded him suspiciously, but he surveyed her over his fish
hooks and was apparently quite serious.
"I'll be glad to leave some people in this neighborhood," stated Sarah
with peculiar distinctness. "I'm going to do just as I please at
Rainbow Hill."
"Then I take it that Hugh won't be there?" said Jack, but Rosemary
hastened to act as peacemaker.
"Don't fuss," she advised them wisely. "Jack, I may learn how to fish
this summer myself--Mr. Hammond told Hugh that Mr. Hildreth is a great
fisherman."
Jack asked who Mr. Hildreth was and Sarah answered that he was the
tenant farmer.
"And his wife is the tenant farmeress," said Sarah importantly. "They
live in another house and plant things--Hugh told me."
"Yes'm, I don't doubt it," agreed Jack, when he had assimilated this
remarkable information, "but how come a farmer and a farmeress have
time to give lessons in fishing?"
Rosemary began on the last knot in the line. "Don't be silly, Jack,"
she begged. "There'll be two boys there--Mrs. Hildreth says her
husband gets two students from the State Agricultural College to help
him every summer. They'll want to go fishing and Sarah and I can go
along."
"When you farm, you farm," said Jack sententiously. "You don't hoe the
potatoes one day and then go fishing for a week. But I may be wrong at
that and if you find Mr. Hildreth needs an extra hired man, Rosemary,
one to go fishing, I mean, ask him to send for me. I'll come right up
and fish and look after the garden in my odd moments."
"Hugh's coming to spend two weeks in August," announced Sarah. "And
he'll come out as many week-ends as he can; will you really come, Jack?"
"I always did yearn to be a hired man," Jack answered earnestly, "and
they tell us there is no time like the present to put one's ambition in
training. I'm awfully afraid I'll have to earn my living after I leave
school and a nice trade, like that of hired man, might be useful in my
later life. I'll think it over and let you know, Sarah; but don't let
Mr. Hildreth build on my coming--I can't face his grief and
disappointment in case I fail to turn up."
"You think you're smart!" was Sarah's retort and Rosemary said to
herself that it was impossible to tell when Jack was in earnest.
Winnie came out and told them that lunch was ready just then, and Jack
took his fishing tackle and retreated to his own home which was next
door, first thanking Rosemary fervently for the unknotted line she
handed him.
There were times during the days of preparation for the eventful Monday
when Mrs. Willis wondered whether they were really wise to go to so
much trouble, times when she thought wearily that her own home, noisy
as it might be, would be far preferable to the effort required to adapt
her family to a new environment.
Rosemary put the feeling into words one noon when the doctor came home
to lunch and found her sitting on the floor beside a trunk with a
lapful of rusty keys.
"Nothing fits," complained Rosemary. "All the keys to everything are
lost. And I don't see what good a restful summer will do Mother if she
has nervous prostration before she gets off."
Doctor Hugh settled several difficulties in as many minutes--he had a
gift for that--by dispatching Sarah to the locksmith with soft-soap
impressions of the keyless locks and orders to get keys to fit them and
insisting that his mother must stay quietly in her room the remainder
of the day and be served with luncheon and supper there.
"You girls try to talk all at once," he told his three sisters when
they sat down at last to Winnie's rice waffles, "and that is enough to
tire anyone.
"Can't I take the cat, Hugh?" urged Sarah anxiously. "You can take it
in the car for me and I know fresh country air will be good for poor
Esther."
"Esther wouldn't appreciate Rainbow Hill," said Doctor Hugh with
conviction. "Cats don't like to change their homes, Sarah. Besides,
you'll have all the animals you want once you are on the farm. And
that reminds me I want to say one thing to you."
"I suppose," remarked Sarah plaintively, "you're going to scold."
"Not exactly," said her brother, smiling in spite of himself. "But
while I want you to have a happy summer, Sarah, and 'collect' snakes
and bugs and insects to your heart's content, I want you to understand
clearly that the menagerie is to be kept outside of the house. Mother
and Winnie mustn't be expected to get used to finding snakes in boxes
and spiders in bottles, and the place to study a colony of ants is
outside, not in the front hall. If I find you can't remember this one
rule, you'll have to come back to Eastshore and stay with me during the
week."
Sarah, with an unhappy recollection of the furore she had created the
week before when she had bodily transplanted a thriving colony of ants
to the hall rug, promised to remember.
"Jack Welles said he might come up for a couple of weeks and be a hired
man," announced Rosemary, smiling.
"I hope he does," approved the doctor promptly. "He'll find it an
endurance test and a particularly valuable one. Yes, Winnie?"
"I wish you'd step out and look at the canna bed," said Winnie grimly.
"Every single plant pulled out and left dying in the sun."
"Why, I did that," declared Shirley in her clear little voice that
always reminded Winnie of a robin's chirp. "I thought Mother would
want to take the cannas to Rainbow Hill with us--we can plant them
around the porch there."
Doctor Hugh pushed back his chair, his mouth twitching.
"Whatever happens this summer, Winnie," he said gravely, "something
tells me that you won't be bored."