COMRADES OF THE ROAD.
Already the scarlet sumac lit the road with its flaming torch, and here
and there on the mountainside a flash of scarlet like a redbird's wing
appeared among the masses of foliage. Autumn was at hand, the autumn of
the Adirondacks, when the evening air is nipped with the hint of frosts
to come and the sky is a deeper blue than ever it is at mid-summer.
Summer comrades of the road may not linger in the hills at this
enchanting season. There is work to be done in the valleys where the
busy people live. In a few days now the shutters of log cabin camps will
be closed and traveling vans will be sent to winter quarters.
The boys and girls who have lingered around the campfire, singing songs
and telling stories under the great harvest moon, all comrades of the
road, must turn their thoughts to soberer things than roasting apples
and school day reminiscences. The grown people, too, stretched out in
their steamer chairs, have been idling away the hours. Vaguely, as in a
mist, a great surgeon recalls that there is a hospital somewhere he has
been neglecting for weeks. An engineer is thinking of his tunnel only
just started through the heart of a mountain. A little old spinster,
fair and fresh as a rose, recalls with a start that for many weeks she
has been sleeping under the stars and eating strange food on a bare deal
table; and down in the valley her beautiful old home, filled with
memories of her girlhood, is waiting to shelter her.
Near the spinster sits a tall man with a delicate, nervous face. He sits
with folded arms, his eyes fixed on the back wall of mountains across
the valley. He is thinking not of the future of the little home in
Surrey that awaits him, but of the twenty black years behind him, as
blank and empty as the years of a prisoner spent in solitary
confinement. Sometimes, with a curious, startled gaze, he turns his eyes
toward his daughter, seated in the circle with the young people.
While we have been taking this leisurely view of our friends, Alberdina
has approached, smiling broadly over a great tray of cakes and ginger
ale. Mrs. Lupo is hovering in the background.
"It was that skirt of the young lady's that brought me really back to my
senses," Mrs. Lupo had confessed to Miss Campbell. "I thought the young
lady had sunk in the mire. The misery that come to me then made me see
things different; that and the prayer you taught me. Lupo, he's workin'
now in the valley and when the camp is broke up, I guess we'll forgive
and forgit."
Miss Campbell, glancing at Mrs. Lupo now in the background, wondered if
that awful memory of the carving knife was not a dream.
"Papa," Billie called from her place near the campfire, "you mustn't
forget to send pounds and pounds of really good coffee to old Granny,
the herb gatherer, enough to last her all winter."
"I'll make a note of it, daughter. Are there any other old parties you
wish to pension off with coffee or tea this winter?"
"No, papa. But I'd like to keep old Granny in coffee for the rest of her
life because she loves it so."
"Ladies and gentlemen," called Percy, rising and flourishing an apple on
the end of a long stick, "I made a discovery this morning through a
letter from a friend, and I've been saving it until this moment to
spring it on the Motor Maids and company."
"About whom is this discovery?" asked Richard uneasily, raising his
eyebrows and blinking his humorous eyes.
"It's about two impostors who travel around in a little wooden house on
wheels and live like Gypsies----"
"Oh, dear," cried Maggie, "now what have you been finding out about us,
pray?"
"I know," said Richard. "You've found that we are really Gypsies and
only pretending to be amateurs."
"Nothing of the sort. I've discovered that you have been traveling under
a disguise----"
"My name is certainly 'Hook,'" put in Richard.
"And mine is Maggie," piped his sister.
"Maybe so," went on Percy. "That's not the disguise. You've been wearing
the cloak of poverty, when you are really as rich as cream, the pair of
you, with an old grandfather in England who has a title and castles and
much pleasing property; and every now and then the old grandpapa sends
for you and you have to give up Gypsying and fly."
"And _he's_ your boss who's always interfering with your vacations?"
interrupted Billie.
"And you just _pretend_ to be poor for the novelty of the experience?"
asked Nancy. "I wish I could pretend to be rich in the same way."
"But we are Gypsies at heart," put in Maggie, "and I do love to scrub
and cook. Grandpapa's is so dull."
"And where does Grandpapa think you are now? Not in a traveling van,
I'll wager," said Miss Campbell.
Maggie laughed.
"We are supposed to be visiting Aunt Lucretia. She's our American aunt,
Papa's sister, who brought us up, before Grandpapa decided to recognize
us. You see Mamma would marry Papa, who was poor then, and came from
Maine. He looked just like Richard and I don't blame her. Grandpapa lets
us come every summer to visit Aunt Lucretia now."
"And where does Aunt Lucretia think you are?"
"Why, visiting Amy Swinnerton."
Who could keep from laughing over this brother and sister who loved the
life on the road and the campfire?
"Thank fortune, I'm not in line for the title," Richard whispered to
Billie under cover of the conversation of the others, "and Grandpapa or
no Grandpapa, I shall buy that farm,--do you guess where?"
"I can't imagine," answered Billie.
"In West Haven. I've never seen it, but that is the place you like best,
isn't it?"
"I think I like the traveling van best," answered Billie
irrelevantly,--"that is, next to the 'Comet,'" she added with a sudden
feeling of loyalty toward the faithful motor car.
"The traveling van would be a part of it and the 'Comet,' too, for that
matter."
Then he calmly slipped his hand over hers under the folds of her scarlet
cape.
"Shall we be comrades of the road?" he whispered.
"Some day, perhaps," Billie answered, not taking her hand away, but
glancing shyly at her father, who was watching her face in the fire
light.
Then she smiled at Richard. After all, she was past eighteen and
Richard,--well, Richard was the most delightful person she had ever met
in all her life.
Let us take leave of our young people before they go back to the valleys
where work is waiting for them. Brown and strong and happy, they sit in
a circle talking and laughing, as boys and girls will, under the light
of the harvest moon.
While they are still comrades of the road, we will bid them good-night.
Good-night, little Mary, calm and sweet, watching the stars twinkling
through the tree tops. Good-night to you, Nancy, dimpling and smiling,
while Percy whispers in your ear; and Elinor, too, talking quietly and
happily to Ben. And now a last good-night to Billie, best of comrades,
kindest and truest of friends.
THE END.
* * * * * *
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