*CHAPTER V*
*KIT REBELS*
Cousin Roxy departed for Gilead Center, Connecticut, the followingMonday.
"I'd take you with me, Jerry, and the nurse too, if it were spring," shesaid, "but the first of March we get some pretty bad spells of weather,and it's uncertain for anybody in poor health. You stay here and cheerup and get stronger, and gradually break camp. If you need any help,let me know."
It was harder breaking camp than any of them realized. They had livedsix years at Shady Cove, near Great Neck on Long Island. Before thattime, there had been an apartment in New York on Columbia Heights. AsKit described it with her usual graphic touch: "Bird's-eye Castle, eightstories up. Fine view of the adjacent clouds and the Palisades. Withan opera glass on clear days, you could also see the tops of theRiverside 'buses."
It had seemed almost like real country to the girls when they had leftthe city behind them and moved to Shady Cove. Doris had the measlesthat year, and the doctor had ordered fresh air and an outdoor life forher, so the whole family had benefited, which was very thoughtful andconsiderate of Dorrie, the rest said.
But now came the problem of winnowing out what Cousin Roxana would havecalled the essential things from the luxuries.
"Dear me, I had no idea we had so many of the pomps and vanities of thiswicked world," Jean said regretfully, one day. There were sixteen roomsin the big home, all well furnished. Reception-room, library,music-room, and dining-room, with Tekla's domain at the back. Upstairswas a big living-room and plenty of bedrooms, with three maids' rooms inthe third story.
At the top of the broad staircase over the sun-parlor was a widesleeping-porch. In the cold weather this was enclosed and heated, andthe girls loved it. Broad cushioned seats like cabin lockers surroundedit on three sides, and here they could sit and talk with the sun fairlypelting them with warmth and light. Here they sat overhauling andsorting out hampers and bags and bureau drawers of "non-essentials."
"I can't find anything more of mine that I'm willing to throw away,"said Doris flatly, stuffing back some long strips of art denim into abox. "I want that for a border to something, and I'll need it fearfullyone of these days. What's a luxury anyway?"
"Makes me think of Buster Phelps," Helen remarked. "Last night when Iwent over to tell Mrs. Phelps that we couldn't be in the Easterfestival, Buster was just having his dinner, and he wanted more of thefig soufle. His mother told him he mustn't gorge on delicacies. SoBuster asked what a delicacy was anyway, and he said some day he wasgoing to have a whole meal made of delicacies. Isn't that lovely?"
"Don't throw away any pieces at all, girls," Jean warned. "Cousin Roxysays we'll need them all for rag carpets."
"You can buy rag rugs and carpets anywhere now," said Helen.
"Yes, oh, Princess, and at lovely prices too. We folks who are going tolive at Gilead Center, will cut and sew our own, roll them in nice fatballs, and hand them over to old Pa Carpenter up at Moosup, to be woveninto the real thing at fifteen cents a yard. It'll last for years,Cousin Roxy says. When you get tired of it, you boil it up in some dye,and have a new effect. I like the old hit-and-miss best."
Kit regarded her elder sister in speechless delight.
"Jean Robbins, you're getting it!" she gasped. "You're talking exactlylike Cousin Roxy."
"I don't care if I am," answered Jean blithely. "It's common sense.Save the pieces."
"She who erstwhile fluttered her lily white hands over art nouveautrifles light as air," murmured Kit. "I marvel."
She looked down at the garden. Windswept and bare it was in the chilllast days of February. Yet there was a hint of spring about it. A robinwas perched near the little Japanese tea house they had all enjoyed somuch, with its wistaria vines and stone lantern. Leading from it to thehedged garden at the back was a pergola over a flagged walk.
The garage was of reddish fieldstone, and like the house covered withwoodbine. A tall hedge of California privet enclosed the grounds, withgroups of shrubbery here and there. Memories of all the fun which theyhad enjoyed in the past six years passed through her mind. There hadbeen lawn fetes and afternoon teas, croquet parties and tennistournaments. She hugged her knees, rocking back and forth anxiously.
"What is it, Kit?" asked Jean, mildly. Jean was the first to have anemotional storm over the inevitable, but once it was over, she alwayssettled down to making the best of things, while Kit gloomed and ragedinwardly, and felt all manner of premonitory doubts.
"Wonder what we'll really find to do there all the time. I don't wantto be a merry milkmaid, do you?"
"If it would help Dad and Mother, yes."
"Certainly, certainly. You don't quoth 'Nevermore,' do you? You're achirruping raven. We'd all walk from here to Gilead Center on our leftears if it would help Dad and Mother, but the fact that we'd do itwouldn't make it any easier, would it?"
"Don't be savage, Kit," said Helen.
"Who's savage?" demanded Kit haughtily. "I'm just as ready to face thisthing as anyone. If it were a small town up in the wilds, even, Iwouldn't mind, but it just isn't anything but country."
Jean tapped the end of her nose thoughtfully with her thimble.
"What is Gilead Center then? Isn't that a town?"
"No, it isn't. It's a hamlet. Trolley seven miles away, post officefive. There used to be a post office there when the mail-wagon made thetrip over, but they needed the building to keep the hearse in, so it'sgone."
"You're making that up, Kit," severely.
"I'm not," protested Kit. "You can ask Cousin Roxy. Nobody ever diesup there. They just fade away, and the hearse is seldom needed and wasin the way. There are only nine houses in the village proper, onestore, one church, and one school. Her house is a mile outside thevillage, so where will we be?"
"Is it on the map?" asked Doris hopefully.
"Some maps. Township maps. This morning Mother and I were looking uphow to get there. You've got your choice of two routes and each one'sworse than the other, and more of it."
"Kit, you're crawfishing."
Kit swept by the remark, absorbed in her own forebodings.
"You can reach this spot by land or sea. Cousin Roxy says that it takesfive hours for anybody to extricate oneself after one is really there.You can take a boat to New London, ride up to Norwich, transfer to atrolley and trundle along for another hour, then hire a team at TommyBurke's stable in East Pomfret, and drive an hour and a half more upthrough the hills. Or you can take a Boston Express up to Willimantic,and hop on a side line from there. A train runs twice a day--"
"What road, Kit?" asked Helen. They leaned around her, fascinated ather sudden acquisition of knowledge.
"Any road you fancy. Central Vermont up to Plainfield, or Providenceline over to South Pomfret. There's South Pomfret and East Pomfret andPomfret Green and Pomfret Station. It really doesn't seem to matterwhich way you go so long as it lands you at one of the Pomfrets. AndPomfret is five miles from Gilead Center, Plainfield is seven miles,Boulderville is--"
"Oh, please, Kit, stop it," Jean cried, with both hands over her ears."We'll motor over anyway--"
"Didn't you hear that Dad's going to sell the machine?" Helen whispered.It would never do to let a hint of regret reach beyond the sleepingporch circle. "The Phelpses are going to buy it. Buster told me so."
"I knew it before," Jean said quite calmly, going on with her sorting ofpieces. "Dad says it will pay nearly all moving expenses and keep usfor months. What else could he do? There'd be nobody to run it, wouldthere? Anyway I want a horse to ride, don't you, Kit? Can't you see usall in a joyous cavalcade riding adown the woodland way? I'mGuenevere." With laughing lips, and happy eyes she quoted:
"All in the boyhood of the year Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere Rode to covert of the deer."
"Plenty of deer up there, Cousin Roxy says. We all can go hunting."
"Never mind the deer.
We won't be doing that at all. Mother says Teklacan't possibly go and we're going to do our own housework. Isn't itqueer, when a father breaks down, it just seems as if a home caves in."
"Well, it doesn't do any such thing, Helen," responded Kit stolidly."It may seem to, but it doesn't. Even if we are going to live fivemiles from nowhere with the eye of Cousin Roxana forever resting uponus, there'll be lots of fun ahead. What's that about the world making apathway to your door? I'm going to be famous some day and there'll be anice little sheep path leading from New York up to Gilead Center, wornby the feet of faithful pilgrims."
"It's so nice having one genius in the family," Jean answered, leaningher chin on one hand. "Now I don't mind leaving the house behind, or themachine, or anything like that. But it's the people I like best that Ican't take up with me. Who will we know there, I wonder?"
"Human beings anyhow," Helen stated. "We'll make hosts of new friends.Besides, lots of the girls have promised to visit us. Think of Mother,girls. She's breaking away from everything she likes best. And youknow that we're just girls after all, with all our lives ahead of us, sowe may have a chance to escape some time; but Mother can't look forward,she is just cutting herself off from everything."
"Just listen to dear old Lady Diogenes." Kit reached down and gave theslender figure a good all-around hug. "How do you know she's losingwhat she loves best? Don't you remember that old Druid poem in Tennysonabout the people calling for a sacrifice and they asked which was theking's dearest? Supposing Dad had died right here. What would he havemissed? His country club, his golf, his town club, his business, andhis business friends. Mother loses about the same, the country club andgolf club, the church, and the social study club. They'll never settledown to real farm life, Jean. It's just impossible. You can't take afamily of--of--"
"Peacocks? Bulfinches? Canaries?" suggested Doris.
"No, I should say park swans," Kit said. "That's what we are outhere,--park swans swimming around on an artificial lake, living on anartificial island in a little artificial swan house, swimming around andaround, preening our feathers and watching to see what people think ofus. You can't take park swans and put them right out into the country,and expect them to make the barnyard a howling success all at once."
"Kit, dear old goose," Jean interposed, "we're not park swans or anysuch thing. We're just robins, and robins are robins whether they buildin a park catalpa or a country rock maple. We'll just migrate, build anew nest, and behave ourselves. Not because we like to, but becauseit's our nature to, being, as I said before, just robins."
Greenacre Girls Page 5