"I'm hungry!"
Joan's plaintive wail woke Rebecca Mary, and she opened her eyes and
then sat up very straight.
"Why--why----" she stammered, rubbing her sleepy eyes to make sure that
they were telling her the truth. "Where are we?"
For they were no longer under a star-studded moon-illumined sky. They
were in a rough shed with a roof so close to Rebecca Mary's head that
she could have touched it if she had stretched up her arm. She looked at
hungry Joan and then at Granny, who was rubbing her eyes, too, and
feeling for the glasses which should hang around her neck.
"This isn't Seven Pines!" Granny declared crossly, as one occasionally
speaks when roused from sound slumber. "Where have you brought us,
Rebecca Mary?"
Rebecca Mary's bewildered face turned a lovely pink and the corners of
her red mouth tilted up. "Then it wasn't a dream," she said softly. "It
wasn't a dream!" she told Granny triumphantly.
"What wasn't a dream?" Granny's voice still had a bit of an edge to it.
"Don't ask conundrums the first thing in the morning, Rebecca Mary. What
wasn't a dream?"
"Well," began Rebecca Mary, and her voice sounded as if she wasn't quite
sure of her story herself. "You know you went to sleep in the car last
night, and when we came to a cross road I didn't know which way to turn.
I hated to waken you, so I ate a couple of sandwiches while I waited for
you to waken yourself. Suddenly I heard some one laugh and say: 'Hello,
I thought I knew this old boat. Where do you think you are going?' And
there was Mr. Simmons----"
"Not old Peter Simmons?" exclaimed Granny excitedly. "It couldn't be! He
was to be in Waloo at eleven-fifty-five. He couldn't have been at the
cross roads!"
"It was young Mr. Simmons," Rebecca Mary hastened to explain. "He was in
a roadster with another man. I told him we were going to Seven Pines,
and he wanted to know why we were going at night, why we didn't wait for
morning. And I said it would be so warm in the morning. I didn't know
whether you wanted him to know----"
"Indeed he may know. I don't care who knows," declared Granny
generously.
"And he said he knew the way to Seven Pines, and he got in our car and
took the wheel, and we started again. But the road was so long and so
white and the car ran so smoothly and we didn't talk much of any, and I
was so glad to have him drive that I must have dozed off, too. Anyway, I
just remember that we turned in at a big gate where Peter talked to a
man. I thought of course that it was Seven Pines. And then we went a
little further, I suppose into this shed, and Peter got out and said he
would see about something and--That's all I remember," she finished
abruptly.
"But that's perfect nonsense," insisted Granny. "What would Peter be
doing at the cross roads at that time of night? You must have been
dreaming, Rebecca Mary. And I wasn't asleep all the time. I was awake
off and on, and I remember now, that at one time I thought I heard you
talking to some one. But it couldn't have been to Peter. You must have
been dreaming, Rebecca Mary!"
She was so very positive that she made Rebecca Mary wonder if she could
have gone to sleep at her post. It didn't seem possible that she would
have closed her eyes when she had the responsibility of Granny and Joan
on her hands but sleep can sometimes be a wily enemy. It isn't always a
helpful friend. But if slumber had stolen insidiously over her how had
they reached the old shed? Her story furnished the only possible
explanation, and yet Granny frowned and said that her story was
nonsense.
"Are you afraid?" whimpered Joan, suddenly clutching her arm. "Shall I
be afraid, Granny? Are you afraid, Miss Wyman?"
"I'm scared to death!" But Rebecca Mary laughed softly, and she put her
arm around Joan. "But it is because I went to sleep on guard. Granny
said I did. I should have stayed awake to watch. But you needn't be
frightened, Joan. There is nothing to be afraid of, is there, Granny?"
"Nothing at all." Granny made the endorsement strong and prompt. "But we
might as well look around and make sure."
But when she stepped from the car she had to catch hold of the door or
she would have fallen for her limbs were cramped and stiff from spending
the night in the tonneau.
"If you live to be sixty-eight, Joan," she explained a little
impatiently as she straightened herself, "you will have learned that
there is nothing in the world to be afraid of. Come and let us see if
we can find some breakfast. I don't suppose whoever brought us here
plans to starve us to death."
They presented rather a disheveled and crumpled appearance as they stood
in the open doorway of the shed and looked across the green grass which
ran without stopping to the green hedge a half of a mile away. What was
on the other side of the hedge was kept a secret by the arbor vitæ. Near
the shed the grass was marked by many wheel tracks. There was no one to
be seen, and Granny went bravely forth with Rebecca Mary on her right
and Joan clinging to her left hand.
"The grass is wet." Granny looked down at her shoe. "Was there any rain
in your dream?" And she laughed at Rebecca Mary's puzzled face.
"I don't know." Rebecca Mary's voice was as puzzled as her face.
They passed a huge stone barn and several small sheds but there was no
one about them. From somewhere they could hear the sound of a gasoline
engine. Puff--puff it said, but the silly words conveyed absolutely no
information to Rebecca Mary.
When they rounded the corner of the barn they faced a great stone house
which might have begun its existence as a giant's bandbox, it was so
very big and square. But some one had added wings on either side so
that now it looked like a home and sprawled so hospitably among the
shrubbery that it seemed to call: "Come in, come in."
Granny gave a funny little exclamation when she saw it, and she hurried
around to the front, where she stood and stared at the house and then at
the formal garden with its pool and borders and its pergola, which ran
all the way from the west wing to the river bank. The barn and sheds
were on the other side of the house and, at some distance. In front the
trimly shaven lawn was broken by a driveway which slipped in from the
high road half a mile away to encircle and say "howdydo" to a huge
flower bed which flaunted its red cannas before the wide front terrace.
There were two tennis courts on one side of the driveway, down near the
secretive hedge.
"God bless my soul!" gasped Granny, as she looked around her. The wind
blew her gray hair about her face, which looked a bit pinched in the
strong morning light. "Whose place do you think this is?"
"The beautiful princess's!" Joan jumped up and down in delight. "It's
too pretty to belong to an ogre."
"It's Riverside, Rebecca Mary!" But as that name conveyed nothing to
Rebecca Mary, Granny gave her more information. "Joshua Cabot's
grandfather's old home. Did you ever! It must have been Joshua instead
of Peter who came along and found us. But we certainly haven't anything
to be afraid of now. We'll go right in and ask Joshua for breakfast, and
then we'll scold him for bringing us out of our way, and then we'll go
on to Seven Pines."
Rebecca Mary did not think that she could have confused young Peter
Simmons and Joshua Cabot, but she did not say so as she followed Granny
and Joan up the steps and in through the open door. There was no one in
the broad hall but Joshua Cabot's great grandfather and grandmother and
they hung quietly on the wall in old gilt frames. No one was in the big
dining room to which Granny turned, but some one had been there for the
table was laid for breakfast. Covers were placed for three. Granny drew
a chair from the table and sat down before a plate of tempting
strawberries.
"I'm old enough to take privileges," she said. "I hope there are more
strawberries, but if Joshua Cabot has been playing a practical joke on
an old lady he should pay for it. Come, children, and eat your
breakfast."
Joan obeyed with hungry alacrity, but Rebecca Mary hesitated, wondering
if she dared. But the strawberries looked so delicious, Granny and Joan
enjoyed them so heartily that Rebecca Mary found that she did dare. In a
very few minutes there was not a strawberry left on that table. Then
Granny rang the bell for what was to follow, but no one answered it. She
rang again, and when again there was no response Joan jumped up and ran
into the kitchen. She came back in a minute, big-eyed and important, to
report that there was no one, no one at all, in the kitchen. Granny
pushed back her chair.
"The maid has probably gone out for the eggs," she said with unruffled
serenity. "I expect Joshua insists that they shall be perfectly fresh.
While we are waiting, Rebecca Mary, come into the parlor. I want to show
you a portrait of Joshua Cabot's great-grandmother. She was Richard
Cabot's great-grandmother, too, you know."
Rebecca Mary rose obediently and followed Granny and Joan across the
hall and into the parlor, which ran the full length of the house and
whose many French windows opened on the formal garden and furnished many
charming pictures of the river and the low hills beyond. And the
sweet-faced young girl in a gauzy white frock and with a pink rose in
her long slender fingers was Richard Cabot's great-grandmother. Rebecca
Mary quite forgot that the sweet-faced girl was also Joshua Cabot's
great-grandmother as she gazed at her. There were several other pictures
to which Granny called Rebecca Mary's attention, but always Rebecca
Mary's eyes strayed back to the portrait. It seemed to call to her in
some strange fashion. Suddenly they heard a clatter, and a door slammed.
"There are the eggs!" exclaimed Granny with a sigh of relief. "I suppose
they will be ready in three minutes. Dear, dear, it is very plain that
Sallie isn't here. She would never put up with such careless service,
not for a minute."
She was interrupted by a roar, a very bellow, which made them draw close
together.
"Here!" cried a harsh voice which sounded for all the world like the
voice of the Big Bear. "Who has been eating my strawberries?"
The words rang through the hall and came into the big parlor with
inhospitable roughness. There was a startled, an awed silence.
"That," whispered Rebecca Mary, as Joan huddled against her, "doesn't
sound a bit like Mr. Cabot."
"It sounds like an ogre," Joan was sadly disappointed because it hadn't
sounded like a prince. "It sounds exactly like an ogre!"