[Frontispiece: SHE WAS ALMOST BREATHLESS WHEN SHE REACHED THE BOTTOM OF
THE HILL AND STOOD IN FRONT OF THE GREAT BARN. _Page 20_]
The Enchanted Barn
By
Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
Author of "Marcia Schuyler," "Phoebe Deane," "The Obsession of Victoria
Gracen," etc.
_With Frontispiece by_
EDMUND FREDERICK
Philadelphia & London
J. B. Lippincott Company
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED APRIL, 1918
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
THE ENCHANTED BARN
CHAPTER I
Shirley Hollister pushed back the hair from her hot forehead, pressed
her hands wearily over tired eyes, then dropped her fingers again to
the typewriter keys, and flew on with the letter she was writing.
There was no one else in the inner office where she sat. Mr. Barnard,
the senior member of the firm, whose stenographer she was, had stepped
into the outer office for a moment with a telegram which he had just
received. His absence gave Shirley a moment's respite from that
feeling that she must keep strained up to meet his gaze and not let
trouble show in her eyes, though a great lump was choking in her throat
and the tears stung her hot eyelids and insisted on blurring her vision
now and then. But it was only for an instant that she gave way. Her
fingers flew on with their work, for this was an important letter, and
Mr. Barnard wanted it to go in the next mail.
As she wrote, a vision of her mother's white face appeared to her
between the lines, the mother weak and white, with tears on her cheeks
and that despairing look in her eyes. Mother hadn't been able to get
up for a week. It seemed as if the cares of life were getting almost
too much for her, and the warm spring days made the little brick house
in the narrow street a stifling place to stay. There was only one
small window in mother's room, opening against a brick wall, for they
had had to rent the front room with its two windows.
But, poor as it was, the little brick house had been home; and now they
were not to have that long. Notice had been served that they must
vacate in four weeks; for the house, in fact, the whole row of houses
in which it was situated, had been sold, and was to be pulled down to
make way for a big apartment-house that was to be put up.
Where they were going and what they were going to do now was the great
problem that throbbed on Shirley's weary brain night and day, that kept
her from sleeping and eating, that choked in her throat when she tried
to speak to Mr. Barnard, that stared from her feverish eyes as she
looked at the sunshine on the street or tried to work in the busy
monotony of the office.
They had been in the little house nearly a year, ever since the father
died. It had taken all they could scrape together to pay the funeral
expenses, and now with her salary, and the roomer's rent, and what
George got as cash-boy in a department store they were just barely able
to get along. There was not a cent over for sickness or trouble, and
nothing to move with, even if they had anywhere to move, or any time to
hunt for a place. Shirley knew from her experience in hunting for the
present house that it was going to be next to impossible for them to
find any habitable place for as little rent as they were now paying,
and how _could_ they pay more? She was only a beginner, and her salary
was small. There were three others in the family, not yet
wage-earners. The problem was tremendous. Could it be that Carol,
only fourteen years old, must stop school and go to work somewhere to
earn a pittance also? Carol was slender and pale, and needed fresh air
and nourishing food. Carol was too young to bear burdens yet; besides,
who would be housekeeper and take care of mother if Carol had to go to
work? It was different with George; he was a boy, strong and sturdy;
he had his school in the department store, and was getting on well with
his studies. George would be all right. He belonged to a baseball
team, too, and got plenty of chances for exercise; but Carol was frail,
there was no denying it. Harley was a boisterous nine-year-old, always
on the street these days when he wasn't in school; and who could blame
him? For the narrow, dark brick house was no place for a lively boy.
But the burden and anxiety for him were heavy on his sister's heart,
who had taken over bodily all the worries of her mother. Then there
was the baby Doris, with her big, pathetic eyes, and her round cheeks
and loving ways. Doris, too, had to be shut in the dark little house
with the summer heat coming on, and no one with time enough or strength
enough to take her to the Park. Doris was only four. Oh, it was
terrible, _terrible_! and Shirley could do nothing but sit there, and
click those keys, and earn her poor little inadequate salary! Some
day, of course, she would get more--but some day might be too late!
She shuddered as the terrible thought flashed through her mind, then
went on with her work again. She must shake off this state of mind and
give attention to her duty, or she would lose even this opportunity to
help her dear ones.
The door of the outer office opened, and Mr. Barnard entered.
"Miss Hollister," he said hurriedly, "if you have those letters ready,
I will sign them at once. We have just had word that Mr. Baker of the
firm died last night in Chicago, and I must go on at once. The office
will be closed for the rest of the day. You can let those other
matters that I spoke of go until to-morrow, and you may have the day
off. I shall not be at the office at the usual hour to-morrow morning,
but you can come in and look after the mail. I will leave further
directions with Mr. Clegg. You can mail these letters as you go down."
Ten minutes later Shirley stood on the street below in the warm spring
sunshine, and gazed about her half dazed. It seemed a travesty on her
poor little life just now to have a holiday and no way to make it count
for the dear ones at home. How should she use it, anyway? Should she
go home and help Carol? Or should she go out and see whether she could
find a house somewhere that they could possibly afford to move to?
That, of course, was the sensible thing to do; yet she had no idea
where to go. But they did not expect her home at this time of day.
Perhaps it was as well that she should use this time and find out
something without worrying her mother. At least, she would have time
to think undisturbed.
She grasped her little package of lunch that she had brought from home
with her and looked about her helplessly. In her little thin purse was
the dime she always carried with her to pay her car-fare in case
something happened that she had to ride either way--though she seldom
rode, even in a storm. But her mother insisted on the dime. She said
it was not safe to go without any money at all. This dime was her
capital wherewith to hunt a house. Perhaps the day had been given her
by a kind heavenly Father to go on her search. She would try to use it
to the best of her ability. She lifted her bewildered heart in a
feeble petition for light and help in her difficult problem, and then
she went and stood on the corner of the street where many trolley-cars
were passing and repassing. Which one should she take, and where
should she go? The ten cents must cover all her riding, and she must
save half of it for her return.
She studied the names on the cars. "Glenside Road" one read. What had
she heard about that? Ah! that it was the longest ride one could take
for five cents within the limits of the city's roads! Her heart leaped
up at the word. It sounded restful anyway, and would give her time to
think. It wasn't likely, if it went near any glens, that there would
be any houses within her means on its way; but possibly it passed some
as it went through the city, and she could take notice of the streets
and numbers and get out on her return trip to investigate if there
proved to be anything promising; or, if it were too far away from home
for her to walk back from it, she could come another time in the
evening with George, some night when he did not have school. Anyhow,
the ride would rest her and give her a chance to think what she ought
to do, and one car was as good as another for that. Her resolve was
taken, and she stepped out and signalled it.
There were not many people in the car. It was not an hour when people
rode out to the suburbs. Two workmen with rolls of wall-paper slung in
burlap bags, a woman and a little girl, that was all.
Shirley settled back in her seat, and leaned her head against the
window-sash wearily. She felt so tired, body and soul, that she would
have been glad to sleep and forget for a little while, only that there
was need for her to be up and doing. Her room had been oppressively
warm the night before; and Doris, who slept with her, had rolled from
one side of the bed to the other, making sleep well-nigh impossible for
the elder sister. She felt bruised and bleeding in her very soul, and
longed for rest.
The car was passing through the thickest of the city's business
thoroughfare, and the noise and confusion whirled about her ears like
some fiendish monotonous music that set the time for the mad dance of
the world. One danced to it whether one would or not, and danced on to
one's death.
Around the city hall the car passed, and on up Market Street. They
passed a great fruit-store, and the waft of air that entered the open
windows came laden with the scent of over-ripe bananas, late oranges
and lemons; a moment later with sickening fumes it blended into a
deadly smell of gas from a yawning hole in the pavement, and mingled
with the sweat of the swarthy foreigners grouped about it, picks in
hand. It seemed as though all the smells in creation were met and
congregated in that street within four or five blocks; and one by one
they tortured her, leather and paint and metal and soap, rank cheese in
a fellow traveller's market-basket, thick stifling smoke from a street
engine that was champing up the gravel they fed it to make a new patch
of paving, the stench from the cattle-sheds as they passed the railroad
and stock-yards, the dank odor of the river as they crossed the bridge,
and then an oilcloth-factory just beyond! The faint sweet breath of
early daffodils and violets from an occasional street vendor stood no
chance at all with these, and all the air seemed sickening and dreadful
to the girl as she rested wearily against the window with closed eyes,
and tried to think.
They slipped at last into the subway with a whir and a swish, where the
cool, clean smell of the cement seemed gradually to rise and drown the
memory of the upper world, and came refreshingly in at the windows.
Shirley had a passing thought, wondering whether it would be like that
in the grave, all restful and sweet and quiet and clean, with the
noisy, heartless world roaring overhead. Then they came up suddenly
out of the subway, with a kind of triumphant leap and shout of brakes
and wheels, into the light and sunshine above, and a new world. For
here were broad streets, clean pavements, ample houses, well-trimmed
lawns, quiet people walking in comfort, bits of flower-boxes on the
window-sills filled with pansies and hyacinths; and the air was sweet
and clean. The difference made Shirley sit up and look about her, and
the contrast reminded her of the heaven that would be beyond the grave.
It was just because she was so tired and disheartened that her thoughts
took this solemn form.
But now her heart sank again, for she was in the world of plenty far
beyond her means, and there was no place for such as she. Not in
either direction could she see any little side streets with tiny houses
that would rent for fifteen dollars a month. There were such in the
city, she knew; but they were scarce, and were gobbled up as soon as
vacant.
But here all was spaciousness, and even the side streets had three
stories and smug porches with tidy rockers and bay windows.
She looked at the great plate-glass windows with their cobwebby lace
draperies, and thought what it would be if she were able to take her
mother and the children to such a home as one of those. Why, if she
could afford that, George could go to college, and Doris wear a little
velvet coat with rose-buds in her bonnet, like the child on the
sidewalk with her nurse and her doll-carriage.
But a thing like that could never come to her. There were no rich old
uncles to leave them a fortune; she was not bright and gifted to invent
some wonderful toy or write a book or paint a picture that would bring
the fortune; and no one would ever come her way with a fortune to marry
her. Those things happened only in story-books, and she was not a
story-book girl; she was just a practical, every-day, hard-working girl
with a fairly good complexion, good blue eyes and a firm chin. She
could work hard and was willing; but she could not bear anxiety. It
was eating into her soul, and she could feel a kind of mental paralysis
stealing over her from it, benumbing her faculties hour by hour.
The car glided on, and the houses grew less stately and farther apart.
They were not so pretentious now, but they were still substantial and
comfortable, with more ground and an air of having been there always,
with no room for newcomers. Now and then would come a nucleus of shops
and an old tavern with a group of new groceries and crying competition
of green stamps and blue stamps and yellow stamps posted alluringly in
their windows. Here busy, hurried people would swarm, and children ran
and shouted; but every house they passed seemed full to overflowing,
and there was nowhere any place that seemed to say, "Here you may come
and find room!"
And now the car left the paved and built-up streets, and wandered out
between the open fields, where trees arched lavishly overhead, and
little new green things lifted up unfrightened heads, and dared to grow
in the sunshine. A new smell, the smell of rich earth and young green
growing things, of skunk-cabbage in bloom in the swamps, of budding
willows and sassafras, roused her senses; the hum of a bee on its way
to find the first honey-drops came to her ears. Sweet, droning,
restful, with the call of a wild bird in the distance, and all the air
balmy with the joy of spring. Ah! This was a new world! This indeed
was heaven! What a contrast to the office, and the little narrow
stifling brick house where mother lay, and Doris cut strings of paper
dolls from an old newspaper and sighed to go out in the Park! What a
contrast! Truly, this was heaven! If she could but stay, and all the
dear ones come!
She had spent summers in the country, of course; and she knew and loved
nature, but it had been five years since she had been free to get
outside the city limits for more than a day, and then not far. It
seemed to her now that she had never sensed the beauty of the country
as to-day; perhaps because she had never needed it as now.
The road went on smoothly straight ahead, with now a rounding curve,
and then another long stretch of perfect road. Men were ploughing in
the fields on one side, and on the other lay the emerald velvet of a
field of spring wheat. More people had got into the car as it left the
city. Plain, substantial men, nice, pleasant women; but Shirley did
not notice them; she was watching the changing landscape and thinking
her dismal, pitiful thoughts. Thinking, too, that she had spent her
money--or would have when she returned, with nothing to show for it,
and her conscience condemned her.
They were coming now to a wide, old-fashioned barn of stone, with ample
grassy stone-coped entrance rising like a stately carpeted stairway
from the barn-yard. It was resting on the top of a green knoll, and a
great elm-tree arched over it protectingly. A tiny stream purled below
at one side, and the ground sloped gradually off at the other. Shirley
was not noticing the place much except as it was a part of the
landscape until she heard the conductor talking to the man across the
aisle about it.
"Good barn!" he was saying reflectively. "Pity to have it standing
idle so long; but they'll never rent it without a house, and they won't
build. It belongs to the old man's estate, and can't be divided until
the youngest boy's of age, four 'r five years yet. The house burned
down two years ago. Some tramps set it afire. No, nobody was living
in it at the time. The last renter didn't make the farm pay,--too fur
from the railroad, I guess,--and there ain't anybody near enough round
to use the barn since Halyer built his new barn," and he indicated a
great red structure down the road on the other side. "Halyer useta use
this,--rented it fer less'n nothing, but he got too lazy to come this
fur, and so he sold off half his farm fer a dairy and built that there
barn. So now I s'pose that barn'll stand idle and run to waste till
that kid comes of age and there's a boom up this way and it's sold.
Pity about it, though; it's a good barn. Wisht I had it up to my
place; I could fill it."
"Make a good location for a house," said the other man, looking
intently at the big stone pile. "Been a fine barn in its time. Old
man must uv had a pile of chink when he built it. Who'd ya say owned
it?"
"Graham, Walter Graham, big firm down near the city hall--guess you
know 'em. Got all kinds of money. This ain't one, two, three with the
other places they own. Got a regular palace out Arden way fer summer
and a town house in the swellest neighborhood, and own land all over.
Old man inherited it from his father and three uncles. They don't even
scarcely know they got this barn, I reckon. It ain't very stylish out
this way just yet."
"Be a big boom here some day; nice location," said the passenger.
"Not yetta while," said the conductor sagely; "railroad station's too
far. Wait till they get a station out Allister Avenue; then you can
talk. Till then it'll stay as it is, I reckon. There's a spring down
behind the barn, the best water in the county. I useta get a drink
every day when the switch was up here. I missed it a lot when they
moved the switch to the top of the hill. Water's cold as ice and clear
as crystal--can't be beat this side the soda-fountain. I sometimes
stop the car on a hot summer day now, and run and get a drink--it's
great."
The men talked on, but Shirley heard no more. Her eyes were intent on
the barn as they passed it--the great, beautiful, wide,
comfortable-looking barn. What a wonderful house it would make! She
almost longed to be a cow to enter this peaceful shelter and feel at
home for a little while.
The car went on, and left the big barn in the distance; but Shirley
kept thinking, going over almost unconsciously all the men had said
about it. Walter Graham! Where had she seen that name? Oh, of course
in the Ward Trust Building, the whole fourth floor. Leather goods of
some sort, perhaps, she couldn't just remember; yet she was sure of the
name.
The man had said the barn rented for almost nothing. What could that
mean translated in terms of dollars? Would the fifteen dollars a month
that they were now paying for the little brick house cover it? But
there would be the car-fare for herself and George. Walking that
distance twice a day, or even once, would be impossible. Ten cents a
day, sixty cents a week--twice sixty cents! If they lived out of the
city, they couldn't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month. They
never would rent that barn for that, of course, it was so big and
grand-looking; and yet--it was a _barn_! What did barns rent for,
anyway?
And, if it could be had, could they live in a barn? What were barns
like, anyway, inside? Did they have floors, or only stalls and mud?
There had been but two tiny windows visible in the front; how did they
get light inside? But then it couldn't be much darker than the brick
house, no matter what it was. Perhaps there was a skylight, and hay,
pleasant hay, to lie down on and rest. Anyhow, if they could only
manage to get out there for the summer somehow, they could bear some
discomforts just to sit under that great tree and look up at the sky.
To think of Doris playing under that tree! And mother sitting under it
sewing! Mother could get well out there in that fresh air, and Doris
would get rosy cheeks again. There would not likely be a school about
for Carol; but that would not hurt her for the summer, anyway, and
maybe by fall they could find a little house. Perhaps she would get a
raise in the fall. If they could only get somewhere to go now!
But yet--a barn! Live in a barn! What would mother say? Would she
feel that it was a disgrace? Would she call it one of Shirley's wild
schemes? Well, but what were they going to do? They must live
_somewhere_, unless they were destined to die homeless.
The car droned on through the open country coming now and then to
settlements of prosperous houses, some of them small; but no empty ones
seemed to beckon her. Indeed, they looked too high-priced to make her
even look twice at them; besides, her heart was left behind with that
barn, that great, beautiful barn with the tinkling brook beside it, and
the arching tree and gentle green slope.
At last the car stopped in a commonplace little town in front of a red
brick church, and everybody got up and went out. The conductor
disappeared, too, and the motorman leaned back on his brake and looked
at her significantly.
"End of the line, lady," he said with a grin, as if she were dreaming
and had not taken notice of her surroundings.
"Oh," said Shirley, rousing up, and looking bewilderedly about her.
"Well, you go back, don't you?"
"Yes. Go back in fifteen minutes," said the motorman indulgently.
There was something appealing in the sadness of this girl's eyes that
made him think of his little girl at home.
"Do you go back just the same way?" she asked with sudden alarm. She
did want to see that barn again, and to get its exact location so that
she could come back to it some day if possible.
"Yes, we go back just the same way," nodded the motorman.
Shirley sat back in her seat again contented, and resumed her thoughts.
The motorman took up his dinner-pail, sat down on a high stool with his
back to her, and began to eat. It was a good time now for her to eat
her little lunch, but she was not hungry. However, she would be if she
did not eat it, of course; and there would be no other time when people
would not be around. She put her hand in her shabby coat-pocket for
her handkerchief, and her fingers came into contact with something
small and hard and round. For a moment she thought it was a button
that had been off her cuff for several days, But no, she remembered
sewing that on that very morning. Then she drew the little object out,
and behold it was a five-cent piece! Yes, of course, she remembered
now. It was the nickel she put in her pocket last night when she went
for the extra loaf of bread and found the store closed. She had made
johnny-cake instead, and supper had been late; but the nickel had
stayed in her coat-pocket forgotten. And now suddenly a big temptation
descended upon her, to spend that nickel in car-fare, riding to the
barn and getting out for another closer look at it, and then taking the
next car on into the city. Was it wild and foolish, was it not perhaps
actually wrong, to spend that nickel that way when they needed so much
at home, and had so little? A crazy idea,--for how could a barn ever
be their shelter?
She thought so hard about it that she forgot to eat her lunch until the
motorman slammed the cover down on his tin pail and put the high stool
away. The conductor, too, was coming out of a tiny frame house, wiping
his mouth with the back of his hand and calling to his wife, who stood
in the doorway and told him about an errand she wanted him to do for
her in the city.
Shirley's cheeks grew red with excitement, for the nickel was burning
in her hand, and she knew in her heart that she was going to spend it
getting off that car near that barn. She would eat her lunch under the
tree by the brook! How exciting that would be! At least it would be
something to tell the children about at night! Or no! they would think
her crazy and selfish, perhaps, to waste a whole day and fifteen cents
on herself. Still, it was not on herself; it was really for them. If
they could only see that beautiful spot!
When she handed her nickel to the conductor, she felt almost guilty,
and it seemed as if he could see her intention in her eyes; but she
told herself that she was not sure she was going to get off at all.
She could decide as she came near the place. She would have to get off
either before she got there or after she had passed and walk back. The
conductor would think it strange if a young girl got off the car in the
country in front of an empty barn. How would she manage it? There had
been houses on the way, not far from the barn. What was the name the
conductor had mentioned of the man who had built another barn? She
might get off at his house, but still--stay--what was that avenue where
they had said the railroad would come some day with a station? They
had called it out as they stopped to let off the woman and the little
girl. Allister Avenue! That was it. She would ask the conductor to
let her off at Allister Avenue.
She watched the way intently; and, as they neared the place where
Allister Avenue ought to be, her heart pounded so that she felt quite
conscious, as if she were going to steal a barn and carry it home in
her coat-pocket.
She managed to signal the car to stop quite quietly, however, and
stepped down to the pavement as if it were her regular stopping-place.
She was aware of the curious gaze of both motorman and conductor, but
she held her head up, and walked a few steps up Allister Avenue until
the car had whirred on out of sight. Then she turned anxiously,
looking down the road, and there to her joy saw the stone gable of the
great barn high on its knoll in the distance.