THE MAPLES
That afternoon Pauline drove Hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant
farm, called The Maples.
As they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old
town, Pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down
the by-road, leading to the station. Through the still air came the
sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as
much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with
down at the junction.
"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?"
Pauline slapped the reins lightly across old Fanny's plump sides. "Oh,
different things--traveling for one." Suppose Uncle Paul's letter
should come in this afternoon's mail! That she would find it waiting
for her when she got home!
"So was I," Hilary said. "I was wishing that you and I were going off
on that train, Paul."
"Where to?" Paul asked. After all, it couldn't do any harm--Hilary
would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to
have some definite basis to build on later.
"Anywhere," Hilary answered. "I would like to go to the seashore
somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were people and interesting
things to do and see, would do."
"Yes," Pauline agreed.
"There's Josie," Hilary said, and her sister drew rein, as a girl came
to the edge of the walk to speak to them.
"Going away?" she asked, catching sight of the valise.
"Only out to the Boyds'," Pauline told her, "to leave Hilary."
Josie shifted the strap of school-books under her arm impatiently.
"'Only!'" she repeated. "Well, I just wish I was going, too; it's a
deal pleasanter out there, than in a stuffy school room these days."
"It's stupid--and you both know it," Hilary protested. She glanced
enviously at Josie's strap of hooks. "And when school closes, you'll
be through for good, Josie Brice. We shan't finish together, after
all, now."
"Oh, I'm not through yet," Josie assured her. "Father'll be going out
past The Maples Saturday morning, I'll get him to take me along."
Hilary brightened. "Don't forget," she urged, and as she and Pauline
drove on, she added, "I suppose I can stick it out for a week."
"Well, I should think as much. _Will_ you go on, Fanny!" Pauline
slapped the dignified, complacent Fanny with rather more severity than
before. "She's one great mass of laziness," she declared. "Father's
spoiled her a great deal more than he ever has any of us."
It was a three-mile drive from the village to The Maples, through
pleasant winding roads, hardly deserving of a more important title than
lane. Now and then, from the top of a low hill, they caught a glimpse
of the great lake beyond, shining in the afternoon sunlight, a little
ruffled by the light breeze sweeping down to it from the mountains
bordering it on the further side.
Hilary leaned back in the wide shaded gig; she looked tired, and yet
the new touch of color in her cheeks was not altogether due to
weariness. "The ride's done you good," Pauline said.
"I wonder what there'll be for supper," Hilary remarked. "You'll stay,
Paul?"
"If you promise to eat a good one." It was comforting to have Hilary
actually wondering what they would have.
They had reached the broad avenue of maples leading from the road up to
the house. It was a long, low, weather-stained house, breathing an
unmistakable air of generous and warm-hearted hospitality. Pauline
never came to it, without a sense of pity for the kindly elderly
couple, who were so fond of young folks, and who had none of their own.
Mrs. Boyd had seen them coming, and she came out to meet them, as they
turned into the dooryard. And an old dog, sunning himself on the
doorstep, rose with a slow wag of welcome.
"Mother's sent you something she was sure you would like to have,"
Pauline said. "Please, will you take in a visitor for a few days?" she
added, laying a hand on Hilary's.
"You've brought Hilary out to stop?" Mrs. Boyd cried delightedly. "Now
I call that mighty good of your mother. You come right 'long in, both
of you: you're sure you can't stop, too, Pauline?"
"Only to supper, thank you."
Mrs. Boyd had the big valise out from under the seat by now. "Come
right 'long in," she repeated. "You're tired, aren't you, Hilary? But
a good night's rest'll set you up wonderful. Take her into the spare
room, Pauline. Dear me, I must have felt you was coming, seeing that I
aired it out beautiful only this morning. I'll go call Mr. Boyd to
take Fanny to the barn."
"Isn't she the dearest thing!" Pauline declared, as she and Hilary went
indoors.
The spare room was back of the parlor, a large comfortable room, with
broad windows facing south and west, and a small vine-covered porch all
its own on the south side of the room.
Pauline pulled forward a great chintz-cushioned rocker, putting her
sister into it, and opened the porch door. Beyond lay a wide, sloping
meadow and beyond the meadow, the lake sparkled and rippled in the
sunshine.
"If you're not contented here, Hilary Shaw!" Pauline said, standing in
the low doorway. "Suppose you pretend you've never been here before!
I reckon you'd travel a long ways to find a nicer place to stay in."
"I shouldn't doubt it if you were going to stay with me, Paul; I know
I'm going to be homesick."
Pauline stretched out a hand to Captain, the old dog, who had come
around to pay his compliments. Captain liked visitors--when he was
convinced that they really were visitors, not peddlers, nor agents,
quite as well as his master and mistress did. "You'd be homesick
enough, if you really were off on your travels--you'd better get used
to it. Hadn't she, Captain?" Pauline went to unpack the valise,
opening the drawers of the old-fashioned mahogany bureau with a little
breath of pleasure. "Lavender! Hilary."
Hilary smiled, catching some of her sister's enthusiasm. She leaned
back among her cushions, her eyes on the stretch of shining water at
the far end of the pasture. "I wish you were going to be here, Paul,
so that we could go rowing. I wonder if I'll ever feel as if I could
row again, myself."
"Of course you will, and a great deal sooner than you think." Pauline
hung Hilary's dressing-gown across the foot of the high double bed.
"Now I think you're all settled, ma'am, and I hope to your
satisfaction. Isn't it a veritable 'chamber of peace,' Hilary?"
Through the open door and windows came the distant tinkle of a cow
bell, and other farm sounds. There came, too, the scent of the early
May pinks growing in the borders of Mrs. Boyd's old-fashioned flower
beds. Already the peace and quiet of the house, the homely comfort,
had done Hilary good; the thought of the long simple days to come, were
not so depressing as they had seemed when thought of that morning.
"Bless me, I'd forgotten, but I've a bit of news for you," Mrs. Boyd
said, coming in, a moment or so later; "the manor's taken for the
summer."
"Really?" Pauline cried, "why it's been empty for ever and ever so
long."
The manor was an old rambling stone house, standing a little back from
a bit of sandy beach, that jutted out into the lake about a mile from
The Maples. It was a pleasant place, with a tiny grove of its own, and
good-sized garden, which, year after year, in spite of neglect, was
bright with old-fashioned hardy annuals planted long ago, when the
manor had been something more than an old neglected house, at the mercy
of a chance tenant.
"Just a father and daughter. They've got old Betsy Todd to look after
them," Mrs. Boyd went on. "The girl's about your age, Hilary. You
wasn't looking to find company of that sort so near, was you?"
Hilary looked interested. "No," she answered. "But, after all, the
manor's a mile away."
"Oh, she's back and forth every day--for milk, or one thing or another;
she's terribly interested in the farm; father's taken a great notion to
her. She'll be over after supper, you'll see; and then I'll make you
acquainted with her."
"Are they city people?" Pauline asked.
"From New York!" Mrs. Boyd told her proudly. From her air one would
have supposed she had planned the whole affair expressly for Hilary's
benefit. "Their name's Dayre."
"What is the girl's first name?" Pauline questioned.
"Shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking."
"Is she pretty?" Pauline went on.
"Not according to my notions; father says she is. She's thin and dark,
and I never did see such a mane of hair--and it ain't always too tidy,
neither--but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking.
Looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman."
"She sounds--interesting," Pauline said, and when Mrs. Boyd had left
them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, Pauline turned
eagerly to Hilary. "You're in luck, Hilary Shaw! The newest kind of
new people; even if it isn't a new place!"
"How do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" Hilary
asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows,
"or I her? We haven't seen her yet. Paul, do you suppose Mrs. Boyd
would mind letting me have supper in here?"
"Oh, Hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room! I heard her
doing it. She'd be ever so disappointed."
"Well," Hilary said, "come on then."
Out in the living-room, they found Mr. Boyd waiting for them, and so
heartily glad to see them, that Hilary's momentary impatience vanished.
To Pauline's delight, she really brought quite an appetite to her
supper.
"You should've come out here long ago, Hilary," Mr. Boyd told her, and
he insisted on her having a second helping of the creamed toast,
prepared especially in her honor.
Before supper was over. Captain's deep-toned bark proclaimed a
newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a
medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded
authoritively--"Quiet, Phil! Pat, I'm ashamed of you! Pudgey, if
you're not good instantly, you shall stay at home to-morrow night!"
A moment later, the owner of the voice appeared at the porch door, "May
I come in, Mrs. Boyd?" she asked.
"Come right in, Miss Shirley. I've a couple of young friends here, I
want you should get acquainted with," Mrs. Boyd cried.
"You ain't had your supper yet, have you, Miss Shirley?" Mr. Boyd asked.
"Father and I had tea out on the lake," Shirley answered, "but I'm
hungry enough again by now, for a slice of Mrs. Boyd's bread and
butter."
And presently, she was seated at the table, chatting away with Paul and
Hilary, as if they were old acquaintances, asking Mr. Boyd various
questions about farm matters and answering Mrs. Boyd's questions
regarding Betsy Todd and her doings, with the most delightful air of
good comradeship imaginable.
"Oh, me!" Pauline pushed hack her chair regretfully, "I simply must
go, it'll be dark before I get home, as it is."
"I reckon it will, deary," Mrs. Boyd agreed, "so I won't urge you to
stay longer. Father, you just whistle to Colin to bring Fanny 'round."
Hilary followed her sister into the bedroom. "You'll be over soon,
Paul?"
Pauline, putting on her hat before the glass, turned quickly. "As soon
as I can. Hilary, don't you like her?"
Hilary balanced herself on the arm of the big, old-fashioned rocker.
"I think so. Anyway, I love to watch her talk; she talks all over her
face."
They went out to the gig, where Mr. and Mrs. Boyd and Shirley were
standing. Shirley was feeding Fanny with handfuls of fresh grass.
"Isn't she a fat old dear!" she said.
"She's a fat old poke!" Pauline returned. "Mayn't I give you a lift?
I can go 'round by the manor road 's well as not."
Shirley accepted readily, settling herself in the gig, and balancing
her pail of milk on her knee carefully.
"Good-by," Pauline called. "Mind, you're to be ever and ever so much
better, next time I come, Hilary."
"Your sister has been sick?" Shirley asked, her voice full of
sympathetic interest.
"Not sick--exactly; just run down and listless."
Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear
evening air. "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down--here, in
this air; I'm hardly indoors at all. Father and I have our meals out
on the porch. You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time
I proposed it. 'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she
asked.
"Betsy Todd's a queer old thing," Pauline commented. "Father has the
worst time, getting her to come to church."
"We were there last Sunday," Shirley said. "I'm afraid we were rather
late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it? I suppose you live in that
square white house next to it?"
"Yes," Pauline answered. "Father came to Winton just after he was
married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere
else--that counted. Any really big city, I mean. We're dreadfully
tired of Winton--Hilary, especially."
"It's a mighty pretty place."
"I suppose so." Pauline slapped old Fanny impatiently. "Will you go
on!"
Fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very
much to her liking. Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her
leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening
her pace involuntarily.
"Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley. "She isn't in
the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can
move."
"All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at
her command the dogs fell behind.
"Have you been here long?" Pauline asked.
"About two weeks. We were going further up the lake--just on a
sketching trip,--and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it
looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back
from the next landing to see about it. We took it at once and sent for
a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet."
Pauline looked her interest. It seemed a very odd, attractive way of
doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand.
Suppose--when Uncle Paul's letter came--they could set off in such
fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt
like it.
"I can't think," Shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came
to be standing idle."
"Isn't it rather--run down?"
"Not enough to matter--really. I want father to buy it, and do what is
needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking. The sunsets
from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?"
"Yes," Pauline agreed, "I haven't been over there in two years. We
used to have picnics near there."
"I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me. We
adore picnics; we've had several since we came--he and I and the dogs.
The dogs do love picnics so, too."
Pauline had given up wanting to hurry Fanny; what a lot she would have
to tell her mother when she got home.
She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the
old manor house. "There's father!" Shirley said, nodding to a figure
coming towards them across a field. The dogs were off to meet him
directly, with shrill barks of pleasure.
"May I get down here, please?" Shirley asked. "Thank you very much for
the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw.
You'll both come and see me soon, won't you?"
"We'd love to," Pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so
very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated,
"you--you'll be seeing Hilary quite often, while she's at The Maples,
perhaps?"
"I hope so. Father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and
then she and I can have some drives together. She will know where to
find the prettiest roads."
"Oh, she would enjoy that," Pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on,
she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure
crossing the field. Shirley seemed to walk as if the mere act of
walking were in itself a pleasure. Pauline thought she had never
before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot.
"Go 'long, Fanny!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now,
with her burden of news. It seemed to her as if she had been away a
long while, so much had happened in the meantime.
At the parsonage gate, Pauline found Patience waiting for her. "You
have taken your time, Paul Shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside
her sister.
"Fanny's time, you mean!"
"It hasn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly. "I went for the mail
myself this afternoon, so I know!"
"Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little
of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered. "Suppose you
take Fanny on to the barn. Mother's home, isn't she?"
Patience glanced at her sharply. "You've got something--particular--to
tell mother! O Paul, please wait 'til I come. Is it about--"
"You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day,
Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig.
Patience sniffed. "If nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know
anything!" she declared.
"Is mother home?" Pauline asked again.
"Who's asking things now!" Patience drew the reins up tightly and
bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"Hi yi! Hi
yi!"
It was the one method that never failed to rouse Fanny's indignation,
producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said,
it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of
all, their father.
As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of Fanny's
ears expressed injured dignity. Dignity was Fanny's strong point;
that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any
other horse in Winton. The small human being at the other end of those
taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards.
"Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no
difference--'s long's it's for your good. You're a very unchristiany
horse, Fanny Shaw. And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so
now go on."
However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning
of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "I told you," she
broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday--in Mrs.
Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of
her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was
saying; and Miranda says, ten to one. Sally Dobson comes out in--"
"That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to
interrupt in this fashion, you must run away."
Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.
"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a
week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.
"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."
"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."
"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"
"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.
"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that
girl?"
"On whom, Patience?"
Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying
at times. "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy."
"Not the first time, Patience; possibly later--"
Patience shrugged. "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at
large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw! And
then--" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort.
"And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the
side porch, "maybe--some day--you and I'll go to call on them on our
own account. I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those
dogs--you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine--to call
on that girl. Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the
stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting."
Towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence. In spite of his years, he still
followed blindly where Patience led, though the consequences were
frequently disastrous.
It was the next afternoon that Pauline, reading in the garden, heard an
eager little voice calling excitedly, "Paul, where are you! It's come!
It's come! I brought it up from the office myself!"
Pauline sprang up. "Here I am, Patience! Hurry!"
"Well, I like that!" Patience said, coming across the lawn. "Hurry!
Haven't I run every inch of the way home!" She waved the letter above
her head--"'Miss Pauline A. Shaw!' It's type-written! O Paul, aren't
you going to read it out here!"
For Pauline, catching the letter from her, had run into the house,
crying--"Mother! O Mother Shaw!"