The new station had just been built in Boston, and it seemed a great
enterprise to Gilbert to be threading his way through the enormous
spaces, getting his information by his own wits and not asking questions
like a stupid schoolboy. Like all children of naval officers, the Careys
had travelled ever since their birth; still, this was Gilbert's first
journey alone, and nobody was ever more conscious of the situation, nor
more anxious to carry it off effectively.
He entered the car, opened his bag, took out his travelling cap and his
copy of "Ben Hur," then threw the bag in a lordly way into the brass
rack above the seat. He opened his book, but immediately became
interested in a young couple just in front of him. They were carefully
dressed, even to details of hats and gloves, and they had an
unmistakable air of wedding journey about them that interested the
curious boy.
Presently the conductor came in. Pausing in front of the groom he said,
"Tickets, please"; then: "You're on the wrong train!" "Wrong train? Of
course I'm not on the wrong train! You must be mistaken! The ticket
agent told me to take this train."
"Can't help that, sir, this train don't go to Lawrence."
"It's very curious. I asked the brakeman, and two porters. Ain't this
the 3.05?"
"This is the 3.05."
"Where does it go, then?"
"Goes to Lowell. Lowell the first stop."
"But I don't want to go to Lowell!"
"What's the matter with Lowell? It's a good place all right!"
"But I have an appointment in Lawrence at four o'clock."
"I'm dretful sorry, but you'll have to keep it in Lowell, I
guess!--Tickets, please!" this to a pretty girl on the opposite side
from Gilbert, a pink and white, unsophisticated maiden, very much
interested in the woes of the bride and groom and entirely sympathetic
with the groom's helpless wrath.
"On the wrong train, Miss!" said the conductor.
"On the wrong train?" She spoke in a tone of anguish, getting up and
catching her valise frantically. "It _can't_ be the wrong train! Isn't
it the White Mountain train?"
"Yes, Miss, but it don't go to North Conway; it goes to Fabyan's."
"But my father _put_ me on this train and everybody _said_ it was the
White Mountain train!"
"So it is, Miss, but if you wanted to stop at North Conway you'd ought
to have taken the 3.55, platform 8."
"Put me off, then, please, and let me wait for the 3.55."
"Can't do it, Miss; this is an express train; only stops at Lowell,
where this gentleman is going!"
(Here the conductor gave a sportive wink at the bridegroom who had an
appointment in Lawrence.)
The pretty girl burst into a flood of tears and turned her face
despairingly to the window, while the bride talked to the groom
excitedly about what they ought to have done and what they would have
done had she been consulted.
Gilbert could hardly conceal his enjoyment of the situation, and indeed
everybody within hearing--that is, anybody who chanced to be on the
right train--looked at the bride and groom and the pretty girl, and
tittered audibly.
"Why don't people make inquiries?" thought Gilbert superciliously.
"Perhaps they have never been anywhere before, but even that's
no excuse."
He handed his ticket to the conductor with a broad smile, saying in an
undertone, "What kind of passengers are we carrying this afternoon?"
"The usual kind, I guess!--You're on the wrong train, sonny!"
Gilbert almost leaped into the air, and committed himself by making a
motion to reach down his valise.
"I, on the wrong train?" he asked haughtily. "That _can't_ be so; the
ticket agent told me the 3.05 was the only fast train to Greentown!"
"Mebbe he thought you said Greenville; this train goes to Greenville, if
that'll do you! Folks ain't used to the new station yet, and the ticket
agents are all bran' new too,--guess you got hold of a tenderfoot!"
"But Greenville will _not_ 'do' for me," exclaimed Gilbert. "I want to
go to _Greentown_."
"Well, get off at Lowell, the first stop,--you'll know when you come to
it because this gentleman that wanted to go to Lawrence will get off
there, and this young lady that was intendin' to go to North Conway.
There'll be four of you; jest a nice party."
Gilbert choked with wrath as he saw the mirth of the other passengers.
"What train shall I be able to take to Greentown," he managed to call
after the conductor.
"Don't know, sonny! Ask the ticket agent in the Lowell deepot; he's an
old hand and he'll know!"
Gilbert's pride was terribly wounded, but his spirits rose a little
later when he found that he would only have to wait twenty minutes in
the Lowell station before a slow train for Greentown would pick him up,
and that he should still reach his destination before bedtime, and need
never disclose his stupidity.
After all, this proved to be his only error, for everything moved
smoothly from that moment, and he was as prudent and successful an
ambassador as Mother Carey could have chosen. He found the Colonel,
whose name was not Foster, by the way, but Wheeler; and the Colonel
would not allow him to go to the Mansion House, Beulah's one small
hotel, but insisted that he should be his guest. That evening he heard
from the Colonel the history of the yellow house, and the next morning
the Colonel drove him to the store of the man who had charge of it
during the owner's absence in Europe, after which Gilbert was conducted
in due form to the premises for a critical examination.
The Yellow House, as Garden Fore-and-Aft seemed destined to be chiefly
called, was indeed the only house of that color for ten miles square. It
had belonged to the various branches of a certain family of Hamiltons
for fifty years or more, but in course of time, when it fell into the
hands of the Lemuel Hamiltons, it had no sort of relation to their mode
of existence. One summer, a year or two before the Careys had seen it,
the sons and daughters had come on from Boston and begged their father
to let them put it in such order that they could take house parties of
young people there for the week end. Mr. Hamilton indulgently allowed
them a certain amount to be expended as they wished, and with the help
of a local carpenter, they succeeded in doing several things to their
own complete satisfaction, though it could not be said that they added
to the value of the property. The house they regarded merely as a
camping-out place, and after they had painted some bedroom floors, set
up some cots, bought a kitchen stove and some pine tables and chairs,
they regarded that part of the difficulty as solved; expending the rest
of the money in turning the dilapidated barn into a place where they
could hold high revels of various innocent sorts. The two freshman sons,
two boarding-school daughters, and a married sister barely old enough to
chaperon her own baby, brought parties of gay young friends with them
several weeks in succession. These excursions were a great delight to
the villagers, who thus enjoyed all the pleasures and excitements of a
circus with none of its attendant expenses. They were of short duration,
however, for Lemuel Hamilton was appointed consul to a foreign port and
took his wife and daughters with him. The married sister died, and in
course of time one of the sons went to China to learn tea-planting and
the other established himself on a ranch in Texas. Thus the Lemuel
Hamiltons were scattered far and wide, and as the Yellow House in Beulah
had small value as real estate and had never played any part in their
lives, it was almost forgotten as the busy years went by.
"Mr. Hamilton told me four years ago, when I went up to Boston to meet
him, that if I could get any rent from respectable parties I might let
the house, though he wouldn't lay out a cent on repairs in order to get
a tenant. But, land! there ain't no call for houses in Beulah, nor
hain't been for twenty years," so Bill Harmon, the storekeeper, told
Gilbert. "The house has got a tight roof and good underpinnin', and if
your folks feel like payin' out a little money for paint 'n' paper you
can fix it up neat's a pin. The Hamilton boys jest raised Cain out in the
barn, so 't you can't keep no critters there."
"We couldn't have a horse or a cow anyway," said Gilbert.
"Well, it's lucky you can't. I could 'a' rented the house twice over if
there'd been any barn room; but them confounded young scalawags ripped
out the horse and cow stalls, cleared away the pig pen, and laid a floor
they could dance on. The barn chamber 's full o' their stuff, so 't no
hay can go in; altogether there ain't any nameable kind of a fool-trick
them young varmints didn't play on these premises. When a farmer's
lookin' for a home for his family and stock 't ain't no use to show him
a dance hall. The only dancin' a Maine farmer ever does is dancin' round
to git his livin' out o' the earth;--that keeps his feet flyin',
fast enough."
"Well," said Gilbert, "I think if you can put the rent cheap enough so
that we could make the necessary repairs, I _think_ my mother would
consider it."
"Would you want it for more 'n this summer?" asked Mr. Harmon.
"Oh! yes, we want to live here!"
"_Want to live here_!" exclaimed the astonished Harmon. "Well, it's been
a long time sence we heard anybody say that, eh, Colonel?
"Well now, sonny" (Gilbert did wish that respect for budding manhood
could be stretched a little further in this locality), "I tell you what,
I ain't goin' to stick no fancy price on these premises--"
"It wouldn't be any use," said Gilbert boldly. "My father has died
within a year; there are four of us beside my mother, and there's a
cousin, too, who is dependent on us. We have nothing but a small pension
and the interest on five thousand dollars life insurance. Mother says we
must go away from all our friends, live cheaply, and do our own work
until Nancy, Kitty, and I grow old enough to earn something."
Colonel Wheeler and Mr. Harmon both liked Gilbert Carey at sight, and as
he stood there uttering his boyish confidences with great friendliness
and complete candor, both men would have been glad to meet him halfway.
"Well, Harmon, it seems to me we shall get some good neighbors if we can
make terms with Mrs. Carey," said the Colonel. "If you'll fix a
reasonable figure I'll undertake to write to Hamilton and interest him
in the affair."
"All right. Now, Colonel, I'd like to make a proposition right on the
spot, before you, and you can advise sonny, here. You see Lem has got
his taxes to pay,--they're small, of course, but they're an
expense,--and he'd ought to carry a little insurance on his buildings,
tho' he ain't had any up to now. On the other hand, if he can get a
tenant that'll put on a few shingles and clapboards now and then, or a
coat o' paint 'n' a roll o' wall paper, his premises won't go to rack
'n' ruin same's they're in danger o' doin' at the present time. Now,
sonny, would your mother feel like keepin' up things a little mite if we
should say sixty dollars a year rent, payable monthly or quarterly as is
convenient?"
Gilbert's head swam and his eyes beheld such myriads of stars that he
felt it must be night instead of day. The rent of the Charlestown house
was seven hundred dollars a year, and the last words of his mother had
been to the effect that two hundred was the limit he must offer for the
yellow house, as she did not see clearly at the moment how they could
afford even that sum.
"What would be your advice, Colonel?" stammered the boy.
"I think sixty dollars is not exorbitant," the Colonel answered calmly
(he had seen Beulah real estate fall a peg a year for twenty successive
years), "though naturally you cannot pay that sum and make any
extravagant repairs."
"Then I will take the house," Gilbert remarked largely. "My mother left
the matter of rent to my judgment, and we will pay promptly in advance.
Shall I sign any papers?"
"Land o' Goshen! the marks your little fist would make on a paper
wouldn't cut much of a figure in a court o' law!" chuckled old Harmon.
"You jest let the Colonel fix up matters with your ma."
"Can I walk back, Colonel?" asked Gilbert, trying to preserve some
dignity under the storekeeper's attacks. "I'd like to take some
measurements and make some sketches of the rooms for my mother."
"All right," the Colonel responded. "Your train doesn't go till two
o'clock. I'll give you a bite of lunch and take you to the station."
If Mother Carey had watched Gilbert during the next half-hour she would
have been gratified, for every moment of the time he grew more and more
into the likeness of the head of a family. He looked at the cellar, at
the shed, at the closets and cupboards all over the house, and at the
fireplaces. He "paced off" all the rooms and set down their proportions
in his note-book; he even decided as to who should occupy each room, and
for what purposes they should be used, his judgment in every case being
thought ridiculous by the feminine portion of his family when they
looked at his plans. Then he locked the doors carefully with a fine
sense of ownership and strolled away with many a backward look and
thought at the yellow house.
At the station he sent a telegram to his mother. Nancy had secretly
given him thirty-five cents when he left home. "I am hoarding for the
Admiral's Christmas present," she whispered, "but it's no use, I cannot
endure the suspense about the house a moment longer than is necessary.
Just telegraph us yes or no, and we shall get the news four hours before
your train arrives. One can die several times in four hours, and I'm
going to commit one last extravagance,--at the Admiral's expense!"
At three o'clock on Saturday afternoon a telegraph boy came through the
gate and rang the front door bell.
"You go, Kitty, I haven't the courage!" said Nancy, sitting down on the
sofa heavily. A moment later the two girls and Peter (who for once
didn't count) gazed at their mother breathlessly as she opened the
envelope. Her face lighted as she read aloud:--
"_Victory perches on my banners. Have accomplished all I went for_.
GILBERT."
"Hurrah!" cried both girls. "The yellow house is the House of Carey
forevermore."
"Will Peter go too?" asked the youngest Carey eagerly, his nose
quivering as it always did in excitement, when it became an animated
question point.
"I should think he would," exclaimed Kitty, clasping him in her arms.
"What would the yellow house be without Peter?"
"I wish Gilbert wouldn't talk about _his_ banners," said Nancy
critically, as she looked at the telegram over her mother's shoulder.
"They're not his banners at all, they're ours,--Carey banners; that's
what they are!"
Mother Carey had wished the same thing, but hoped that Nancy had not
noticed the Gilbertian flaw in the telegram.
X