The Girls of Hillcrest Farm: or, The Secret of the Rocks

“Hope you’re not going to feel the effects of it later,” said her sister, still anxious.

“I’m all right,” assured the confident ’Phemie.

“I dunno as it’ll be fit for you gals to stay in the old house to-night,” urged Mrs. Pritchett. “You’ll hafter have some wood cut.”

“I’ll do that when I take their stuff up to Hillcrest,” said Lucas, eagerly, but flushing again as though stricken with a sudden fever.

“There are no stoves in the house, I suppose?” Lyddy asked, wistfully.

“Bless ye! Dr. Polly wouldn’t never have a stove in his house, saving a cook-stove in the kitchen, an’ of course, that’s ate up with rust afore this,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “He said open fireplaces assured every room its proper ventilation. He didn’t believe in these new-fangled ways of shuttin’ up chimbleys. My! but he was powerful sot on fresh air an’ sunshine.

“Onct,” pursued Mrs. Pritchett, “he was called to see Mis’ Fibbetts–she that was a widder and lived on ’tother side of the ridge, on the road to Adams. She had a mis’ry of some kind, and was abed with all the winders of her room tight closed.

“‘Open them winders,’ says Dr. Polly to the neighbor what was a-nussin’ of Mis’ Fibbetts.

“Next time he come the winders was down again. Dr. Polly warn’t no gentle man, an’ he swore hard, he did. He flung up the winders himself, an’ stamped out o’ the room.

“It was right keen weather,” chuckled Mrs. Pritchett, her double chins shaking with enjoyment, “and Mis’ Fibbetts was scart to death of a leetle air. Minute Dr. Polly was out o’ sight she made the neighbor woman shet the winders ag’in.

“But when Dr. Polly turned up the ridge road he craned out’n the buggy an’ he seen the winders shet. He jerked his old boss aroun’, drove back to the house, stalked into the sick woman’s room, cane in hand, and smashed every pane of glass in them winders, one after another.

“‘Now I reckon ye’ll git air enough to cure ye ’fore ye git them mended,’ says he, and marched him out again. An’ sure ’nough old Mis’ Fibbetts got well an’ lived ten year after. But she never had a good word for Dr. Polly Phelps, jest the same,” chuckled the narrator.

“Well, we’ll make out somehow about fires,” said Lyddy, cheerfully, “if Lucas can cut us enough wood to keep them going.”

“I sure can,” declared the ever-ready youth, and just here Cyrus Pritchett, having eaten his fill, broke in upon the conversation in a tone that quite startled Lyddy and ’Phemie Bray.

“I wanter know what ye mean to do up there on the old Polly Phelps place?” he asked, pushing back his chair, having set down his coffee-cup noisily, and wiped his cuff across his lips. “I gotta oral contract with Jane Hammon’ to work that farm. It’s been in force year arter year for more’n ten good year. An’ that contract ain’t to be busted so easy.”

“Now, Father!” admonished Mrs. Pritchett; but the old man glared at her and she at once subsided.

Cyrus Pritchett certainly was a masterful man in his own household. Lucas dropped his gaze to his plate and his face flamed again. But Sairy turned actually pale.

Somehow the cross old man did not make Lyddy Bray tremble. She only felt angry that he should be such a bully in his own home.

“Suppose you read Aunt Jane’s letter, Mr. Pritchett,” she said, taking it from her handbag and laying it before the farmer.

The old man grunted and slit the flap of the envelope with his greasy tableknife. He drew his brows down into even a deeper scowl as he read.

“So she turns her part of the contract over to you two chits of gals; does she?” said Mr. Pritchett, at last. “Humph! I don’t think much of that, now I tell ye.”

“Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, firmly, “if you don’t care to work the farm for us on half shares, as you have heretofore with Aunt Jane, pray say so. I assure you we will not be offended.”

“And what’ll you do then?” he growled.

“If you refuse to put in a crop for us?”

“Ya-as.”

“Get some other neighboring farmer to do so,” replied Lyddy, promptly.

“Oh, you will, eh?” growled Cyrus Pritchett, sitting forward and resting his big hands on his knees, while he glared like an angry dog at the slight girl before him.

The kitchen was quite still save for his booming voice. The family was evidently afraid of the old man’s outbursts of temper.

But Lyddy Bray’s courage rose with her indignation. This cross old farmer was a mere bully after all, and there was never a bully yet who was not a moral coward!

“Mr. Pritchett,” she told him, calmly, “you cannot frighten me by shouting at me. I may as well tell you right now that the crops you have raised for Aunt Jane of late years have not been satisfactory. We expect a better crop this year, and if you do not wish to put it in, some other neighbor will.

“This is a good time to decide the matter. What do you say?”

CHAPTER VII

HILLCREST

Mrs. Pritchett and Sairy really were frightened by Lyddy Bray’s temerity. As for Lucas, he still hung his head and would not look at his father.

Cyrus Pritchett had bullied his family so long that to be bearded in his own house certainly amazed him. He glared at the girl for fully a minute, without being able to formulate any reply. Then he burst out with:

“You let me ketch any other man on this ridge puttin’ a plow inter the old doctor’s land! I’ve tilled it for years, I tell ye – ”

“And you can till it again, Mr. Pritchett,” said Lyddy, softly. “You needn’t holler so about it–we all hear you.”

The coolness of the girl silenced him.

“So, now it’s understood,” she went on, smiling at him brightly. “And we’ll try this year to make a little better crop. We really must get something more out of it than the taxes.”

“Jane Hammon’ won’t buy no fertilizer,” growled Mr. Pritchett, put on the defensive–though he couldn’t tell why. “An’ ye can’t grow corn on run-down land without potash an’ kainit, and the like.”

“Well, you shall tell us all about that later,” declared Lyddy, “and we’ll see. I understand that you can’t get blood from a turnip. We want to put Hillcrest in better shape–both in and out of the house–and then there’ll be a better chance to sell it.”

Cyrus Pritchett’s eyes suddenly twinkled with a shrewd light.

“Does Jane Hammon’ really want to sell the farm?” he queried.

“If she gets a good offer,” replied Lyddy. “That’s what we hope to do while we’re at Hillcrest–make the place more valuable and more attractive to the possible buyer.”

“Ha!” grunted Cyrus, sneeringly. “She’ll get a fancy price for Hillcrest–not!”

But that ended the discussion. “Maw” Pritchett looked on in wonder. She had seen her husband beaten in an argument by a “chit of a girl”–and really, Cyrus did not seem to be very ugly, or put out about it, either!

He told Lucas to put the ponies to the wagon again, and to take the Bray girls and their belongings up to Hillcrest; and to see that they were comfortable for the night before he came back.

This encouraged Mrs. Pritchett, when Lyddy took out her purse to pay for their entertainment, to declare:

“For the good land, no! We ain’t goin’ to charge ye for a meal of vittles–and you gals Dr. Polly Phelps’s own grandchildren! B’sides, we want ye to be neighborly. It’s nice for Sairy to have young companions, too. I tell her she’ll git to be a reg’lar old maid if she don’t ’sociate more with gals of her own age.”

Sairy bridled and blushed at this. But she wasn’t an unkind girl, and she helped ’Phemie gather their possessions–especially the latter’s wet clothing.

“I’m sure I wish ye joy up there at the old house,” said Sairy, with a shudder. “But ye wouldn’t ketch me.”

“Catch you doing what?” asked ’Phemie, wonderingly.

“Stayin’ in Dr. Phelps’s old house over night,” explained Sairy.

“Why not?”

The farmer’s daughter drew close to ’Phemie’s ear and whispered:

“It’s ha’nted!”

“What?” cried ’Phemie.

“Ghosts,” exclaimed Sairy, in a thrilling voice. “All old houses is ha’nted. And that’s been give up to ghosts for years an’ years.”

“Oh, goody!” exclaimed ’Phemie, clasping her hands and almost dancing in delight. “Do you mean it’s a really, truly haunted house?”

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