name is Rex Bellamy, Kit, and this is my sister, Anne. We’re next-door
neighbors of the Dean and Miss Della, and as we happened to be
coming in town today they asked us to be sure to meet your--” Here he
hesitated.
“My brother,” laughed Kit. “Well, here I am, and I only hope that
Mother’s letter reached them this morning, explaining everything. Of
course, they did write for a boy, and it takes so long for a letter to
get out here and be answered, that I told Mom and Dad I knew it would
be perfectly all right for me to come instead. Don’t you think it will
be?”
Anne’s blue eyes were full of merriment. “Oh, golly,” she exclaimed, “I
do wish I could go back with you, so I could see their faces when they
find out. Mother and I have been here in Chicago this summer and Rex
has been living at home alone. We’ll be back in a week, so I’ll see you
then, and anyway, we’re sure to visit back and forth. I’m awfully glad
you’re a girl.”
“But I won’t be here all winter,” Kit answered. “I’ve only come for a
couple of months. On trial, you see. Maybe it’ll be only a couple of
days, if they’re terribly disappointed.” Anne exchanged quick glances
with her brother and he smiled as he led the way to the car.
“You don’t know the elaborate plans the Dean has laid out for your
education,” he said. “It will take you all winter long to live up to
them, but I’m sure he won’t be disappointed.”
Kit had her own opinion about this, still it was impossible for her
to feel apprehensive or unhappy, as the car sped over toward the Lake
Shore Drive. The newness of everything after two years up in the
Elmhurst hills was wonderfully stimulating. But it was not until they
had left the city and river behind and had reached Lincoln Park that
she really gave vent to her feelings. It was a wonderful day and the
lake lay in sparkling ripples beyond the long stretch of shore.
“Are we going all the way in the car?” she asked.
Rex shook his head. “No, only as far as Evanston. We’ll drop Anne off,
and have lunch with Mother and then catch the train to Delphi. I have
an errand for the Dean out at the University.”
“Gee,” said Kit, “we lived right on the edge of Long Island Sound
before we moved up to Connecticut, and ever since I was small I can
remember going away somewhere to the seashore every summer, but I think
your lake is ever so much more interesting than the ocean. Somehow it
seems to belong to you more. I always felt with the ocean as if it just
condescended to come over to my special beach, after it had rambled all
over the world, and belonged to everybody.”
“But you have all the shells and the seaweed, and we haven’t,” argued
Anne. “Before I ever went East, we had a couple of clam shells, just
plain everyday round clam shells that had come from Cape May, and I
used to think they were perfectly wonderful because they had belonged
in the real ocean.”
After the rugged landscape of New England, Kit found this level land
very attractive. They passed through one suburb after another, with the
beautiful Drive following the curving shoreline out to Evanston. Here
she caught her first glimpse of Northwestern University, its buildings
showing picturesquely through the beautiful trees around the campus.
They left Rex at the main entrance and drove on to where Mrs. Bellamy
was stopping. Mrs. Bellamy was filled with amusement when she heard
the story of Kit’s substitution of herself for her brother that the
Dean had asked for. She was a tall, slender woman with blonde hair and
gray eyes, who seemed almost like an older sister of Anne’s. They were
staying in a small apartment near the campus.
Early in the afternoon Rex returned, and they caught the 2:45 local to
Delphi. Kit could hardly keep her eyes off the beautiful scenery they
were passing through. Every now and then the rich blueness of the lake
would flash through the trees in the distance, and to the west there
stretched long level fields of prairie-land, dipping ravines that
unexpectedly led into woodland. Gradually the bluffs heightened as they
neared the Wisconsin line above Waukegan, and just beyond the state
line, between the shore and the region of the small lakes, Oconomowoc
and Delevan, they came suddenly upon Delphi. It stood high upon the
bluff, its college dominating the shady serenity of its quiet avenues.
“The Dean doesn’t keep a car,” said Rex as they walked through the gray
stone station. “Besides, he thought I was bringing a boy who would not
mind the hike up the hill.”
“I don’t mind a bit,” replied Kit. “I like it. It seems good to find
real hills after all. I thought everything out here was just flat. I do
hope they won’t be watching for us. It will be ever so much easier if I
can just walk in before they get any kind of a shock, don’t you think?”
Rex did not tell her which was the house until they came to the two
tall poplars at the entrance to the drive. Kit caught the murmur of
the waves as they broke on the shore below and lifted her chin eagerly.
“Oh, I like it,” she cried. “This is it, isn’t it? Isn’t it dreamy? I
only hope they’ll let me stay.”
7. The House Under the Bluff
DEAR FAMILY,
I can’t stop to write separate letters tonight to all of you, because
I’m so full of Delphi that I can hardly think of anything else. First
of all, Rex met me at the train with his sister Anne. They live next
door and Rex is Uncle Bart’s pet educational proposition next to me.
Mother’s letter had not arrived and they were expecting Tommy any
moment, when Rex and I walked in on them, and right here I must
say they showed presence of mind. The Dean’s eyes twinkled as Rex
explained things, and then I kissed Aunt Della, and explained to her
too, and I’m sure that she was relieved. After Rex had gone, the Dean
took me into his study after dinner, and we had a long heart-to-heart
talk. I want you all to understand that he thinks I’m a good specimen
of the undeveloped female brain.
I am going to enter the preparatory class at the college in October,
and take what the Dean calls supplementary lessons from him along
special lines. I don’t quite know all that this means, but I guess I
can weather it. It probably has to do with cosmic makings (those were
Rex’s words) of geology and all sorts of prehistoric stuff. I know
the Dean mentioned one thing that began with a ‘paleo’ but I have
forgotten the rest of it. I’ll let you know later.
I have a perfectly darling room. It looks right out over Lake
Michigan. There’s a big square window to it that overhangs the edge
of the bluff like the balcony of a Spanish villa. Our garden just
topples right over into a ravine that ends up short on the shore. I
never saw such abrupt cliffs in my life. Uncle Bart was showing me
the layers of strata there that a little recent landslide had shown
up, and he says that the formation is just exactly like it is out in
Wyoming and Colorado.
Aunt Della is darling. It’s more fun to hear her tell of how she
worried over a boy coming into the family. The whole house is filled
from one end to the other with Uncle Bart’s treasures that he’s
been collecting for years. You’re liable to stumble over a stuffed
armadillo or a petrified slice of some prehistoric monster anywhere
at all. I found a mummy case in the library closet, but there wasn’t
anything in it at all, and I was awfully disappointed. I don’t know
but what I like it after all, although I miss you dreadfully. I don’t
even dare to think there are about a thousand miles between us.
So I won’t feel too out of touch with all of you, you must promise to
write me often. Jean, I want you to tell me all that you hear from
Ralph. I strongly suspect something is going on between you two, even
though you haven’t said anything about it to me. We always talked
things over together before, so now that I’m away we’ll have to do
the discussing by letter.
Doris, be sure to keep me posted on all the things you are doing at
school, and, Tommy, you are to give me the details on the progress of
rebuilding Woodhow.
If you will do this, I know I’ll feel as if I’m right there at home
and I won’t be homesick at all.
This is all I can write to you tonight because I’m so sleepy I can
hardly keep my eyes open. Aunt Della was just in to say good night.
She told me again how glad she is that I’m not a boy. Uncle Bart
hasn’t committed himself yet, but I think he’s curious about me
anyway. Good night all, and write me oodles of news.
Love,
Kit.
At the same time that Kit was writing home, the Dean and Della stepped
out on the broad porch. Every evening about nine-thirty passersby might
have seen the flickering glow of the Dean’s good-night cigar. His
evening cigar was a sort of nocturnal ceremonial. It gave him an excuse
to step out into the fragrant darkness of the garden walk for a quiet
little stroll before bedtime, and usually Della joined him.
So tonight they walked together, discussing the girl with the dark
curls who had come to them from far-off New England, instead of the boy
they had sent for.
“There’s no reason,” remarked the Dean reflectively, “why the child
should not have a pleasant visit, since she is here. I have had a
long conversation with her, and while I could not say that she was
exceptionally--er--”
“Bright,” suggested Della.
“I should like to call it intellectual,” the Dean said kindly, “she
is keenly impressionable and self-reliant. I think I may be able to
interest her, at least in a simplified course of study. I have always
believed that boys were more able to accept routine discipline in
education than girls, but we shall see.”
Della’s eyes, if he could only have seen them, held a twinkle of mirth,
and her smile was a little more pronounced than usual.
“I think,” she said, softly, “that she is a very lovable, attractive
girl. I am quite relieved, Barton, not to have a boy in the house.”
Kit woke up the following morning with the sunlight calling to her. It
was early, but back on the farm she usually got up about six. There
did not seem to be anyone stirring yet, so she dressed quietly, and
found her way downstairs. The Dean kept a cook and gardener. Kit heard
Carrie, the cook, singing in the dining room and went out at once to
make friends with her.
“Is it very far down the bluff to the shore, Carrie?” she asked,
eagerly. “I’m dying to climb down there, if I have time before
breakfast.”
“Sure, Miss, it’s as easy as rolling off a log. You take the roundabout
way through the garden, and the little path behind the tool shed, and
you just follow it until you can’t go any farther, and there’s the
bluff. I haven’t been down myself, but Dan says there’s a little path
you take to the shore if you don’t mind scrambling a bit.”
Kit waved goodbye to her and went in search of the path. She found
Dan, the gardener, raking up leaves in the garden. He was a plump,
rosy-cheeked old Irishman, his face wrinkled like a winter apple, and
he lifted his cap at her approach with a smile of frank curiosity and
approval.
A half-grown black retriever came bounding to meet her, his nose and
forepaws tipped with white.
“That’s a welcome he’s giving you you wouldn’t have had if you’d been
a boy, Miss,” Dan said shrewdly. “I’m glad to meet you and hope you’ll
like it here.”
Kit was stroking Sandy’s head. His real name, Dan told her, was
Lysander. Anything that the Dean had the naming of received the
benediction of ancient Greece, but Sandy, in his puppyhood, had managed
to acquire a happy nickname.
“I don’t see,” Kit said laughing, “why you dreaded a boy coming. I know
some awfully nice boys back home, and there’s one especially, named
Buzzy. He’s out West now. I think he’s just the kind of a boy the Dean
expected to see, but perhaps he’ll get used to me. Do you think he
will?”
“Sure he will,” answered Dan. “If you leave it to Sandy to find the
shore, he’ll take you the quickest way.”
Everything was so different from the Connecticut countryside. Instead
of the thick, lush growth which came from richly watered black loam,
here one found sand cherries and dwarf willows and beeches springing
up from the sand. Tall sword grass waved almost like Becky’s striped
ribbon grass in her home garden, and wild sunflowers showed like golden
glow here and there.
The beach was level and rockless, different entirely from the Eastern
Atlantic shores, but the sand was beautifully white and fine, and there
were great weatherbeaten, wave-washed boulders lying half-buried in
the sand, also trunks of trees, their roots sticking out grotesquely
like the heads of strange animals. Kit thought to herself how the Dean
might have added them with profit to his prehistoric collection. There
was no glimpse or hint of the town to be seen down here. Not even a
boathouse, only one long pier. About a mile and a half from shore was a
lighthouse, and farther out a dark freighter showed in perfect outline
against the blueness of the morning sky.
Kit followed Sandy’s lead, hardly realizing the distance she was
covering, until he suddenly disappeared behind a headland. When she
rounded it, she saw a cottage built close under the shelter of the
bluff. The sand drifted like snow halfway up to its windows. It had
been painted red once, but now its old clapboards were the color of
sorrel, and weatherbeaten and wave-washed like the boulders. There
were fish nets drying on tall staples driven in behind a couple of
overturned rowboats, and at that first glimpse it seemed to her as
if there were children everywhere. Four strong boys from fourteen to
eighteen worked over the nets, mending them. Around the back door there
were four or five more, and sitting in the sunlight in a low rocking
chair was an old woman.
Sandy seemed to greet them as old acquaintances, so Kit called good
morning in her friendly way. The boys eyed her, and all of the children
scurried like a flock of startled chickens as she came up the boardwalk
to the kitchen door, but the old grandmother kept serenely on paring
potatoes, calm-eyed and unembarrassed.
“How do you do?” said Kit, and she smiled. “I’m Dean Peabody’s
grandniece. I just came here yesterday, and Sandy brought me here this
morning. I didn’t know where he was going, but he seemed to know the
way.”
The old woman’s brown eyes followed the movement of the dog. “He’s very
fine, that dog,” she said deliberately. “He comes very often, I’ve
known him since he was _un petit chien_, very small pup--so big.” She
measured with her hand from the ground.
“Do you know the Dean?” Kit asked, sitting down on the doorstep beside
her. “He lives up in the big house on the bluff, where the pine and
maples are.”
The old woman shook her head placidly. “I not go up that bluff in
forty-eight years.”
Kit’s eyes widened with quick interest. Just then a girl a little older
than herself came out of the kitchen door. Two pigtails of straight
brown hair hung to her shoulders, and her dress was gypsy-like. She
looked at Kit with quiet, steady scrutiny, and then questioningly over
at the boys. But Kit herself relieved the tension.
“Hi,” she said. “I think you’ve got an awfully nice place down here. I
like it because it looks old like our houses back home. All the other
places I’ve seen since I came out here have looked so newly-painted.”
“This isn’t new,” the girl told her slowly. “This place belonged to my
grandfather’s father, Charles Flambeau. There were Indians around here
then. Most of them Ojibways.”
Kit’s curiosity was aroused by this entirely new field of adventure to
be uncovered. The wonderful old grandmother, basking in the sun with
memories of the past. The strong, tanned boys working at the nets, the
flock of dark-skinned youngsters, and the girl, Jeannette, whom she was
to know so well before her stay in Delphi was over.
She hurried back, eager to ask questions about the Flambeaus, and
found herself late for breakfast the very first morning she was there.
The Dean’s face was a study as she entered, and Della’s fingers
fluttered nervously over the coffee pot and cups. Kit was out of
breath, and so full of excitement that she did not even notice the air
was chill.
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful time,” she began. “No coffee, Aunt
Della, please. It’s all Sandy’s fault. I just wanted to run down the
bluff to the shore, and he led me way around that headland to the
quaintest old house, half-sunken in the sand, and I got acquainted with
the old grandmother and Jeannette. The boys and the little kids seemed
half-scared to death at the sight of me, and so I didn’t bother to get
acquainted with them yet.”
The Dean looked up at her over his glasses with a quizzical expression,
and Della fairly caught her breath.
“The Flambeaus on the shore, my dear?” she asked. “Those half-breed
French Canadians?”
“Well, I didn’t know just what they were,” answered Kit cheerfully,
“but I think they’re awfully interesting. Don’t you think that they
look like the Breton fishermen in some of the old French paintings?”
“The Flambeaus have not a very good reputation, my dear,” the Dean
coughed slightly behind his hand as he spoke. “The present generation
may be law-abiding, but even within my memory, the Flambeaus had a
little habit of stealing.”
“Stealing?” repeated Kit.
“Yes, fishing tackle and that sort of thing. Besides, there is the
Indian strain in them, and they are squatters. There have been several
lawsuits against them, and they have persisted in staying there on the
shore when the property owners on the bluff distinctly purchased shore
rights.”
“But, Bart, the Flambeaus won all their suits, didn’t they?” asked
Della pleasantly. “I’m sure the older boys are very industrious, and I
think the girl Jeanette is strikingly attractive. You’re not really
forbidding Kit to go down there, I’m sure.”
The Dean said something that was lost in a murmur, for he had been one
of the property owners defeated in the lawsuits by the Flambeaus. After
breakfast Kit went upstairs with Della into her own little sitting
room. This looked toward the street, out over the maple and pine-shaded
lawn. Also, it commanded a good view of the college. This was built of
gray stone and was overgrown with woodbine just beginning to show a
tinge of crimson.
“It seems awfully queer, Aunt Della,” Kit said as she leaned out of the
window, “to think that I’m going there into the prep class. Rex said on
the way up here--”
She leaned suddenly farther out and waved. “Hi, Rex, are you coming
over?”
Rex glanced up at the radiant face as he came along the hedge-bordered
drive between his home and the Dean’s and waved back in neighborly
fashion.
“I’m going up to the campus now,” he said. “Ask Miss Della if she’d
let you be in the dramatic club. There’s a meeting this morning.”
“Could I, Aunt Della? Please say yes. I’m dying to join something. I
haven’t joined anything in ages,” Kit begged. “I can meet everyone and
get acquainted. If you don’t need me this morning--” She hesitated, but
some of her enthusiasm had caught Della, and she immediately succumbed
to the whim of the moment.
“Why, I don’t see why not. You go on down with Rex if you want to.”
The Dean’s desk stood overlooking the driveway. He had settled down
to his morning’s portion of work and was blocking out a curriculum of
study for Kit, when he happened to glance up, and saw the two passing
gayly through the gates. Certainly he did not realize at that moment
that already the spirit of youth was at work in the old shadowy house
behind the pines.
8. A Square Deal
The first batch of family letters arrived the following week. Kit
nearly knocked the mailman over as he came up the walk, for she had
been watching anxiously at each delivery. After all, it was the first
time she had been away from home, and after the first excitement and
novelty had worn off, her heart ached for news from home.
It seemed the Dean had written to her father on the night of her
arrival, and this was a surprise to Kit.
“It is a great relief to us all to know that you have made such a
favorable impression,” Mr. Craig’s letter read. “After all, it was an
experiment, and I confess that I was rather skeptical of the result,
knowing the Dean as I do. Try to adapt yourself as much as possible
to their life there, Kit. You must be considerate of all the Dean’s
notions, and make yourself as useful as you can while you are with them.
“The rebuilding of the house is going along splendidly, and we hope to
have our Christmas there. I have followed the old plan, but with some
improvements, I think, putting in a good furnace, and enlarging the
dining room and kitchen. There will be an outdoor fireplace on the west
side of the house also, and I know you will enjoy this.”
Enjoy it? Kit stared ahead of her at the shady lawn. Della was bending
over nasturtium beds gathering black seeds, but instead, Kit saw in a
vision a great hickory fire burning brightly against a black sky. Her
mother’s letter came next. Kit read it with delight. She could tell
just exactly the mood her mother was in when she wrote, just how her
conscience pricked her for having been a party to Kit’s plan.
“Of course, while the Dean’s letter was very nice, still I am sure he
felt put upon. I am ever so sorry that we did not write sooner, and
tell them that you were coming. It rests with you now, Kit, to make
yourself so adaptable that they will forget all about wanting a boy. I
have no objection to your staying for the winter term at Hope College.
Between ourselves, dear, our plans are a little unsettled. Dad is
certain that the house will be ready for us this winter, but you know
how slowly the carpenters work.
“Make all the friends that you possibly can. You won’t realize it now,
but so many of these friendships become precious lifelong ones. Billie
is leaving this week for school. You remember Frank Howard, who came
to look after our trees? He has been staying up at the Judge’s, and
took a great interest in Billie. Instead of going back to the school
he went to last year, Billie is going on to a school in Virginia, not
far from Washington, that Frank suggested sending him to. He is a great
believer in the value of environment that is associated with historic
traditions.”
Kit read this last over twice, but could not agree with it at all. She
had always liked the pioneer outlook, the longing to break new trails,
the starting of little colonies in clearings of one’s own making. If
there was an ivy around her castle, she wanted to plant it herself.
“Historic tradition?” repeated Kit. “When all around here are the old
Indian trails, and the footprints left by the French explorers. I just
wish I could get Billie out here for a little while. He’ll settle down
in some old school that thinks it is wonderful because John Smith built
a campfire on its site once upon a time, or Pocahontas planted corn in
its football field.”
Kit sighed, tucked her mother’s and father’s letters in her suit
pocket and started off for her favorite lookout point on the bluff.
Here, with Sandy crouching at her feet, she read the three letters
from Doris, Jean, and Tommy. Jean’s was full of plans for going to New
York again. Beth, their cousin with whom Jean had stayed the previous
winter, had promised her three months at the Art Academy.
“I’m so excited to be going back to New York again. I had a letter
from Ralph today and he asked me again if I had decided on an art
career. I don’t know what to tell him, but I am going to study this
winter anyway. Maybe I’ll find out this year whether it is worthwhile
for me to go on or not. I do know that I love Ralph, but I still have
that ambition to do something really important with my life. With the
exception of my one trip to New York last year, I have never done
anything on my own. Perhaps what I mean is, I want to be independent.
“I shall be coming home weekends this year so I can help Mother and Dad
with the rebuilding plans. Besides, I do like living in the country
more than the city and it’s more for the studying I’m going to do there
that I want to go back to New York.”