"Do you know, Helen," exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with
reminiscent eyes, "that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it
seems like three months."
"That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer," retorted
Helen smilingly, "and are beginning to take life more seriously."
"Not very seriously, I am afraid," lamented Nathalie, "judging from the
bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot."
"Oh, you will learn," encouraged Helen, "but I must be off, for I have
some typing to do for to-morrow." Yes, Helen's new friend knew that she
was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been
divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with
great interest to Helen's declaration of her life purpose--to be
independent--not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to
her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her
mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied
because her husband's income was limited.
Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her
great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that
actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
"O dear," she had impulsively declared, "I want to earn money, too; oh,
if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone." And then
on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many
disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick,
fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had
seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown
up between them, much to that young lady's joy.
She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and
laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them,
adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
describe the United States flag, sew a button on--as it should be done,
she had declared with solemn unction--and then exhibit her skill at tying
a square knot.
"After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall
begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class
Pioneer," Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to
gather up her sewing materials.
"Oh, will you?" cried Nathalie, "but when can I become one?"
"In a month," was the reply, "if you pass the tests; but there, I shall
never get my work done if I stand here and talk," and Helen started for
the steps.
"Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick's
knee," returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the
veranda. "You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious
to hear what he had to say."
"How did your brother injure his knee?" asked Helen as she paused at the
foot of the steps, "I have often wanted to ask."
"Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father's death,"
rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. "The New York
physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right
soon. But he has been growing worse--it pains him dreadfully
sometimes--oh, you don't know how worried we are--" her voice quavered,
"suppose he should be lame for life!"
"Oh, don't get nervous over it," advised Helen cheerfully, "but hurry in
and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town
doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon," and then with a
smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.
Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across
the lawn. Somehow the girl's companionship had revived her drooping
spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the
tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure
brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her
friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her.
She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her
surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
"Nathalie, I am here--in the sitting-room!" called her mother's voice
faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl's step in the hall. An
apprehensive pang seized Nathalie's heart as she flew to her mother's
side.
"What did the doctor say, Mumsie?" she demanded anxiously. "Will Dick be
lame?"
"I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation--" her
mother's voice sank to a whisper, "and oh, it will cost us several
hundred dollars." Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her
daughter's shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the
gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with
intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was
seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
mother heart.
"It is all right, I am just a coward." Mrs. Page choked a moment, then
imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she
felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. "I am sure Dick will be all
right in time--but I am so worried--I have had bad news, too. It does seem
as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim," she said, thrusting
a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter's hand.
The girl's eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a
tense tone she demanded, "Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland
cement bonds are in danger--why, I thought--"
"They are to stop paying interest while the company is being
reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say
cement is being sold at a very low figure."
"But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges
before you get there as Father used to say," Nathalie replied with
attempted cheerfulness, "but did you not say that they were first
mortgage bonds?"
"Yes, but child, we have got to live," exclaimed her mother irritably;
"that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little
enough--expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick's
operation I am sure I don't know--but there, don't worry--it will be all
right in time, I know." She sank back in her chair and dabbed her
reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.
"But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an
operation?" questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.
"The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be
removed, and a new bone put in."
"A new bone put in!" ejaculated Nathalie, "why--"
"Yes, it is something new in surgery," replied her mother. "Dr. Morrow
says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of
treating cases like Dick's. He says--" a long sigh--"if Dick does not have
an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at
all." The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page's eyes again, as Nathalie,
with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of
them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she
remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.
She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think.
Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should
be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and
robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and
medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on
her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.
Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her
father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to
live in that poky old town--even the Pioneers could not compensate for
that--and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept
on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she
was a great martyr. Did not God's world owe her happiness? Was it not
sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?
But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a
shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she
were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
could she do? She couldn't sew, she had no musical ability--like Lucille!
A Bob White whistle, followed by a "Tru-al-lee!" beneath her window
reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
Yes, Nathalie knew that "Tru-al-lee!" for that young lady was the only
Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird's sweet
trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast
all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.
"I'll be down in a moment," she called out to Grace, who had just
entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the
couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a
moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in
the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new
ragtime song as she went.
"I want to say good-by to Mother," she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace
and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of
mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang
assailed her.
"Oh, Mumsie," she cried, "don't you do that mending. I will do it when I
come back. I meant to do it yesterday," she excused herself lamely, "but
I forgot all about it."
"Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying," was the
reply; "as 'tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one's
spirits."
"Oh, Mumsie," the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly
over her mother's cheek, "don't let's worry any more. We're just silly
to cry over what may not happen," and then she added hopefully, "I'm
sure things will come out all right."
Mrs. Page's eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her
would-be-comforter. "Yes, we are silly, no doubt," she smiled through
her tears, "to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all,
may not happen."
"But, Mother," suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, "do--do you
think I ought to become a Pioneer?"
"Why not, Nathalie?" inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. "Perhaps it will
teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be
poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage,
those will be the things--" her mother's voice ceased abruptly.
Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother's voice that
seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to
her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to
help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls--plain
girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had--could do.
But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the
rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these
things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother
hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
"Where shall we walk?" she asked that young girl, as they passed down
the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted
like rudderless ships at sea.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a
note to 'The Mystic.'"
"'The Mystic?'" echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, "why I thought
she had never had anything to do--"
"To do with the people of the town," finished Grace. "Well, she doesn't
as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow's patients and had the grace to
return Mrs. Morrow's call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too,
I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for
one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day
celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it."
"What were you going to have?" inquired Nathalie, as the two girls
turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier
of gray wall.
"We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers,
and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance
around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be
Robin Hood--O dear," she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, "I do
believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to
the cushion so I wouldn't forget it and then walked straight off and
left it."
The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried,
"Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few
blocks out of our way."
On receiving Nathalie's assent she added contentedly, "I'll get Dorcas
to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and--why, I can show you my
Pioneer room!"
"Oh, I should just love to see it!" enthused Nathalie; "Helen told me
about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the
Pioneer band have a Pioneer room."
"Isn't it old-timey?" she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her
into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of
many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch
and for that reason had been selected.
Nathalie's keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors,
etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days,
that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New
Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable
ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque
designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its
dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with
silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
"But that clock is a dear!" she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly
upon a tall grandfather's clock in the corner, which returned her glance
with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie's
brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting
themselves to her vivid imagination.
"Father gave that clock to me last birthday," informed Grace with pride;
"it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my
forebears. See, there's his picture over the mantel," pointing to a
seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at
them with stolid complacency.
"Yes, it is very old," continued Grace, "some unimaginative relative of
Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie's little hatchet, but Father
rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief."
"Yes," she rattled on, "I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown
for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear
not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let's go
down and have the lemonade, I'm dying for a cooling drink."
As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up
crying, "Oh, there's Fred! I want you to meet him!" She began to wave
and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall,
well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
"Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I'm in a hurry!" came in response a
moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently,
vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.
But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and
with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl's
health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a
hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister's introduction, he
dropped into a chair by Nathalie's side, and soon they were all chatting
and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
happened on their last hike.
"But you had an adventure, too, did you not?" he asked suddenly, looking
at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, "the
day you were rescued by the Pioneers?"
"Oh, did you hear about that?" Nathalie cried, her face taking on a
deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that
mishap.
"Yes, and how about the blue robins?" he continued in a quizzing tone.
"Oh, Grace," exclaimed Nathalie, "you have been telling tales!" and then
with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird's nest, excusing her
ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.
The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader,
and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had
had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to
give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt
scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver's, the
overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other
knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come
up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her
brother Dick.
Nathalie's face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be
pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother
would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
him all about her brother's misfortune, and how depressed he grew at
times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.
The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who
claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped
with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to
leap beyond their barrier.
"Wasn't it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then
fence it in like some old monastery?" questioned Grace. "See, here's a
bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times."
"Ugh! I hate to go in--the place gives me the creeps!" she shivered
nervously. "Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long."
Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time
yielded to his sister's entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door
was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but
when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow's
wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and
tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading
to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design,
with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there.
A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a
porte-cochere.
"This is the old Dutch shack," remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so
later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung
like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
Nathalie's eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping
roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like
thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a
foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of
honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of
hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
hedge around it.
Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage
ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window
above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a
grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading
to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge
when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the
broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the
gate, promising to wait outside for them.
As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler's
impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn
tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van
Vorst.
For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in
their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her
words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he
asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the
hall, while a stag's head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them
glassily.
The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated
the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires,
possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose
spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came
the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the
canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
down the broad stairway.
But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his
sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from
the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated
themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios
that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric
custom of the land of the yellow peril.
"O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!" observed Grace with an
apprehensive shiver. "Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man
come back and tell me my company wasn't wanted."
Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in
sympathetic recognition of her companion's mood. Her eye was caught by a
huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit
China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking
at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his
sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did
move--oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap
in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin,
as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim
silence had come from his mummy-like lips.
"Oh, what is it?" whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in
paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could
be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall,
followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic
scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they
had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!
Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine
whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one
rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the
hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with
terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide
steps and along the path after Grace!