Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 52946-h.htm or 52946-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52946/pg52946-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52946/52946-h.zip)
THREE SIDES OF PARADISE GREEN
by
AUGUSTA HUIELL SEAMAN
Author of "The Girl Next Door,"
"The Sapphire Signet," etc.
Illustrated by C. M. Relyea
[Illustration: Decoration]
New York
The Century Co.
[Illustration: "I'll tell you after we've had our swim," said the Imp]
Copyright, 1918, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1918
Printed in U. S. A.
TO
THE REAL HELEN ROBERTA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE JOURNAL IS BEGUN 3
II NEW DEVELOPMENTS 18
III THE IMP HAS THE BEST OF IT 36
IV THE MYSTERIOUS "MONSIEUR" 53
V TWO ACCIDENTS AND A MYSTERY 68
VI IN MONSIEUR'S ROOM 87
VII THE IMP MAKES A DISCOVERY 99
VIII THE PORTRAIT OF MYSTERY 114
IX CAROL MAKES A DISCOVERY OF HER OWN 125
X JOTTINGS FROM THE JOURNAL 138
XI LOUIS SPRINGS A SURPRISE--AND
THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF 151
XII WHAT THE IMP KNEW 163
XIII SUSPICIONS 175
XIV A SOLEMN CONCLAVE--AND WHAT
CAME OF IT 190
XV MONSIEUR'S STORY 202
XVI AUGUST FOURTH, 1914 228
XVII THE IMP MAKES A LAST DISCOVERY 246
XVIII THE END OF THE JOURNAL 265
THREE SIDES OF PARADISE GREEN
CHAPTER I
THE JOURNAL IS BEGUN
November 22, 1913. It's all on account of Miss Cullingford that I'm
beginning this journal. I never would have thought of such a thing by
myself. Neither would Carol. Now we've both begun one, and it's just
because Miss Cullingford is so sweet and lovely, and all the girls at
Bridgeton High School want to please her,--Carol and myself most of all.
Miss Cullingford is our English literature instructor, and we all simply
adore her. She's the sweetest thing! She's little and slight, with
fluffy light hair and dark blue eyes. And she's _such_ an inspiration
about literature and English composition! She makes it seem actually
like a romance. They always seemed terribly dull, those subjects, when
we had Miss Trotter last year. But now we're just crazy about them.
Well, one of the things she said yesterday in composition class was that
every one of us ought to keep a journal, not the kind of diary affair
that some people keep,--all about the weather and the number of jars of
jam they put up, and how Cousin Hannah called that day!--but an
occasional record, only written when we felt like it, of the things that
happen around us and our ideas about people and so on. She said that the
greatest minds of the ages had generally kept such a record, and that
they had proved a big addition to history and literature, too.
Then, right there, I raised my hand and said that it was fine, of
course, for the great minds to do it, especially when they lived in
stirring times and had lots interesting to write about; but what was the
use of just plain, ordinary people, as young as we were, doing it,
especially when there wasn't anything going on that was interesting at
all,--just the same old thing every day?
Miss Cullingford answered that I mustn't make the mistake of thinking
_any_ life uninteresting, no matter how quiet and ordinary it might
appear to be. You can always find something interesting to write about
any kind of life, if you try hard enough. And that was where the
advantage of a journal came in,--it made you look around hard to find
what was worth while, and you always found it. Also, it was a great help
to your style in writing. Then she asked if any of the girls would
promise to keep a journal faithfully for a year. Carol and I promised.
Well, now I'm going to see. No life could possibly be more
_un_interesting than mine, here in quiet little Stafford where nothing
ever happens or ever _has_ happened that I know of, and in a family
that's awfully nice, of course, but as plain and uninteresting and
ordinary as all the rest of the families around here.
Carol doesn't feel the same as I do about it. She's more hopeful.
That's because she has lots of imagination and is always romancing about
people and thinking there's some story back of their lives that we don't
know. I suppose her journal will be awfully different from mine. Well,
anyhow, we've both begun, and now we'll see what happens.
November 23. I had to stop short last night because I suddenly got so
sleepy. Now I'll go on. I do wish we lived in Bridgeton, for things
surely happen once in a while in a big town like that. Or even down in
our own village of Stafford itself, and not way out, a mile off on the
main road, on this silly little triangle called Paradise Green. Even the
trolley doesn't run up this way; that would be _something_! But there's
nothing in the world around here except this little triangle of a green,
formed by the turning off of Cranberry Bog Road from the River Road, and
the short road that connects the two at the head of the green. I'm sure
I don't know why it was ever called Paradise Green. I suppose if I were
Carol, I'd find out. She probably will. She's always hunting up
historical facts.
Even the automobiles don't come along this way. Nearly all of them keep
to the State road over on the other side of the river. There are just
three houses around the Green, one on each side, and not another
dwelling anywhere within half a mile. So we haven't many near neighbors.
Our house stands at the head of the Green. It's a big square house, with
a cupola on top and a veranda around all four sides. Father's father
built it when that style of house was just beginning to be popular, and
everybody thought it very grand. I hate it myself, because it seems so
old-fashioned and dreary compared to those pretty new bungalows they are
putting up in Bridgeton. Mother and Father and the Imp and I live here.
Father does intensive farming,--he is just crazy about it,--and every
one comes to Birdsey's for ideas on the subject.
Dave is my brother. He's seventeen and a half, and a very quiet and
thoughtful sort of person. All the same, he can do his own share of
teasing in a quiet way. He left high school this year because his health
wasn't very good, and is helping Father with the farming. Next year he's
going to study scientific agriculture at one of the big colleges. I'm
secretly awfully fond of Dave, but just at present he pretends to look
down on girls as entirely unnecessary articles in the general scheme of
things, so Carol and I are letting him severely alone.
The Imp is my sister. She's twelve years old and a perfect nuisance.
Carol and I have named her "The Imp" because she acts just like one. She
likes to trot around with us all the time, but we won't have it. It's
impossible to have a child of twelve continually hanging on to girls of
fifteen or sixteen, and Carol and I simply won't stand it. The Imp is
fearfully miffed about this and spends her time thinking up revengeful
things to do to us. She makes our lives perfectly miserable sometimes,
though we wouldn't let her know it for the world.
Carol's house is on the River Road side of the Green. She lives there
with just her mother and her Aunt Agatha. The Fayres are distant
relatives of ours, so Carol and I are really cousins. Their house is one
of the old style, a real New England farmhouse, and they have a glorious
big barn in the back, where we've all played ever since we were babies.
One little room off the haymow Carol and I have fixed up as our private
den and study. We keep our books and our fancywork there, and her mother
gave us an old desk where we do our school work. We always keep the den
locked with a padlock, because the Imp would like to get in and rummage
around. She's as mad as a hatter because she can't. She threatens to
climb in the window sometime, but I don't believe she could possibly. If
she did, she'd probably break her neck.
Carol is fifteen years old, and I'm sixteen. Her name is really
Caroline, but she hates it and wants to be called "Carol" instead. She
says it's so much prettier. And mine is even worse--_Susan_! Could
anything be more dreadful? I've insisted on being called "Susette,"
which at least is a prettier French form. But no one except Carol will
ever call me that. Every one calls me either "Susie" or "Sue," that is,
all but the Imp. She, of course, knowing how much I detest it, will say
nothing but "So-o-san" on all occasions. Carol she addresses by the
horrible nickname of "Cad." Why are some children so irritating, I
wonder? The infuriating part is that the Imp's own name is really
lovely--Helen Roberta--and she knows it, little torment that she is!
Well, I haven't yet told about the third house on the Green, so now I
come to that. It's the one on the Cranberry Bog Road side. It's by far
the most interesting of the three,--a long, rambling colonial farmhouse,
built, they say, way back in seventeen hundred and something. It has the
most fascinating additions in all directions from the main part, and
queer little back stairways and old slave quarters, and I don't know
what else. But the people who live in it are the interesting part.
To begin with, there's Louis. His whole name is Louis Charles Durant. He
is seventeen and goes to high school in Bridgeton with us. We have known
him all our lives, and he's the nicest, jolliest boy we know. But the
people he lives with I've never understood at all, and if there were any
romance or mystery about any one around here, it would be about them.
Come to think of it, they _are_ mysterious. Carol has always said so,
but I never thought much about it. And that only goes to show that Miss
Cullingford is right. Keeping a journal does certainly make you go about
with your eyes open wider and gives you an interest in things you never
thought worth while before. I never thought or cared a bit about Louis's
folks before, and now I see they're full of possibilities.
November 24. Fell asleep again last night while I was writing. I guess
it's because there's nothing very exciting to write about. However, I'll
go on from where I left off about Louis's folks. First, there's the old
man. Louis's father and mother have been dead a number of years. I never
remember seeing either of them. So he lives with this old man, who, they
say, is his guardian. His name is John Meadows, or at least that is what
he is always called around here. But Louis says that he is French, and
that his real name is Jean Mettot. He is very old; he must be eighty at
least. And he is very feeble now, too. He sits all day long in a great
armchair by the parlor window. He never reads anything but the papers
and some great, heavy volumes of French history, but he spends a great
deal of time thinking and dreaming, while he looks way off over the
meadows toward the river.
Then there's his daughter, Miss Meadows. She's about forty or fifty
years old, I should think. Louis says her name is Yvonne. Certainly,
that's a fascinating French name. She's very dark and handsome and quick
in her ways, but she's very, very quiet and silent. I never had a _real_
conversation with her in my life, though I've talked to her a great
many times. I do all the talking, and she nods or smiles or says "Yes"
and "No," and that is absolutely all. I feel as if I'd never really
_know_ her, if I talked to her a hundred years. They have one servant, a
big French peasant from Normandy, who cooks the meals and takes care of
the garden and house.
All this doesn't sound very strange, however. And there _is_ something
very mysterious about them,--at least, so Carol has always said. I never
paid much attention to the thing before, or noticed it. The curious part
of it all is the way they treat Louis. He isn't any real relative, so he
says. His parents and their parents have just been dear friends from a
long way back. It's plain that they think the world of him, too, just as
much as if he were a relative. But there's something more. They are
continually watching him with anxious eyes. They guard him as if he
weren't able to take care of himself any more than a baby. They don't
let him have half the liberty and fun that ordinary boys have. Lots of
mothers and fathers, who love their children to distraction, aren't half
as fussy and concerned about them as these two people are about a boy
who isn't even a relative. It makes Louis awfully annoyed, for he hates
like anything to be coddled. Once he fell out of an apple-tree and broke
a rib, and they nearly went wild. He had a fever that night and lay in a
sort of stupor. But when he was coming out of it he heard them talking
awfully queerly about him and wringing their hands and whispering that
"he would never, never forgive us if Monsieur Louis were to die."
Who "he" was, or why his Aunt Yvonne and his Uncle Jean (as he calls
them) should allude to him as "Monsieur Louis," was something Louis
couldn't understand. And somehow, when he was better, he didn't like to
ask.
They have taught him French, and with them he always has to speak that
language. But he doesn't like it, because he says he's an American
citizen and would rather talk "United States" than anything else. He's
awfully patriotic and proud of this country, and he can't understand why
this should bother Mr. and Miss Meadows. But it somehow does. He's sure
of it, for they won't let him talk about it, and are always telling him
that his great grandfather was born in France and that he should be very
proud of it.
Then there's another thing, too, that seems to worry them a lot. Louis
is crazy about mechanical engineering. He declares he's going to study
that exclusively, when he's through high school, and become an expert in
it. This nearly drives them wild. They want him to be a "statesman," as
they call it, and study law and history and diplomacy and all that sort
of thing.
"You can serve your country best that way," they are always telling him.
Once he said to them:
"The United States has plenty of that sort already. _I_ want to go in
for something special." And he says they never answered a word, but
just looked queerly at each other and walked off.
Another time he found that the lock on their kitchen door wouldn't work,
so he unscrewed it and took it out. He was fixing it when along came his
Aunt Yvonne. When she saw what he was doing she burst into tears and
rushed away, muttering, "The ancient blood! It will ruin
everything!"--or something in French like that.
All these things do not happen frequently, of course, but when something
like it does occur, it puzzles Louis dreadfully. He always talks it over
with us when we come home together from Bridgeton High School on the
trolley, so that's why I happen to know about it.
Well, now I've begun this journal by telling all about ourselves and our
homes and everything else I can think of. But as I read it over, it
doesn't sound one bit exciting or likely to become "an interesting
contribution to history," as Miss Cullingford would say. I wonder what
she'd think about it. I'm glad I didn't promise to _show_ her my
journal, for I'm not very proud of this sample. I'm crazy to see what
Carol has written. We're going to compare our journals to-morrow.
One thing is certain, though. I'm not going to write another word till
I've something more interesting to talk about, even if I have to wait
six months!