CARVER HOUSE
Nyoda was waiting for them on the platform, looking just as she used to,
radiant, girlish, enthusiastic, bubbling over with fun. Not a shade of
sadness or anxiety in her face betrayed the loneliness in her heart and
her longing for the presence of the dear man she had sent forth in the
cause of liberty. In respect to sorrows, Nyoda's attitude toward the
world had always been, "Those which are yours are mine, but those which
are mine are my own."
Encircled by four pairs of Winnebago arms and with eager questions being
hurled at her from all sides, it seemed as if the old times had come
again indeed.
"Sahwah! Migwan! Hinpoha! Gladys!" she exclaimed joyfully, looking at
them with beaming eyes. "My own Winnebagos! But come, I'm dying to show
you my new playhouse," and she led the way across the station platform
to where her automobile stood waiting.
A swift spin along a quiet avenue bordered with immense old oaks that
stood like rows of soldiers at attention, and up quite a steep hill,
from which they could look back upon the houses and buildings clustering
in the valley, which was the heart of the town, and then they drew up
before a very old brick house which stood on the summit of the hill. It
had green blinds and a fanlight over the front door, and a brick walk
running from the front steps to the street, bordered on each side by a
box hedge in a prim, Ladies' Garden effect like one sees in the
illustrations of children's poems.
"Oh, Nyoda, how splendid!" cried Hinpoha, her artistic soul delighted
beyond measure at the hedge and the walk and the white door with its
quaint knocker.
"Wait until you see the inside," replied Nyoda, throwing open the door
with the pleased air of a child exhibiting a new and cherished toy.
Cries of admiration and delight filled the air as the Winnebagos
entered. The whole house was furnished just as it might have been in the
old Colonial days--braided rugs on the floor, candlesticks in glass
holders, slender-legged, spindle-backed chairs, quaint mahogany tables,
a huge spinning wheel before the fireplace, and, wonder of wonders!
between the two end windows of the stately parlor there stood a harp,
the late sunshine gleaming in a soft radiance from its gilded frame and
slender wires like the glory of a by-gone day. Hinpoha stood enraptured
before the instrument.
"I've always been wild to learn to play on a harp," she said, drawing
her fingers caressingly over the strings and awaking faint, throbbing
tones, too soft to be discords, that echoed through the room like the
ghost of a song played years ago, and trembled away until they seemed to
mingle with the golden light that flooded the room through the west
windows.
"If I had my choice of being any of the fabulous creatures in the
mythology book," said Hinpoha musingly, "I think I'd choose to be a
harpy."
"A what?" asked Nyoda quizzically.
"A harpy," repeated Hinpoha, touching the strings again. Then, looking
up and seeing the twinkle in Nyoda's eye, she added, "Weren't the
Harpies beautiful maidens that sat on the rocks and played harps and
lured the sailors to destruction with their ravishing songs? Oh, I say,
they were too," she finished feebly, amid a perfect shout of laughter
from the girls. "Well, what _were_ they, then? Horrible monsters? Oh,
what a shame! What a misleading thing the English language is, anyway!
You'd naturally expect a harpy to play on a harp. Anyway, you needn't
laugh, Sahwah. I remember once you said in class that a peptonoid was a
person with a lot of pep, so there!"
Sahwah joined gaily in the laugh that followed at her expense. "So I
did," she admitted unblushingly, "and what's more, I only discovered day
before yesterday that a trapezoid wasn't a trapeze performer!"
"Oh, Sahwah, you imp, you're making that up," said Gladys in a skeptical
tone.
"Nice child," said Nyoda, patting Sahwah approvingly, trying to turn the
laugh upon herself, on the principle that the hostess should always
break another cut glass tumbler when the guest breaks one."
"Oh dear," said Migwan regretfully, "why did you say that about Harpies,
Hinpoha, and make us laugh? I was just thinking how beautiful you
looked, leaning over that harp, just like that oil painting in the
gallery at home, and was getting into quite a poetical mood over it,
when you had to make us laugh and spoil it all. I declare, that was too
bad!"
"Serves you right for getting poetical about me," retorted Hinpoha.
"But Nyoda," said Gladys, whose eyes had been feasting on the details of
the house with every increasing wonder and pleasure, "how does it come
that you moved into this little town from Philadelphia, and how do you
happen to be living in this wonderful old house?"
"I inherited this place a few months after I was married," replied
Nyoda. "It is the old Carver House; built before the Revolution and kept
in the family ever since. My mother was a Carver--that's how I happened
to inherit it. She died years ago, without ever dreaming that the house
would come to me, for she was not a direct heir, being only a third
cousin. But the last of the direct line died out with old Uncle Jasper
Carver and that left me the only living blood relation. So this
beautiful house and everything in it came to me."
"Oh, Nyoda, I should think you would have died of joy!" said Hinpoha in
a rapt tone. "I know people who would give their eyebrows to own so much
old Colonial furniture."
"This house has seen proud days in its time," went on Nyoda. "The
Carvers were staunch patriots, and many a meeting of loyal citizens was
held around that table in the dining room. They say that Benjamin
Franklin was once a guest here. The history of the Carver family was
Uncle Jasper's pet hobby, and he has it all printed up in books which
you may see in the library.
"The Carvers have always been a fighting family," she continued, with a
flash of pride in her black eyes. "They fought in the Revolution, in the
Civil War, and in the Spanish-American War. But now that the country is
again calling men to her aid," she finished with a sigh, "there are no
more Carver men to answer the call. I am the last of the Carvers, and I
am only a woman."
"But you've done all that you _could_ do," said Migwan staunchly.
"You've sent your husband."
Nyoda drew herself up unconsciously as her eyes sought the picture of
Sherry on the mantelpiece with the silk flag draped over it.
"Yes," she echoed softly, "the last of the Carvers has done her bit."
A dinner bell clanged through the house and Nyoda sprang up with a
start. "Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes, girls," she exclaimed.
"Scurry upstairs and remove the stains of travel while I consult the
cook."
"Why, Nyoda," said Sahwah in surprise, "I didn't know you had a cook.
You told us coming up from the station that you did all your own work
because you didn't think it was patriotic to hire servants at this time
and take them away from the more essential industries!"
Nyoda looked nonplussed for a moment and then she laughed heartily.
"Special occasion," she remarked ceremoniously, and disappeared with a
chuckle through a door at the end of the hall.
The four girls went leisurely up the broad staircase with its white
spindles and polished mahogany rail to the rooms overhead, furnished
with huge curtained four-posters and fascinating chests of drawers with
cut-glass knobs.
In fifteen minutes the bell sent its summons through the house again and
the Winnebagos responded with alacrity. Nyoda stood in the dining-room
doorway to receive them, looking rather mysterious, they thought, and
Sahwah's sharp eyes counted a sixth place laid at the table. Nyoda
seated them, apparently not noticing the empty place, and then tinkled
the little bell that stood on the table at her place. In answer to her
tinkle the pantry door opened and in came the cook carrying a tray of
dishes. The Winnebagos looked up idly as she came in and the next moment
the ancestral Chippendale chairs of the Carver family were shoved back
unceremoniously as their occupants joined in a mad scramble to see who
could reach the cook first, while Nyoda looked on and laughed gleefully.
"Veronica! Veronica Lehar!" cried the Winnebagos in wonder and ecstasy.
"_You_ here!" "How perfectly gorgeous!" "How did you happen to come?"
"By urgent invitation, sweet lambs," replied Nyoda, "just like some
other people I could name. She blazed the trail for the Winnebagos by
arriving yesterday."
"Oh, you naughty, bad 'Bagos," said Migwan, embracing both Veronica and
Nyoda in her delight, "to frame up such a surprise for us! We standing
there cool as cucumbers in the front room of the house talking for half
an hour and Veronica out in the kitchen all the while, masquerading as
cook!"
"You pretty nearly upset the surprise, though, Mistress Sahwah," said
Nyoda, "with your suspicions in regard to my having a cook. It's next to
impossible to take you in, you eagle-eyed Indian! Come, Veronica, roll
down your sleeves and take your rightful place at the table. Now, girls,
"While we're here let's give a cheer
And sing to Wohelo!"
And then let's dip our wheatless crusts into our meatless broth for the
eternal glory and prosperity of the Winnebagos!"