TWINS--AND TROUBLE
Sometimes Mr. Howbridge called her "Martha," because she was so
cumbered with family cares. Sometimes he called her "Minerva," and
acclaimed her to be wise. He so frequently joked with her in this way
that Ruth Kenway was not at all sure the lawyer was in earnest on this
occasion.
"Twins?" she repeated, smiling up at him over the top of her muff.
"Twin _what_? Twin puppies, or kittens, or even fish? I suppose there
are twin fish?"
"You joke me, and I am serious," he said, while the younger ones
shouted and sang amid the straw behind. "I really have had a pair of
twins given to me. I am their guardian, the administrator of their
estate, just as I was made administrator of the Stower estate and
guardian of you girls. It is no joke, I assure you," and he finished
rather ruefully.
"Goodness me! you don't mean it?" cried Ruth.
"Yes, I do. I mean it very much. I do, indeed, think it rather mean.
If all my friends who die and go to a better world leave me their
children to take care of, I shall be in a worse pickle than the Little
Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe."
"Like old Mrs. Bobster at Pleasant Cove," laughed Ruth. "But even she
did not have twins. And if your new family is as troublesome as the
Corner House crowd, what will you ever do?"
"That is what I am asking you, Minerva," he said seriously. "What
would you do if you had had twins left to you?"
"What are they, Mr. Howbridge? Boys or girls?"
"Both."
"Both? Oh! You mean one is a boy and one is a girl."
"Ralph and Rowena Birdsall."
"That is better than having two of either sex, I should say," Ruth
observed with more gravity. "They sort of--sort of balance each
other."
"I guess they are 'some kids,' as our friend Neale would say,"
suddenly laughed Mr. Howbridge. "I knew Birdsall very well. I might
say we were very close friends, both socially and in business. Poor
fellow! The last two years of his life were very sad indeed."
"Has he left plenty for the twins?" asked Ruth.
"More than 'plenty,'" said Mr. Howbridge. "He was very, very wealthy.
Ralph and Rowena will come into very large fortunes when they are of
age. The money is well invested."
"Then you need not worry about that," Ruth said sedately.
"No? The more money, the more worry for the administrator and
guardian," Mr. Howbridge said succinctly. "I can assure you that is
true. But it is what to do for, and with, the twins themselves that
bothers me most just at first."
"How old are they?"
"About twelve. Nice age! All legs and arms and imagination."
"Dear me! Do you know them well?"
"Haven't seen them since they were two little red mites in their
cradle."
"Then you merely imagine they are so very terrible."
"I heard enough about them from Frank, Frank Birdsall. That was their
father's name. He used to be very fond of talking about them. Proud as
Lucifer, he was, of Ralph and Rowena. And his wife--"
"Oh! Of course, the mother is dead, too."
"That was what killed Frank, I verily believe," said Mr. Howbridge
gravely. "She died two years ago at a camp he owned up near the
Canadian border. Red Deer Lodge it is called. Mrs. Birdsall was flung
from her horse.
"It crushed her husband. He brought the children away from there (they
had spent much of their time up in the wilderness, for they loved it)
and never went back again.
"That's another piece of work he's left me. Because he did not want
ever to see the Lodge again, I have to go up there--now, in
mid-winter--and attend to something that's been hanging fire too long
already. It is a nuisance."
"A camp in the woods in mid-winter must be an enjoyable place," Ruth
said thoughtfully. "You can take your guns; and you can snowshoe; can
skate; maybe--"
"And, as our good Mrs. Mac would say, eat fried snowballs and icicle
soup!" finished Mr. Howbridge. "Ugh! It's a fine place, Red Deer
Lodge, but I shall take only my man and we'll have to depend on some
old guide or trapper to do for us. No, I look forward to no pleasant
time at Red Deer Lodge, I assure you."
This conversation was not carried on in sequence. The party in the
body of the sleigh frequently interrupted. Sammy managed to dance all
over the sleigh, and half a dozen times he was on the point of
pitching out into the drifts.
"Let him!" snapped Agnes at last. "Let him be buried in the snow, and
we won't stop for him--not until we come back."
"The poor kid would be an icicle then," objected Neale O'Neil.
"And he'd miss the nice hot chocolate and buns Mr. Howbridge says we
are to have at Crowder's Inn," put in Tess, the thoughtful.
Dot squeezed her Alice-doll close to her little bosom and made up her
mind that that precious possession should not pop out by accident into
a drift and be left behind.
"I don't suppose I should have brought her," Dot confessed to Tess. "I
should have given the sailor-boy baby an airing instead."
"Oh, yes! Nosmo King Kenway," murmured her sister.
Dot hurried on, ignoring the suggestive name of the sailor-boy baby
who had been inadvertently christened after a sign on a barn door.
"You know," the smallest Corner House girl said, "Alice's complexion
is so delicate. Of course, Neale had her all made over in the doll's
hospital; but I am always afraid that the wind will crack it."
"I wouldn't worry so about her, Dot," advised Tess.
"You would if Alice were your baby," declared Dot. "And you know she
is delicate. She's never been the same since Lillie Treble buried her
with the dried apples in our back yard."
Meanwhile Neale O'Neil had caught a sentence or two flung back by the
wind from the high front seat. He bobbed up between Mr. Howbridge and
Ruth.
"What's all this about red deer, and snowshoes, and eating icicle
soup?" he asked. "Sounds awfully interesting. Are you planning to go
hunting, Mr. Howbridge?"
"I've got to go to a hunting lodge, clear up state, my boy," said the
lawyer. "And I dread it just as much as you young folks would enjoy
it."
"It would be fine, I think," murmured Ruth.
"Oh, bully!" shouted Agnes, suddenly standing up in the straw and
clinging to Neale for support. "To a regular, sure-enough winter camp?
Then Carrie and Lucy Poole, and Trix Severn can't crow over us any
more! They went, last year, to Letterbeg Camp, up beyond Hoosac."
"But, goodness, Agnes, wait till we are asked, do!" admonished Ruth.
"I never saw or heard of such precipitate young ones."
"Young one yourself!" grumbled Agnes.
"It's my fault," said the good-natured Neale. "Aggie misunderstood
what I said."
"No need to worry about it," said Mr. Howbridge cheerfully. "If you
young folks really want to come with me--"
"Oh, Mr. Howbridge!" exclaimed Ruth, in a tone that showed she,
herself, had been much taken with the idea.
"Why, I hate to go alone. I can send up some servants to open the
Lodge. Frank was always begging me to make use of it. After Mrs.
Birdsall was killed he never would go near the place, as I said.
Though I believe the twins, Ralph and Rowena, have been up there with
a caretaker and a governess, or somebody to look out for them."
"Where are they now?" asked Ruth.
"The Birdsall place in Arlington was closed soon after Frank died,
three months ago. His old butler and his wife live in a nice home near
by, and they have the children and their governess with them."
"With just servants?" murmured Ruth.
"They are very suitable people," declared Mr. Howbridge, as though he
felt the faint criticism in the girl's words. "I went myself and saw
Rodgers and Mrs. Rodgers. The governess and the twins were out for a
drive, so I did not see them."
"The poor things!" sighed Ruth.
"My!" exclaimed Agnes, "those children are worse off than we Kenways
were. They haven't got anybody like Ruth, Mr. Howbridge."
"That is true," agreed the lawyer. "But what am I to do? Separate
them? Send them to boarding school--the boy one way and the girl
another?"
"Gee! that would be tough, Mr. Howbridge," declared Neale O'Neil, with
considerable feeling for the unfortunate twins.
"I don't see what I'm to do," complained the lawyer.
"They should have a real home," Ruth stated, with some severity.
"Sending them to boarding school is dodging the issue. So is leaving
them wholly in the care of servants."
"Who would take in two tearing and wearing children, twelve years
old?" demanded Mr. Howbridge, on the defensive.
"Perhaps the fault does go back to the parents--to the father, at
least," admitted Ruth. "He should have made provision for his children
before he died."
"I suppose you think the duty devolves upon me," said Mr. Howbridge,
rather grumpily. "Should I take them into my house? Should I break up
the habits of years for two half-wild children?"
"Oh, I don't know that," Ruth told him brightly. "It's one of those
things one must decide for oneself, isn't it?"
There was not much more said after that during the ride about the
twins, Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. But Red Deer Lodge!
The idea of going to a real camp in winter was taken up by everybody
in the party, for even Tom Jonah barked. In the depths of the
wilderness, with wild woods, and wild animals, and perhaps wild men!
(this in Sammy's mind) all about the Lodge! The freckled boy
considered the idea even superior to his long cherished desire to run
away to be a pirate.
"I'll get me a bow-arrer and learn to shoot before we start," Sammy
declared, deluding himself, as he always did, with the idea that he
was to be a member of the party in any case.
"But you don't even know if your mother'll let you go, Sammy Pinkney!"
cried Tess.
"She'll let me go if Aggie says I may," declared Sammy. "I can, can't
I, Aggie?" grabbing her by her plaid skirt and almost pulling her over
backwards.
"Stop! You can can that!" declared the next-to-the-oldest Corner House
girl slangily. "What do you think I am--a bell rope, that you yank me
that way?"
"I can go to that Red Deer Lodge, can't I?" insisted the youngster.
"You can start right now, for all I care," said Agnes, rather
grumpily, and giving Sammy no further attention.
But that was enough for Sammy Pinkney. He considered that he had a
particular invitation to accompany the party into the woods, and he
would tell his mother so when he reached home.
But Dot began to be worried.
"Just see here, Tess Kenway!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Do you suppose
my Alice-doll--or any of the other dollies--can stand it?"
"Stand what?" her sister, quite excited, asked.
"Living in tents in winter?"
"In what tents?" asked the amazed Tess.
"Up there at Red Darling Camp--"
"Red _Deer_!"
"Well, I knew it was some nice word," Dot, undisturbed, said. "But
Alice is so delicate."
"Why, Dot Kenway! we won't have to live in tents," said Tess.
"We did in that other camp we went to," said the smaller girl. "Don't
you 'member? And the tent 'most blowed over one night, and you and I
and Tom Jonah went sailing in a boat? And that clam man--"
"But, Dot!" cried Tess, "that was a summer camp. This is a winter one.
And it's all made of logs, and there are doors and windows and
fireplaces and--and everything!"
"Oh!" murmured Dot. "I wondered how they'd keep Jack Frost out. And
he's stinging my ears right now, Tess Kenway."
The roadside inn was in sight now, and presently the big sleigh pulled
up before it with the bells jangling and the horses steaming, as Dot
remarked, "just as though they had boiling water in 'em and the smoke
was leaking out."
The whole party ran into the grillroom and chased Jack Frost away with
hot chocolate and cakes. There the idea of going to Red Deer Lodge for
the Christmas holidays was well thrashed out.
"Of course, I will send up my own servants and supplies. Being
administrator of the estate, there will be no question of my using the
Lodge as I see fit," Mr. Howbridge said cheerfully. "And I shall be
delighted to have you young folks with me.
"I am really going to confer with an old timber cruiser about the
standing timber contracted for by the Neven Lumber Company before
Frank Birdsall died. This timber cruiser--"
"It sounds like a sea-story!" interrupted Agnes, roguishly.
"What is a timber cruiser?" demanded Ruth, quite as puzzled as her
sister.
"It is not a 'what' but a 'who,'" laughed Mr. Howbridge. "In his way,
Ike M'Graw is quite a famous character up there. A timber cruiser is a
man who knows timber so well that just by walking through a wood lot
and looking he can number and mark down the trees that are sound and
will make good timber.
"Ike has written me through a friend (for the old man cannot use a pen
himself, save to make his cross) that he has been over the entire
Birdsall estate and that his figures and the figures of the Nevens
people are too far apart. I fear that the lumber company is trying to
put something over on me, and as administrator of the estate I must
look out for the twins' interests."
"You are more careful of their money, Mr. Howbridge, than you are of
the twins themselves, are you not?" Ruth suggested, in a low voice.
"Now, don't tell me that!" he cried. "I really cannot take those
children into my house."
"Well, you know," she told him, smiling, "you brought this on yourself
by asking my advice. And you intend to fill that Lodge up there with
us 'young ones.'"
"But I shall have you to manage for me, Miss Ruth," declared the
lawyer. "That is different."
"Perhaps we might take the twins along with us, and you'd get used to
them," Ruth said. "You say they like it up there in the wilderness."
"Frank said they were crazy about it."
"Well?"
"You don't know what you are letting yourselves in for. Ralph and
Rowena are young savages."
"Can't be much worse than Sammy, yonder," chuckled Neale, who, with
Agnes, was much interested in this part of the planning.
"Oh, Ruthie!" exclaimed the second Kenway sister suddenly, clasping
her hands. "There's Cecile and Luke!"
"Where--what--?"
"I mean we invited them to come to the Corner House for the holidays."
"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge promptly. "The Shepards? Of course! I
had already included them--in my mind."
"Mr. Howbridge! It will be more than a party. It will be a
convention," gasped Ruth.
"It's such a lonely place that we'll need a big crowd to make it worth
while going at all," the lawyer laughed. "Yes. Cecile and Luke are
invited. I will have them written to at once--in addition to your own
invitation to them, Miss Ruth."
"Dear me! you are just the best guardian, Mr. Howbridge," sighed Agnes
ecstatically.
"And I think," Ruth added, "that you ought to think seriously of
taking the Birdsall twins with us."
That was not decided at that time, however. And when the party got
back to the old Corner House, just across from the Parade Ground at
the head of Main Street, Mr. Howbridge was met with a piece of news
that shocked him much more than had the thought of the twins making
their home with him in his quiet bachelor residence.
A clerk from the lawyer's office awaited Mr. Howbridge. There was a
telegram from Rodgers, the Birdsalls' ex-butler. It read:
"Ralph and Rowena away since yesterday noon. Hospitals searched.
Cannot have pond dragged. Two feet of ice. Wire instructions.
--Rodgers."