PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
"Am I late?" Shirley asked, as Pauline came down the steps to meet her
Thursday afternoon.
"No, indeed, it still wants five minutes to four. Will you come in, or
shall we wait out here? Hilary is under bond not to make her
appearance until the last minute."
"Out here, please," Shirley answered, sitting down on the upper step.
"What a delightful old garden this is. Father has at last succeeded in
finding me my nag, horses appear to be at a premium in Winton, and even
if he isn't first cousin to your Bedelia, I'm coming to take you and
Hilary to drive some afternoon. Father got me a surrey, because,
later, we're expecting some of the boys up, and we'll need a two-seated
rig."
"We're coming to take you driving, too," Pauline said. "Just at
present, it doesn't seem as if the summer would be long enough for all
the things we mean to do in it."
"And you don't know yet, what we are to do this afternoon?"
"Only, that it's to be a drive and, afterwards, supper at the Brices'.
That's all Josie, herself, knows about it. Tom had to take her and
Mrs. Brice into so much of his confidence."
Through the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon, came the notes of
a horn, sounding nearer and nearer. A moment later, a stage drawn by
two of the hotel horses turned in at the parsonage drive at a fine
speed, drawing up before the steps where Pauline and Shirley were
sitting, with considerable nourish. Beside the driver sat Tom, in long
linen duster, the megaphone belonging to the school team in one hand.
Along each side of the stage was a length of white cloth, on which was
lettered--
SEEING WINTON STAGE
As the stage stopped, Tom sprang down, a most businesslike air on his
boyish face.
"This is the Shaw residence, I believe?" he asked, consulting a piece
of paper.
"I--I reckon so," Pauline answered, too taken aback to know quite what
she was saying.
"All right!" Tom said. "I understand--"
"Then it's a good deal more than I do," Pauline cut in.
"That there are several young people here desirous of joining our
little sight-seeing trip this afternoon."
From around the corner of the house at that moment peeped a small
freckled face, the owner of which was decidedly very desirous of
joining that trip. Only a deep sense of personal injury kept Patience
from coming forward,--she wasn't going where she wasn't wanted--but
some day--they'd see!
Shirley clapped her hands delightedly. "How perfectly jolly! Oh, I am
glad you asked me to join the club."
"I'll go tell Hilary!" Pauline said. "Tom, however--"
"I beg your pardon, Miss?"
Pauline laughed and turned away.
"Oh, I say, Paul," Tom dropped his mask of pretended dignity, "let the
Imp come with us--this time."
Pauline looked doubtful. She, as well as Tom, had caught sight of that
small flushed face, on which longing and indignation had been so
plainly written. "I'm not sure that mother will--" she began, "But
I'll see."
"Tell her--just this first time," Tom urged, and Shirley added, "She
would love it so."
"Mother says," Pauline reported presently, "that Patience may go _this_
time--only we'll have to wait while she gets ready."
From an upper window came an eager voice. "I'm most ready now!"
"She'll never forget it--as long as she lives," Shirley said, "and if
she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten _that_."
"Nor let us--for one while," Pauline remarked--"I'd a good deal rather
work with than against that young lady."
Hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing. She had
been out in the trap with Pauline several times; once, even as far as
the manor to call upon Shirley.
"Why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the Folly! Tom, how ever did you
manage it?"
"Beg pardon, Miss?"
Hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of
the big lumbering stage. It had been new, when the present proprietor
of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into
his inheritance. Fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged
high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and
had ordered the stage--since christened the Folly--for the convenience
and enjoyment of the guests--who had never come. A long idle lifetime
the Folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to
make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into
disrepair, through some fancy of its owner.
As Tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much
ceremony, Hilary laughed softly. "It doesn't seem quite--respectful to
actually sit down in the poor old thing. I wonder, if it's more
indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a
parcel of young folks?"
"'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday'?" Shirley laughed.
At that moment Patience appeared, rather breathless--but not half as
much so as Miranda, who had been drawn into service, and now appeared
also--"You ain't half buttoned up behind, Patience!" she protested,
"and your hair ribbon's not tied fit to be seen.--My sakes, to think of
anyone ever having named that young one _Patience_!"
"I'll overhaul her, Miranda," Pauline comforted her. "Come here,
Patience."
"Please, I am to sit up in front with you, ain't I, Tom?" Patience
urged. "You and I always get on so beautifully together, you know."
Tom relaxed a second time. "I don't see how I can refuse after that,"
and the over-hauling process being completed, Patience climbed up to
the high front seat, where she beamed down on the rest with such a look
of joyful content that they could only smile back in response.
From the doorway, came a warning voice. "Not too far, Tom, for Hilary;
and remember, Patience, what you have promised me."
"All right, Mrs. Shaw," Tom assured her, and Patience nodded her head
assentingly.
From the parsonage, they went first to the doctor's. Josie was waiting
for them at the gate, and as they drew up before it, with horn blowing,
and horses almost prancing--the proprietor of the hotel had given them
his best horses, in honor of the Folly--she stared from her brother to
the stage, with its white placard, with much the same look of wonder in
her eyes as Pauline and Hilary had shown.
"Miss Brice?" Tom was consulting his list again.
"So that's what you've been concocting, Tom Brice!" Josie answered.
Tom's face was as sober as his manner. "I am afraid we are a little
behind scheduled time, being unavoidably delayed."
"He means they had to wait for me to get ready," Patience explained.
"You didn't expect to see me along, did you, Josie?" And she smiled
blandly.
"I don't know what I did expect--certainly, not this." Josie took her
place in the stage, not altogether sure whether the etiquette of the
occasion allowed of her recognizing its other inmates, or not.
But Pauline nodded politely. "Good afternoon. Lovely day, isn't it?"
she remarked, while Shirley asked, if she had ever made this trip
before.
"Not in this way," Josie answered. "I've never ridden in the Folly
before. Have you, Paul?"
"Once, from the depot to the hotel, when I was a youngster, about
Impatience's age. You remember, Hilary?"
"Of course I do. Uncle Jerry took me up in front." Uncle Jerry was
the name the owner of the stage went by in Winton. "He'd had a lot of
Boston people up, and had been showing them around."
"This reminds me of the time father and I did our own New York in one
of those big 'Seeing New York' motors," Shirley said. "I came home
feeling almost as if we'd been making a trip 'round some foreign city."
"Tom can't make Winton seem foreign," Josie declared.
There were three more houses to stop at, lower down the street. From
windows and porches all along the route, laughing, curious faces stared
wonderingly after them, while a small body-guard of children sprang up
as if by magic to attend them on their way. This added greatly to the
delight of Patience, who smiled condescendingly down upon various
intimates, blissfully conscious of the envy she was exciting in their
breasts. It was delightful to be one of the club for a time, at least.
"And now, if you please, Ladies and Gentlemen," Tom had closed the door
to upon the last of his party, "we will drive first to The Vermont
House, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and
conducted by one of Vermont's best known and honored sons."
"Hear! Hear!" Jack Ward cried. "I say, Tom, get that off again where
Uncle Jerry can hear it, and you'll always be sure of his vote."
They had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which
Uncle Jerry himself, surveyed them genially.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," standing up, Tom turned to face the occupants
of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office,
raised like a conductor's baton, "I wish to impress upon your minds
that the building now before you--liberal rates for the season--is
chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the Father of His
Country."
"Now how do you know that?" Uncle Jerry protested. "Ain't that North
Chamber called the 'Washington room'?"
"Oh, but that's because the first proprietor's first wife occupied that
room--and she was famous for her Washington pie," Tom answered readily.
"I assure you, sir, that any and all information which I shall have the
honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon
for its accuracy." He gave the driver the word, and the Folly
continued on its way, stopping presently before a little
story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with
the street.
"This cottage, my young friends," Tom said impressively, "should
be--and I trust is--enshrined deep within the hearts of all true
Wintonites. Latterly, it has come to be called the Barker cottage, but
its real title is 'The Flag House'; so called, because from that humble
porch, the first Stars and Stripes ever seen in Winton flung its colors
to the breeze. The original flag is still in possession of a lineal
descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant
of this town." The boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all
assumed now.
No one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out
at the little weather-stained building with new interest. "I thought,"
Bell Ward said at last, "that they called it the _flag_ place, because
someone of that name had used to live there."
"So did I," Hilary said.
As the stage moved on, Shirley leaned back for another look. "I shall
get father to come and sketch it," she said. "Isn't it the quaintest
old place?"
"We will now proceed," Tom announced, "to the village green, where I
shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding
the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village."
"Not too many, old man," Tracy Dixon suggested hurriedly, "or it may
prove a one-sided pleasure."
The green lay in the center of the town,--a wide, open space, with
flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides.
The Vermont House faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side
stood the general store, belonging to Mr. Ward, with one or two smaller
places of business.
"The business section" of the town, Tom called it, and quite failed to
notice Tracy's lament that he had not brought his opera glasses with
him. "Really, you know," Tracy explained to his companions, "I should
have liked awfully to see it. I'm mighty interested in business
sections."
"Cut that out," his brother Bob commanded, "the chap up in front is
getting ready to hold forth again."
They were simple enough, those anecdotes, that "the chap up in front"
told them; but in the telling, the boy's voice lost again all touch of
mock gravity. His listeners, sitting there in the June sunshine,
looking out across the old green, flecked with the waving tree shadows,
and bright with the buttercups nodding here and there, seemed to see
those men and boys drilling there in the far-off summer twilights; to
hear the sharp words of command; the sound of fife and drum. And the
familiar names mentioned more than once, well-known village names,
names belonging to their own families in some instances, served to
deepen the impression.
"Why," Edna Ray said slowly, "they're like the things one learns at
school; somehow, they make one realize that there truly was a
Revolutionary War. Wherever did you pick up such a lot of town
history, Tom?"
"That's telling," Tom answered.
Back up the broad, main street they went, past the pleasant village
houses, with their bright, well-kept dooryards, under the
wide-spreading trees beneath which so many generations of young folks
had come and gone; past the square, white parsonage, with its setting
of green lawn; past the old stone church, and on out into the by-roads
of the village, catching now and then a glimpse of the great lake
beyond; and now and then, down some lane, a bit of the street they had
left. They saw it all with eyes that for once had lost the
indifference of long familiarity, and were swift to catch instead its
quiet, restful beauty, helped in this, perhaps, by Shirley's very real
admiration.
The ride ended at Dr. Brice's gate, and here Tom dropped his mantle of
authority, handing all further responsibility as to the entertainment
of the party over to his sister.
Hilary was carried off to rest until supper time, and the rest
scattered about the garden, a veritable rose garden on that June
afternoon, roses being Dr. Brice's pet hobby.
"It must be lovely to _live_ in the country," Shirley said, dropping
down on the grass before the doctor's favorite _La France_, and laying
her face against the soft, pink petals of a half-blown bud.
Edna eyed her curiously. She had rather resented the admittance of
this city girl into their set. Shirley's skirt and blouse were of
white linen, there was a knot of red under the broad sailor collar, she
was hatless and the dark hair,--never kept too closely within
bounds--was tossed and blown; there was certainly nothing especially
cityfied in either appearance or manner.
"That's the way I feel about the city," Edna said slowly, "it must be
lovely to live _there_."
Shirley laughed. "It is. I reckon just being alive anywhere such days
as these ought to content one. You haven't been over to the manor
lately, have you? I mean since we came there. We're really getting
the garden to look like a garden. Reclaiming the wilderness, father
calls it. You'll come over now, won't you--the club, I mean?"
"Why, of course," Edna answered, she thought she would like to go. "I
suppose you've been over to the forts?"
"Lots of times--father's ever so interested in them, and it's just a
pleasant row across, after supper."
"I have fasted too long, I must eat again," Tom remarked, coming across
the lawn. "Miss Dayre, may I have the honor?"
"Are you conductor, or merely club president now?" Shirley asked.
"Oh, I've dropped into private life again. There comes Hilary--doesn't
look much like an invalid, does she?"
"But she didn't look very well the first time I saw her," Shirley
answered.
The long supper table was laid under the apple trees at the foot of the
garden, which in itself served to turn the occasion into a festive
affair.
"You've given us a bully send-off, Mr. President," Bob declared. "It's
going to be sort of hard for the rest of us to keep up with you."
"By the way," Tom said, "Dr. Brice--some of you may have heard of
him--would like to become an honorary member of this club. Any
contrary votes?"
"What's an honorary member?" Patience asked. Patience had been
remarkably good that afternoon--so good that Pauline began to feel
worried, dreading the reaction.
"One who has all the fun and none of the work," Tracy explained, a
merry twinkle in his brown eyes.
Patience considered the matter. "I shouldn't mind the work; but mother
won't let me join regularly--mother takes notions now and then--but,
please mayn't I be an honorary member?"
"Onery, you mean, young lady!" Tracy corrected.
Patience flashed a pair of scornful eyes at him. "Father says punning
is the very lowest form of--"
"Never mind, Patience," Pauline said, "we haven't answered Tom yet. I
vote we extend our thanks to the doctor for being willing to join."
"He isn't a bit more willing than I am," Patience observed. There was
a general laugh among the real members, then Tom said, "If a Shaw votes
for a Brice, I don't very well see how a Brice can refuse to vote for a
Shaw."
"The motion is carried," Bob seconded him.
"Subject to mother's consent," Pauline added, a quite unnecessary bit
of elder sisterly interference, Patience thought.
"And now, even if it is telling on yourself, suppose you own up, old
man?" Jack Ward turned to Tom. "You see we don't in the least credit
you with having produced all that village history from your own stores
of knowledge."
"I never said you need to," Tom answered, "even the idea was not
altogether original with me."
Patience suddenly leaned forward, her face all alight with interest.
"I love my love with an A," she said slowly, "because he's an--author."
Tom whistled. "Well, of all the uncanny young ones!"
"It's very simple," Patience said loftily.
"So it is, Imp," Tracy exclaimed; "I love him with an A, because he's
an--A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N!"
"I took him to the sign of The Apple Tree," Bell took up the thread.
"And fed him (mentally) on subjects--antedeluvian, or almost so,"
Hilary added.
"What _are_ you talking about?" Edna asked impatiently.
"Mr. Allen," Pauline told her.
"I saw him and Tom walking down the back lane the other night,"
Patience explained. Patience felt that she had won her right to belong
to the club now--they'd see she wasn't just a silly little girl.
"Father says he--I don't mean Tom--"
"We didn't suppose you did," Tracy laughed.
"Knows more history than any other man in the state; especially, the
history of the state."
"Mr. Allen!" Shirley exclaimed. "T. C. Allen! Why, father and I read
one of his books just the other week. It's mighty interesting. Does
he live in Winton?"
"He surely does," Bob grinned, "and every little while he comes up to
school and puts us through our paces. It's his boast that he was born,
bred and educated right in Vermont. He isn't a bad old buck--if he
wouldn't pester a fellow with too many questions."
"He lives out beyond us," Hilary told Shirley. "There's a great apple
tree right in front of the gate. He has an old house-keeper to look
after him. I wish you could see his books--he's literally surrounded
with them."
"Not storybooks," Patience added. "He says, they're books full of
stories, if one's a mind to look for them."
"Please," Edna protested, "let's change the subject. Are we to have
badges, or not?"
"Pins," Bell suggested.
"Pins would have to be made to order," Pauline objected, "and would be
more or less expensive."
"And it's an unwritten by-law of this club, that we shall go to no
unnecessary expense," Tom insisted.
"But--" Bell began.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Tom broke in, "but Uncle Jerry
didn't charge for the stage--he said he was only too glad to have the
poor thing used--'twas a dull life for her, shut up in the
carriage-house year in and year out."
"The Folly isn't a she," Patience protested.
"Folly generally is feminine," Tracy said, "and so--"
"And he let us have the horses, too--for our initial outing," Tom went
on. "Said the stage wouldn't be of much use without them."
"Three cheers for Uncle Jerry!" Bob Dixon cried. "Let's make him an
honorary member."
"But the badges," Edna said. "I never saw such people for going off at
tangents."
"Ribbon would be pretty," Shirley suggested, "with the name of the club
in gilt letters. I can letter pretty well."
Her suggestion was received with general acclamation, and after much
discussion, as to color, dark blue was decided on.
"Blue goes rather well with red," Tom said, "and as two of our members
have red hair," his glance went from Patience to Pauline.
"I move we adjourn, the president's getting personal," Pauline pushed
back her chair.
"Who's turn is it to be next?" Jack asked.
They drew lots with blades of grass; it fell to Hilary. "I warn you,"
she said, "that I can't come up to Tom."
Then the first meeting of the new club broke up, the members going
their various ways. Shirley went as far as the parsonage, where she
was to wait for her father.
"I've had a beautiful time," she said warmly. "And I've thought what
to do when my turn comes. Only, I think you'll have to let father in
as an honorary, I'll need him to help me out."
"We'll be only too glad," Pauline said heartily. "This club's growing
fast, isn't it? Have you decided, Hilary?"
Hilary shook her head, "N-not exactly; I've sort of an idea."