“You sound like Lady Imogen, in ‘The Lost Heiress,’” said Katherine derisively.
“Well, I don’t care, you’ll have to admit that there are some very romantic possibilities, anyway,” said Hinpoha stoutly.
“Yes, and some very prosaic ones, too,” retorted Katherine. “Uncle Jasper probably never married because he was a born bachelor, and preferred to live alone.”
“O Katherine, why are you always taking the joy out of life?” wailed Hinpoha. “It’s lots more fun to think romantic things about people than dull, stupid, everyday things.”
“I think so too,” said Sahwah, unexpectedly coming to the defense of Hinpoha. “I’ve been thinking a lot about old Mr. Carver, living alone here all those years, and I’ve wondered if there wasn’t some reason for it. Certainly something happened that made him put that shutter up, that’s clear.”
“Well, whatever motive the old man may have had for putting it up, we’ll probably never find it out,” said Sherry, gathering up the screws and screwdriver, “inasmuch as he’s dead and it’s no use asking Hercules anything; so we might as well stop puzzling over it. I’ll hunt up something to fill in those screw holes with, Elizabeth, and polish them over.” Sherry, in his matter-of-fact way, had already dismissed the matter from his mind as not worth bothering over.
Not so Nyoda and the Winnebagos. The merest hint of a possible mystery connected with the shutter set them on fire with curiosity and desire to penetrate into its depths.
“I wonder,” said Nyoda musingly, eyeing the massive desk before her with a speculative glance, “if Uncle Jasper left any record of the repairs and improvements which he made to the house while he was the owner. The item of the shutter might be mentioned, with the reason for putting it up.”
“It might,” agreed the Winnebagos.
Nyoda looked around at the litter of odd pieces of furniture crowding the room. “Sherry,” she said briskly, “make up your mind this minute whether you want any of that old stuff, because I’m going to clear it out of here and sell it.”
“A lot of good it would do me to make up my mind to want any of it, if you’ve made up your mind to sell it,” said Sherry in a comically plaintive tone.
“All right,” responded Nyoda tranquilly, “I knew you didn’t want any of it. Boys, will you help Sherry carry out those two tables and that high desk and the chiffonier—all the oak furniture. I’m not keeping anything but the mahogany. Set it out in the hall; I’ll have the furniture man come and get it to-morrow.
“There, now the room looks as it did when Uncle Jasper inhabited it,” she remarked when the extra pieces had been cleared out.
“It certainly was a pleasant room; I don’t see how Uncle Jasper could have maintained such a gloomy disposition as he did, working all day in a room like this. The very sight of that open field out there makes me want to run and shout—and that window! Oh, who could look at it all day long and be crusty and sour?”
“But he had the shutter over the window,” Sahwah reminded her.
“Yes, he did, the poor man!” said Nyoda in a tone of pity. She whisked about the room, straightening out rugs and wiping the dust from the furniture, and soon announced that she was ready to begin investigations. She looked carefully through the desk first, through old account books and files of papers and bills, but came upon nothing that touched upon repairs made to the house. There was a long bookcase running the entire length of one wall, and she tackled this next, while the Winnebagos sat around expectantly and Sylvia looked on from her chair, which she could move herself from place to place, to her infinite delight.
The boys had gone downstairs with Sherry to hear reminiscences from “across.” All three boys worshipped Sherry like a god. To have been “across,” to have seen actual fighting, to have been cited for bravery, and finally to have been shipwrecked, were experiences for which the younger boys would have given their ears, and they treated Sherry with a deferential respect that actually embarrassed him at times.
Nyoda opened the bookcase and began taking out the books that crowded the shelves, opening them one by one and examining their contents. Most of them were works on history, some of them Uncle Jasper’s own; great solid looking volumes with fine print and dingy leather bindings. Ancient history, nearly all of them, and nowhere among them anything so modern as to concern Carver House.
“What a collection of dry-as-dust works to have for your most intimate reading matter!” exclaimed Nyoda, making a wry face at the books. “Not a single book of verse, not a single romance or book of fiction, not the ghost of a love story! There are plenty of them downstairs in the library, that belonged to Uncle Jasper’s father and mother, who must have had quite a lively taste in reading, judging from the books down there; but Hercules told me that Uncle Jasper hadn’t opened the cases down there for twenty-five years. He never read anything but this ancient stuff up here.
“He did write one book that had some life in it, though,” she continued musingly. “That was a story of the life of Elizabeth Carver, his great grandmother, the one whose portrait hangs downstairs over the harp in the drawing-room. He’s got all her various love affairs in it, and it’s anything but dry. I sat up a whole night reading it the time I came across it in the library down below. But from the date of its publishing, Uncle Jasper must have been a very young man when he wrote it, probably before the ancient history spider bit him.”
“And before the shutter went up,” added Sahwah.
“Well,” said Nyoda, after she had peeped into nearly every book in the bookcase, “there doesn’t seem to be anything here more modern than the Fall of Rome, and that’s still several seasons behind the affairs of Carver House. Hello, what’s this?” she suddenly exclaimed, holding up a book she had just picked up, one that had fallen down behind the others on the shelf.
It was a fat, ledger-like volume heavily bound in calfskin. There was no title printed on the back of it and Nyoda opened the cover. Two truly terrifying figures greeted her eyes, drawn in India ink on the yellowed page; figures of two pirates with fiercely bristling mustachios, and brandishing scimitars half as large as themselves. Nyoda quite jumped, their attitude was so menacing. Under one was printed in red ink, “Tad the Terror,” and under the other “Jasper the Feend.” Underneath the two figures was printed in sprawling capitals:
DIERY OF JASPER M. CARVER, ESQWIRE
Nyoda gave a little shriek of laughter and held it up for the Winnebagos to see. “It must be Uncle Jasper’s Diary when he was a boy,” she said. “His youthful idea of a man is a rather bloodthirsty one, according to the portrait, I must say. I suppose ‘Jasper the Feend’ is supposed to be Uncle Jasper. His mustachios bristle more fiercely than the other’s, and his scimitar is longer, so without doubt he was the artist.”
Her eyes ran down the pages following, glancing at the lines of writing, which, having apparently been done in India ink, were still black, although the page on which they were written was yellow with age. As she read, her eyes began to sparkle with interest and enjoyment.
“O girls,” she exclaimed, “this is the best thing I’ve read in ages. Sherry and the boys must see it. I have to go and get lunch started now, but all of you come together after lunch and I’ll read it out loud to you.”
“We’ll all help,” said Migwan, “and then we’ll get through faster,” and the Winnebagos hurried downstairs in Nyoda’s wake.
CHAPTER VI
UNCLE JASPER’S DIARY
After lunch the Winnebagos and the boys gathered around Nyoda in Uncle Jasper’s study to hear her read aloud from “The Diery of Jasper M. Carver, Esqwire.” She held the book up that all might see the portraits of the fearsome pirates, and then turned over to the next page, where the sprawly, uneven writing began, and started to read.
“October 7, 1870. Confined to the house through bad behavior while father and mother have gone to the fair. I wasn’t lonesome though because I had company. A boy ran into the yard chasing a cat and saw me stic
king my head out of the upstairs window and blew a bean shooter at me and hit me on the chin and I hit him with an apple core and then he dared me to come out and lick him but I couldn’t go out of the house so I dared him to climb up the porch post and come in the window. He came and I licked him. He is a new boy in town and his name is Sydney Phillips, but he wants to be called Tad. He lives up on Harrison Hill. We are going to be pirates when we grow up. I am going to be Jasper the Feend and he is going to be Tad the Terror. We swore eternul frendship and wrote our names in blood on the attic window sill.”
“Oh, how delicious!” cried Sahwah at the end of the first entry. “Your uncle must have been lots of fun when he was young. What crazy things boys are, anyway! To start out by fighting each other and end up by swearing eternal friendship! Go on, Nyoda, what did they do next?”
Nyoda proceeded.
“November 10, 1870. Tad and I made a great discovery this afternoon. There is a secret passage in this house. It is—”
The concerted shriek of triumph that went up from the Winnebagos forced Nyoda to pause.
“I told you there was!” shouted Sahwah above the rest. “Please hurry and read where it is, I can’t wait another minute!”
Nyoda turned the page and then paused. “The next page is torn out,” she said, holding the book up so they could all see the ragged strip of paper left hanging in the binding, where the page had been torn out.
“Oh, what a shame!” The wail rose on every side.
“Maybe it tells later,” said Sahwah hopefully. “Go on, Nyoda.”
The dairy continued on a page numbered six.
“January 4, 1871. Tad and I played pirate today. We made a pirate’s den in the secret passage. We are going to hide our chests of money there, all pieces of eight. We haven’t any pieces of eight yet just some red, white and blue dollars we found in the desk drawer in the library. Tad thinks maybe they are patriotick curency they used in the Revolushun”
Nyoda had to wait a minute until Sherry had got done laughing, and then she proceeded:
“February 19, 1871. I am in durrance vile, being locked in my room for a week with nothing to eat but bread and water because I shut Patricia up in the secret passage and went away and forgot all about her because there was a fire. I remembered and let her out as soon as I got home but she had fainted, being a silly girl and afraid of the dark, and she couldn’t scream because we tied a handkerchief over her mouth when we kidnapped her, being pirates. So now I am in durrance vile and cannot see any of my family, not even Tad. But he stands behind the hedge and shoots pieces of candy through my window with the bean shooter and lightens my durrance vile which is what a sworn frend has to do when their names are written in blood on the attic window sill.”
Thus the entries in the scrawling, boyish hand covered page after page, recounting the adventurous and ofttimes seamy career of the two youthful pirates, through all of which the two stood up for each other stanchly, and never, never gave each other away, because they were “sworn frends till deth us do part,” and their names were “written in blood on the attic window sill.”
The entries became farther apart after a while, and the spelling improved until finally there came this announcement:
“Tad and I can’t be pirates any longer. We are going to college next week.”
There the India ink ceased and also the illustrations. After that came page after page of neat entries in faded but still legible blue ink, telling of the progress through college of the two boys; chronicles of the joys, the troubles, the triumphs and the escapades of the two friends, still so inseparable that their names have become a byword among the students and they go by the nickname of David and Jonathan. When one of them gets into trouble the other one still does “what a sworn friend has to do when their names are written in blood on the attic window sill.” The Winnebagos listened with shining eyes while Nyoda read the tale of this remarkable friendship.
The dates of the entries moved forward by months; records of scrapes became fewer and fewer; David and Jonathan had outgrown their colthood and were beginning to win honors with brain and brawn. Then came the record of their graduation and return to Oakwood; of “Tad the Terror” becoming a doctor, of the marriage of Jasper’s sister Patricia to a sea captain; the death of his father and the passing of Carver House into his possession.
Later came the account of a delightful year spent abroad with Tad Phillips, of mountain climbing in the Alps; of browsing among rare old art treasures in France and Italy; of gay larks in Paris. It was always he and Tad, he and Tad; still as loyal to each other as in the days when they wrote their names in blood on the attic window sill.
After the entry which chronicled Jasper’s return to Oakland and settling down in Carver House with his mother, and his enthusiastic adoption of literature as a profession, came an item which made the Winnebagos sit up and listen. It was:
“June 3, 1885. I have had a new window put into my study on the side which faces toward’s Tad’s house on Harrisburg Hill. I had the young Italian artist, Pusini, who has lately come to New York, come and set the glass for me. It is a representation of a charming scene I came across in Italy—an arched gateway covered over with climbing roses. The window is arranged so that through the arch of the gateway I can look directly at Tad’s house. It gives me inspiration in my work.”
“What a beautiful idea!” said Hinpoha, carried away completely by the great love of Jasper Carver for his friend, so simply expressed in his diary.
“So that was Tad’s house, that we are living in!” said Sylvia excitedly. “I wonder where he is now.”
“Go on reading, Nyoda,” said Sahwah, consumed with interest in the tale. “See if he says anything about the shutter.” Nyoda passed on to the next entry.
“June 27, 1885. Went to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia to hear Sylvia Warrington sing. She is the new singer from the South that has created such a furore. The Virginia Nightingale, they call her. What a God-gifted woman she is! There never was such a voice as hers. She sang ‘Hark, hark, the lark,’ and the whole house rose to its feet. She was Spring incarnate. Sylvia Warrington! The name itself is music. I cannot forget her. She is like a lark singing in the desert at dawning.”
A vague remembrance leaped up for an instant in Katherine’s mind and died as it came.
Nyoda read on through pages that recorded Uncle Jasper’s meeting with Sylvia Warrington; his great and growing love for her; his persistent wooing, her consenting to marry him; his wild happiness, which found vent in page after page of rapturous plans for the future. Then came the announcement of Tad’s return from a period of study abroad, and Uncle Jasper’s proud presentation of his bride-to-be. After that Tad’s name appeared in connection with every occasion, still the faithful David to his beloved Jonathan.
Then, almost without warning, the great friendship ran on the rocks and was shattered. For Tad no sooner saw Sylvia Warrington than he too, fell madly in love with her. A brief and bitter entry told how she finally broke her engagement to Uncle Jasper and married Tad, and how Uncle Jasper, beside himself with grief and disappointment, turned against his friend and hated him with the undying hate that is born of jealousy. With heavy strokes of the pen that cut the paper he wrote down his determination to have no more friends and to live to himself thereafter. Then, in a shaky hand in marked contrast to the fierce strokes just above, he wrote: “But Sylvia—I love her still. I can’t help it.” That shaky handwriting stood as a mute testimonial to his heart’s torment, and Nyoda, reading it after all these years, felt a sympathetic spasm of pain pass through her own heart at the sight of that wavering entry.
“It’s just like a story in a book!” exclaimed Hinpoha, furtively drying her eyes, which had overflowed during the reading of the last page. “The beautiful lady, and the rival lovers, and the disappointed one never marrying. Oh, it’s too romantic for anything! Oh, please hurry and read what comes next.”
Nyoda turned the page and read the br
ief entry:
“I have taken up the study of ancient history as a serious pursuit. In it I hope to find forgetfulness.”
The eyes of the Winnebagos traveled to the bookcase, and now they knew why there was nothing there but dull old books in heavy bindings, and why Uncle Jasper Carver hated love stories.
The next entry had them all sitting up again.
“I have had Hercules fasten an iron shutter over the window in my study—the one through which I can see Tad’s house when I sit at my desk. I cannot bear to look at anything that reminds me of him.”
“There!” shouted all the Winnebagos at once. “That was the reason for putting up the iron shutter! The mystery is solved!”
“Poor Uncle Jasper!” said Nyoda pityingly. “What a Spartan he was! How thoroughly he set about removing every memory of Tad from his mind! Think of covering up that beautiful pane of glass because he couldn’t bear to look through it at the house of his friend!” She finished reading the entry:
“Hercules demurred at covering up the window—he admired it more than anything else in the house—so to give him a satisfactory reason for doing so I told him the devil would come in through that gateway some day and I was putting up the shutter to keep him out. There’s one thing sure; Hercules will never take that shutter down as long as he lives—he’s scared nearly into a Chinaman.”
“So that’s why Hercules threw such a fit when we took the shutter off!” said Sherry. “He thought that now the devil would come in and get him. Poor, superstitious old nigger!”
“I wonder if Tad and Sylvia went to live in the house on Harrisburg Hill,” said Sahwah curiously. “He doesn’t say whether they did or not.”
“Oh, I wonder if they did!” cried Sylvia, with eager interest. “To think I’ve been living in the same house they lived in—if they did live there,” she added. “But how strange it seems to hear them call that place Harrisburg Hill. It is called Main Street Hill now.”
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