ON THE ROAD TO COBBLE
The next day Mr. Toby Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one
automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain
roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at
Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught
manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings;
for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at
Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly
painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house which the Allans
had been remodeling, he coaxed Mrs. Allan to drive back to Sunnyside
that she might, before the day passed, get better acquainted with Jerry
and Jerry's mother.
"I couldn't feel more excited if I'd found a gold mine there on the side
of Kettle!" John Westley had told his friends. Mrs. Allan, an attractive
young woman, who was accustomed to many congenial friends about her, had
been wondering, deep in her heart, if she was not going to find Cobble
just the least little bit lonely at times, so she listened with deep
interest to John Westley's account of Jerry and Sunnyside.
"I can't just describe why the girl seems so different--it's that she's
so confoundedly natural! There's a freshness about her that's like one
of these clean, cool mountain winds whipping through you."
Mrs. Allan laughed at his awkward attempt to explain Jerry. She was used
to girls--she loved them, she understood just what he was trying to say.
He went on: "And here she is growing up, tucked away on the side of that
mountain with a mother who's more like a sister, I guess--says she
skates and skis and does everything with the child. And the most curious
father--don't believe he's been further away from Kettle than Waytown
more'n three or four times in his life; sits there with his books when
he isn't jogging off on his horse to see some sick mountaineer, and the
kindest, gentlest soul that ever breathed. There's an atmosphere in that
house that _is_ different, upon my word--makes one think of the old
stories of kings and queens who disguised themselves as peasants--simple
meal, everything sort of shabby but you couldn't give all that a
thought, there was such a feeling of peace and happiness everywhere."
John Westley actually had to stop for breath. But he was too eager and
too much in earnest to mind the glint of amusement in Mrs. Allan's eyes.
"When I went to bed didn't that big, amber-eyed cat of Jerry's follow me
upstairs and into the room and stretch herself across my bed just as
though that was what I'd expect! I never in my life before slept with a
cat in the room, but I felt as though it would be the height of rudeness
to chuck her off the bed! And I haven't slept as soundly, since I've
been sick, as I did in that little room. I think it was the piney smell
about everything. Miss Jerry wakened me at an unearthly hour by throwing
a rose through my window. It hit me square in the nose. The little
rascal was standing down there in the sunshine, in her absurd trousers,
with a basket of berries in her hand--she'd been off up the trail after
them."
Although John Westley's glowing account had prepared her for what she
would find at Sunnyside, ten minutes after Penelope Allan had crossed
the threshold she could not resist nodding to him, as much as to say:
"You were quite right." In such places as Sunnyside little conventional
restraints were unknown and in a very few moments the two women were
chatting like old friends while Dr. Travis was explaining in his
drawling voice the advantages of certain theories of planting, to which
Will Allan listened intently, because he was planning a garden at
Cobble, while John Westley, only understanding a word now and then,
wished he hadn't devoted so much of his time to cement and knew more
about spinach.
Afterwards, as they drove down the rough trail back to Cobble, John
Westley demanded: "Honestly, Pen Allan, doesn't it strike you that there
_is_ a mystery about these Travis people?"
She hesitated a moment before answering, then laughed lightly as she
spoke. "You funny man--the magic of these mountains is getting in your
blood! Of course not--they are just a very happy family who know a
little more than most of us about what's really worth while in this
world. Now tell me about your own nieces--Isobel, and that madcap Gyp,
and little Tib." She knew well how fond John Westley was of these three
girls and to talk of them brought to her a breath of what she had known
at home before she had married Will Allan, the spring before.
"Oh, they're as bad as ever," he said in a tone that implied exactly the
opposite. "Isobel's growing more vain each day and Gyp more heedless,
and Tibby's going to spoil her digestion if her mother doesn't make her
eat less candy and more oatmeal. I haven't seen much of the youngsters
since I was sick."
"And Graham--poor boy, stuck in among those girls! He must be in long
trousers now."
"Graham can take care of himself," laughed the uncle. "Wish I had the
four of them here with me! I wanted to bring them along but Dr. Hewitt
said it'd be the surest way to the undertaker. They are a good sort
but--sometimes, I wonder----"
"You are an extraordinary uncle, to take the responsibility of your
nieces and nephew the way you do."
"I can't help it; I've lived with them since they were babies and it's
just as though they were my own. And their father's away so much that I
think their mother sort of depends on me. Sometimes I get a little
bothered--they're having the very best schooling and all the things
money can give young people and yet--there's a sort of shallowness
possessing them that makes them--well, not value the opportunities
they're having----"
"You talk like a veritable schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. Allan, teasingly.
"Have you forgotten that when Uncle Peter Westley left Highacres to the
Lincoln School it made me trustee of the school? That's almost as bad as
being the principal. And this year I'm going to take an active interest
in the school, too. The doctor says I must have a 'diversity' of
interests to offset the strain of making cement-mixers and I think to
rub up against two hundred boys and girls will fill the bill, don't you?
They've remodeled the building at Highacres this summer and completed
one addition. There are twenty acres of ground, too, for outdoor
athletics."
"What a wonderful gift," mused Mrs. Allan, recalling the pile of stone
and marble old Peter Westley had built in the outskirts of his city that
could never have been of any possible use to himself because he had been
a crusty old bachelor who hated to have anyone near him. Gossip had said
that he had built it just because he wanted his house to cost more than
any other house in the city; unworthy as his motive in building it might
have been, he had forever ennobled the place when he had bequeathed it
to the boys and girls of his city.
"There'll be a chance, with the school out there, of offsetting just
what's threatening Isobel and Gyp--a sort of grownupness they're putting
on--like a masquerade costume!"
"I love your very manlike way of describing things," laughed Mrs. Allan,
recalling certain experiences of her own when, for six months, she had
undertaken the care of her own niece, Patricia Everett. "It's
so--_vivid_! A masquerade make-up, too big and too long, and then when
you peep under the 'grown-up' costume, there's the little girl
still--really loving to frolic around in the delightful sports that
belong to youth and youth only."
John Westley rode on for a few moments in deep silence, his mind on the
young people he loved--then suddenly it veered to the little girl he had
found on the Wishing-rock, her eyes staring longingly out into a
dream-world that lay beyond valley and mountain top.
"I've an idea--a--_corker_!" he exclaimed, just as the Fly-by-day
bounced into the grass-grown drive of Cobble House.