Dorothy at Skyrie

As she paused this straightforward old lady looked at Mrs. Montaigne with a questioning glance; but receiving no comprehending glance in return addressed herself to her late opponent in law.

"Won't you let Mr. Chester take your place in your carriage, Mr. Montaigne, and you walk alongside me? It's such a low, easy vehicle and it's a good bit of a way back to Skyrie. I'm going there myself, and there couldn't be a better time than this for all of us to call upon our new neighbors. I'm sure we're all delighted to have them among us."

There was nothing for it but compliance. Though his face reddened and he would far rather have walked, or hobbled, twice the distance than become an enforced recipient of the Montaigne courtesy, John Chester felt that this old gentlewoman had been and was too true a friend for him to offend by not falling in with her proposal.

On his own part, Archibald Montaigne winced at the picture of this crippled ex-postman riding in state beside his wife and daughter, yet dared not refuse, lest by so doing he would close the door to that future intimacy which he coveted. He felt that this intimacy with Mrs. Cecil, personally, might be anything but agreeable; yet in her old white hands lay the key to the social situation which was his latest ambition.

There ensued but the briefest hesitation, during which there issued from Seth Winters's lips an amused, reproachful exclamation:

"O Betty, Betty! Never too old for mischief!"

But none heard the words save "Betty," who smiled as she did so. The others were helping Mr. Chester into the carriage and settling him comfortably there, with an ostentatious kindness on the part of Mr. Montaigne which the ex-postman inwardly resented. Then the coachman started his team forward, and the justice returned to his smithy, cheerily calling out:

"Well, lad, we've come out of that business with flying colors! It was the presence of Mrs. Calvert which did the most for us, though the man has more sense than appeared, yesterday, else he wouldn't – Why, Jim? James? Jimmy?"

There was no response. None but the office cat answered this summons. The defendant in this remarkable suit had vanished.

CHAPTER VIII

A WALK AND ITS ENDING

It was with great surprise that the dwellers in the houses along the way saw the contestants in a case of law returning from the trial in the most harmonious manner.

First came the Montaigne equipage, with Mrs. Montaigne and Helena upon the back seat, the latter sitting stiffly erect and haughty, the former chatting most pleasantly with the cripple facing her. Behind the carriage walked Mrs. Calvert and Mrs. Chester, both in the gayest of spirits and talking volubly of household matters; as mother Martha afterward described it:

"Might have been plain Mrs. Bruce, or Jane Jones herself, Mrs. Cecil might, she was that simple and plain spoke. She's going to have her currant jell' made right away, even whilst the currants are half green. Says she's read it was better so, and though she's afraid her old cook'll 'act up' about it she's bound to try. She said that when a body gets too old to learn – even about cookin' – it's time to give up living. Land! She's not one that will give it up till she has to! I never saw anybody as full of plans as that old lady is. You'd think she was just starting out in life instead of being so nigh the end of it, and I guess she thought I was s'prised to hear her tell. Because she caught me looking at her once, right sharp, and she laughed and said: 'I'm one of the people who can't settle down, I'm so many years young!' Why, she might have been Dolly, even, she was so full of fun over the way that lawsuit ended. I know 'twas that that pleased her so, though she never mentioned it from the time we left the shop till we got back to Skyrie. Well, green currants may make the jell' solider, but I shall wait till just before the Fourth, as I always have, to make mine: and I'm thankful for the few old currant bushes that still grow along that east wall. Almost any other kind of shrub'd have died long ago, neglected as things have been, but you can't kill a currant bush. More'n that, when I get my jell' done I'm going to send Mrs. Calvert a tumbler and compare notes. I reckon mine'll come out head, for I never was one to take up with everything one reads in the papers, nor cook books, either."

Which shows that, despite her previous objections to it, that morning's excursion to the haunts of justice proved a very enjoyable one to the rather lonely little woman from the city, who found the enforced quiet of the country one of her greatest privations.

Following their elders came also Dorothy C. and Herbert, who had slipped from his saddle to walk beside his new acquaintance, and she was already chatting with him as if they had always known each other. To both the world of "outdoors" meant everything. To him because of the gunning, fishing, riding, and rowing; to her because of its never-ending marvels, of scenery, of growing things, and of the songs of birds.

"I tell you what – Steady, Bucephalus!" cried Herbert to the restless animal he led and whose prancing made Dorothy jump aside, now and then, lest she should be trampled upon. "I tell you what! The very next time I go out fishing in the Merry Chanter, my catboat, I'll coax sister to go, too, and you must come with us. If she will! But Helena's such a 'fraid-cat and Miss Milliken – she's my sister's governess – is about as bad. There's some excuse for Helena because she is real delicate. Nerves or chest or something, I don't know just what nor does anybody else, I fancy. But the Milliken! Wait till you see her, then talk about nerves. Say, Miss Dorothy – "

"I'm just plain Dorothy, yet."

"Good enough. I like that. I knew you were the right stuff the minute I looked at you. I – you're not a goody-good girl nor a 'fraid-cat, now are you?" demanded Herbert, anxiously.

"No, indeed! I'm not a bit good. I wish I were! And I'm not often afraid of —things. But I am of folks – some folks," she answered with a little shudder.

"Yes, I know about that. Just like a story out of a book, your being stolen was. But never mind. That's gone by. Do you like to fish?"

"I never fished," said Dorothy, with some decision.

"You'll learn. The old Hudson's the jolliest going for all sorts of fish. There's an old fellow at the Landing generally goes out with me and the rest the boys. He's a champion oarsman, old as he is, and as for – Say! Ever taste a planked shad?"

"No, never."

"You shall! Old Joe Wampers shall fix us one the first time we go out on the river. He can cook as well as he can fish, and some of us fellows had a camp set up on the old Point, last year. I haven't been over there yet, this summer, but it's all mine anyhow. When it came fall and the others had to go back to school they – well, they were short on cash and long on camp, so I bought them out. You like flowers? Ever gather any water lilies?"

"Like them? I just love them, love them! Of course, I never gathered water lilies, for I've always lived in the city. But I've often – I mean, sometimes – bought them out of pails, down by Lexington Market. Five or ten cents a bunch, according to the size. I always tried to save up and get a big bunch for mother Martha on her birthday. I used to envy the boys that had them for sale and wish I could go and pick them for myself. But – but I've seen pictures of them as they really grow," concluded Dorothy C., anxious that Herbert should not consider her too ignorant.

However, it was not the fact that she had never gathered lilies which had caught his attention; it was that one little sentence: "to save up." He really could scarcely imagine a state of things in which anybody would have to "save" the insignificant amount of five or ten cents, in order to buy a parent a bunch of flowers. Instantly, he was filled with keen compassion for this down-trodden little maid who was denied the use of abundant pocket money, and with as great an indignation against the parents who would so mistreat a child – such a pretty child as Dorothy C. Of course, it was because the niggardly creatures were only parents by adoption; and – at that moment there entered the brain of this young gentleman a scheme by which many matters should be righted. The suddenness and beauty of the idea almost took his breath away, but he kept his thought to himself and returned to the practical suggestion of planked shad.

"Well, sir, – I mean, Dorothy, – a planked shad is about the most delicious morsel a fellow ever put in his mouth. First, catch your shad. Old Joe does that in a twinkling. Then while it's still flopping, he scales and cleans it, splits it open, nails it on a board, seasons it well with salt and pepper, and stands it up before a rousing fire we've built on the ground. U'm'm – Yum! In about half or three-quarters of an hour it's done. Then with the potatoes we've roasted in the ashes and plenty of bread and butter and a pot of coffee – Well, words fail. You'll have to taste that feast to know what it means. All the better, too, if you've been rowing for practice all morning. Old Joe Wampers coaches college crews even yet, and once he went over with Columbia to Henley. That's the time he tells about whenever he gets a chance. 'The time of his life' he calls it, and that's not slang, either. Say. What's to hinder our doing it right now? This very afternoon – morning, for that matter, though it's getting rather late to go before lunch, I suppose. I'll tell you! Just you mention to your folks that you're going on the river, this afternoon, and I'll coax mother to make Helena and the Milliken go, too. Then I'll ride right away down to the Landing and get old Joe warmed up to the subject. He's getting a little stiff in the joints of his good nature, but a good dose of flattery'll limber him up considerable. Besides, when he hears it's for that real heroine of a kidnapping story everybody was talking about, he'll be willing enough. I'll tell him you never tasted planked shad nor saw one cooked, and he'll just spread himself. 'Poor as a June shad,' he said yesterday, when I begged for one, though that's all nonsense. They're good yet. Will you?"

He paused for breath, his words having fairly tumbled over each other in their rapidity, and was utterly amazed to hear Dorothy reply:

"No, thank you, I will not. Nothing would tempt me."

"Why, Dorothy Chester! What do you mean?" he asked, incredulous that anybody, least of all an inexperienced girl, should resist the tempting prospect that he had spread before her.

"I wouldn't touch to taste one of those horrible 'flopping' fish! I couldn't. I wouldn't – not for anything. I should feel like a murderer. So there!"

"Whew! George and the cherry tree! You wouldn't? 'Not for anything?' Not even for a chance to sail along over a lovely piece of water, dabbling your hand in it, and pulling out great, sweet-smelling flowers? 'Course, you needn't see the shad 'flop.' I only said that to show how fresh we get them. Why, I coaxed even dad over to camp once and I've always wanted Helena to go. Pshaw! I am disappointed."

"I don't see why nor how you can be much. You didn't know me till an hour ago – or less, even. And I'm disappointed too. You didn't look like a boy who would" – Dorothy paused and gave her new acquaintance a critical glance – "who would kill things!"

"Nor you like a silly, sentimental girl. 'Kill things!' Don't you ever eat fish? Or beef? or dear little gentle chickens?" demanded this teasing lad, as he quieted his horse and prepared to mount, though at the same time managing to keep that animal so directly in Dorothy's path that she had to stand still for a moment till he should move aside.

She frowned, then laughed, acknowledging:

"Of course I do. I mean I have; but – seems to me now as if I never would again."

"Well, I'm sorry; and – Good-morning, Miss Chester!"

Away he went, lifting his hat in the direction of the people ahead, looking an extremely handsome young fellow in his riding clothes, and sitting the fiery Bucephalus with such ease that lad and steed seemed but part and parcel of each other. Yet his whole manner was now one of disapproval, and the acquaintance which had begun so pleasantly seemed destined to prove quite the contrary.

"He's a horrid, cruel boy! Kills birds and things just for fun! He isn't half as nice as Jim Barlow, for all he's so much better looking and richer. Poor Jim! He felt so ashamed to have made everybody so much trouble. I wish – I wish he'd come with us instead of that Herbert: " thought the little maid so unceremoniously deserted by her new friend.

"She's just a plain, silly, 'fraid-cat of a girl, after all!" were the reflections of the young horseman, as he galloped away, and with these he dismissed her from his mind.

Now it happened that Mrs. Calvert liked young folks much better than she did old ones, and the conversation which she had rendered so delightful to Mrs. Chester, during that homeward walk, was far less interesting to herself than the fragments of talk which reached her from the girl and boy behind her. So when the hoofs of Bucephalus clattered away in an opposite direction, she turned to Dorothy and mischievously inquired:

"What's the matter, little girl? Isn't he the sort of boy you like? You don't look pleased."

Dorothy's frown vanished as she ran forward to take the hand held toward her and she answered readily enough, as she put herself "in step" with her elders:

"I would like him – lots, if he didn't – if he wasn't such a killer. I like his knowing so much about birds and animals – he says he can whistle a squirrel out of a tree, any time, and that's more than even Jim can do. At least I never heard him say he could. And Jim Barlow will not kill anything. He simply will not. Even old Mrs. Stott had to kill her own poultry for the market though she'd strap him well for refusing. All the reason he'd tell her was that he could not make anything live, so he didn't think he'd any right to make it die. Mrs. Calvert, have – have you forgiven poor Jim for letting the dogs get away? and me too? Because I know he feels terrible. I do, and it makes me sort of ashamed to have you so kind to me when it was part my carelessness – "

"There, there, child! Have done with that affair. It was more amusing than annoying, for a time, and after I found my Danes were safe; but I hate old stories repeated, and that story is finished – for the present. There'll be more to come, naturally. One can't make a single new acquaintance without many unexpected things following. For instance: John Chester riding so familiarly in Archibald Montaigne's carriage and talking – Well, talking almost as his little daughter has been doing with her new friend. I overheard Mrs. Montaigne mention something about having once been a patient at a hospital in our city and that was the 'open sesame' to 'Johnnie's' confidence. Oh! it's a dear old world, isn't it? Where enemies can change into friends, all in one morning: and where people whom we didn't know at breakfast time have become our intimates by the dinner hour. This is a glorious day! See. We are almost at the turn of the road that leads to Skyrie. Slowly as we have come it hasn't taken us long. I'm glad I walked. It has done me good and – given my neighbors yonder a chance to know one another."

"I'm glad, too. I haven't enjoyed myself so much since we moved here, only, of course, when Dolly got home," responded Mrs. Chester. "Yet what an angry, disgusted woman I was when I went over this road before, lawsuit-wards, so to speak."

They were almost at the corner when Dorothy cast a last glance backward and exclaimed:

"I don't see Jim anywhere. Why do you suppose he didn't come? Where do you suppose he is?"

"Well, little girl, my supposing is that he felt himself not one with any of our party. 'Neither hay nor grass' he would likely express it. That's for his not coming. As for where he is now I suppose, to a degree that is certainty, that he is – doing his duty! From my brief acquaintance with the lad I judge that to be his principal idea. His duty, this morning, would have been the transplanting of the celery seedlings, which yesterday's events delayed. If we could look through the trees between us and my vegetable garden I believe we should see him bending over the rows of little green plants, oblivious to all that's going on around him, so intent is he on making up for lost time and not cheating his employer by wasting it. Jim Barlow is all right. I was angry enough with him yesterday, for a while, but I can do him justice, to-day."