THE PILGRIMAGE
Lydia Bray was shocked indeed when they allowed her in the ward to see
her father. A nurse had drawn a screen about the bed, and nodded to her
encouragingly.
The pallor of Mr. Bray's countenance, as he lay there with his eyes
closed, unaware of her presence, frightened the girl. She had never
seen him utterly helpless before. He had managed to get around every day,
even if sometimes he could not go to work.
But now the forces of his system seemed to have suddenly given out. He
had overtaxed Nature, and she was paying him for it.
"Lyddy!" he whispered, when finally his heavy-lidded eyes opened and he
saw her standing beside the cot.
The girl made a brave effort to look and speak cheerfully; and Mr.
Bray's comprehension was so dulled that she carried the matter off very
successfully while she remained.
She spoke cheerfully; she chatted about their last night's experiences;
she even laughed over some of Aunt Jane's sayings--Aunt Jane was always
a source of much amusement to Mr. Bray.
But the nurse had warned her to be brief, and soon she was beckoned away.
She knew he was in good hands at the hospital, and that they would do all
that they could for him. But what the house physician had told her was
uppermost in her mind as she left the institution.
How were they to get to Hillcrest--and live after arriving there?
"If that man paid me twenty dollars for our furniture, I might have fifty
dollars in hand," she thought. "It will cost us something like two dollars
each for our fares. And then there would be the freight and baggage, and
transportation for ourselves up to Hillcrest from the station.
"And how would it do to bring father to an old, unheated house--and so
early in the spring? I guess the doctor didn't think about that.
"And how will we live until it is time for us to go--until father is well
enough to be moved? All our little capital will be eaten up!"
Lyddy's practical sense then came to her aid. Saturday night 'Phemie would
get through at the millinery shop. They must not remain dependent upon
Aunt Jane longer than over Sunday.
"The thing to do," she decided, "is for 'Phemie and me to start for
Hillcrest immediately--on Monday morning at the latest. If one of us has
to come back for father when he can be moved, all right. The cost will not
be so great. Meanwhile we can be getting the old house into shape to
receive him."
She found Aunt Jane sitting before her fire, with a tray of tea and toast
beside her, and her bonnet already set jauntily a-top of her head, the
strings flowing.
"You found that flat in a mess, I'll be bound!" observed Aunt Jane.
Lydia admitted it. She also told her what the second-hand man had offered.
"Twenty dollars?" cried Aunt Jane. "Take it, quick, before he has a change
of heart!"
But when Lyddy told her of what the doctor at the hospital had said about
Mr. Bray, and how they really seemed forced into taking up with the offer
of Hillcrest, the old lady looked and spoke more seriously.
"You're just as welcome to the use of the old house, and all you can make
out of the farm-crop, as you can be. I stick to what I told you last
night. But I dunno whether you can really be comfortable there."
"We'll find out; we'll try it," returned Lyddy, bravely. "Nothing like
trying, Aunt Jane."
"Humph! there's a good many things better than trying, sometimes. You've
got to have sense in your trying. If it was me, I wouldn't go to Hillcrest
for any money you could name!
"But then," she added, "I'm old and you are young. I wish I could sell
the old place for a decent sum; but an abandoned farm on the top of a
mountain, with the railroad station six miles away, ain't the kind of
property that sells easy in the real estate market, lemme tell you!
"Besides, there ain't much of the two hundred acres that's tillable. Them
romantic-looking rocks that 'Phemie was exclaimin' over last night, are
jest a nuisance. Humph! the old doctor used to say there was money going
to waste up there in them rocks, though. I remember hearing him talk about
it once or twice; but jest what he meant I never knew."
"Mineral deposits?" asked Lyddy, hopefully.
"Not wuth anything. Time an' agin there's been college professors and
such, tappin' the rocks all over the farm for 'specimens.' But there ain't
nothing in the line of precious min'rals in that heap of rocks at the
back of Hillcrest Farm--believe me!
"Dr. Polly useter say, however, that there was curative waters there. He
used 'em some in his practise towards the last. But he died suddent, you
know, and nobody ever knew where he got the water--'nless 'twas Jud Spink.
And Jud had run away with a medicine show years before father died.
"Well!" sighed Aunt Jane. "If you can find any way of makin' a livin'
out of Hillcrest Farm, you're welcome to it. And--just as that hospital
doctor says--it may do your father good to live there for a spell. But
_me_--it always give me the fantods, it was that lonesome."
It seemed, as Aunt Jane said, "a way opened." Yet Lyddy Bray could not
see very far ahead. As she told 'Phemie that night, they could get to the
farm, bag and baggage; but how they would exist after their arrival was
a question not so easy to answer.
Lyddy had gone to one of the big grocers and bought and paid for an order
of staple groceries and canned goods which would be delivered at the
railroad station nearest to Hillcrest on Monday morning. Thus all their
possessions could be carted up to the farm at once.
She had spent the afternoon at the flat collecting the clothing, bedding,
and other articles they proposed taking with them. These goods she had
taken out by an expressman and shipped by freight before six o'clock.
In the morning she met the second-hand man at the ruined flat and he paid
her the twenty dollars as promised. And Lyddy was glad to shake the dust
of the Trimble Avenue double-decker from her feet.
As she turned away from the door she heard a quick step behind her and an
eager voice exclaimed:
"I say! I say! You're not moving; are you?"
Lydia was exceedingly disturbed. She knew that boy in the laboratory
window had been watching closely what was going on in the flat. And now
he had _dared_ follow her. She turned upon him a face of pronounced
disapproval.
"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered. "But I hope your father's better?
Nothing's happened to--to him?"
"We are going to take him away from the city--thank you," replied Lyddy,
impersonally.
She noted with satisfaction that he had run out without his cap, and in
his work-apron. He could not follow her far in such a rig through the
public streets, that was sure.
"I--I'm awful sorry to have you go," he said, stammeringly. "But I hope
it will be beneficial to your father. I--I---- You see, my own father
is none too well and we have often talked of his living out of town
somewhere--not so far but that I could run out for the week-end, you know."
Lyddy merely nodded. She would not encourage him by a single word.
"Well--I wish you all kinds of luck!" exclaimed the young fellow, finally,
holding out his hand.
"Thank you," returned the very proper Lyddy, and failed to see his
proffered hand, turning promptly and walking away, not even vouchsafing
him a backward look when she turned the corner, although she knew very
well that he was still standing, watching her.
"He may be a very nice young man," thought Lyddy; "but, then----"
Sunday the two girls spent a long hour with their father. They found him
prepared for the move in prospect for the family--indeed, he was cheerful
about it. The house physician had evidently taken time to speak to the
invalid about the change he advised.
"Perhaps by fall I shall be my own self again, and we can come back to
town and all go to work. We'll worry along somehow in the country for one
season, I am sure," said Mr. Bray.
But that was what troubled Lyddy more than anything else. They were all
so vague as to what they should do at Hillcrest--how they would be able
to live there!
Father said something about when he used to have a garden in their
backyard, and how nice the fresh vegetables were; and how mother had once
kept hens. But Lyddy could not see yet how they were to have either a
garden or poultry.
They were all three enthusiastic--to each other. And the father was sure
that in a fortnight he would be well enough to travel alone to Hillcrest;
they must not worry about him. Aunt Jane was to remain in town all that
time, and she promised to report frequently to the girls regarding their
father's condition.
"I certainly wish I could help you gals out with money," said the old
lady that evening. "You're the only nieces I've got, and I feel as kindly
towards you as towards anybody in this wide world.
"Maybe we can get a chance to sell the farm. If we can, I'll help you then
with a good, round sum. Now, then! you fix up the old place and make it
look less like the Wrath o' Fate had struck it and maybe some foolish
rich man will come along and want to buy it. If you find a customer, I'll
pay you a right fat commission, girls."
But this was "all in the offing;" the Bray girls were concerned mostly
with their immediate adventures.
To set forth on this pilgrimage to Hillcrest Farm--and alone--was an event
fraught with many possibilities. Both Lyddy and 'Phemie possessed their
share of imagination, despite their practical characters; and despite
the older girl's having gone to college for two years, she, or 'Phemie,
knew little about the world at large.
So they looked forward to Monday morning as the Great Adventure.
It was a moist, sweet morning, even in the city, when they betook
themselves early to the railway station, leaving Aunt Jane luxuriously
sipping tea and nibbling toast in bed--_this_ time with her nightcap on.
March had come in like a lion; but its lamblike qualities were now
manifest and it really did seem as though the breath of spring permeated
the atmosphere--even down here in the smoky, dirty city. The thought
of growing things inspired 'Phemie to stop at a seed store near the
station and squander a few pennies in sweet-peas.
"I know mother used to put them in just as soon as she could dig at all
in the ground," she told her sister.
"I don't believe they'll be a very profitable crop," observed Lyddy.
"My goodness me!" exclaimed 'Phemie, "let's retain a little sentiment,
Lyd! We can't eat 'em--no; but they're sweet and restful to look at. I'm
going to have moon-flowers and morning-glories, too," and she recklessly
expended more pennies for those seeds.
Their train was waiting when they reached the station and the sisters
boarded it in some excitement. 'Phemie's gaiety increased the nearer they
approached to Bridleburg, which was their goal. She was a plump, rosy
girl, with broad, thick plaits of light-brown hair ("molasses-color"
she called it in contempt) which she had begun to "do up" only upon going
to work. She had a quick blue eye, a laughing mouth, rather wide, but
fine; a nose that an enemy--had laughing, good-natured Euphemia Bray
owned one--might have called "slightly snubbed," and her figure was just
coming into womanhood.
Lydia's appearance was entirely different. They did not look much like
sisters, to state the truth.
The older girl was tall, straight as a dart, with a dignity of carriage
beyond her years, dark hair that waved very prettily and required little
dressing, and a clear, colorless complexion. Her eyes were very dark
gray, her nose high and well chiseled, like Aunt Jane's. She was more
of a Phelps. Aunt Jane declared Lyddy resembled Dr. Apollo, or "Polly,"
Phelps more than had either of his own children.
The train passed through a dun and sodden country. The late thaw and the
rains had swept the snow from these lowlands; the unfilled fields were
brown and bare.
Here and there, however, rye and wheat sprouted green and promising,
and in the distance a hedge of water-maples along the river bank seemed
standing in a purple mist, for their young leaves were already pushing
into the light.
"There will be pussy-willows," exclaimed 'Phemie, "and hepaticas in the
woods. Think of _that_, Lyddy Bray!"
"And the house will be as damp as the tomb--and not a stick of wood
cut--and no stoves," returned the older girl.
"Oh, dear, me! you're such an old grump!" ejaculated 'Phemie. "Why try
to cross bridges before you come to them?"
"Lucky for you, Miss, that I _do_ think ahead," retorted Lyddy with some
sharpness.
There was a grade before the train climbed into Bridleburg. Back of the
straggling old town the mountain ridge sloped up, a green and brown wall,
breaking the wind from the north and west, thus partially sheltering the
town. There was what farmers call "early land" about Bridleburg, and some
trucking was carried on.
But the town itself was much behind the times--being one of those
old-fashioned New England settlements left uncontaminated by the mill
interests and not yet awakened by the summer visitor, so rife now in
most of the quiet villages of the six Pilgrim States.
The rambling wooden structure with its long, unroofed platform, which
served Bridleburg as a station, showed plainly what the railroad company
thought of the town. Many villages of less population along the line
boasted modern station buildings, grass plots, and hedges. All that
surrounded Bridleburg's barrack-like depot was a plaza of bare, rolled
cinders.
On this were drawn up the two 'buses from the rival hotels--the "New
Brick Hotel," built just after the Civil War, and the Eagle House. Their
respective drivers called languidly for customers as the passengers
disembarked from the train.
Most of these were traveling men, or townspeople. It was only mid-forenoon
and Lyddy did not wish to spend either time or money at the local
hostelries, so she shook her head firmly at the 'bus drivers.
"We want to get settled by night at Hillcrest--if we can," she told
'Phemie. "Let's see if your baggage and freight are here, first of all."
She waited until the station agent was at leisure and learned that all
their goods--a small, one-horse load--had arrived.
"You two girls goin' up to the old Polly Phelps house?" ejaculated the
agent, who was a "native son" and knew all about the "old doctor," as Dr.
Apollo Phelps had been known throughout two counties and on both sides
of the mountain ridge.
"Why, it ain't fit for a stray cat to live in, I don't believe--that house
ain't," he added. "More'n twenty year since the old doctor died, and it's
been shut up ever since.
"What! you his grandchildren? Sho! Mis' Bray--I remember. She was the old
doctor's daughter by his secon' wife. Ya-as.
"Well, if I was you, I'd go to Pritchett's house to stop first. Can't
be that the old house is fit to live in, an' Pritchett is your nighest
neighbor."
"Thank you," Lyddy said, quietly. "And can you tell me whom we could get
to transport our goods--and ourselves--to the top of the ridge?"
"Huh? Why! I seen Pritchett's long-laiged boy in town jest now--Lucas
Pritchett. He ain't got away yet," responded the station agent.
"I ventur' to say you'll find him up Market Street a piece--at Birch's
store, or the post-office. This train brung in the mail.
"If he's goin' up light he oughter be willin' to help you out cheap. It's
a six-mile tug, you know; you wouldn't wanter walk it."
He pointed up the mountainside. Far, far toward the summit of the ridge,
nestling in a background of brown and green, was a splash of vivid white.
"That's Pritchett's," vouchsafed the station agent. "If Dr. Polly Phelps'
house had a coat of whitewash you could see it, too--jest to the right
and above Pritchett's. Highest house on the ridge, it is, and a mighty
purty site, to my notion."