[Illustration]
[Illustration: How good bacon tasted when you broiled it yourself on a
forked stick]
THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO
BY
BETH B. GILCHRIST
Author of "Cinderella's Granddaughter," etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY PHILLIPPS WARD
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1919
Copyright, 1919, by The Century Co.
Published, September, 1919
CONTENTS
I ELLIOTT PLANS AND FATE DISPOSES 1
II THE END OF A JOURNEY 23
III CAMERON FARM 37
IV IN UNTRODDEN FIELDS 63
V A SLACKER UNPERCEIVED 91
VI FLIERS 120
VII PICNICKING 146
VIII A BEE STING 171
IX ELLIOTT ACTS ON AN IDEA 197
X WHAT'S IN A DRESS? 223
XI MISSING 244
XII HOME-LOVING HEARTS 265
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
How good bacon tasted when you broiled it yourself
on a forked stick _Frontispiece_
Laura took the new cousin up to her room 26
Cutting the wiry brown stems in the fern-filled
glade. 140
"I'm getting dinner all by myself" 199
THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO
THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO
CHAPTER I
ELLIOTT PLANS AND FATE DISPOSES
Now and then the accustomed world turns a somersault; one day it faces
you with familiar features, the next it wears a quite unrecognizable
countenance. The experience is, of course, nothing new, though it is
to be doubted whether it was ever staged so dramatically and on so
vast a scale as during the past four years. And no one to whom it
happens is ever the same afterward.
Elliott Cameron was not a refugee. She did not trudge Flemish roads
with the pitiful salvage of her fortunes on her back, nor was she
turned out of a cottage in Poland with only a sackful of her household
treasures. Nevertheless, American girl though she was, she had to be
evacuated from her house of life, the house she had been building
through sixteen petted, autocratic years. This is the story of that
evacuation.
It was made, for all the world, like any Pole's or Serbian's or
Belgian's; material valuables she let pass with glorious carelessness,
as they left the silver spoons in order to salvage some sentimental
trifle like a baby-shoe or old love-letters. Elliott took the closing
of her home as she had taken the disposal of the big car, cheerfully
enough, but she could not leave behind some absurd little tricks of
thought that she had always indulged in. She was as strange to the
road as any Picardy peasant and as bewildered, with--shall I say
it?--considerably less pluck and spirit than some of them, when the
landmarks she had lived by were swept away. But they, you see, had a
dim notion of what was happening to them. Elliott had none. She didn't
even know that she was being evacuated. She knew only that ways which
had always worked before had mysteriously ceased working, that
prejudices and preoccupations and habits of mind and action, which she
had spent her life in accumulating, she must now say good-by to, and
that the war, instead of being across the sea, a thing one's friends
and cousins sailed away to, had unaccountably got right into America
itself and was interfering to an unreasonable extent in affairs that
were none of its business.
Father came home one night from a week's absence and said, as he
unfolded his napkin, "Well, chicken, I'm going to France."
They were alone at dinner. Miss Reynolds, the housekeeper, was dining
out with friends, as she sometimes did; nights that, though they both
liked Miss Reynolds, father and daughter checked with a red mark.
"To France?" A little thrill pricked the girl's spine as she
questioned. "Is it Red Cross?"
"Not this time. An investigation for the government. It may, probably
will, take months. The government wants a thorough job done. Uncle
Samuel thinks your ancient parent competent to hold up one end of the
thing."
"Stop!" Elliott's soft order commandeered all her dimples.
"I won't have you maligning my father, you naughty man! Ancient
parent, indeed! That's splendid, isn't it?"
"I rather like it. I was hoping it would strike you the same way."
"When do you go?"
"As soon as I can get my affairs in shape--I could leave to-morrow, if
I had to. Probably I shall be off in a week or ten days."
"I suppose the government didn't say anything about my investigating
something, too?"
"Now you mention it, I do not recollect that the subject came up."
She shook her head reprovingly, "That _was_ an omission! However, I
think I'll go as your secretary."
Mr. Cameron smiled across the table. How pretty she was, how
daintily arch in her sweetness! "That arrangement would be entirely
satisfactory to me, my dear, but I am not taking a secretary. I
shall get one over there, when I need one."
"But what can I go as?" pursued the girl. "I'd like to go as
something."
Heavens! she looked as though she meant it! "I'm afraid you can't go,
Lot, this time."
She lifted cajoling eyes. "But I want to. Oh, _I_ know! I can go to
school in Paris."
Her little air of having settled the matter left him smiling but
serious. "France has mouths enough to feed without one extra
school-girl's, chicken."
"I don't eat much. Are you afraid of submarines?"
"For you, yes."
"I'm not. Daddies dear, _mayn't_ I go? I'd love to be near you."
"Positively, my love, you may not."
She drew down the corners of her mouth and went through a bewitching
imitation of wiping tears out of her eyes. But she wasn't really
disappointed. She had been fairly certain in advance of what the
verdict would be. There had been a bare chance, of something
different--that was all, and it didn't pay to let chances, even the
barest, go by default. So she crumbled her warbread and remarked
thoughtfully, "I suppose I can stay at home, but it won't be very
exciting."
Her father seemed to find his next words hard to say. "I had a notion
we might close the house. It is rather expensive to keep up; not much
point in doing so just for one, is there? In going to France I shall
give my services."
"Of course. But the house--" The delicate brows lifted. "What were you
thinking of doing with me?"
"Dumping you on the corner. What else?" The two laughed together as at
a good joke. But there was a tightening in the man's throat. He
wondered how soon, after next week, he would again be sitting at table
opposite that vivacious young face.
"Seriously, Lot, I met Bob in Washington. He was there on conservation
business. When he heard what I was contemplating, he asked you up to
Highboro. Said Jessica and he would be delighted to have you visit
them for a year. They're generous souls. It struck me as a good plan.
Your uncle is a fine man, and I have always admired his wife. I've
never seen as much of her as I'd have liked. What do you say to the
idea?"
"Um-m-m." Elliott did not commit herself. "Uncle Bob and Aunt Jessica
are very nice, but I don't know them."
"House full of boys and girls. You won't be lonely."
The piquant nose wrinkled mischievously. "That would never do. I like
my own way too well."
He laughed. "And you generally manage to get it by hook or by crook!"
"I? You malign me. You _give_ it to me because you like me."
How adorably pretty she looked!
He laughed again. "You've got your old dad there, all right. Yes, yes,
you've got him there!"
"Didn't I tell you just now that you mustn't call my father old?"
"So you did! So you did! Well, well, the truth will out now and then,
you know. _Could_ you inveigle Jane into giving us more butter?--By
the way, here's a letter from Jessica. I found it in the stack on my
desk to-night. Better read it before you say no."
"Oh, I will," Elliott received the letter without enthusiasm. "Very
good of her, I'm sure. I'll write and thank her to-morrow; but I think
I'll go to Aunt Nell's."
"Just as you say. You know Elinor better. But I rather incline to Bob
and Jess. There is something to be said for variety, Lot."
"Yes, but a year is so long. Why, Father Cameron, a year is three
hundred and sixty-five whole days long and I don't know how many hours
and minutes and--and seconds. The seconds are awful! Daddles darling,
I never could support life away from you in a perfectly strange family
for all those interminable seconds!"
"Your own cousins, chicken; and they wouldn't seem strange long. I've
a notion they'd help make time hustle. Better read the letter. It's a
good letter."
"I will--when I don't have you to talk to. What's the matter?"
"Bless me, I forgot to tell Miss Reynolds! Nell's coming to-night.
Wired half an hour ago."
"Aunt Nell? Oh, jolly!" The slender hands clapped in joyful pantomime.
"But don't worry about Miss Reynolds. _I_ will tell Anna to make a
room ready. Now we can settle things talking. It's so much more
satisfactory than writing."
The man laughed. "Can't say no, so easily, eh, chicken?"
She joined in his laugh. "There is something in that, of course, but
it isn't very polite of you to insinuate that any one would _wish_ to
say no to me."
"I stand corrected of an error in tact. No, I can't quite see Elinor
turning you down."
That was the joy of these two; they were such boon companions, like
brother and sister together instead of father and daughter.
But now Elliott, too, remembered something. "Oh, Father! Quincy has
scarlet fever!"
"Scarlet fever? When did he come down?"
"Just to-day. They suspected it yesterday, and Stannard came over to
Phil Tracy's. To-day the doctor made sure. So Maude and Grace are
going right on from the wedding to that Western ranch where they were
invited. All their outfits are in the house here, but they will get
new ones in New York."
"Where's James?"
"Uncle James went to the hotel, and Aunt Margaret, of course, is
quarantined. Quincy isn't very sick. They've postponed all their
house-parties for two months."
"H'm. Where do they think the boy caught it?"
"Not an idea. He came home from school Thursday."
"Well, Cedarville will be minus Camerons for a while, won't it?"
"It certainly will. Both houses closed--or Uncle James's virtually so.
Do you know what Aunt Nell is coming for?"
"Not the ghost of a notion. Perhaps she is going to adopt a dozen
young Belgians and wants me to draw up the papers."
"Mercy! I hope not a whole dozen, if I am to stay at Clover Hill with
her. Half a dozen would be enough."
"Want you at Clover Hill?" said Aunt Elinor, when the first greetings
were over and she had heard the news. "Why, you dear child, of course
I do! Or rather I should, if I were to be there myself. But I'm going
to France, too."
"To France!"
"Red Cross," with an enthusiastic nod of the perfectly dressed head.
"Lou Emery and I are going over. That's what I stopped off to tell you
people. Ran down to New York to see about my papers. It's all settled.
We sail next week. Now I'm hurrying back to shut up Clover Hill. Then
for something worth while! Do you know," the fine eyes turned from
contemplation of a great mass of pink roses on the table, "I feel as
though I were on the point of beginning to live at last. All my days I
have spent dashing about madly in search of a good time. Now--well,
now I shall go where I'm sent, live for weeks, maybe, without a bath,
sleep in my clothes in any old place, when I sleep at all; but I'm
crazy, simply crazy to get over there and begin."
It was then that Elliott began dimly to sense a predicament. Even then
she didn't recognize it for an _impasse_. Such things didn't happen to
Elliott Cameron. But she did wish that Quincy had selected another
time for isolating her Uncle James's house. Not that she particularly
desired to spend a year, or a fraction of a year, with the James
Camerons, but they were preferable to her Uncle Robert's family, on
the principle that ills you know and understand make a safer venture
than a jump in the dark. Nothing radical was wrong with the Robert
Camerons except that they were dark horses. They lived farther away
than the other Camerons, which wouldn't have mattered--geography
seldom bothered a Cameron--if they hadn't chosen to let it. On second
thoughts, perhaps that, however, was exactly what did matter. Elliott
understood that the Robert Camerons were poor. More than once she had
heard her father say he feared "Bob was hard up." But Bob was as proud
as he was hard up; Elliott knew that Father had never succeeded in
lending him any money.
She let these things pass through her mind as she reviewed the
situation. Proud and independent and poor--those were worthy
qualities, but they did not make any family interesting. They were
more apt, Elliott thought, to make it uninteresting. No, the Robert
Camerons were out of the question, kindly though they might be. If she
must spend a year outside her own home, away from her father-comrade,
she preferred to spend it with her own sort.
There is this to be said for Elliott Cameron; she had no mother, had
had no mother since she could remember. The mother Elliott could not
remember had been a very lovely person, and as broad-minded as she was
charming. Elliott had her mother's charm, a personal magnetism that
twined people around her little finger, but she was essentially
narrow-minded. With Elliott it was a matter of upbringing, of
coming-up rather, since within somewhat wide limits her upbringing
had, after all, been largely in her own hands. Henry Cameron had had
neither the heart nor the will to thwart his only child.
Before she went to bed, Elliott, curled up on her window-seat, read
Aunt Jessica's letter. It was a good letter, a delightful letter, and
more than that. If she had been older, she might, just from reading
it, have seen why her father wanted her to go to Highboro. As it was,
something tugged at her heartstrings for a moment, but only for a
moment. Then she swung her foot over the edge of the window-seat and
disposed of the situation, as she had always disposed of situations,
to her liking. She had no notion that the Fates this time were against
her.
The next day her cousin Stannard Cameron came over. Stannard was a
long, lazy youth, with a notion that what he did or didn't do was a
matter of some importance to the universe. All the Camerons were
inclined to that supposition, all but the Robert Camerons; and we
don't know about them yet.
"So they're going to ship me up into the wilds of Vermont to Uncle
Bob's," he ended his tale of woe. "They'll be long on the soil, and
all that rot. Have a farm, haven't they?"
"I was invited up there, too," said Elliott.
"_You!_" An instant change became visible in the melancholy
countenance. "Going?"
"No, I think not."
"Oh, come on! Be a sport. We'd have fun together."
"I'll be a sport, but not that kind."
"Guess again, Elliott. You and I could paint the place red, whatever
kind of a shack it is they've got."
"Stannard," said the girl, "you're terribly young. If you think
I'd go anywhere with you and put up any kind of a game on our
cousins--_cousins_, Stan--"
"There are cousins and cousins."
She shook her head. "No wilds in mine. When do you start?"
"To-morrow, worse luck! What _are_ you going to do?"
She smiled tantalizingly. "I have made plans." True, she had made
plans. The fact that the second party to the transaction was not yet
aware of their existence did not alter the fact that she had made
them. Then she devoted herself to the despondent Stannard, and sent
him away cheered almost to the point of thinking, when he left the
house, that Vermont was not quite off the map.
Not so Elizabeth Royce. Bess knew precisely what was on the map, and
had Vermont been there, she would have noticed it. There was not much,
Miss Royce secretly flattered herself, that escaped her. She had heard
of Mr. Robert Cameron; but whether he resided in Kamchatka or
Timbuctoo she could not have told you. Mr. Robert Cameron, she had
adduced with an acumen beyond her years, was the unsuccessful member
of a highly successful family. And now Elliott, adorable Elliott, was
to be marooned in this uncharted district for a whole year. It was
unthinkable!
"But, Elliott darling, you'd _die_ in Vermont!"
"Oh, no!" said Elliott; "I don't think I should find it pleasant, but
I shouldn't die."
"Pleasant!" sniffed Miss Royce. "I should say not."
"It _is_ rather far away from everybody. Think of not seeing you for a
year, Bess!"
"I don't want to think of it. What's the matter with your Uncle
James's house when the quarantine's lifted?"
"Nothing. But it has only just been put on."
"And the tournament next week. You _can't_ miss that! Oh, _Elliott_!"
"I think," remarked Elliott pensively, "there ought to be a home
opened for girls whose fathers are in France."
"Why," asked Bess, gripped by a great idea, "why shouldn't you come to
us while your uncle's house is quarantined?"
Why not, indeed? Elliott thought Bess a little slow in arriving at so
obvious and satisfactory a solution of the whole difficulty, but she
was properly reluctant about accepting in haste. "Wouldn't that be too
much trouble? Of course, it would be perfectly lovely for me, but what
would your mother say?"
"Mother will love to have you!" Miss Royce spoke with conviction.
They spent the rest of the afternoon making plans and Elizabeth went
home walking on air.
But Mother, alas! proved a stumbling-block. "That would be very nice,"
she said, "very nice indeed; but Elliott Cameron has plenty of
relatives. They will make some arrangement among them. I should hardly
feel at liberty to interfere with their plans."
"But her Aunt Elinor is going to France, and you know the James
Camerons' house is in quarantine. That leaves only the Vermont
Camerons--"
"Oh, yes. I remember, now, there was a third brother. They have their
plans, probably."
And that was absolutely all Bess could get her mother to say.
"But, Mother," she almost sobbed at last, "I--I _asked_ her!"
"Then I am afraid you will have to un-ask her," said Mrs. Royce. "We
really can't get another person into the house this summer, with your
Aunt Grace and her family coming in July."
Then it was that Elliott discovered the _impasse_. Try as she would,
she could find no way out, and she lost a good deal of sleep in the
attempt. To have to do something that she didn't wish to do was
intolerable. You may think this very silly; if you do, it shows that
you have not always had your own way. Elliott had never had anything
but her own way. That it had been in the main a sweet and likable way
did not change the fact. And how Stannard would gloat over her! He had
had to do the thing himself, but secretly she had looked down on him
for it, just as she had always despised girls who lamented their
obligation to go to places where they did not wish to go. There was
always, she had held, a way out, if you used your brains. Altogether,
it was a disconcerted, bewildered, and thoroughly put-out young lady
who, a week later, found herself taking the train for Highboro. The
world--her familiar, complacent, agreeable world--had lost its
equilibrium.