JEAN CRAIG FINDS ROMANCE
[Illustration: FALCON BOOKS]
_Jean Craig Finds Romance_
BY KAY LYTTLETON
Jean Craig had always wanted to be an artist. But when her family had
moved to Woodhow in Connecticut, she had given up her art lessons.
Later, when she was able to resume them, she realized how important a
career was to her. But then Ralph McRae came along, and Jean found
herself unable to make up her mind as to what she wanted most. And
while Jean was trying to come to a decision, her sister Kit was having
a fine adventure of her own out West.
_Jean Craig Finds Romance_ is filled with gaiety and humor, another
charming story of the wonderful, courageous Craigs and their family
adventures.
Other FALCON BOOKS for Girls:
JEAN CRAIG GROWS UP
JEAN CRAIG IN NEW YORK
PATTY AND JO, DETECTIVES
[Illustration: A startling procession came from the river.]
_JEAN CRAIG
FINDS ROMANCE_
by KAY LYTTLETON
[Illustration: FALCON BOOKS]
THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK
Falcon Books
_are published by_ THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
_2231 West 110th Street · Cleveland 2 · Ohio_
W
COPYRIGHT 1948 BY THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Contents
1. Kit Traps a Thief 9
2. I Smell Smoke 21
3. The Important Letter 29
4. Kit’s Plan 36
5. Farewell Party 47
6. “The Boy’s” Arrival 55
7. The House Under the Bluff 70
8. A Square Deal 86
9. Hope College 98
10. The Surprise 109
11. The Mysterious Guest 121
12. Homesick 131
13. Frank Apologizes 138
14. The Secret in the Urn 150
15. Home Again 168
16. Visiting Celebrities 177
17. Frank to the Rescue 195
18. Jean’s Romance 206
JEAN CRAIG FINDS ROMANCE
1. Kit Traps a Thief
Kit was on lookout duty, and had been for the past hour and a half. The
windows of one of the upstairs bedrooms commanded a view of a large
part of the countryside, and from here she had done sentry duty over
the huckleberry patch.
It lay to the northeast of the house, a great, rambling, rocky,
ten-acre lot that straggled unevenly from the wood road down to the
river. To the casual onlooker, it seemed just a patch of underbrush.
There were half-grown-birches all over it, and now and then a little
dwarf spruce tree or cluster of hazel bushes. But to the Craig family
that ten-acre lot represented profit in the month of August when
huckleberries and blueberries were ripe.
The Craig family were newcomers to the country, newcomers in the eyes
of the natives of Elmhurst, Connecticut, for they had moved there a
year and a half ago seeking peace and rest for Mr. Craig, who was
slowly recovering from a nervous breakdown. The family’s adventures and
problems in making their home in the country were told in _Jean Craig
Grows Up_. Jean, eighteen and ambitious for an artist’s career, had
spent part of the previous winter studying in a New York art school and
her experiences there were described in _Jean Craig in New York_.
Sixteen-year-old Kit, in whom the spirit of adventure ran high, was
watching suspiciously a trim-looking, red-wheeled, black-bodied truck,
driven by a strange man, as it pulled up at the pasture bars and
stopped. The man took out of the truck not a burlap bag, but a tan
leather case and also something else that looked like a large box with
a handle on it.
“Camouflage,” said Kit to herself, scornfully. “He’s going to fill them
with our berries, and then make believe he’s selling books.”
Downstairs she tore with the news. Her twelve-year-old brother Tommy
and his pal Jack Davis, nine, were out in the barn negotiating peace
terms with a half-grown calf that they had been trying to tame for
days, and which still persisted in butting its head every time they
came near it with friendly overtures. Jack, whose mother had died and
whose father had not wanted to be bothered with him, had come to live
with the Craigs after Jean and Tommy had discovered him in Nantic a few
days before Christmas, lost and alone. Tommy had immediately assumed
responsibility for Jack and protected and bossed him as if Jack were
his special property.
Jean and Doris, who was fourteen, had gone up to Norwich with Mrs.
Craig for the day, and Mr. Craig was out in the apple orchard with
Philip Weaver, spraying the trees against the attacks of the gypsy
moths. At least, Philip held to spraying, but Mr. Craig was anxious to
experiment with some of the newer methods advocated by the government.
Kit called her news to Tommy and he and Jack started off after the
trespasser, while she went back to telephone Mr. Hicks, the constable.
The very last thing she had said to Tommy was to put the vandal in the
corncrib and stand guard over him until Mr. Hicks came.
“Don’t you worry one bit, Miss Kit,” the Constable of Elmhurst Township
assured her over the phone. “I’ll be there in my car in less than
twenty minutes. You folks ain’t the only ones that’s suffering this
year from fruit thieves, and it’s time we taught these high fliers from
town that they can’t light anywhere they like and pick what they like.
I’ll take him right down to the judge this afternoon.”
Kit sat by the open window and fanned herself with a feeling of
triumphant indignation. If Jean or Doris had been home, she knew
perfectly well they would have been soft-hearted and lenient, but
every berry on every bush was precious to Kit, and she felt that now
was the appointed hour to catch the thief.
Inside of a few minutes Tommy and Jack came back hot and red-faced, but
filled with the pride of accomplishment.
“We’ve got him,” Tommy said, happily, “safe and sound in the corncrib,
and it’s hotter than all get out in there. He can’t escape unless
he slips through a crack in the floor. We just caught him as he was
bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to
tell us, Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars.” Tommy laughed.
“Did you call up Mr. Hicks?”
Kit nodded, looking out at the corncrib. The midsummer sun beat down
upon it pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the bar.
“Gosh, do you suppose he’ll survive, Tommy? I’ll bet it’s a hundred and
six inside there.”
“Aw, it’ll do him good,” put in Jack. “Don’t you worry about him. He’s
a strong man. It was all Tommy and I could do to keep a good hold on
him.”
“Oh, kids,” exclaimed Kit. “I didn’t want you to touch him.”
“How else were we to catch him?” demanded Tommy. “You and your bright
ideas. Come on, Jack, let’s go back and stand guard over him.”
Kit watched them leave rather dubiously. It was one thing to act on
the impulse of the moment and quite another to face the consequences.
Now that the prisoner was safe in the corncrib, she wondered uneasily
just what her father would say when he found out what she had done to
protect the berry patch. But just now he was in the upper orchard with
old Mr. Weaver, deep in apple culture, and she thought she could get
rid of the trespasser before he returned.
Mrs. Gorham was in the kitchen putting up peaches. She was humming and
the sound came through the screen door. Mrs. Gorham was Judge Ellis’s
housekeeper and helped out the Craigs occasionally when an extra hand
was needed. Now that Judge Ellis had married Becky Craig, Mr. Craig’s
cousin who had engineered the family’s move to Woodhow and was always
at hand in an emergency, Mrs. Gorham was not needed as much at the
Judge’s home. Billie, the Judge’s grandson who was sixteen and Doris’s
best friend, completed the Ellis household.
Kit slipped around the drive behind the house out to the hill road. Mr.
Hicks would have to come from this direction, and here she sat on the
ground at the entrance to the driveway, thinking and waiting.
The minutes passed and still Mr. Hicks failed to appear. If Kit could
have visualized his trip, she might have imagined him lingering here
and there along the country roads, stopping to tell the news to any
neighbor who might be nearby. Beside him sat Elvira, his youngest,
drinking in every word with tense appreciation of the novelty. It was
the first chance Mr. Hicks had had to make an arrest during his term
of office, and as a special test and reward of diligence, Elvira had
been permitted to come along and behold the climax with her own eyes.
But the twenty minutes stretched out into nearly forty, and Kit’s heart
sank when she saw her father strolling leisurely down the orchard path,
just as Mr. Hicks hove in sight.
Mr. Weaver limped beside him, smiling contentedly.
“Well, I guess we’ve got ’em licked this time, Tom,” he chuckled. “If
there’s a bug or a moth that can stand that dose of mine, I’ll eat the
whole apple crop myself.”
“Still, I’ll feel better satisfied when Howard gets here, and gives an
expert opinion,” Mr. Craig replied. “He wrote he expected to be here
today without fail.”
“Well, of course you’re entitled to your opinion, Tom,” Mr. Weaver
replied, doubtfully. “But I never did set any store at all by these
here government boys with their little satchels and tree doctor books.
I’d just as soon walk up to an apple tree and hand it a blue pill or a
shin plaster.”
Kit stood up hastily as Mr. Hicks drove in from the road.
“Hello,” he called out, “How are you, Tom? Howdy, Philip? Miss Kit here
tells me you’ve been harboring a fruit thief, and you’ve caught him.”
Kit’s cheeks were bright red as she laid one hand on her father’s
shoulder.
“Tommy’s got him right over in the corncrib, Mr. Hicks. I haven’t told
Dad yet, because it might worry him. It isn’t anything at all, Dad,”
she added, hurriedly. “We have been keeping a watch on the berry patch,
and today it was my turn. I just happened to see somebody over there
after the berries, so I told Tommy and Jack to go and get him, and I
called up Mr. Hicks.”
Mr. Craig shook his head with a little smile. “I’m afraid Kit has been
overambitious, Mr. Hicks,” he said. “I don’t know anything about this,
but we’ll go over to the corncrib and find out what it’s all about.”
Kit and Evie secured a good vantage point up on the porch while the
others skirted around the garden over to the old corncrib where Tommy
and Jack stood guard.
“My, I like your place over here,” Evie exclaimed, wistfully. “You’ve
got so many flowers. Mom says she can’t even grow a nasturtium on our
place without the hens scratching it up.”
Kit nodded, but could not answer. Already she felt that all was not as
it should be at the corncrib. She saw Tommy stealthily and cautiously
put back the wide wooden bars that held the door, then Mr. Hicks, fully
on the defensive with a stout hickory cane held in readiness for any
unseemly move on the part of the culprit, advanced into the corncrib.
Evie drew closer, her little freckled face full of curiosity.
“Isn’t Pop brave?” she whispered, “and he never made but two arrests
before in all his life. One was over at Miss Hornaby’s when she
wouldn’t let Minnie and Myron go to school ’cause their shoes were all
out on the ground, and the other time he got that weaver over at Beacon
Hill for selling cider.”
Still Kit had no answer, for over at the corncrib she saw the strangest
scene. Out stepped the prisoner as fearlessly and blithely as possible,
spoke to her father, and the two of them instantly shook hands, while
Tommy, Jack, Mr. Hicks, and Mr. Weaver stared with all their might. The
next the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, and
Kit could see the stranger was regaling her father with a humorous view
of the whole affair. Tommy tried to signal to her behind his back some
mysterious warning, and even Mr. Hicks looked jocular.
Kit leaned both hands on the railing, and stared hard at the
trespasser. He was a young man, dressed in a light gray suit with
high laced boots to protect him from briars. He was fair-skinned,
but tanned so deeply that his blond, curly hair seemed even lighter.
He smiled at Kit, with one foot on the lower step, while Mr. Craig
called up, “Kit, my dear, this is Mr. Howard, our fruit expert from
Washington, whom I was expecting.”
And Kit nodded, blushing furiously and wishing with all her heart she
might have silenced Evie’s audible and disappointed remark, “Didn’t he
hook huckleberries after all?”
2. I Smell Smoke
“I was perfectly positive that if we went away and left you in charge
for one single day, Kit, you would manage to get into some kind of
trouble,” Jean said reproachfully that evening. “If you only wouldn’t
act on the impulse of the moment. Why on earth didn’t you tell Dad, and
ask his advice before you telephoned to Mr. Hicks?”
“That’s a sensible thing for you to say,” retorted Kit, hotly, “after
you’ve all warned me not to worry Dad about anything. And I did not act
upon impulse,” she went on stiffly, “I made certain logical deductions
from certain facts. How was I to know he was hunting gypsy moths and
other winged beasts when I saw him bending over bushes in our berry
patch? Anyhow it would simplify matters if Dad would let us know when
he expected visitors. You should have seen old Mr. Hicks’s face and
Evie’s, too. They were so disappointed at not having a prisoner in tow
to exhibit to the Elmhurst populace on the way over to the jail.”
Mrs. Gorham glanced up over her glasses at the circle of faces around
the dining-room table. The girls had volunteered to help her pick over
berries for canning the following day. It was a sacrifice to make, too,
with the midsummer evening calling to them--katydids and peep frogs,
the swish of the wind through the big Norway pines on the terraces,
and the sound of Jack’s harmonica from the back porch. It was Friday
evening, and Mr. and Mrs. Craig had driven over to the Judge’s for a
visit. Mr. Craig had invited the erstwhile prisoner to accompany them,
but he had decided instead to keep on his way to the old Inn on the
hill above the village, much to Jean and Doris’s disappointment.
Doris had discovered that his first name was Frank, which relieved her
mind considerably.
“If it had been Abijah or Silas, I know I could never have forgiven
him for getting in the berry patch,” she said, “but there is something
promising about Frank.”
“Wonder if I turned out that stove,” Mrs. Gorham said thoughtfully.
“Seems like I smell something. Tommy,” she called raising her voice,
“will you see if I turned out that fire under the syrup? I smell smoke.”
“OK,” called Tommy.
He got up slowly from his seat on the back steps and sauntered into the
kitchen. The minute he walked in there poured out a spurt of flame and
smoke from the woodwork behind the stove, and Tommy slammed the kitchen
door and ran for a pail.
It seemed incredible how fast the flames spread. Summoned by his
outcry, the girls opened the door leading into the kitchen from the
dining room and quickly shut it again when they saw the flames. Tommy
and Jack pulled the garden hose around to the back door and played the
stream of water on the fire.
Mrs. Gorham made straight for the telephone, calling up the Judge, and
two or three of the nearest neighbors for help. The Peckham boys from
the sawmill were the first to respond, and five minutes later Matt was
on the spot, having seen the rising smoke and flare in the sky from
Maple Grove, Becky’s old home.
“You’ll never save the place,” old Mr. Peckham told them flatly.
“Everything is dry as tinder and the water pressure is low. Better
start carrying things out, girls, because the best we can do is to keep
the roofs wet down and try to save the barn.”
While the fire was confined to the kitchen, the two older Peckham boys
set to work upstairs, under Jean’s direction. Kit had made for her
father’s room the first thing. When Jean opened the door she found her
piling the contents of the desk and chest of drawers helter-skelter
into blankets.
“It’s OK, Jean,” she called. “I’m not missing a thing. You tie the
corners up and have the boys carry these downstairs and bring back the
clothes basket and a couple of tubs for the books. Tell Doris to take
the cat out of here.”
“All right,” answered Jean. “And Mrs. Gorham is getting all of the
preserves out of the cellar, and Mr. Peckham says he’s sure they’ll
save the piano and most of the best furniture, but, golly, Kit, just
think of how Mom and Dad will feel when they see the flames in the sky,
and know it’s Woodhow burning.”
“You’d better start in at mother’s room and stop thinking, or we’ll be
sliding down a lightning rod to get out of here.”
Nobody quite noticed Jack in the excitement, but later when all was
over, it was found that he had rescued all the treasures possible, the
pictures, all the linen and family silver, and the glassware.
As the rising glow of the flames lighted up the sky help began to
arrive from all directions. Mrs. Gorham’s thoughtfulness in telephoning
immediately brought the Judge first, with all of the neighbors that had
been at his home for the evening. Becky was bareheaded, little curly
wisps of hair fluttering around her face.
“I made your father stay up at our place,” she told them. “You’ll all
probably have to come back with me anyhow and excitement isn’t good
for him. Besides, he wouldn’t be a bit of help around here. Seems like
they’re getting the fire under pretty good control. I don’t believe all
the house will go. It was so old anyway, and it needed to be rebuilt if
you ever expect your great-grandchildren to live here.”
Kit noticed an entirely new and unsuspected trait in Becky on this
night of excitement. It was the only time when she had not seen her
take command of the situation. But tonight she helped Mrs. Gorham pack
all the necessary household supplies into the trailer for Matt to drive
up to Maple Grove. As soon as she had seen the extent of the damage she
had said immediately that the family must move up the hill to her own
old home, where she had lived before her marriage to Judge Ellis.
“It won’t take but a couple days to put it into shape for you, and
Matt’s right up there to look after things. You’ll be back here before
the snow flies, with a few modern improvements put in, and all of you
the better for the change. Jack, go bring the family treasures from
under that pine tree, and put them in the back of our car.”
“You know, Becky,” Kit exclaimed, “I thought the minute you showed up
down here tonight you’d be the chief of the fire department.”
Becky laughed. “Did you, dear? Well, I’ve always held that there are
times and seasons when you ought to let the men alone. After you’ve
lived a lifetime in these parts, you’ll know that every boy born and
bred around here is taught how to fight fire from the time he can tote
a water bucket. Did you save all the chickens, Tommy?”
“Didn’t lose even a guinea hen!” Tommy assured her. “The barn wasn’t
touched, and so I’m going to sleep over the harness room and watch
the cow and her calf and the mare. Jack will stay too, and keep me
company.”
3. The Important Letter
The morning after the fire found the family at breakfast with the
Judge’s family. It was impossible as yet for the girls to feel the full
reaction over their loss. Kit and Billie rode down before breakfast to
look at the ruins, and came back with an encouraging report. The back
of the house was badly damaged, but the main building stood intact,
though the charred clapboards and wide vacant windows looked desolate
enough.
“It was a good thing the wind was from the south and blew the flames
away from the pines,” said Kit, dropping into her chair at the table.
“Doesn’t it seem good to get some of Becky’s huckleberry pancakes
again? Oh, yes, we met my prisoner on the road. He was tapping chestnut
trees over on Peck’s Hill like a woodpecker. You needn’t laugh, Doris,
’cause Billie saw him too, didn’t you, Bill? And he’s got a sweet
forgiving nature. He waved to me and I smiled back just as though I’d
never caught him in our berry patch, and had Tommy lock him up in the
corncrib.”
“Was he heading this way?” the Judge asked. “I want him to look at my
peach trees and tell me what ails them.”
“Tom will be glad to go up with you to the peach orchard,” put in
Becky, “I want Jean and Kit and their mother to drive over and help fix
Maple Grove.”
The family had taken up its new quarters at Maple Grove before a
week had passed, and two of the local carpenters, Mr. Horace Weaver,
Philip’s brother, and Mr. Delaplaine, had been persuaded to devote
a portion of their valuable time to rehabilitating Woodhow. It took
tact and persuasion to induce these men to desert their favorite
chairs on the sidewalk in front of Byers’ Grocery Store, and approach
anything resembling daily toil. There had been a Squire in the Weaver
family three generations back, and Horace held firmly to established
precedent. He might be landed gentry, but he was no tiller of the
soil, and he secretly looked down on his elder brother for personally
cultivating the family acres.
Mr. Delaplaine was likewise addicted to reverie and historic
retrospect. Nothing delighted Billie and Doris so much as to ride down
to the store and get a chance to converse with both of the old men
on local history. Mr. Delaplaine’s mail, which consisted mostly of
catalogues, came addressed to N. L. Delaplaine, Esq., but to Elmhurst
he was just Niles Delaplaine.
Every day that first week found the girls and Tommy down at the old
home prying around the ruins for any lost treasures. Frank Howard
struck up a friendship with both the Judge and Mr. Craig, and usually
drove by on his way from the village. He would stop and talk for a
few minutes with them, but Kit was elusive. Vaguely, she felt that the
proper thing for her to do was to offer an apology for even considering
him an unlawful trespasser. When Frank would drive away, Jean would
laugh at her teasingly.
“Gosh, why do you act so high and mighty? He seems very nice and he’s
awfully good-looking, even if he does chase caterpillars for a living.
I never did see anyone but you, Kit, who hated to acknowledge herself
in the wrong. The rest of us all have the most peaceful, forgiving sort
of dispositions, but you can be a regular porcupine when you want to
be.”
“It could come from Uncle Bart,” retorted Kit. “Did you hear them all
talking about him over at the Judge’s while we were there? Let’s sit
here under the pines a minute until the mailman goes by. I’m sick of
poking over cinders. Becky said he was the only notable in our family.
Dean Barton Cato Peabody. We ought to tell Mr. Delaplaine that.”
“Sh-h,” warned Jean, “he might hear you and it would hurt his
feelings.” She glanced back over her shoulder to where Mr. Delaplaine
worked, taking off the outer layer of charred clapboards from the front
of the house.
“Still it is nice to own a dean, almost as good as a squire,” repeated
Kit placidly.
“I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying about him,” said
Jean dreamily. “Is he still alive?”
“He is, but I guess he might as well be dead as far as the rest of the
family is concerned. Becky said he’d never married, and he lived with
his sister out in the middle west somewhere. Not the real west--I mean
the interesting west like Saskatchewan and Saskatoon and--you know what
I mean, Jean?”
Jean was particularly interested in Saskatoon for it was there that
Ralph McRae lived. Ralph, who was twenty-five, had been the owner of
Woodhow before the Craigs bought it and the first summer they were in
Elmhurst, he had come to visit them and was immediately attracted to
Jean. He had returned last spring with Buzzy Hancock, his cousin and
a great friend of Kit’s, who had spent the year with him. Then he had
gone West again, taking Buzzy’s sister, Sally, and Mrs. Hancock with
him to make their home in Saskatoon. Jean missed him very much, more
than she would admit to Kit or the others, and she looked forward to
his frequent letters.
“There comes the mail,” called Jean, starting up and running down the
drive as the truck came in sight. The carrier waved a newspaper and
letter at them.
“Nothing for you girls today, only a letter for your father and a
weekly newspaper for Matt. I’ll leave it up at the old place as I go
by.” He added as a happy afterthought to relieve any possible anxiety
on their part, “It’s from Delphi, Wisconsin.”
Kit stood transfixed with wonder, as he passed on up the hill. “Jean,”
she said slowly, “there’s something awfully queer about me. That
letter was from Uncle Barton Cato Peabody.”
“Well, what if it is?” asked Jean, shaking the needles from her blouse.
“But, don’t you get the significance? I was just telling you about him
and now there’s a letter from him for Dad.”
4. Kit’s Plan
It appeared that Uncle Bart lived strictly up to tradition, for it had
been over fifteen years since any word had been received from him. The
letter which broke the long silence was read aloud several times that
day, the girls and Tommy especially searching between its lines for any
hidden sentiment or hint of family affection.
“I don’t see why he tries to be generous when he doesn’t know how,”
Doris said musingly. “I wonder if he’s got bushy gray hair.”
“Wait a minute while I read this thing over carefully again,” Kit said.
“I think while we’re alone we ought to discuss it freely. Mother just
took it as if it were of no consequence. It seems to me, since it
concerns us vitally, that we ought to have some selection in the matter
ourselves.”
“But Kit, you didn’t read carefully,” Jean interrupted with a little
laugh. “See here,” she followed the writing with her fingertip. “He
says, ‘Send me the boy.’ That means Tommy.”
“Yes, I know it does, but Mom said she didn’t want Tommy to go now. She
said he’s too young to go off alone.”
“Well then, that scotches the deal as far as the rest of us are
concerned.”
“I don’t see why I can’t go,” said Kit rather sadly. “I should have
been a boy anyway, I’m more like Dad than any of you.”
“No matter what you say,” Jean replied, “I don’t think you’re
especially like Dad at all. He hasn’t a quick temper and he’s not the
least bit domineering.”
Kit leaned over her tenderly. “Darling, am I domineering to you? Have
I crushed your spirit? I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t mean that my bad
habits were inherited from Dad. What I meant was my initiative and
craving for something new and different. Just at the moment I can’t
think of anything that would be more interesting or adventurous than
going out to Uncle Bart’s, and trying to fulfill all his expectations.”
“Thought you wanted to go out to the Alameda Ranch with Uncle Hal more
than anything in the world, a little while ago. You’re forever changing
your mind, Kit.”
“Golly, I wouldn’t give a darn for a person who couldn’t face new
emergencies and feel within them the surge of--of--”
“We admit the surge, but would you really and truly be willing to go to
this place? I don’t even know what state it’s in.”
There was a footstep in the long hallway, and Mr. Craig came into the
living room.
“Dad,” called Doris, “were you ever in Delphi, where Uncle Bart lives?”
Mr. Craig sat down on the arm of Jean’s chair and lit his pipe.
“Just once, long ago when I was about eight years old. We, that is, my
mother and I, stayed for about a week at Delphi. It’s a little college
town on Lake Michigan, perhaps sixty miles north of Chicago on the big
bluffs that line the shore nearly all the way to Milwaukee. Uncle Bart
helped to establish Hope College there in Wisconsin. I don’t remember
so very much about it, though, it was so long ago. I seem to remember
Uncle Bart’s house was rather cheerless and formal. He was a good deal
of a scholar and antiquarian. Aunt Della seemed to me just a little
shadow that followed after him, and made life smooth.”
Kit listened very closely to every word he said, and Jean was looking
up at him seriously.
“I don’t think,” continued their father easily, “that it would be a
very cheerful or sympathetic home for any young person. Your mother is
right in not wanting to let Tommy go.”
“Oh, but Dad, gee,” Kit burst out eagerly, “Think what a challenge it
would be to make them understand how much more interesting you can
make life if you only take the right point of view.”
“Yes, but supposing what seemed to be the right point of view to you,
Kit, was not the right point of view to them at all. Everyone looks at
life from his own angle.”
“Aldo always said that, too,” Jean put in. “Remember, the boy from
Italy I met when I was in New York last winter? I remember at our art
class each student would see the subject from a different angle and
sketch accordingly. Aldo said it was exactly like life, where each one
gets his own perspective.”
“But you can’t get any perspective at all if you shut yourself up in
the dark,” Kit argued. She leaned her chin on her hands. “Now just
listen to this, and don’t all speak at once until I get through. You
went away, Jean, to New York, and though maybe I shouldn’t say this,
you came back home very much better satisfied and pleasanter to live
with. I think after you’ve stayed in one place too long you get fed
up and wish there were some way to get away somewhere. I haven’t any
special talent for art or anything like that, but I’d like to get away
and see something different for a change. And Dad darling, if you would
only consent to let me go for even two or three months, I will come
back to you a perfect angel, besides doing Uncle Bart and Aunt Della
oodles of good.”
“It sounds right enough, dear,” Mr. Craig said, his gray eyes full of
amusement, “but we can’t very well disguise you as a boy, and Uncle
Bart is not the kind of person to trifle with.”
Kit thought this over seriously.
“Don’t tell them until I’ve started,” she suggested, “and be sure and
mail the letter so it will get there after I do, and send me quick, so
they won’t have any chance to change their minds. Jean will be here and
you really and truly don’t need me here at all.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say, Kit. I’ll have to talk it over with
your mother first. I wonder why Uncle Bart wanted Tommy specially.”
“Maybe he thought a boy would be more interested in antiques. Are they
Chinese porcelains and jewels, or just mummy things?”
“Mostly ruins, as I remember,” laughed her father. “When he was young,
Uncle Bart used to be sent away by the Geographical Society to explore
buried cities in Chaldea and Egypt.”
“I wish I could coax him to start in again, right now, and take me with
him,” Kit exclaimed, blithely. “Anyhow, I’m going to hope that it will
come right and I can go. Can I borrow your trunk Jean? Just write a
charming letter, Dad, sort of in the abstract, thanking him and calling
us ‘the children’ so he can’t detect just what we are, then when I
depart, you can wire them, ‘Kit arrives such and such a time.’ They’ll
probably expect a Christopher, and once I land there, and they realize
the treasure you have sent them, they will forgive me anything.”
Uncle Bart’s letter was read over again carefully by Mrs. Craig. Kit
carried it out to the grape arbor where she was shelling peas for
dinner.
“Just read that letter over, Mom, very, very carefully, and see if
there isn’t some way you can smuggle me out to Delphi, without hurting
Uncle Bart’s feelings.”
Mrs. Craig took the letter and together they read it again--
My dear Thomas:
I trust both you and Margaret are enjoying good health, and that this
finds you both facing a more prosperous time than when I heard last
from you.
It has occurred to both Della and myself that we may be able to
relieve you of part of your responsibility and care, at least for
a short time. If the experiment should prove advantageous to all
concerned we might be able to arrange a longer stay. One suggestion,
however, I feel privileged to make. We would prefer that you would
send the boy, as you know this is a college town, and I am sure
it would broaden his views to come west, even for a short time. I
need hardly add that we will do all in our power to make his stay a
pleasant and profitable one.
Another point to consider is this. I would like to interest him in a
few of my little hobbies, archaeology, geology, etc. I have delved
deeply into the mysteries of the past, and feel I should pass on what
I have learned as a heritage to youth.
Trusting that you and Margaret will be able to coincide with our
views in the matter, I remain,
Yours faithfully,
Barton C. Peabody.
“You know, Mom,” here Kit slipped her arm persuasively around her
mother’s shoulder, “you’ve always said yourself that I was more like a
boy. And Buzzy says I’m an awfully good pal, and he’d much rather talk
to me than any of the boys around here because I understand what he’s
driving at.”
“I don’t think it would matter, if you only visited them for a couple
of months, but supposing Uncle Bart took a fancy to you.” Mrs. Craig’s
eyes twinkled as she watched Kit’s grave face.
“You mean,” she said, “supposing he decided that my brain measured up
to his expectation and they wanted me to stay all winter? Couldn’t I go
to school there, just as well as here? You ought to realize, Mom, that
I’m really not a child any longer. I’m sixteen.”
“Reaching years of discretion, aren’t you,” smiled her mother. “I
suppose it would do you a lot of good in a broadening way to go through
a new experience like this.”
“I’m not thinking about that.” Kit sent back an understanding gleam of
fun, “but I’m perfectly positive that it would do Uncle Bart and Aunt
Della an awful lot of good.”
“Then we shouldn’t deprive them of the opportunity. Do you think so,
Matt?”
Matt stuck his head through the vines and clustering leaves. “Couldn’t
do no harm either way, s’far as I can see,” he said. “And if the old
folks need any sort of discipline, I’d certainly start Miss Kit after
them.”
5. Farewell Party
That was the end of August. Becky approved of the plan, and said no
doubt the fire down at Woodhow had been a good thing after all.
“You were all of you settling down into a rut before it happened,
and the old place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know
you couldn’t have afforded it, Tom, if it hadn’t been for the fire
insurance money coming in so handy. Now, you’ll all move back the first
part of the winter, with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the
wind to whistle through. Jean will be here and I don’t think Kit’s a
bit too young to be going off alone. Land alive, Margaret, you ought
to be so thankful that you’ve got children with any get-up to them in
this day and age. The Judge and I were saying just the other night it
seems as if most of the young people up around here haven’t got any
pluck or initiative at all. They’re born to feel that they’re heirs of
grace, and most of them are sure of having a farm or wood lot in their
own right, sooner or later.”
So the trunk stood open most of the time, and Kit prepared for her trip
to Delphi. Mr. Craig was inclined to take it as rather a good joke on
the Dean, but Mrs. Craig could not get over a certain little feeling of
conscience in the matter. The rest of the family pinned its faith on
Kit’s persuasive adaptability.
Tommy was a little disappointed at first not to be going, but then he
thought of leaving Jack behind. He knew that Jack would be sure to get
into trouble if he weren’t there to look after him and he was extremely
proud of his responsibility. Doris dreaded going back to school without
Kit.
“Lucy Peckham will go over with you,” Kit told her cheerfully, “and
just think of the wonderful letters you’ll have from me, Doris. Miss
Cogswell says that I always shine best when I’m writing, and I’ll tell
you all the news of Hope College. By the way, Dad told me last night
that he’s pretty sure in those little family colleges they run a prep
department, which takes in the last two years of high school. Perhaps
I could persuade them that the great-grandniece of Barton Cato would
be a deserving object of their consideration. Don’t forget to pack my
skates, Doris. I let you have them last, and they’re hanging in your
closet.”
Becky decided to have a farewell party, two nights before Kit left,
and the girls and Tommy were delighted. Any party launched by Becky
promised novelty and excitement.
They danced in the living room to the tune of the records on the
phonograph. In the library, some of the younger ones were playing
forfeits. Abby Tucker was giving out forfeits, sitting blindfolded on a
chair.
It happened that Doris’s little turquoise for-get-me-not ring was the
particular forfeit dangling over Abby’s head, when Billie stuck his
head in at the open window, and Abby lifted her chin at the sound of
his voice.
“She must catch Billie Ellis, and bring him back to kneel at my feet,
and hand over his forfeit.”
Billie had evaded this, whirling about in the driveway and speeding
down the long lane with Doris in fast pursuit. Overhead the mulberry
trees met in a leafy arcade, and out of the hazel thicket a
whippoorwill called, flying low down the lane after the two darting
forms, as if it were trying to find out what the excitement was about
at that time of night. At the turn of the lane there were three apple
trees, early Shepherd Sweetings, and here Billie slipped down and lay
breathing heavily, his hands hunting for windfalls in the tall grass.
Doris passed him by, speeding the full length of the lane and bringing
up at the end of the log run before the old mill.
“Billie Ellis, you come out of there,” she called. “I’ve got my shoes
wet already chasing after you, and I’m not going to climb all over
those old timbers hunting for you.”
Only the whippoorwill answered, calling now from a clump of elderberry
bushes close by the water’s edge, and while she stood listening, there
was the dull splash in the pond where some big bullfrog had taken alarm
at her coming.
Billie gathered a goodly supply of apples, and stole after her in the
shadows.
“Well, I’m not going to stay out here all night waiting for you,” Doris
said, addressing the wide dark entrance to the mill, when all at once
there came his voice, directly behind her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you try to catch me? I was resting back under the apple
tree. Let’s sit down over the falls and eat some apples. If Abby’s
waiting for me to kneel in front of her, she’ll wait all night. I’d
like to see myself kneeling in front of a girl!”
The words had hardly left his lips, before Doris played an old-time
schoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him
about with an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although Billie
was older than she was, she had managed to catch him off guard. Billie
shook himself ruefully when he rose.
“You always catch a guy when he’s not expecting anything,” he said.
“Do you good,” she retorted serenely. “Ever since you went away to
school, you’ve had a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I hope you
get over it. Aren’t these apples swell, though? Do you suppose they’ll
mind very much if we stay just a few minutes? Don’t you love this old
pond, Bill? Remember your flat-bottomed boat that always leaked when we
used to go fishing in it. How I hated to take turns bailing it out.”
“Yeah. Gee, I wish I didn’t have to go back to school so soon.”
“Wouldn’t it be strange, Bill, if either of us were famous some day? I
know you’re going to be somebody special. Maybe it will be in natural
history.”
Billie laughed comfortably, perching himself just below her on the
heavy timbers of the old sluice gate. “Grandfather says I have a great
responsibility on my shoulders, because I’m the last of the Ellis
family. He says there’s always been an Ellis in the State Legislature
at Hartford, ever since there was a legislature, and just as soon as
I’m old enough, he’s going to send me to law school. Gee, I wish he
wouldn’t. Think of being shut up all day long in an office.”
Far down the lane they heard the others calling them and Doris sprang
up, scattering apples as she did so.
“I’d forgotten all about the party,” she exclaimed. “Anyway, I’m
glad we had a chance to talk. If I were you, I’d just read and study
everything I could lay my hands on about insects and things, all the
time I was in school, and then when the Judge sees that you’re in dead
earnest about it, he’ll let you go on. I heard Dad say that Mr. Howard
knew more about insects than any man he’d ever met, and that he was
considered one of the coming experts in government work. Why, Bill,
it’s just like a great scientist or doctor, who is able to discover a
certain germ that can be used as a toxin, only you doctor plants and
things.”
“I know,” Billie agreed enthusiastically. “There’s some man who
discovered the cause of the wheat blight in the south and somebody else
figuring out what was killing our chestnuts off. Doris, you’re a swell
pal. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know whether I’d ever have seen a
chance to study what I want to, but you encourage me.”
Doris laughed and tagged him on the shoulder as she broke into a run.
“You’re it. Don’t give anyone else the credit for starting you off in
the way you know you ought to go. Just take a deep breath and race for
it.”
6. “The Boy’s” Arrival
Mr. Craig had answered the first letter from Delphi, under Kit’s
careful supervision, and the acceptance was vague enough to please her.
It aroused no suspicions whatever in the minds of Dean Peabody or Aunt
Della. The only question was, who was to meet the child in Chicago. The
through express would leave _him_ there, and in order to connect with
the Wisconsin trains it was necessary to make the change over to the
Northwestern Depot.
Della was far more perturbed over it than her brother. Having set in
motion the coming guest, he believed firmly that an unfaltering Fate
would direct his footsteps safely to Delphi. Barton Cato Peabody had
been peculiar all his life. He had been a strange boy, unsettled,
studious, impractical. Miss Della was his younger sister, and ever
since her youth had tried to give him all the love and encouragement
that others refused. She had followed him faithfully and happily on all
of his exploring expeditions. Perhaps one reason why these had been so
successful was because she had always managed to surround him with home
comforts, even in the wilds of the upper Nile.
And perhaps the quaintest thing about it all was that Della herself,
no matter on what particular point of the globe she had happened to
pitch her tent, had always retained her courage, although she had faced
dangers that the average woman would have fled from.
Their house stood on the same hill as Hope College, the highest point
in the rising ridge of bluffs along the Lake Shore at Delphi. It was
built of dark red brick, a square house with long French windows. A
grove of pine trees almost hid it from view on its street side, the
stately Norway pines that Kit loved. The back of the house looked
directly out over the lake, and the land here was frankly left to
nature. Trees, grass, and underbrush rioted at will, until they
suddenly ended on the brow of the bluff, where there was a sheer drop
to the beach. Looking at it from below, Kit afterwards thought it was
like a miniature section of the Yosemite; the sand had hardened into
fantastic shapes, and the rock strata in places was plainly visible.
Mrs. Craig’s telegram arrived the night before Kit herself. It was
brief and noncommittal. “Kit arrives Union Station, Chicago, Thursday,
10:22 A.M.”
“Kit,” repeated the Dean. “Humph! Nickname. Superfluous and derogatory.”
Della took the telegram from his desk with a little smile that was
almost tremulous with excitement. “It’s probably the diminutive for
Christopher, Bart,” she said. “I think it’s a nice name. I always liked
the legend of St. Christopher. Somebody’ll have to meet him down in
Chicago. He might lose his head and take the wrong train.”
“He’s about sixteen, isn’t he? Old enough to change from one train
to another, and use his tongue if he’s in doubt. When I was sixteen,
Della, I was earning my own living working on a farm summers, and going
to a school in the winter where we all had to work for our board. Never
hurt us a bit. The greatest trait of character you can instill in a
child is self-reliance.”
Della had a little way of appearing to listen while her brother
expounded on any of his favorite subjects. It had grown to be a
habit with her, and she had a way of answering absently, “Yes, dear,
I’m quite sure of it,” which always satisfied him that he had her
attention. But now, she sat looking out the window and thinking, a
perplexed expression on her face.
It had not altogether been her desire that the coming child should be a
boy, although not one word had she breathed of this to Dean Peabody.
The determination to take one of the Craig children had been a sudden
one. The Dean had been reading somebody’s theory about the obligations
of age to youth.
“Della, my dear,” he had remarked one evening, as the two sat quietly
in the old library, “we have been leading very narrow, selfish lives,
and we will suffer for it as we grow older. We have shut ourselves away
from youth. I am seventy-four now, and what heritage am I leaving to
the world beyond a few books of reference, and my collections? What I
should do is to take some child, still in the impressionable stage, and
impart to it all I know.”
Della glanced up with a little amused twinkle in her eyes. “But, Bart,
what about the child? Surely you would require an exceptional child for
such an experiment. One who would have the mentality to grasp all that
you were trying to impart to it.”
The Dean thought this over, pursing his lips and tapping his knuckles
with his rimless glasses. “Possibly,” he granted, “and yet, Della,
surely there would be far more credit attached to planting the seed of
knowledge where it needed much cultivating. It has surprised and amazed
me up at the college to find that usually the children who appreciate
an education are the farmer boys, and very often the foreign element.”
Della rocked to and fro gently. She knew her brother well enough to
understand that this had become a fixed idea with him, and the easiest
way out was to find him an impressionable child. And then, it happened
that she thought of Thomas Craig, their nephew, and all his children.
She remembered having one letter after the breaking up of the home on
Long Island.
“You know what I think, Bart,” began Della in the bright, abrupt way
she had, “I think it would be the right thing if we took one of the
Craig children. There are four or five of them--”
“Boys or girls?” interrupted the Dean.
“Well, now I’m not quite sure, but if my memory serves me, I think
there’s a boy among them. I know the eldest one is a girl. They’re all
of them over ten, I’m sure. Why don’t you just write to Thomas and make
known your willingness? I am sure they would take it in the spirit in
which it was offered.”
So this was how it happened that the Dean’s letter went forth to
Elmhurst, and produced the hour when Kit stood on the platform of the
Union Station in Chicago, looking around her to discover anyone who
might appear to be seeking a small boy.
Gradually the long platform that led up to the concourse cleared. Kit
went slowly on, following the porter who carried her suitcase. She was
looking for someone who might resemble either the Dean or Della from
her father’s description of them.
“As I remember him,” Mr. Craig had said, “the Dean was very tall,
rather sparely built, but broad-shouldered and always with his head up
to the wind. His hair was gray and curly. Aunt Della was like a little
bird, a gentle, plump, busy woman, with bright brown eyes and a little
smile that never left her lips. I am sure you can’t mistake them, Kit,
for in their way they are very distinctive.”
Yet Kit was positive now that neither the Dean nor his sister had
come to meet her. She stood in the waiting room wearing a dark brown
gabardine coat with a brown hat to match. There was about her an air
of buoyant and friendly self-possession, which always endeared her to
even casual acquaintances. Therefore it was no wonder that Rex Bellamy
glanced at her several times with interest, even while his gaze sought
through the crowd for a young New England boy, bound for Delphi,
Wisconsin.
But Kit noticed Rex Bellamy. Noticed his alert anxiety as he walked
up and down, eyeing every newcomer. He was eighteen or nineteen, and
unmistakably looking for someone. Even while Kit watched, she saw a
girl of about her own age hurry up to him. Her voice reached Kit
plainly, as she said, “I’ve looked up and down that end, and I’m
positive he isn’t there. Oh, but the Dean will lecture you, Rex, if you
miss him.”
At this identical moment, Rex’s eyes met a pair of dancing, mischievous
ones, and Kit crossed over to where they stood.
“I do believe you must be looking for me,” she said. “I’m Kit Craig.”
“Oh, but we were expecting your brother,” exclaimed the other girl,
eagerly.
“I know, but you see my brother’s only twelve,” said Kit, “and the
family thought he was too young to come. I begged to come instead. I’m
afraid the Dean made a little mistake, didn’t he? Do you think he’ll
mind so very much when he sees me?”