“Yes,” he briefly replied.
As he was leaving the house after breakfast he fixed his stare on Irene and said to her:
“In New York I ran across a lot of second-hand books at an auction sale — old novels and romances which you will probably like. I bought the lot and shipped them home. If they arrive in time you can take them to Hillcrest and they will keep you reading all summer.”
“Oh, thank you, Uncle Peter!” exclaimed the chair-girl gratefully.
“Have you any — any — news of Gran’pa Jim?” asked Mary Louise diffidently.
“No,” he said and walked away.
During the few days that remained before their exodus they were busy preparing for the anticipated vacation. Summer gowns had to be looked over and such things gathered together as might be useful during their two months’ stay at Hillcrest.
“Of course no one will see us,” remarked Aunt Hannah; “it’s really the jumping-off place of the world; but Will Morrison has made it as cosy as possible and we three, with just Peter at the week-ends, can amuse one another without getting lonely. Peter will fish in the mountain streams, of course, and that’s the reason he is allowing us to go. We’ve visited the Morrisons two or three times at the Lodge and Peter has fished for trout every minute he was there.”
“Who are the Morrisons?” asked Mary Louise.
“Will Morrison is a rich banker and his wife Sallie was an old schoolmate of mine. The Lodge is only a little resort of theirs, you know, for in the city they live in grand style. I know you girls will enjoy the place, for the scenery is delightful and the clear mountain air mighty invigorating.”
All girls delight in change of location and although Irene was a little worried over the difficulties of getting to Hillcrest Lodge in her crippled condition, she was as eager to go as was Mary Louise. And she made the trip more comfortably than she had feared.
At Millbank the stage-driver fixed a comfortable seat for her in his carryall and loaded the boxes and baggage and the wheeled chair and the box of books — which had arrived from New York — on the railed top of his bus, and then they drove away through a rough but picturesque country that drew from the girls many exclamations of delight.
Presently they came to a small group of dwellings called the “Huddle,” which lay at the foot of the mountain. Then up a winding path the four horses labored patiently, halting often to rest and get their breaths. At such times the passengers gloried in the superb views of the valley and its farms and were never impatient to proceed. They passed one or two modest villas, for this splendid location had long ago been discovered by a few others besides Will Morrison who loved to come here for their vacations and so escape the maddening crowds of the cities.
Aunt Hannah had planned the trip with remarkable accuracy, for at about three o’clock the lumbering stage stopped at a pretty chalet half hidden among the tall pines and overlooking a steep bluff. Here the baggage and boxes were speedily unloaded.
“I gotta git back ter meet the aft’noon train,” said Bill Coombs, their driver. “They won’t be any more passingers in this direction, tain’t likely, ‘cause the houses ‘roun’ here is mighty scattered an’ no one’s expectin’ nobody, as I know of. But in the other direction from Millbank — Sodd Corners way — I may catch a load, if I’m lucky.”
So back he drove, leaving the Conants’ traps by the roadside, and Peter began looking around for Morrison’s man. The doors of the house were fast locked, front and rear. There was no one in the barn or the shed-like garage, where a rusty looking automobile stood. Peter looked around the grounds in vain. Then he whistled. Afterward he began bawling out “Hi, there!” in a voice that echoed lonesomely throughout the mountain side.
And, at last, when they were all beginning to despair, a boy came slouching around a corner of the house, from whence no one could guess. He was whittling a stick and he continued to whittle while he stared at the unexpected arrivals and slowly advanced. When about fifteen paces away he halted, with feet planted well apart, and bent his gaze sturdily on his stick and knife. He was barefooted, dressed in faded blue-jeans overalls and a rusty gingham shirt — the two united by a strap over one shoulder — and his head was covered by a broad Scotch golf cap much too big for him and considerably too warm for the season.
“Come here!” commanded Mr. Conant.
The boy did not move, therefore the lawyer advanced angrily toward him.
“Why didn’t you obey me?” he asked.
“They’s gals there. I hates gals,” said the boy in a confidential tone.
“Any sort o’ men critters I kin stand, but gals gits my goat.”
“Who are you?” inquired Mr. Conant.
“Me? I’m jus’ Bub.”
“Where is Mr. Morrison’s man?”
“Meanin’ Talbot? Gone up to Mark’s Peak, to guide a gang o’ hunters f’m the city.”
“When did he go?” asked the lawyer.
“I guess a Tuesday. No — a Wednesday.”
“And when will he be back?”
The boy whittled, abstractedly.
“Answer me!”
“How kin I? D’ye know where Mark’s Peak is?”
“No.”
“It takes a week ter git thar; they’ll likely hunt two er three weeks; mebbe more; ye kin tell that as well as I kin. Mister Will’s gone ter You-RUPP with Miss’ Morrison, so Talbot he won’t be in no hurry ter come back.”
“Great Caesar! Here’s a pretty mess. Are you Talbot’s boy?”
“Nope. I’m a Grigger, an’ live over in the holler, yonder.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Earnin’ two bits a week.”
“How?”
“Lookin’ after the place.”
“Very well. Mr. Morrison has given us permission to use the Lodge while he is away, so unlock the doors and help get the baggage in.”
The boy notched the stick with his knife, using great care.
“Talbot didn’t say nuth’n’ ‘bout that,” he remarked composedly.
Mr. Conant uttered an impatient ejaculation. It was one of his peculiarities to give a bark similar to that of a dog when greatly annoyed. After staring at the boy a while he took out Will Morrison’s letter to Talbot, opened it and held it before Bub’s face.
“Read that!” he cried.
Bub grinned and shook his head.
“I kain’t read,” he said.
Mr. Conant, in a loud and severe voice, read Mr. Morrison’s instruction to his man Talbot to do everything in his power to make the Conants comfortable and to serve them as faithfully as he did his own master. The boy listened, whittling slowly. Then he said:
“Mebbe that’s all right; an’ ag’in, mebbe tain’t. Seein’ as I kain’t read I ain’t goin’ ter take no one’s word fer it.”
“You insolent brat!” exclaimed Peter Conant, highly incensed. Then he turned and called: “Come here, Mary Louise.”
Mary Louise promptly advanced and with every step she made the boy retreated a like distance, until the lawyer seized his arm and held it in a firm grip.
“What do you mean by running away?” he demanded.
“I hates gals,” retorted Bub sullenly.
“Don’t be a fool. Come here, Mary Louise, and read this letter to the boy, word for word.”
Mary Louise, marking the boy’s bashfulness and trying to restrain a smile, read Mr. Morrison’s letter.
“You see,” said the lawyer sharply, giving Bub a little shake, “those are the exact words of the letter. We’re going to enter the Lodge and take possession of it, as Mr. Morrison has told us to do, and if you don’t obey my orders I shall give you a good flogging. Do you understand that?”
Bub nodded, more cheerfully.
“If ye do it by force,” said he, “that lets me out. Nobody kin blame me if I’m forced.”
Mary Louise laughed so heartily that the boy cast an upward, half-approving glance at her face. Even Mr. Conant’s stern
visage relaxed.
“See here, Bub,” he said, “obey my orders and no harm can come to you.
This letter is genuine and if you serve us faithfully while we are here
I’ll — I’ll give you four bits a week.”
“Heh? Four bits!”
“Exactly. Four bits every week.”
“Gee, that’ll make six bits a week, with the two Talbot’s goin’ ter give me. I’m hanged ef I don’t buy a sweater fer next winter, afore the cold weather comes!”
“Very good,” said Mr. Conant. “Now get busy and let us in.”
Bub deliberately closed the knife and put it in his pocket, tossing away the stick.
“Gals,” he remarked, with another half glance at Mary Louise, “ain’t ter my likin’; but FOUR BITS — ”
He turned and walked away to where a wild rosebush clambered over one corner of the Lodge. Pushing away the thick, thorny branches with care, he thrust in his hand and drew out a bunch of keys.
“If it’s jus’ the same t’ you, sir, I’d ruther ye’d snatch ‘em from my hand,” he suggested. “Then, if I’m blamed, I kin prove a alibi.”
Mr. Conant was so irritated that he literally obeyed the boy’s request and snatched the keys. Then he led the way to the front door.
“It’s that thin, brass one,” Bub hinted.
Mr. Conant opened the front door. The place was apparently in perfect order.
“Go and get Hannah and Irene, please,” said Peter to Mary Louise, and soon they had all taken possession of the cosy Lodge, had opened the windows and aired it and selected their various bedrooms.
“It is simply delightful!” exclaimed Irene, who was again seated in her wheeled chair, “and, if Uncle Peter will build a little runway from the porch to the ground, as he did at home, I shall be able to go and come as I please.”
Meantime Aunt Hannah — as even Mary Louise now called Mrs. Conant — ransacked the kitchen and cupboards to discover what supplies were in the house. There was a huge stock of canned goods, which Will Morrison had begged them to use freely, and the Conants had brought a big box of other groceries with them, which was speedily unpacked.
While the others were thus engaged in settling and arranging the house, Irene wheeled her chair to the porch, on the steps of which sat Bub, again whittling. He had shown much interest in the crippled girl, whose misfortune seemed instantly to dispel his aversion for her sex, at least so far as she was concerned. He was not reluctant even to look at her face and he watched with astonishment the ease with which she managed her chair. Having overheard, although at a distance, most of the boy’s former conversation with Uncle Peter, Irene now began questioning him.
“Have you been eating and sleeping here?”
“Of course,” answered Bub.
“In the Lodge?”
“No; over in Talbot’s house. That’s over the ridge, yonder; it’s only a step, but ye kain’t see it f’m here. My home’s in the South Holler, four mile away.”
“Do you cook your own meals?”
“Nobudy else ter do it.”
“And don’t you get dreadfully lonesome at night?”
“Who? Me? Guess not. What the Sam Hill is they to be lonesome over?”
“There are no near neighbors, are there?”
“Plenty. The Barker house is two mile one way an’ the Bigbee house is jus’ half a mile down the slope; guess ye passed it, comin’ up; but they ain’t no one in the Bigbee house jus’ now, ‘cause Bigbee got shot on the mount’n las’ year, a deer hunt’n’, an’ Bigbee’s wife’s married another man what says he’s delicate like an’ can’t leave the city. But neighbors is plenty. Six mile along the canyon lives Doolittle.”
Irene was delighted with Bub’s quaint language and ways and before Mrs. Conant called her family to the simple improvised dinner the chair-girl had won the boy’s heart and already they were firm friends.
CHAPTER XIV
A CALL FROM AGATHA LORD
Hillcrest Lodge was perched upon a broad shelf of the wooded mountain, considerably nearer to the bottom than to the top, yet a stiff climb from the plain below. Behind it was a steep cliff; in front there was a gradual descent covered with scrub but affording a splendid view of the lowlands. At one side was the rocky canyon with its brook struggling among the boulders, and on the other side the roadway that wound up the mountain in zigzag fashion, selecting the course of least resistance.
Will Morrison was doubtless a mighty hunter and an expert fisherman, for the “den” at the rear of the Lodge was a regular museum of trophies of the chase. Stag and doe heads, enormous trout mounted on boards, antlers of wild mountain sheep, rods, guns, revolvers and hunting-knives fairly lined the wails, while a cabinet contained reels, books of flies, cartridge belts, creels and many similar articles. On the floor were rugs of bear, deer and beaver. A shelf was filled with books on sporting subjects. There was a glass door that led onto a little porch at the rear of the Lodge and a big window that faced the cliff.
This sanctum of the owner rather awed the girls when first they examined it, but they found it the most fascinating place in all the house and Irene was delighted to be awarded the bedroom that adjoined it. The other bedrooms were on the upper floor.
“However,” said Mr. Conant to Irene, “I shall reserve the privilege of smoking my evening pipe in this den, for here is a student lamp, a low table and the easiest chairs in all the place. If you keep your bedroom door shut you won’t mind the fumes of tobacco.”
“I don’t mind them anyhow, Uncle Peter,” she replied.
Bub Grigger helped get in the trunks and boxes. He also filled the woodbox in the big living room and carried water from the brook for Aunt Hannah, but otherwise he was of little use to them. His favorite occupation was whittling and he would sit for hours on one of the broad benches overlooking the valley, aimlessly cutting chips from a stick without forming it into any object whatsoever.
“I suppose all this time he is deeply thinking,” said Mary Louise as the girls sat on the porch watching him, the day after their arrival, “but it would be interesting to know what direction Bub’s thoughts take.”
“He must be figuring up his earnings and deciding how long it will take to buy that winter sweater,” laughed Irene. “I’ve had a bit of conversation with the boy already and his ideas struck me as rather crude and undeveloped.”
“One idea, however, is firmly fixed in his mind,” declared Mary Louise.
“He ‘hates gals.’“
“We must try to dispel that notion. Perhaps he has a big sister at home who pounds him, and therefore he believes all girls are alike.”
“Then let us go to him and make friends,” suggested Mary Louise. “If we are gentle with the boy we may win him over.”
Mr. Conant had already made a runway for the chair, so they left the porch and approached Bub, who saw them coming and slipped into the scrub, where he speedily disappeared from view. At other times, also, he shyly avoided the girls, until they began to fear it would be more difficult to “make friends” than they had supposed.
Monday morning Mr. Conant went down the mountain road, valise in hand, and met Bill Coombs the stage-driver at the foot of the descent, having made this arrangement to save time and expense. Peter had passed most of his two days’ vacation in fishing and had been so successful that he promised Aunt Hannah he would surely return the following Friday. He had instructed Bub to “take good care of the womenfolks” during his absence, but no thought of danger occurred to any of them. The Morrisons had occupied the Lodge for years and had never been molested in any way. It was a somewhat isolated place but the country people in the neighborhood were thoroughly honest and trustworthy.
“There isn’t much for us to do here,” said Mary Louise when the three were left alone, “except to read, to eat and to sleep — lazy occupations all. I climbed the mountain a little way yesterday, but the view from the Lodge is the best of all and if you leave the road you tear your dress t
o shreds in the scrub.”
“Well, to read, to eat and to sleep is the very best way to enjoy a vacation,” asserted Aunt Hannah. “Let us all take it easy and have a good time.”
Irene’s box of books which Mr. Conant had purchased for her in New York had been placed in the den, where she could select the volumes as she chose, and the chair-girl found the titles so alluring that she promised herself many hours of enjoyment while delving among them. They were all old and secondhand — perhaps fourth-hand or fifth-hand — as the lawyer had stated, and the covers were many of them worn to tatters; but “books is books,” said Irene cheerily, and she believed they would not prove the less interesting in contents because of their condition. Mostly they were old romances, historical essays and novels, with a sprinkling of fairy tales and books of verse — just the subjects Irene most loved.
“Being exiles, if not regular hermits,” observed the crippled girl, sunning herself on the small porch outside the den, book in hand, “we may loaf and dream to our hearts’ content, and without danger of reproach.”
But not for long were they to remain wholly secluded. On Thursday afternoon they were surprised by a visitor, who suddenly appeared from among the trees that lined the roadway and approached the two girls who were occupying a bench at the edge of the bluff.
The new arrival was a lady of singularly striking appearance, beautiful and in the full flush of womanhood, being perhaps thirty years of age. She wore a smart walking-suit that fitted her rounded form perfectly, and a small hat with a single feather was jauntily perched upon her well-set head. Hair and eyes, almost black, contrasted finely with the bloom on her cheeks. In her ungloved hand she held a small walking-stick.
Advancing with grace and perfect self-possession, she smiled and nodded to the two young girls and then, as Mary Louise rose to greet her, she said:
“I am your nearest neighbor, and so I have climbed up here to get acquainted. I am Agatha Lord, but of course you do not know me, because I came from Boston, whereas you came from — from — ”
“Dorfield,” said Mary Louise. “Pray be seated. Let me present Irene
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 574