made up her mind that very day when Mr. Hicks made his memorable and
fruitless journey to Woodhow that not even government experts had any
right to climb over fences into people’s private property without first
asking permission. Perhaps the sudden popularity of the trespasser
with all the rest of the family had something to do with Kit’s stand
against him. Even Doris had remarked that she didn’t see how Kit could
ever have imagined that a person looking like Frank could be a berry
thief.
“I don’t want you to forgive me,” she said calmly. “I’ve never been
one bit sorry for it. I think you ought to have come up to the house
and asked permission to go in there. And you never said that you
were sorry. It always seemed to me as if you rather acted as if you
thought it was a good joke”--she hesitated a moment, before adding
pointedly--“on me.”
“Suppose I apologize now.” Frank’s tone was absolutely serious, but
Kit, with one quick look at the precipitous path ahead of them, laughed.
“Not here, please. Wait until we hit the level shore. You do really
have to pay attention on this path, or you miss your footing and
toboggan all at once.”
“Then, suppose,” he persisted, “we just consider that I have
apologized. And if you accept, you can raise your right hand at me.”
Kit immediately raised her left one. Before he could say any more, she
had hurried ahead and caught up with the rest.
14. The Secret in the Urn
It was not until after they had gone, when Kit was by herself, that she
remembered all Billie had told her at the very last of his stay.
They had walked along the lake shore together, a little behind the
others, after they had visited the Flambeau family.
“You haven’t told me anything at all,” Kit said, “about home. When were
you in Elmhurst last?”
“Just before we came here,” Billie answered.
“Was everything all right?” Billie hesitated. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,
Billie, tell me if there is anything. You can’t give me any nervous
shocks at all, and I’m dying to find an excuse to get back home.”
“Why, there isn’t anything the matter, exactly,” Billie said
cheerfully, but with a reservation in his tone that made Kit impatient.
“The only thing that I know about, I heard Grandfather telling Uncle
Tom. I don’t suppose I ought to repeat it either.”
“Honestly, Billie, you make me so exasperated at times. How dare you
keep back any news of my family from me?”
“It was something about losing some stocks or dividends or something
like that. I guess it hit Grandfather, too, but I heard him say that
there wasn’t a farm up there that couldn’t support itself, properly
run, and he guessed they’d all weather the storm.”
Billie was inclined to take an optimistic view of the whole affair.
“Grandfather said that there was no cause for worry,” he went on. “It
was just a case of pitch in and get your living out of the farms again.”
“Yes,” said Kit with scorn, “get your living out of the farms. That’s
all very well for him to say, when he’s got everything to do with,
and twenty of the best cows in the county, but we moved up there on
hope and a shoestring. And we’ve never really raised anything except
children and chickens.”
“Frank says your place, if it was properly worked, would make one of
the finest fruit farms up there, ’cause your land all slopes to the
south as far as the river. He says if he had it he’d sell off the heavy
timber for cash and put the money right into hardy varieties of fruit
and hogs.”
Kit laughed. “Can’t you see Doris’s face over the hogs, with all her
aristocratic ideas? Did he tell Dad that?”
“I don’t know,” Billie said doubtfully. “Uncle Tom’s kind of hard to
get confidential with over his own affairs, but I wouldn’t worry, Kit,
if I were you. Things always come out all right.”
“They do not,” returned Kit calmly. “Even so, thanks ever so much for
telling me, Billie. You may have changed the course of destiny, because
I can tell you now I’m going home.”
After dinner that night Kit was out for a walk alone with only Sandy
for company. Kit was wondering whether it would be best to write first
to her mother or to Jean. Jean would be in New York anyway, so perhaps
she wouldn’t know any more about it than Kit did. How she wished to
know just exactly what the family’s plans were for the winter.
Finally she decided to write to Becky. Even though her decision might
not be a favorable one, you always felt sure you were getting it
straight without any affectionate bias.
Accordingly, a confidential appeal went East, and back came the reply
by return mail, as Kit had known it would.
Dear Kit,
I had been thinking about you when your letter came, so I suppose our
thoughts must have crossed.
There’s no doubt at all but what your mother needs you badly right
here, especially with Jean in New York. What Billie told you was
about the truth.
If I were you, I’d have a heart-to-heart talk with the Dean himself,
and I know your mother will be just as relieved as can be to hear
you’re homeward bound.
Lovingly,
Becky.
Kit was delighted over the letter, and went directly to the Dean with
its message. He was deeply engrossed in getting up his first notes and
commentaries on the urn and statue. It had not seemed for the past two
or three weeks as if he resided any longer in Delphi at all. Kit told
Della she was positive he was wandering through Egypt all the time, the
Egypt of five thousand years ago. And it was only the shadow of his
self that seemed to sit closeted for hours in the study.
He hardly glanced up now as she came in, but smiled and nodded when he
saw who it was, keeping on with his writing.
“Just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the
door. Second volume, _Explorations in Upper Egypt_, look up Seti the
First in the index.”
Kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one
end of the desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his
attention. The little statuette of Annui smiled grotesquely down upon
her from its pedestal. The urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the
desk itself as the Dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it.
“I hate to disturb you, Uncle Bart,” Kit began, with the directness so
characteristic of her, “but I really think I ought to go back home.
You’ve been wonderful to give me such a long visit, and I’ve enjoyed
the school work immensely, but somehow I begin to feel like a soldier
who has been away on a furlough. It’s time for me to get back, because
Mother needs me.”
The Dean glanced up in surprise; and came slowly out of his dream of
concentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him.
“Why, my dear child,” he exclaimed, “this is very sudden. There has
never been any question about your going back, at least--” He coughed.
“Not since we became acquainted with you. Has anything happened?”
“Why, nothing special--I mean, nothing tragic. It’s only this, Dad’s
lost a lot of money all at once. He did have a little income, enough so
we never have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that
has been swept away.”
“Tom never had any head for business.” The Dean tapped one hand lightly
with his glasses in an absent-minded musing way that nearly drove Kit
frantic. “But what can you do about it, my dear? Surely by returning at
such a time you merely add to your father’s burdens.”
“No, I won’t,” Kit answered. “Because I’ve got a plan that I’ve been
thinking about for ever and ever so long. I’m going to try and persuade
Dad to let us put in hogs.”
“Hogs,” repeated the Dean in a baffled tone. “Hogs, my dear. Who ever
heard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all?”
“Well, we’re going to if Dad will let me. I just can’t stay here in
this beautiful place with nothing to worry over, while the family are
all worried to death.”
There was silence in the old study. The Dean was looking straight at
Annui as if for inspiration. He had laid out his own career himself,
and had carried every ambition to completion and reality. The last
twenty years had been years of fruition, of honors freely given, years
of fulfillment. He had not been, like Judge Ellis, intolerant of
other men’s failures; he had simply ignored them, never feeling any
responsibility toward the weaker ones who fell in the race. In his way,
he prided himself on a gentle, aloof philosophy of life which left him
the boundaries of the study as a horizon of happiness.
Probably not until that moment had he realized the gradual
revolutionary process Kit had been putting him through ever since her
arrival. She had trained him into having an interest in other people
and things, until now it was impossible for him not to see the picture
of Woodhow as she did. He resolved to help Tom Craig out as well.
“How did you find out about this, my dear?” he asked.
“Well,” Kit replied, honestly, “partly from Billie and partly from a
letter from Becky. You know Becky, don’t you, Uncle Bart?”
The Dean’s eyes twinkled reminiscently. “Oh, yes, I remember Rebecca
well. She used to bully me outrageously. But you’re perfectly right, my
dear. I can quite see why you feel that you are needed. You had better
start for home as soon as you can.”
The next thing was to break the news gently and convincingly to
the family. Kit figured it out from all sides, and finally decided
to walk right up to the horns of the dilemma in a fearless attack.
Writing back a long, newsy letter to her mother, she simply tacked on
the postscript, “Don’t be at all surprised to see me arrive around
Christmas.”
The girls took her coming departure with many objections, but Kit was
not to be persuaded to stay. The Saturday before she left the many
friends she had made came over in the afternoon to say goodbye. Late in
the day, Kit saw Jeannette Flambeau coming up the drive.
“It was awfully nice of you to come, Jeannette,” she exclaimed. “I’ve
been watching for you.”
“I tried to come earlier, but I couldn’t,” smiled Jeannette. “Will you
write to me when you are away?”
“I’d love to. You know it’s a queer thing, Jeannette, but really and
truly, out of all the girls I have met here I feel better acquainted
with you than with any of them.”
Kit said this rather slowly, as if it were a sort of self-revelation
which she had just discovered that minute. And yet it was true. She
had enjoyed the class friendships at Hope immensely, but Jeannette
had seemed to stand out from the rest of the girls as a distinctly
interesting personality.
Jeannette smiled at Kit’s remark.
“I have heard my grandmother say that in her girlhood her people of the
northern forests pledged their friendships by saying, ‘While the grass
grows and the waters run, so long shall we be friends.’” She turned and
smiled at Kit her grave-eyed slow smile. “I will say that to you now,
before you go.”
Kit laid one arm around her shoulders. “Me too,” she answered, “sounds
like the blood-brother vow they used to take.”
The next evening Kit was to leave Delphi. She found it hard to say
goodbye to her aunt and uncle.
“We shall miss you, Kit,” said Della, “but if it gives you any
pleasure, my dear, I want to tell you it was your coming which opened
my eyes to the folly of sitting with empty hands while there was work
to be done. I don’t think I can ever belong to the rocking-chair squad
again, without a guilty conscience.”
Kit hugged her fervently. “Oh, but you’re a dear, Aunt Della, to say
such things. I only wish I could stay right here and be in two places
at once. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned here, organization.” Kit said
this very firmly and earnestly. “Back home they say I know just what I
want to do, but I don’t know how to do it. Now, I know what I want to
do. I want to go back home and organize.”
“The Dean wanted to have a little talk with you before dinner, dear. I
think you’d better go in now, because we want to reach the station in
plenty of time. Don’t talk too long. You know how he is when he gets
absorbed in anything.”
Kit promised and joined the Dean. He had carried back the statue of
Annui and stood before it regarding it with perplexity. Kit slipped
her arm through his. It seemed as though there had sprung up a new
comradeship and understanding between them since their last talk.
“Won’t he tell you his secrets, Uncle Bart?” she asked. “He has such an
aggravating smile, just as if he were amused at baffling you.”
“I am baffled,” the Dean conceded genially. “I’ve reached a certain
point and there is a blank which no historic record seems to fill. I
thought when I had restored the inscription on the urn that it would
tell me several of the missing points, but it seems to be merely a sort
of sacred invocation. I am amazed at the urn being hollow. Every other
memorial urn which I found during our excavations in Egypt was sealed,
and upon being opened we always found rolls of papyrus within. I am
disappointed.”
Kit lifted the urn very carefully and stared at it, reflectively. “What
does the inscription say?” Kit asked.
“It merely traces the origin of King Amenotaph to the god Thoth,” said
the Dean, thoughtfully, “that is, the Egyptian Hermes, or Mercury, as
we know him, and it is extremely vague, being a curious mixture of the
Coptic and the ancient Aramaic.”
“But what does it say?” asked Kit again.
The Dean followed the curious markings on the urn with his fingertip,
bending forward as he did so. “It says, ‘Amenotaph, born of Thoth,
shall reign in wisdom. Kings shall serve at his foot stool. Ra shall
shine upon him. He shall lie in peace, encompassed by Ra.’”
“Is that all?”
“That is all,” sighed the Dean. “It seems merely a laudatory sentiment.”
“Who was Ra?” asked Kit curiously, running her hand around the top of
the urn.
“The Sun god. His symbol was the circle. You see it here.”
Kit repeated again slowly, what her uncle had just read. Then she shook
the urn close to her ear.
“My dear child, do be careful,” cried the Dean, “it’s priceless.”
But Kit put it under one arm as though it had been a milk pail and
tapped around the inside with her knuckles, listening.
“That’s a perfectly good hollow jug,” she said solemnly. “Just you tap
it, and listen, Uncle Bart. I’ll bet they’ve hidden something inside
the outside and that Ra has guarded it all these years.”
“Just a moment, just a moment, my dear,” exclaimed the Dean, smiling
like a happy boy. “You’ve given me an idea. This may be a cryptogram,
or an ideographic cipher. Just a moment, now, don’t speak to me.”
He sat down at the desk and figured laboriously for nearly twenty
minutes, working out the inscription in cipher, while Kit stared at
him delightedly. After all, it was gratifying, she thought, to have
somebody in the family who could take a little remark made thousands of
years ago in Egypt and make sense out of it today. She waited patiently
until he had finished. His hands were trembling as he reached for the
urn.
“The circle,” he repeated, “the circle. ‘Ra in his circle shall guard
Amenotaph.’ The secret lies in the circle, Kit. Do you suppose it could
mean the rim of the urn?”
Kit studied the urn again and with the fingertip she traced the
inscription and stopped when she came to a small circle in black and
red outline.
“Do you suppose Ra lives here, Uncle Bart?” she asked, poking at it
thoughtfully. She peered on the inner side at the corresponding spot to
the circle, and gave a little cry of excitement. There was the faintest
sign of a circle here also. “See,” she cried, “when you push on this
side, the other gives a little bit.”
The Dean could not speak. He took the urn from her over to the window
and carefully examined the inner circle through a microscope.
“Yes,” he said, fervently, “you are perfectly right, my dear. The
circle moves. I think I shall have to send it to Washington. I would
not take the responsibility of trying to remove it myself.”
“Oh, jeepers, it seems awful to have to wait so long,” Kit exclaimed
regretfully. “It seemed to me as if you could just press it through
with your thumb, like this.”
She had not intended pressing so hard, but merely to show him what she
meant, and, under the pressure of her thumb, the circle of Ra depressed
and pushed slowly through. The Dean looked on in utter amazement, as
Kit lifted the urn and tested the inner section by shaking it. Then she
peered into the circular hole, about the size of a quarter. The urn was
fully two inches thick, and by inserting her finger into the space she
found that it was made in two sections, with enough room between for a
place of concealment.
“There’s something in here like asbestos, Uncle Bart,” she began,
and turning the urn upside down, she tried shaking it, using a
little pressure on the circle to separate the two rims. Slowly they
gave, while the Dean hovered over her, cautioning and directing the
operation, until two complete urns lay before them. But it was not
these that the Dean snatched at. It was the curious cap-shaped mass
which fell out in the form of a cone. To Kit it appeared to be of no
significance whatever, but the Dean handled it as tenderly as a newborn
child, and under his deft and tender touch it unrolled in long scrolls
of papyrus.
The Dean rose to his feet solemnly, and his voice was hushed, as
he said, “Kit, you do not know what you have done. Some day the
significance of this occasion will recur to you. All I can say is
that you have lifted the veil of the past, and revealed the secret of
Amenotaph.”
15. Home Again
Kit arrived in Nantic a little past noon in the middle of the first
snow storm of the winter. She was so glad to see Mr. Briggs’s smiling
face on the platform, that she almost threw her arms around him, as she
jumped from the platform of the train.
“Well, well,” he said, “didn’t expect to see you around so soon, Kit.”
“It’s good to be back, Mr. Briggs,” said Kit, as she looked around for
the one taxi that Nantic had. She had not told her family just when she
was arriving, so no one was there to meet her. She located the cab and
after a hurried goodbye to Mr. Briggs she got in and was soon on the
way up the familiar highway.
There was none of the family in sight when they turned up the drive,
but suddenly Kit’s eager eyes saw a familiar figure out by the barn,
and leaning forward she gave a shrill whistle.
Tommy turned in the direction of the whistle and when he saw who it
was he came along the drive at a dead run. Before Kit could catch her
breath, the big front door opened and there was the rest of the family.
The reunion was indeed a happy one, everyone laughing and talking at
once and deluging Kit with questions. It wasn’t until they were all
settled in the living-room that Kit obligingly answered all their
questions, telling them about Delphi, Hope College, the friends she had
made, and last of all, the secret she and Uncle Bart had discovered in
the Egyptian urn.
After the Christmas holidays when Jean had gone back to New York again,
Kit found her opportunity of laying her summer plan before her mother
and father. She had discarded hogs for a new idea she had thought up
on the train coming home. Before Jean had left, Kit had told her about
her scheme and together they had worked out the details. With Jean’s
additional suggestions in mind, Kit felt she was ready to approach her
parents.
“There are acres and acres here that we never use at all. All that
wonderful land on both sides of the river up through the valley, and
the two islands besides. What I thought we could do was this, if you
could just let us kids manage it. Couldn’t we start a regular summer
camp? You know those hunters’ cabins that are scattered along the
valley would be ideal. Jean was telling me before she left about an
artists’ colony up in the Catskills, where they have cabins fitted up
so that you can cook in them and everything. I’m sure we could do it
here.”
It had taken much argument and figuring on paper before the consent of
both was won, but Becky approved of the scheme highly.
“Land alive, Margaret,” she exclaimed, “don’t crush anything that
looks like budding initiative in your children. I’d let them put cabins
all over the place until it blossomed like the wilderness. There’s a
stack of old furniture up in the attic at Maple Grove and over at our
place, too, and they’re welcome to it. Get some cans of paint and go to
work, Kit.”
Kit acted immediately on the suggestion and drove up with Tommy and
Jack to look over the collection of discarded furniture. What she liked
best of all were the three-drawer, old-fashioned chests and handmade
wooden chairs. There were several old single bedsteads, too.
“We’re going to paint them all over, Mom, and Tommy and Jack promised
to put up any shelves or things like that we may need.”
“Don’t forget that they’ll have to eat sometime,” Becky reminded.
“Get some two-burner oil stoves and folding tables. Lay in a stock of
candles and lamps. I’d make them bring up their own bedding if I were
you, because that would be the only nuisance you’d have to contend
with.”
“It’s too bad,” Kit said, “that we’re so far away from any kind of
stores. There are eight cabins altogether, and there’ll be ever so
many things people will want to buy. Do you suppose, Mother, that Mr.
Peckham would let Lucy manage anything like that up here? She’s just
dying to do something besides housework all her life.”
“But where would you put her, dear?”
“I’ll bet the boys down there at the mill could throw together a
perfectly swell little shack. They could either have it down by the
mill or put it right here at the crossroads. Lucy could put in all
kinds of supplies, films for cameras and post cards and candy.”
“Better put in a few canned goods, too, and staples,” add Becky. “I
declare, I’d kind of like to have a hand in that myself. Kit, I do
believe you’ve started something that may wake this town up.”
Kit herself attacked the problem of winning over the Peckhams to her
idea of Lucy’s taking charge of a little store at the crossroads. Lucy
sat with wide anxious eyes on the extreme edge of her chair, while her
mother said over and over again it was utterly impossible.
“Why, I couldn’t get along without Lucy, especially in the summer, with
all the fruit to put up and the young ones home from school.”
“But, Mrs. Peckham,” pleaded Kit, “when you were our age, wasn’t there
ever anything that you wanted to do or be with all your heart and soul?
Didn’t you ever just want to get away from what you had been doing for
years, and start something new?”
“Well, come to think of it now,” smiled Mrs. Peckham, “I’d have given
my eye-teeth to have left home and gone to be a teacher in some town.”
“Then please let Lucy do this. Becky says she’s willing to keep an eye
on everything, and one of us girls will probably be helping her out
most of the time, too. It would only be until the middle of September,
and Anne’s fifteen and Charlotte’s twelve. Why, it isn’t fair to
them to let them think all Lucy’s good for is to stay at home and do
housework. You will let her go, won’t you, Mrs. Peckham?”
Mrs. Peckham sighed and smiled. “You’re a fearfully good pleader. I
don’t suppose it would hurt the other girls any to take hold and help.
I’m willing, and if her father is, why, she can go. Seems to me you are
starting something you can’t finish, but maybe you can.”
The first part of April was unusually mild. A sort of balmy hush
seemed to lie over the barren land, as though spring had chosen to
steal upon it sleeping. On one of these warm spring days Kit, Doris,
Tommy, and Jack went out to inspect the cabins to see if they needed
repairing. Matt had promised to help them mend any leaking roofs and
replace rotten boards, but except for two of them, they seemed to
be in excellent condition. The furniture had all been scraped and
painted and almost daily something was added to the store of supplies
for the summer venture. The next problem to be solved was finding the
occupants for the cabins, and here it was Jean who helped out.
“You don’t want to get a lot of people,” she wrote, “who will be
expecting all the comforts of a typical summer resort, so I suggest my
spreading the word among the art students here. They are sure to pass
it along to their friends.”
When Jean came home to stay the end of May, the first thing she asked
was, “Who do you suppose wants to rent one of our cabins for the whole
summer?”
“Ralph McRae,” Kit replied immediately.
“But how did you know?” asked Jean. She had thought it would be a
surprise.
“I knew he would be back this summer to see you,” she replied
knowingly. “Besides, Buzzy wrote me the news last week, and I’ve
reserved the pick of the cabins for him. You know the one down by
the river just above the Falls? And Becky told me yesterday that she
was positive Billie and Frank would come down for a while in July or
August.”
“That’s wonderful,” Jean said, enthusiastically.