THE OLD GODET HOUSE
“No floors,” observed Priscilla, peeking in.
“It’s a mere shell,” said Jack; “everything rotted away but the walls and
the chimney.”
“But how stout they are!” exclaimed Desiré, triumphantly.
“We’ll look at it again when we come back this way, if you like,”
promised Jack presently; “but now I want to get on to Windsor.”
“There’s the remains of a garden back of the cabin,” commented Priscilla,
as they drove away. “I can see three or four flowers.”
“The first seeds of which were doubtless planted by our—how many times
great-grandmother, Jack?” asked Desiré.
“Don’t know. The ‘greats’ always did puzzle me.”
“Oh!” cried René, “I always thought you knowed _everything_.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, my boy,” laughed Jack; “but I don’t.”
“And now,” said Priscilla, “I want to see the place where you went to
school, Jack. Wasn’t it here?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to you when we come back.”
“How strange,” commented Desiré to Jack, “that you never heard of or saw
the place when you were here.”
The boy smiled. “I was far too busy going to classes, preparing
assignments, and coaching some of the other fellows, to hunt up old
ruins.”
Desiré was very quiet for the rest of the day, but the next day, when
they were camped near the river Avon just beyond the town of Wolfville,
she said rather timidly to Jack:
“Do you suppose we could find out anywhere who owns the Godet house now?”
“Possibly; but why?”
“I’d just like to know.”
Her brother looked at her keenly before he said—“We can walk into town
and see what information we can get, if you like.”
“Do you suppose the children would be safe if we left them?” looking up
at him doubtfully.
“I think so. Priscilla must begin to take a little responsibility now.
We’ll have plenty of time to get back before dinner time.”
While Desiré got ready, Jack issued instructions to the two children,
closing with—“René, you’re to mind Priscilla; and Prissy, don’t go away
from the wagon, or let René out of your sight.”
They had gone only a short distance when Desiré, who had looked back
several times, said—“Jack, would you mind very much if I let you go on
alone, and I went back?”
“No, of course not; don’t you feel well?” he inquired anxiously.
“Perfectly; but—Prissy _is_ pretty young to be left with the wagon and
the baby; and it isn’t as if you really needed me along.”
“I think they’re perfectly safe, but if you’d feel better about it, go
back by all means,” said her brother kindly.
So Desiré returned to the children, and waited in a fever of suspense for
Jack to come back. With one eye on the long road, and the other on her
household, or rather wagonhold, duties, she was ready to drop everything
and go to meet him as soon as his tall form appeared in the distance.
At full speed she dashed along the highway, raising quite a cloud of fine
white dust, and fell into Jack’s arms outspread to stop her.
“Good work, Dissy! All our riding hasn’t made you forget how to run.
Remember the races you and I used to have when we were little, on that
smooth path running along the edge of the woods?”
“And the day you fell over a stone and had such a terrible nosebleed? How
frightened I was!”
“We had lots of good times together when we were kids, didn’t we?” asked
Jack, laying his arm affectionately across her shoulders.
“We surely did; but why say ‘when we were kids?’ We do now, too, only
they are a different kind of times.”
“And a different kind of race,” added Jack, thoughtfully.
“Well, what did you do in town?” asked the girl, unable to restrain her
curiosity any longer.
“I rambled about a bit first, asking a question here and there, and
finally ended up at the house of Judge Herbine. He’s a fine old man,
Desiré; you’d like him. As he is quite a story-teller, and very much
interested in our affairs, it took some time to get the information I was
after; but at last I succeeded in finding out that the house apparently
belongs to no one. Some years ago a man from the States wanted to buy the
site for a summer home, but when he investigated and found that there
wasn’t a clear title to the property, he decided not to take it. I don’t
really understand it, but it’s something about some papers that are
missing, have been for years and years back. Nobody else wanted it, so—”
“We can take it ourselves,” concluded Desiré.
The boy stood stock still in the road, and looked at his sister in frank
dismay.
“What on earth do you mean!” he asked.
“Just what I said. If it belongs to nobody, we, being the Godets’
descendants, can surely take it. Who’d have a better right?”
Jack looked more and more puzzled, as he said—“What would you do with
it?”
“_Do_ with it? Why, live in it, of course.”
The boy regarded her with such a worried look that she laughed outright.
“I’m perfectly sane, Jack. My plan is this. We’ll have to live somewhere
during the winter; and if we board, we’ll use up all the money we make
this summer. With this as our headquarters, during unpleasant weather we
could make day trips as we planned, and send Prissy to school every day
in Wolfville. Or possibly you could get some kind of a job in Windsor for
the winter, and I could take charge of the wagon.”
“But nobody could possibly live in that cabin,” objected Jack, brushing
away a persistently hovering bee. “It’s hopeless.”
“Indeed it isn’t hopeless. I agree with you that no one could live in it
the way it is now, but with new floors and a couple of partitions, it
would be fine. You admitted that the walls were stout, and the chimney
perfect.”
“With help, I could put down floors—” began Jack half to himself, after a
moment’s consideration. “We’ll have to think this out more carefully,
though, and talk it over again.” And he added hurriedly as they got near
the wagon, and Priscilla dashed out to meet them, “Don’t say anything yet
before the children.”
The same afternoon Jack went again to town, and did not return until
supper time. Priscilla was curious to know what he did there, but he gave
such absurd answers to her questions that she finally gave up.
“I’m not _ever_ going to ask you another question,” she announced.
“Not until next time,” teased Jack, ruffling up her hair.
“I suppose you are as curious as Prissy,” he said later on to Desiré,
after the children were asleep.
August had come in with a cool wind from over Fundy, and after darkness
fell, the chill was more noticeable; so Jack had built a small camp fire,
and he and Desiré were sitting beside it on a pile of cedar boughs.
“Well, yes,” admitted Desiré. “I must confess that I am.”
“I went to see a young carpenter that the judge recommended to me—”
“About floors?” asked Desiré eagerly, twisting around so quickly to look
directly into his face that the pile of boughs swayed threateningly.
“Look out, Dissy!” warned her brother. “You’ll have us both in the fire
if you don’t sit still. Yes, about floors, and partitions.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s busy on one of the farms now, but when the crops are in he’ll do
the work for us at a price that we can afford to pay. That is, I think we
can if we do well for the rest of the summer.”
“Then we’ll just _have_ to,” decreed Desiré, tossing a couple of pine
cones into the fire.
“The judge is a good old scout. Seemed so interested in us that I told
him what we were doing, or rather trying to do, and he was awfully keen
about seeing the rest of you. So he’s coming out tomorrow to lunch—”
“Tomorrow!” exclaimed Desiré. “Why, I thought you were anxious to get on
to Windsor; and we’ve already lost a day.”
“Yes, I know; I don’t know just why I hung around here, but it just
seemed as if we were meant to.”
“And to _lunch_, Jack,” she added, in dire dismay. “What made you ask him
to a meal?”
“I don’t know. The invitation was out before I thought. But you would
have asked him, too. He seems so kind of lonely, and he says he dotes on
picnics. You can manage something simple; can’t you?” the boy asked
anxiously.
“I’ll try hard, of course. Do you suppose you could catch a few fish in
the morning?”
“Probably, and I saw some ripe huckleberries as I came along this
afternoon. The youngsters can gather some of those, and we’ll get along
all right.”
The children were delighted at the prospect of “company,” and immediately
after breakfast, Jack escorted them, armed with a tin pail and a couple
of cups, across a field to the berry bushes loaded with blue fruit.
“When the pail is filled, go right back the way we came, and take the
berries to Desiré,” he instructed, as he set out in a different direction
for the river, with his fish pole. The banks of the sparkling stream were
pink with masses of wild roses, freshly opened and wet with dew.
“Desiré would be crazy over these,” he thought. “Guess I’ll take some to
her when I go back.”
An hour’s fishing resulted in enough fish for a meal; and after cutting
an armful of roses, Jack returned to camp. The children had reached there
ahead of him, and were busy making things ready for the eagerly awaited
guest.
Desiré had laid on the ground, in a shady spot, a red-bordered
tablecloth, anchored it at each corner with a stone concealed by a pile
of pine cones. She greeted Jack’s offering with enthusiasm—“Just what we
need for the centre of the table. Prissy, get an empty fruit can to put
them in, and lay some big ferns around it. I must attend to my biscuits.”
It was wonderful what good things Desiré could cook on the little camp
stove, which they really had not felt able to afford when they saw it in
Yarmouth. “It will pay for itself very soon,” she had argued; “for we
can’t live on cold food all the time; and eating in restaurants is
awfully expensive.” Jack had approved; so the stove and even a little
oven to set on top of it, when needed, had been added to old Simon’s
outfit.
About twelve o’clock a Ford coupé was seen in the distance, and soon came
to a stop beside the Wistmores who, one and all, stood in a row in front
of the camp. A thin little man with heavy white hair got nimbly out of
the car.
“This is my family, Judge Herbine,” said Jack; “Desiré, Priscilla, and
René.”
“Very glad, indeed, to know you all,” replied the judge, bowing low with
old-fashioned courtesy, but gazing searchingly at each one over the tops
of the glasses which he wore so far out on his nose that it was a miracle
that they stayed on at all. Priscilla was so fascinated by them that she
could hardly keep her eyes off them.
“We’ll have lunch right away,” announced Desiré; “so please take your
places at the table. This is yours, Judge,” indicating the side facing
the road, where a cushion had been placed. The others sat on the ground.
The fish which Jack had fried over a camp fire, while Desiré finished her
biscuits, were done to a turn; and the judge did full justice to them.
“These biscuits are mighty fine,” he commented, “and you say you made
them on that little gadget of a stove? Marvelous! Marvelous!”
After the huckleberries and some wafers which Desiré had taken from their
stock were disposed of, the guest insisted upon helping clear up. He was
a lively little man, and skipped hither and thither, carrying dishes,
picking up papers, and making himself generally useful.
“Now for a visit,” he said, settling himself beside a tall pine, leaning
back against its trunk, and stretching his legs, clad in cream-colored
crash, straight out in front of him.