THE TOP OF THE WORLD
“Polly Dudley! Why didn’t you stay?”
Polly stood before her mother in her trim gray suit, her eyes shining
with an unusual brightness, her whole being indicative of imprisoned
emotion.
“I couldn’t, mother! I couldn’t! I had to come home to talk it over
with you and father!” Polly was hurriedly pulling off her gloves, her
joyous heedlessness reaching even to her finger-tips.
Mrs. Dudley had grown suddenly limp.
“Has David--” she began.
“No, no; it isn’t anything about David.” Polly’s voice had never
sounded like that when she spoke of David.
“I don’t much care what it is, then.” Mrs. Dudley sat up straight and
drew a little relieved breath. “It seems as if I couldn’t stand his
coming back--now. But I don’t see why you didn’t stay as you expected
to. Didn’t Kate stay?”
“Oh, yes, mother; but I just couldn’t!--I’ll tell you.”
“Didn’t you have a good time? Anything gone wrong?”
“Yes to the first, and no to the second. Don’t be in a hurry! To begin
with, Overlook Mountain is the very loveliest place on earth.”
“And yet you left it,” laughed her mother.
Polly laughed, too. “Had to!” she said happily. “Oh, the road up the
mountain!--I wish you could see it. Through the most beautiful woods!
Ferns!--I thought I knew ferns, but I didn’t. Millions of them, almost
as tall as you are, and so luxurious--why, the sides of the road look
as if they had just been decorated for a wedding!--”
“What about a wedding?” came from Dr. Dudley in the doorway. “Evan said
you had just come, and I couldn’t understand it. You were so eager to
stay the week out.”
“I know it. Mother’s had everything bad happening; but it’s all
right--or will be if you agree with me--oh, father, you would in one
minute if you could see Overlook! Why, when I got there and looked
around I felt as if I were right on top of the world--it is beautiful,
it is grand! Father, what do you suppose I want to do?”
“No telling what rattle-brained scheme is in that head of yours. Out
with it! I never could bear suspense.”
Polly laughed, a laugh that made her father look at her with joyful
eyes. This was his own old Polly, before she had begun to be worried
with troubles of David Collins’s making.
“Well,” began the girl, holding her excitement in check, “I want to
move Paradise Ward up on Overlook for the summer and autumn.”
Nobody spoke. They looked at one another, anxiety on Polly’s side,
astonishment and half comprehension on the other.
“Tell me all about it, little daughter.” Dr. Dudley drew up a chair.
So Polly told; of her delight in the spot; of the marvelous beauty of
the view; of the wonderful, intoxicating air; of the plan that had
suddenly popped into her head when she waked on Sunday morning; of the
news that had greeted her at breakfast, just fitting into her scheme,
about the brother and sister, owners of a bungalow and a study on the
top of Overlook, who had just been left a fortune in Switzerland and
wished to sell their property on the mountain; how it seemed the one
place for Paradise Ward to get strong in; and of how she could not wait
an hour beyond to-day to tell her father of her plan and to beg him to
accede to her wish.
She was quiet at last, watching with eager eyes her father’s face.
“Have you thought of the money it would cost to carry out this plan?”
asked the Doctor quietly.
“Of course,” she acknowledged, “it must depend on Mrs. Gresham; but I
know she will be interested in less than a minute.”
“She surely will be. That, however, is not the question. She has spent
a fortune on Paradise Ward already.”
“She loves to spend it.”
“Yes,” he conceded; “yet is it wise for us to incite her to further
spending?”
“It truly is,” returned Polly with assurance. “Think of those dear
children! Oh, if you could see them outdoors as I do! The rides have
done them no end of good--you know how Little Duke has improved.”
Dr. Dudley brightened. “That boy’s gain is astonishing.”
“And it isn’t medicine that has done it,” observed Polly; “it is fresh
air.”
The Doctor nodded musingly.
Polly’s thoughts skipped from Little Duke to Esther Tenniel, the gentle
little English maid who--however shy she might be with others--never
hesitated to put her arms round the Doctor’s neck, just as if she were
his own little girl. “I believe,” she said, “that a few months of
Overlook would make a new child of Esther.”
“I should like to see it tried,” Dr. Dudley admitted.
“Then we’ll try it!” exclaimed Polly ecstatically.
“I shall have to leave it to your judgment,” said the Doctor. “I don’t
like to beg for too much.”
“Beg!” laughed Polly--“oh, father!”
“You haven’t even asked for my approval,” smiled Mrs. Dudley.
“I don’t need to. I know well enough just what you’d say,” retorted
Polly.
“I should like to know.”
“Why, you’d say, ‘Go ahead!’” Polly laughed. “And I think I’d better
see Mrs. Gresham this evening. Don’t you want to go down with me,
mother? Do, and help the good cause along.--Oh, I forgot! That boy is
coming up to-night.”
“What boy?” queried her mother.
“John Eustis. Well,” sighing, “we’ll have to put it off till morning.”
That Mrs. Gresham was “interested” in Polly’s plan nobody could doubt.
The lady’s enthusiasm more than justified Polly’s prediction.
“I must see the place at once!” she cried. “We’ll go up to-morrow!”
“To-morrow!” gasped Polly.
“Why not?” returned Mrs. Gresham. “No time to lose. Summer is well on
her way. You can go to-morrow, can’t you?”
“I--guess so,” the girl answered dazedly. She glanced towards her
mother.
Mrs. Dudley smiled assent.
“And you’ll go with us?” invited the elder woman.
Mrs. Dudley shook her head. “I’m afraid--”
“Nonsense! She can, can’t she, Polly?”
“Yes, do, mother. I’m longing to have you see it.”
She still shook her head, but, as Polly said, the shakes were less
emphatic.
“Let’s start by six o’clock,” went on Mrs. Gresham. “To-day would have
been lovely, but probably to-morrow will be just as nice. You say we
can have it now, and with all the furniture?”
“All there is,” Polly answered. “Of course, there’ll have to be a good
deal besides. The living-room is so large and beautiful it will make a
lovely ward. At each end is a wide casement window, one opening on the
road, the other on the wood--where the deer come down. As I said, about
five acres of timber-land go with the place. The house is the best
located of all on the mountain, with woods on the north which break the
heavy winds. There’s a big fireplace in the living-room, and all sorts
of pretty nooks and corners, with shelves and bookracks--oh, you’ll
go crazy over it, just as I did! The big room is two stories high,
and the stairs lead right up from that to a little balcony which runs
clear across the side and opens into the bedrooms. The other building
is not far away, an inscription in such pretty letters, THE STUDY, is
right over the door. You see, the young man is a lawyer, and that was
his den. It will do beautifully for a dormitory for the older boys and
the doctor that father sends with us--of course, we’ll have to have a
doctor.”
“Of course,” echoed Mrs. Gresham absently. “The brother and sister
gone?”
“Yes, nobody left but the housekeeper, Benedicta Clapperton--isn’t that
a name? But she’s a dear. She told me she hoped I’d buy the place, for
she ‘appertained’ to it, and she ‘cackerlated’ I was the ‘facsimile’
of her ‘dear Miss Flora.’ She adores children, and Sally says she is a
wonder in the cooking line; so she will probably stuff the ward with
soldiers and sailors and a whole barnyard besides. But I have fallen in
love with her, and I believe she will be our strongest asset--just you
wait and see!”
When Mrs. Gresham and Mrs. Dudley were face to face with the “strongest
asset” they recalled Polly’s statement in some surprise.
Mrs. Gresham had intuitively pictured the caretaker as middle-aged,
plump, and comfortable, with a benevolent smile and a gracious manner.
The woman who stood before them was tall, straight, and lean, with a
small head and high cheek-bones. Her abundant brown hair was drawn
smoothly back from her low forehead and wound into a tight coil on top
of her head. Her frankly curious eyes of light gray appeared to size up
her visitors in one unafraid glance, and she extended a big, work-hard
hand with a drawling “How d’ ye do?”
So this was Benedicta!
Polly chanced to make a trivial remark, and Mrs. Gresham turned with
relief.
Although the visitors had stopped on the way for luncheon, the
housekeeper insisted that they should “stay to dinner,” and already
a small table in the living-room was most attractively set with
appointments for three.
“Yes, Benedicta can cook,” Mrs. Gresham mentally conceded, as she ate
with relish the broiled chicken, creamed pease, hot rye muffins with
home-made butter, red raspberry pie, and hot coffee topped with whipped
cream.
Nor did she withhold her praise; upon which Benedicta expanded like a
flower which needs only the sunshine to bloom into beauty. Not that in
the one happy moment the cook grew handsome, or that she expressed her
thanks in suitable words. Only her small eyes grew bright and soft, her
thin cheeks reddened with pleasure, as she said, almost scornfully,
“Amazin’ly astounding ’f I didn’t know how to cook! Been at it since I
was an infant.”
Opinions are versatile notions at best. After that informal meal on
Overlook Mountain the critical wife of Colonel Gresham looked at
Benedicta in a humorous and therefore fairer light, and the light in
which a person is viewed makes all the difference in one’s opinion of
him.
The next day when the party started for home the Von Winkelried
property had passed into the hands of Mrs. Gresham, and the Children’s
House of Joy was in legal possession of a mountain summer home.