UNWELCOME GUESTS
"Well, one whole week is gone," said Tabitha exultantly, as she bent
over the heaped-up mending basket one hot afternoon, and tried to make
neat darns of the gaping holes in the heels of Susie's stockings.
"Yes, and half of the first day of the second week," Gloriana replied
cheerily. "But really, Puss, time hasn't dragged as slowly as I
feared. That first day was the longest, I think, I ever knew."
"That first day was a horrible nightmare," the older girl emphatically
declared. "I thought it _never_ would end, and I'd have quit my job on
the spot if there had been anyone to take my place."
"I'd have quit it anyway if you had just said the word," laughed her
companion. "I thought you'd never go to sleep that night--I wanted so
badly to cry."
"Did you? So did I, but you kept tossing so restlessly that I knew you
were still awake, and finally I dropped off without getting my cry at
all."
"That's just what I did, too!" giggled Gloriana.
"And the next morning everything looked so different----"
"Yes, I could laugh then at the burro's nose in your lovely pie and the
seeds in my gingerbread; but they didn't seem so funny the night
before."
"They seemed anything but funny to me for several days, and I don't
think I'll ever see a chocolate pie or a gingerbread again in my life
without remembering this vacation."
"But things have gone splendidly since that first night," Gloriana
reminded her. "The children have tried to be angels, even if they have
executed some queer stunts for cherubs."
"Yes, I know, but I am glad just the same that half of
our--apprenticeship--is over. If this week will pass as smoothly as
last week did, it's all I'll-- What in the world is the matter with
the children? Sounds as if they were having an Indian war dance. I
wonder if those Swanberg boys are bothering again."
Both girls dropped their mending and hurried to the door just in time
to hear Inez's voice say cuttingly, "Of course we know who you are,
Williard and Theodore McKittrick!"
"Guess again!" drawled the older of two strange boys, lolling on
suitcases in the middle of the yard.
"Well, those _are_ your names," Inez insisted.
"You look enough like you used to when you were here before, so we
can't be mistaken," said Mercedes primly.
"Can't, eh? Well, our names are Williard and Theodore no longer. We
are Billiard and Toady these days. Mind you don't forget! We've come
to stay till the folks get back----"
"Didn't you get our telegram telling you not to come?" demanded
belligerent Susie.
"Sure we did!"
"Then why didn't you stay at home?"
"'Cause ma had the arrangements all made to go across the ocean and
there wasn't anyone else to send us to. Grandma's away travelling, and
Aunt Helen's kids have got scarlet fever."
"But papa's in the hospital and mamma's there nursing him," said Irene
indignantly.
"Truly?" The boy called Toady spoke for the first time.
"Do you think I'm lying?"
"Well, ma said she bet it was all a bluff to keep us from coming out
here," Billiard explained, looking genuinely surprised at Irene's words.
"And anyway," supplemented Toady, "she said if it was true about your
father and mother being away to Los Angeles, there'd have to be someone
here to look after you kids, and two more wouldn't make much
difference."
"Specially when she's paying for our board!"
Tabitha, a silent spectator in the doorway, ground her teeth in
helpless rage, while Gloriana gasped audibly at the impudence of mother
and sons.
"It's no more'n right that you should pay board," Susie declared in
heat. "You make so much trouble wherever you go."
"Do, huh?" Billiard, frowning darkly, advanced threateningly toward
his outspoken cousin, with fists doubled up and an ugly sneer on his
face. But Susie was no coward, and when he shook his knuckles close to
her little pug nose to emphasize his words, the girl's arm shot out
unexpectedly and landed a blow fair and square on one eye.
With a yell of rage and pain, the surprised boy lunged forward, but
instead of confronting Susie, he found himself in the grasp of a tall,
irate young lady, who wore her shining black hair pinned up on top of
her head, although her skirts were still short enough to show a pair of
trim ankles. "Now stop right here!"
She spoke quietly, almost too quietly; but one look into the
smouldering depths of those big, black eyes was enough to cow the
bully, and he jerked himself free, muttering sulkily, "She hit me
first!"
"She had to, or get hit herself," bawled Inez, jigging excitedly from
one foot to the other in her exultation over her cousin's defeat.
"Inez!"
"Well, he needn't have come! We telegraphed them not to!"
"_Inez_!"
The girl subsided, and Billiard found courage to leer triumphantly at
her discomfiture. But Tabitha intercepted the glance, and in that
ominously calm voice which had struck terror to his cowardly heart
before, she announced, "It is too late now to think of that side of the
question. We'll have to make the most of a bad situation; but I _will
not_ tolerate fighting. You may as well understand that first as last.
If you boys can't behave like gentlemen, you can just move on down to
the hotel. Is that plain?"
"Yes, sir--ma'am," stammered the abashed Billiard, glancing uneasily
about for some means of escape, but Tabitha had delivered her
ultimatum, and now swept grandly into the house, satisfied that she had
displayed her authority in a very impressive manner.
Hardly had the screen closed behind her, however, when her sharp ears
caught Billiard's hoarsely whispered question, "Who is that high-headed
geezer?"
"The girl who is taking care of us," answered Mercedes unguardedly.
"Girl?"
"Sure! What did you take her for?"
"A--a new woman. A--one of these things that's trying to vote and do
men's work and such like."
"Oho!" yelled the McKittrick girls in unison. "Why, she ain't much
older'n us!"
"She goes to Ivy Hall in Los Angeles, the boarding school I belong to,"
said Mercedes.
"Honest Injun?"
"Cross my heart!"
"Huh!"
And instinctively Tabitha knew that there was trouble ahead for her.
"Isn't this the worst luck you ever heard of?" she groaned to Gloriana
when once inside the house again.
"If I had my way about it, I'd ship them straight home on the next
train," declared the red-haired girl angrily. "The very idea of their
mother doing such a thing as that! What kind of a woman is she,
anyway?"
"I don't know much about her, except that she is utterly selfish and
very rich. The boys are sent away to school most of the year; and
during vacations she manages to shift them onto some of her relatives.
Fortunately, Jim McKittrick is too far away to be bothered with them
very often."
"But what shall you--we do with them? Shall we tell Mrs. McKittrick
that they have come?"
"Goodness, no! At least not yet. It would just worry her more than
ever and she is worn to distraction now. No, we must make the best of
it this week, and by that time Miss Davis will be here. She was raised
in a family of boys and ought to know how to manage them."
"Well, I am thankful _I_ am not in her shoes," breathed Gloriana. "I
suppose we can get along somehow for the six days that are left. Where
shall you put them?"
"Well, I declare! I had forgotten all about that part of it. They
will think I am a real hospitable hostess." She stepped to the door to
call them, but not a soul was in sight anywhere. Two open suitcases
lay on the ground with their contents scattered all about, but both
owners and their cousins had disappeared.
"Mercedes! Susie!" she called peremptorily, but no one answered; and
not even the sound of their voices at play fell on her listening ear.
"Strange," she muttered. "They were here a minute ago. Where can they
have gone so quickly?"
She was about to start on a tour of investigation when a series of
wild, piercing screams of abject terror rent the air, and Rosslyn came
stumbling down the steep incline behind the house, bruised, scratched,
torn, and covered from head to foot with what looked like blood
Gloriana caught him as he fell, for Tabitha turned faint and sick at
the sight; but a shout of boyish disgust from above brought her to her
senses.
"Aw, come back, you bawl baby! We were just foolin'! You ain't hurt a
mite!" Billiard swaggered into view from behind a tall boulder
half-way up the mountainside, and even Tabitha shuddered at the
spectacle he presented, for he was togged out in war paint and feathers
till he looked fiendish as he brandished a tomahawk in one hand and an
evil-looking knife in the other. At sight of the girl on the narrow
piazza, he hastily retreated behind the rocks again; but Tabitha was
there almost as soon as he. Snatching the gorgeous headdress from the
culprit's head, she trampled it ruthlessly in the sharp gravel,
disarmed the would-be Indian brave, breaking the treasured tomahawk and
knife against the rocks, and shook the cowering savage with strong,
relentless hands. But not a word did she speak, and though her victim
writhed and squirmed and wriggled, he could not break the fierce grip
on his shoulders.
"Don't, don't," he blubbered in desperation. "I didn't mean to scare
him so bad. We were only playing Indian."
"Only--playing--Indian!" panted Tabitha, in scorching scorn. "Look at
those children! You have frightened them all to death!" Pausing an
instant in her vigorous shaking, she pointed at the circle of
sisters,--Mercedes, weak and trembling, bent over the limp form of
little Janie, blowing frantically in the still, white face; a
thoroughly subdued and frightened Toady was wildly fanning poor Irene,
who had likewise crumpled in a faint; while close by sat Susie and Inez
clinging to each other and sobbing in terror.
"Oh, I didn't mean to!" bellowed Billiard, as Tabitha resumed her
shaking. "I thought they'd seen Indians before."
"And so they have, but not such horrible savages as you!" Shake!
Shake! Shake!
Irene sighed faintly and opened her eyes. Toady's heart gave a violent
thump of relief and thanksgiving, and abruptly dropping the headdress
of feathers which he had been using as a fan, he flew to his brother's
rescue.
"Oh, please, Mrs. Tabitha," he pleaded, "you've drubbed him enough.
Shake me if you ain't through yet. You'll have him plumb addled!
Really, we were just in for some fun. We never dreamed the kids would
scare so easy. That's only vegetable dye on Rosslyn's head. He
thought we had scalped him, but we didn't mean to hurt him."
Tabitha glanced down into the entreating brown eyes at her elbow,
straightway forgave Toady, and released her victim so suddenly that he
fell sprawling into a nest of sharp-thorned Mormon pears; but of this
she was unaware, for with one swoop she gathered up the now hysterical
baby, and stalked off toward the house, saying grimly, "You boys stay
right where you are until you are willing to apologize and promise to
behave yourselves in the future. I've a mind to turn you over to the
sheriff now. Come, girls!" Followed by the troop of white, shivering
sisters, she disappeared within doors, and soon quiet reigned in the
Eagles' Nest.
Only then did the cowed Billiard venture to peer from his retreat at
the house below. It was nearing the supper hour and he was hungry, but
Tabitha had said he must apologize and promise good behaviour before he
would be admitted to the family circle. It was evident that she meant
business.
"Toady," he whispered to the other boy, sitting silent and motionless
where he had dropped when Tabitha had left them an hour before.
"Toady, can you see anyone down there?"
Toady glanced off at the hazy flat below with its winding silver ribbon
of railroad track, and the lonely, dingy station house, and shook his
head.
"Aw, not there!" Billiard protested, seeing that his brother's thoughts
had evidently been running in the same channel. "Down to Uncle Jim's,
I mean."
Scarcely shifting his position, dutiful Toady craned his neck around a
boulder, surveyed the quiet mountainside in the waning afternoon light,
and again shook his head.
"Creep down and see what they're doing. Maybe they are talking about
us."
"Go yourself," returned Toady briefly.
"Aw, come now, Toady! She ain't so mad at you, and besides, you're
littler. They wouldn't see you so quick."
Still Toady remained seated.
"We'll have to have some water to wash off this stuff before she'll let
us in to--to apologize," wheedled Billiard.
"_Are_ you going to apologize?"
"Looks like we got to," answered the older boy gloomily. "She's a
reg'lar cyclone. Smashed up half our things already, and like enough
she will sick the sheriff on us like she said, 'nless we
do--er--apologize."
It was very evident that Billiard was not in the habit of apologizing
for anything; and Toady, grinning with no little satisfaction at his
brother's discomfiture, arose and slowly descended by a roundabout
trail to the cottage. He was gone a long time and Billiard was growing
decidedly restless and anxious when he appeared in sight once more.
"She's--they are going to write to Uncle Hogan!" he announced
breathlessly.
"Uncle Hogan!" cried Billiard in dismay.
"Yes, that's just what I heard them say. Mercedes told her how Uncle
Hogan----"
"I'll get even with Miss Mercedes," Billiard interrupted fiercely.
"You better get that paint off your face and hike for the house with
your apology," advised the more easily persuaded brother, "else you'll
never have a chance to get even with anybody again."
"Why?"
"Because if we don't promise to be good inside of an hour, they are
going to ask the--the--some man, sort of a policeman, I guess, to look
after us until Uncle Hogan answers."
"Do you really think they'd write to Uncle Hogan?"
"Sure! Tabitha knows him. She and that Glory girl with the red hair
kept him all night last winter off some mountain he wanted to climb
'cause they didn't know who he was. She had a gun and shot at them;
but when her father got there he said 'twas all right, and Uncle Hogan
thinks Tabitha is the whole cheese now."
"Supposing we do--apologize, will they write to him still?"
"No, I guess not. If you'll promise to behave, they will let you stay
until some woman who's going to take care of the kids most of the
summer gets here. Then she can do as she pleases about writing. You
better knuckle under, Billiard."
The older boy groaned. "You don't seem to care very much," he
complained bitterly, feeling that Toady had deserted him at the most
critical moment.
"I--I've apologized already," acknowledged the other. "I'd rather do
that than have Uncle Hogan get after us."
"So would I," Billiard sulkily decided, and pulling himself up from his
rocky seat, he slowly shambled down the mountainside, with Toady at his
heels hugely enjoying his brother's humiliation, for, though comrades
in mischief, the older boy loved to bully the younger, and Toady had a
long list of scores to settle, so he could not refrain from grinning
broadly behind Billiard's back, particularly since his part of the
disagreeable program had already been accomplished.
"Better wash your face, first," he suggested, as Billiard made straight
for the kitchen door, through which savory odors of supper cooking were
beginning to steal.
"Aw, come off!"
"She won't let you in till you do."
"Well, then, where's the water?"
Toady pointed toward a basin on a nearby rock, and Billiard made a
vigorous, if somewhat hasty toilet. Then, after a moment's further
hesitation, he entered the kitchen with hanging head, and, addressing a
grease spot on the floor by Tabitha's feet, muttered surlily,
"I--er--apologize."
Tabitha's lips twitched. He looked so utterly downcast and abject that
she could scarcely keep from smiling openly. "Are you ready to promise
to behave yourself from now on?"
"Yes, sir--I mean, ma'am," he gulped, flushing angrily as the girls
tittered.
Tabitha instantly silenced their mirth, and turning to the boy, said
graciously, "Then we'll let bygones be bygones; but we'll have no more
such actions while you stay. Your suitcase is in the back bedroom.
Toady will show you. But first, please bring in a couple armfuls of
wood. It looks like rain and----"
"Wood! We never bring in wood at home!" the boy rebelled.
"You are not at home now," Tabitha answered sweetly.
"But--we're paying board!"
"I haven't seen any board money yet. And anyway, we need the wood."
Angrily the boy jerked out a purse from his trousers pocket and slammed
some gold pieces on the table.
"Twenty dollars," she counted. "For how long?"
"All summer."
"Ten weeks! Two dollars a week for two of you! Board on the desert is
cheap at a dollar a day. You can write your mother to that effect; and
in the meantime, perhaps you better put up at the hotel----"
"Oh, she said if anyone made a fuss, she'd pay more," Billiard hastily
explained, for somehow the hotel idea did not appeal to him.
"Well, you tell her a dollar a day for each of you is the regular rate.
And now you will have just about time to get that wood before supper is
ready."
Billiard glanced questioningly up into the clear, olive face above him,
as if he could not believe his ears.
"The pile is close to the door," she continued, paying no attention to
the amazement in his face: "and the woodbox is on the screened porch."
Billiard hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, closed them again,
and inwardly raging, but outwardly meek, marched out of the door to the
woodpile.