The Enchanted Barn

by Grace Livingston Hill

  CHAPTER IV

  The afternoon before, when Mr. Sidney Graham had returned to his officefrom seeing Shirley to the elevator, he stood several minutes lookingthoughtfully at the chair where she had sat, while he carefully drew onhis gloves.

  There had been something interesting and appealing in the spirited faceof the girl, with her delicate features and wistful eyes. He could notseem to get away from it. It had left an impression of character and astruggle with forces of which in his sheltered life he had had only avague conception. It had left him with the feeling that she wasstronger in some ways than himself, and he did not exactly like thesensation of it. He had always aimed to be a strong character himself;and for a young man who had inherited two hundred and fifty thousanddollars on coming of age, and double that amount two years later, withthe prospect of another goodly sum when his paternal grandfather'sestate was divided, he had done very well indeed. He had stuck tobusiness ever since leaving college, where he had been by no means anonentity either in studies or in athletics; and he had not beenspoiled by the adulation that a young man of his good looks and wealthand position always receives in society. He had taken society as asort of duty, but had never given it an undue proportion of his timeand thoughts. Notably he was a young man of fine balance and strongself-control, not given to impulsive or erratic likes and dislikes; andhe could not understand why a shabby little person with a lock of goldover one crimson cheek, and tired, discouraged lights in her had madeso strong an impression upon him.

  It had been his intention just before Shirley's arrival to leave theoffice at once and perhaps drop in on Miss Harriet Hale. If the hourseemed propitious, he would take her for a spin in his new racing-carthat even now waited in the street below; but somehow suddenly his plandid not attract him deeply. He felt the need of being by himself.After a turn or two up and down his luxurious office he took theelevator down to the street floor, dismissed his chauffeur, and whirledoff in his car, taking the opposite direction from that which wouldhave taken him to the Hale residence. Harriet Hale was a very prettygirl with a brilliant mind and a royal fortune. She could entertainhim and stimulate him tremendously, and sometimes he almost thought theattraction was strong enough to last him through life; but Harriet Halewould not be able to appreciate his present mood nor explain to him whythe presence in his office for fifteen minutes of a nervy littlestenographer who was willing to live in a barn should have made him sovaguely dissatisfied with himself. If he were to try to tell her aboutit, he felt sure he would meet with laughing taunts and brilliantsarcasm. She would never understand.

  He took little notice of where he was going, threading his wayskilfully through the congested portion of the city and out into thecomparatively empty highways, until at last he found himself in thesuburbs. The name of the street as he slowed up at a grade crossinggave him an idea. Why shouldn't he take a run out and hunt up thatbarn for himself? What had she said about it, where it was? Heconsulted the memorandum he had written down for his father'sedification. "Glenside Road, near Allister Avenue." He furthersearched his memory. "Big stone barn, wide approach like a grandstaircase, tall tree overhanging, brook." This surely ought to beenough to help him identify it. There surely were not a flock of stonebarns in that neighborhood that would answer that description.

  He turned into Glenside Road with satisfaction, and set a sharp watchfor the names of the cross-avenues with a view to finding AllisterAvenue, and once he stopped and asked a man in an empty milk-wagonwhether he knew where Allister Avenue was, and was informed that it was"on a piece, about five miles."

  There was something interesting in hunting up his own strange barn, andhe began to look about him and try to see things with the eyes of thegirl who had just called upon him.

  Most of the fields were green with spring, and there was an air ofthings doing over them, as if growing were a business that one couldwatch, like house-cleaning and paper-hanging and painting. Graham hadnever noticed before that the great bare spring out-of-doors seemed tohave a character all its own, and actually to have an attraction. Alittle later when the trees were out, and all the orchards in bloom,and the wild flowers blowing in the breeze, he could rave over spring;but he had never seen the charm of its beginnings before. He wonderedcuriously over the fact of his keen appreciation now.

  The sky was all opalescent with lovely pastel colors along the horizon,and a few tall, lank trees had put on a soft gauze of green over theirforeheads like frizzes, discernible only to a close observer. The airwas getting chilly with approaching night, and the bees were no longerproclaiming with their hum the way to the skunk-cabbages; but adelicate perfume was in the air, and though perhaps Graham had nevereven heard of skunk-cabbages, he drew in long breaths of sweetness, andlet out his car over the smooth road with a keen delight.

  Behind a copse of fine old willows, age-tall and hoary with weather,their extremities just hinting of green, as they stood knee-deep in thebrook on its way to a larger stream, he first caught sight of the oldbarn.

  He knew it at once by something indefinable. Its substantial stonespaciousness, its mossy roof, its arching tree, and the brook thatbacked away from the wading willows, up the hillside, under the railfence, and ran around its side, all were unmistakable. He could see itjust as the girl had seen it, and something in him responded to herlonging to live there and make it into a home. Perhaps he was adreamer, even as she, although he passed in the world of business for apractical young man. But anyhow he slowed his car down and looked atthe place intently as he passed by. He was convinced that this was theplace. He did not need to go on and find Allister Avenue--though hedid, and then turned back again, stopping by the roadside. He got outof the car, looking all the time at the barn and seeing it in the lightof the girl's eyes. As he walked up the grassy slope to the frontdoors, he had some conception of what it must be to live so that thiswould seem grand as a home. And he showed he was not spoiled by hislife in the lap of luxury, for he was able to get a glimpse of thegrandeur of the spot and the dignity of the building with its longsimple lines and rough old stones.

  The sun was just going down as he stood there looking up. It touchedthe stones, and turned them into jewelled settings, glorifying the oldstructure into a palace. The evening was sweet with the voices ofbirds not far away. One above the rest, clear and occasional, high inthe elm-tree over the barn, a wood-thrush spilling its silver notesdown to the brook that echoed them back in a lilt. The young man tookoff his hat and stood in the evening air, listening and looking. Hecould see the poetry of it, and somehow he could see the girl's face asif she stood there beside him, her wonderful eyes lighted as they hadbeen when she told him how beautiful it was there. She was right. Itwas beautiful, and it was a lovely soul that could see it and feel whata home this would make in spite of the ignominy of its being nothingbut a barn. Some dim memory, some faint remembrance, of a stable longago, and the glory of it, hovered on the horizon of his mind; but hiseducation had not been along religious lines, and he did not put thething into a definite thought. It was just a kind of sensing of agreat fact of the universe which he perhaps might have understood in aformer existence.

  Then he turned to the building itself. He was practical, after all,even if he was a dreamer. He tried the big padlock. How did they getinto this thing? How had the girl got in? Should he be obliged tobreak into his own barn?

  He walked down the slope, around to the back, and found the entranceclose to the ladder; but the place was quite dark within the greatstone walls, and he peered into the gloomy basement with disgust at thedirt and murk. Only here and there, where a crack looked toward thesetting sun, a bright needle of light sent a shaft through to let onesee the inky shadows. He was half turning back, but reflected that thegirl had said she went up a ladder to the middle floor. If she hadgone, surely he could. Again that sense that she was stronger than herebuked him. He got out his pocket flashlight and stepped within thegloom determinedly. Holding the flas
h-light above his head, hesurveyed his property disapprovingly; then with the light in his handhe climbed in a gingerly way up the dusty rounds to the middle floor.

  As he stood alone in the dusky shadows of the big barn, with theblackness of the hay-loft overhead, the darkness pierced only by thekeen blade of the flash-light and a few feebler darts from the sinkingsun, the poetry suddenly left the old barn, and a shudder ran throughhim. To think of trying to live here! How horrible!

  Yet still that same feeling that the girl had more nerve than he hadforced him to walk the length and breadth of the floor, peeringcarefully into the dark corners and acquainting himself fully with thebare, big place; and also to climb part way up the ladder to the loftand send his flash-light searching through its dusty hay-strewnrecesses.

  With a feeling utterly at variance with the place he turned away indisgust, and made his way down the ladders again, out into the sunset.

  In that short time the evening had arrived. The sky had flung outbanners and pennants, pencilled by a fringe of fine saplings likeslender brown threads against the sky. The earth was sinking intodusk, and off by the brook the frogs were tinkling like tiny answeringsilver rattles. The smell of earth and growing stole upon his senses,and even as he gazed about him a single star burned into being in theclear ether above him. The birds were still now, and the frogs withthe brook for accompaniment held the stage. Once more the charm of theplace stole over him; and he stood with hat removed, and wondered nolonger that the girl was willing to live here. A conviction grewwithin him that somehow he must make it possible for her to do so, thatthings would not be right and as they ought to be unless he did. Infact, he had a curiosity to have her do it and see whether it could bedone.

  He went slowly down to his car at last with lingering backward looks.The beauty of the situation was undoubted, and called for admiration.It was too bad that only a barn should occupy it. He would like to seea fine house reared upon it. But somehow in his heart he was glad thatit was not a fine house standing there against the evening sky, andthat it was possible for him to let the girl try her experiment ofliving there. Was it possible? Could there be any mistake? Could itbe that he had not found the right barn, after all? He must make sure,of course.

  But still he turned his car toward home, feeling reasonably sure thathe had found the right spot; and, as he drove swiftly back along theway, he was thinking, and all his thoughts were woven with the softnessof the spring evening and permeated with its sounds. He seemed to bein touch with nature as he had never been before.

  At dinner that night he asked his father:

  "Did Grandfather Graham ever live out on the old Glenside Road, father?"

  A pleasant twinkle came in the elder Graham's eyes.

  "Sure!" he said. "Lived there myself when I was five years old, beforethe old man got to speculating and made his pile, and we got too grandto stay in a farmhouse. I can remember rolling down a hill under agreat big tree, and your Uncle Billy pushing me into the brook that ranat the foot. We boys used to wade in that brook, and build dams, andcatch little minnows, and sail boats. It was great sport. I used togo back holidays now and then after I got old enough to go away toschool. We were living in town then, but I used to like to go out andstay at the farmhouse. It was rented to a queer old dick; but his wifewas a good sort, and made the bulliest apple turnovers for us boys--anddoughnuts! The old farmhouse burned down a year or so ago. But thebarn is still standing. I can remember how proud your grandfather wasof that barn. It was finer than any barn around, and bigger. We boysused to go up in the loft, and tumble in the hay; and once when I was alittle kid I got lost in the hay, and Billy had to dig me out. I canremember how scared I was when I thought I might have to stay thereforever, and have nothing to eat."

  "Say, father," said the son, leaning forward eagerly, "I've a notionI'd like to have that old place in my share. Do you think it could bearranged? The boys won't care, I'm sure; they're always more for thetown than the country."

  "Why, yes, I guess that could be fixed up. You just see Mr. Dalrympleabout it. He'll fix it up. Billy's boy got that place up river, youknow. Just see the lawyer, and he'll fix it up. No reason in theworld why you shouldn't have the old place if you care for it. Notmuch in it for money, though, I guess. They tell me property's waydown out that direction now."

  The talk passed to other matters, and Sidney Graham said nothing abouthis caller of the afternoon, nor of the trip he had taken out to seethe old barn. Instead, he took his father's advice, and saw the familylawyer, Mr. Dalrymple, the first thing in the morning.

  It was all arranged in a few minutes. Mr. Dalrymple called up theother heirs and the children's guardian. An office-boy hurried outwith some papers, and came back with the signatures of heirs andguardians, who happened all to be within reach; and presently thecontrol of the old farm was formally put into the hands of Mr. SidneyGraham, he having signed certain papers agreeing to take this as suchand such portion of his right in the whole estate.

  It had been a simple matter; and yet, when at about half-past eleveno'clock Mr. Dalrymple's stenographer laid a folded paper quietly onSidney Graham's desk and silently left the room, he reached out andtouched it with more satisfaction than he had felt in any acquisitionin a long time, not excepting his last racing-car. It was not thevalue the paper represented, however, that pleased him, but the factthat he would now be able to do as he pleased concerning theprospective tenant for the place, and follow out a curious andinteresting experiment. He wanted to study this girl and see whethershe really had the nerve to go and live in a barn--a girl with a facelike that to live in a barn! He wanted to see what manner of girl shewas, and to have the right to watch her for a little space.

  It is true that the morning light might present her in a very differentaspect from that in which she had appeared the evening before, and hementally reserved the right to turn her down completely if she showedthe least sign of not being all that he had thought her. At the sametime, he intended to be entirely sure. He would not turn her awaywithout a thorough investigation.

  Graham had been greatly interested in the study of social science whenin college, and human nature interested him at all times. He could notbut admit to himself that this girl had taken a most unusual hold uponhis thoughts.