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

And it seemed to ’Phemie as though the steps had retreated toward the east ell–the other wing of the rambling old farmhouse.

What was it Lucas Pritchett had said about his father using the cellar under the east wing at Hillcrest? Yet, what would bring Cyrus Pritchett–or anybody else–up here to the vinegar cellar at ten o’clock at night?

’Phemie grew braver by the minute. She determined to run this mystery down, and she was quite sure that it would prove to be a very human and commonplace mystery after all. She opened the door between the kitchen and the dark side hall by which they had first entered the old house that afternoon. Although she had never been this way, ’Phemie knew that out of this square hall opened a long passage leading through the main house to the east wing.

And she easily found the door giving entrance to this corridor. But she hesitated when she stood on the threshold, and almost gave up the venture altogether.

A cold, damp breath rushed out at her–just as though some huge, subterranean monster lay in wait for her in the darkness–a darkness so dense that the feeble ray of her candle could only penetrate it a very little way.

“How foolish of me!” murmured ’Phemie. “I’ve come so far–I guess I can see it through.”

She certainly did not believe that the steps and voice were inside the house. The passage was empty before her. She refused to let the rising tide of trepidation wash away her self-control.

So she stepped in boldly, holding the candle high, and proceeded along the corridor. There were tightly closed doors on either side, and behind each door was a mystery. She could not help but feel this. Every door was a menace to her peace of mind.

“But I will not think of such things,” she told herself. “I know if there is anybody about the house, it is a very human somebody indeed–and he has no business here at this time of night!”

In her bed-slippers ’Phemie’s light feet fell softly on the frayed oilcloth that carpeted the long hall. Dimly she saw two or three heavy, ancient pieces of furniture standing about–a tall escritoire with three paneled mirrors, which reflected herself and her candle dimly; a long davenport with hungry arms and the dust lying thick upon its haircloth upholstery; chairs with highly ornate spindles in their perfectly “straight up and down,” uncomfortable-looking backs.

She came to the end of the hall. A door faced her which she was sure must lead into the east wing. There, Aunt Jane had said, old Dr. Polly Phelps had had his office, consultation room, and workshop, or laboratory. ’Phemie’s hand hesitated on the latch.

Should she venture into the old doctor’s rooms? The greater part of his long and useful life had been spent behind this green-painted door. ’Phemie, of course, had never seen her grandfather; but she had seen his picture–that of a tall, pink-faced, full-bodied man, his cheeks and lips cleanly shaven, but with a fringe of silvery beard under his chin, and long hair.

It seemed to her for a moment as though, if she opened this door, the apparition of the old doctor, just as he was in his picture, would be there to face her.

“You little fool!” whispered the shaken ’Phemie to herself. “Go on!”

She lifted the latch. The door seemed to stick. She pressed her knee against the panel; it did not give at all.

And then she discovered that the door was locked. But the key was there, and in a moment she turned it creakingly and pushed the door open.

The air in the corridor had been still; but suddenly a strong breeze drew this green door wide open. The wind rushed past, blew out the candle, and behind her the other door, which she had left ajar, banged heavily, echoing and reechoing through the empty house.

’Phemie was startled, but she understood at once the snuffing of her candle and the closing of the other door. She only hoped Lyddy would not be frightened by the noise–or by her absence from her side.

“I’ll see it through, just the same,” declared the girl, her teeth set firmly on her lower lip. “Ha! driven away by a draught–not I!”

She groped her way into the room and closed the green door. There was a match upon her candlestick and she again lighted the taper. Quickly the first room in this east wing suite was revealed to her gaze.

This had been the anteroom, or waiting-room for the old doctor’s patients. There was a door opening on the side porch. A long, old-fashioned settee stood against one wall, and some splint-bottomed chairs were set stiffly about the room, while a shaky mahogany table, with one pedestal leg, occupied the center of the apartment.

’Phemie was more careful of the candle now and shielded the flame with her hollowed palm as she pushed open the door of the adjoining room.

Here was a big desk with a high top and drop lid, while there were rows upon rows of drawers underneath. A wide-armed chair stood before the desk, just as it must have been used by the old doctor. The room was lined to the ceiling with cases of books and cupboards. Nobody had disturbed the doctor’s possessions after his death. No younger physician had “taken over” his practice.

’Phemie went near enough to see that the desk, and the cupboards as well, were locked. There was a long case standing like an overgrown clock-case in one corner. The candle-light was reflected in the front of this case as though the door was a mirror.

But when ’Phemie approached it she saw that it was merely a glass door with a curtain of black cambric hung behind it. She was curious to know what was in the case. It had no lock and key and she stretched forth a tentative hand and turned the old-fashioned button which held it closed.

The door seemed fairly to spring open, as though pushed from within, and, as it swung outward and the flickering candle-light penetrated its interior, ’Phemie heard a sudden surprising sound.

Somewhere–behind her, above, below, in the air, all about her–was a sigh! Nay, it was more than a sigh; it was a mighty and unmistakable yawn!

And on the heels of this yawn a voice exclaimed:

“I’m getting mighty tired of this!”

’Phemie flashed her gaze back to the open case. Fear held her by the throat and choked back the shriek she would have been glad to utter. For, dangling there in the case, its eyeless skull on a level with her own face, hung an articulated skeleton; and to ’Phemie Bray’s excited comprehension it seemed as though both the yawn and the apt speech which followed it, had proceeded from the grinning jaws of the skull!

CHAPTER IX

MORNING AT HILLCREST

The bang of the door, closed by the draught when ’Phemie had opened the way into the east wing, had aroused Lyddy. She came to herself–to a consciousness of her strange surroundings–with a sharpness of apprehension that set every nerve in her body to tingling.

“’Phemie! what is it?” she whispered.

Then, rolling over on the rustling straw mattress, she reached for her sister’s hand. But ’Phemie was not there.

“’Phemie!” Lyddy cried loudly, sitting straight up in bed. She knew she was alone in the room, and hopped out of bed, shivering. She groped for her robe and her slippers. Then she sped swiftly into the kitchen.

She knew where the lamp and the match-box were. Quickly she had the lamp a-light and then swept the big room with a startled glance.

’Phemie had disappeared. The outside door was still locked. It seemed to Lyddy as though the echoing slam of the door that had awakened her was still ringing in her ears.

She ran to the hall door and opened it. Dark–and not a sound!

Where could ’Phemie have gone?

The older sister had never known ’Phemie to walk in her sleep. She had no tricks of somnambulism that Lyddy knew anything about.

And yet the older Bray girl was quite sure her sister had come this way. The lamplight, when the door was opened wide, illuminated the square hall quite well. Lyddy ran across it and pushed open the door of the long corridor.

There was no light in it, yet she could see outlined the huge pieces of furniture, and the ugly chairs. And at the very moment she opened this door, the door at the far end was flung wide and a white figure plunged toward her.

“’Phemie!” screamed the older sister.

“Lyddy!” wailed ’Phemie.

And in a moment they were in each other’s arms and Lyddy was dragging ’Phemie across the entrance hall into the lighted kitchen.

“What is it? What is it?” gasped Lyddy.

“Oh, oh, oh!” was all ’Phemie was able to say for the moment; then, as she realized how really terrified her sister was, she continued her series of “ohs” while she thought very quickly.

She knew very well what had scared her; but why add to Lyddy’s fright? She could not explain away the voice she had heard. Of course, she knew very well it had not proceeded from the skeleton. But why terrify Lyddy by saying anything about that awful thing?

“What scared you so?” repeated Lyddy, shaking her a bit.

“I–I don’t know,” stammered ’Phemie–and she didn’t!

“But why did you get up?”

“I thought I heard something–voices–people talking–steps,” gasped ’Phemie, and now her teeth began to chatter so that she could scarcely speak.

“Foolish girl!” exclaimed Lyddy, rapidly recovering her own self-control. “You dreamed it. And now you’ve got a chill, wandering through this old house. Here! sit down there!”

She drove her into a low chair beside the hearth. She ran for an extra comforter to wrap around her. She raked the ashes off the coals of the fire, and set the tea-kettle right down upon the glowing bed.

In a minute it began to steam and gurgle, and Lyddy made her sister an old-fashioned brew of ginger tea. When the younger girl had swallowed half a bowlful of the scalding mixture she ceased shaking. And by that time, too, she had quite recovered her self-control.

“You’re a very foolish little girl,” declared Lyddy, warningly, “to get up alone and go wandering about this house. Why, I wouldn’t do it for–for the whole farm!”

“I–I dropped my candle. It went out,” said ’Phemie, quietly. “I guess being in the dark scared me more than anything.”

“Now, that’s enough. Forget it! We’ll go to bed again and see if we can’t get some sleep. Why! it’s past eleven.”

So the sisters crept into bed again, and lay in each other’s arms, whispering a bit and finally, before either of them knew it, they were asleep. And neither ghosts, nor whispering voices, nor any other midnight sounds disturbed their slumbers for the remainder of that first night at Hillcrest.

They were awake betimes–and without the help of the alarm clock. It was pretty cold in the two rooms; but they threw kindling on the coals and soon the flames were playing tag through the interlacing sticks that ’Phemie heaped upon the fire.

The kettle was soon bubbling again, while Lyddy mixed batter cakes. A little bed of live coals was raked together in front of the main fire and on this a well greased griddle was set, where the cakes baked to a tender brown and were skillfully lifted off by ’Phemie and buttered and sugared.

What if a black coal or two did snap over the cakes? And what if ’Phemie’s hair did get smoked and “smelly?” Both girls declared cooking before an open fire to be great fun. They had yet, however, to learn a lot about “how our foremothers cooked.”

“I don’t for the life of me see how they ever used that brick oven,” said Lyddy, pointing to the door in the side of the chimney. “Surely, that hole in the bricks would never heat from this fire.”

“Ask Lucas,” advised ’Phemie, and as though in answer to that word, Lucas himself appeared, bearing offerings of milk, eggs, and new bread.

“Huh!” he said, in a gratified tone, sniffing in the doorway. “I told maw you two gals wouldn’t go hungry. Ye air a sight too clever.”

“Thank you, Lucas,” said Lyddy, demurely. “Will you have a cup of tea!”

“No’m. I’ve had my breakfast. It’s seven now and I’ll go right t’ work cutting wood for ye. That’s what ye’ll want most, I reckon. And I want to git ye a pile ready, for it won’t be many days before we start plowin’, an’ then dad won’t hear to me workin’ away from home.”

Lyddy went out of doors for a moment and spoke to him from the porch.

“Don’t do too much trimming in the orchard, Lucas, till I have a look at the trees. I have a book about the care of an old orchard, and perhaps I can make something out of this one.”

“Plenty of other wood handy, Miss Lyddy,” declared the lanky young fellow. “And it’ll be easier to split than apple and peach wood, too.”

’Phemie, meanwhile, had said she would run in and find the candle she had dropped in her fright the night before; but in truth it was more for the purpose of seeing the east wing of the old house by daylight–and that skeleton.

“No need for Lyddy to come in here and have a conniption fit, too,” thought the younger sister, “through coming unexpectedly upon that Thing in the case.

“And, my gracious! he might just as well have been the author of that mysterious speech I heard. I should think he would be tired of staying shut up in that box,” pursued the girl, giggling nervously, as she stood before the open case in which the horrid thing dangled.

Light enough came through the cracks in the closed shutters to reveal to her the rooms that the old doctor had so long occupied.

’Phemie closed the skeleton case and picked up her candle. Then she continued her investigation of the suite to the third room. Here were shelves and work-benches littered with a heterogeneous collection of bottles, tubes, retorts, filters, and other things of which ’Phemie did not even know the names or uses.

There was a door, too, that opened directly into the back yard. But this door was locked and double-bolted. She was sure that the person, or persons, whom she had heard talking the night before had not been in this room. When she withdrew from the east wing she locked the green-painted door as she had found it; but in addition, she removed the key and hid it where she was sure nobody but herself would be likely to find it.

Later she tackled Lucas.

“I don’t suppose you–or any of your folks–were up here last night, Lucas?” she asked the young farmer, out of her sister’s hearing.

“Me, Miss? I should say not!” replied the surprised Lucas.

“But I heard voices around the house.”

“Do tell!” exclaimed he.

“Who would be likely to come here at night?”

“Why, I never heard the beat o’ that,” declared Lucas. “No, ma’am!”

“Sh! don’t let my sister hear,” whispered ’Phemie. “She heard nothing.”

“Air you sure – ” began Lucas, but at that the young girl snapped him up quick enough:

“I am confident I even heard some things they said. They were men. It sounded as though they spoke over there by the east wing–or in the cellar.”

“Ye don’t mean it!” exclaimed the wondering Lucas, leading the way slowly to the cellar-hatch just under the windows of the old doctor’s workshop.

This hatch was fastened by a big brass padlock.

“Dad’s got the key to that,” said Lucas. “Jest like I told you, we have stored vinegar in it, some. Ain’t many barrels left at this time o’ year. Dad sells off as he can during the winter.”

“And, of course, your father didn’t come up here last night?”

“Shucks! O’ course not,” replied the young farmer. “Ain’t no vinegar buyer around in this neighborhood now–an’ ’specially not at night. Dad ain’t much for goin’ out in the evenin’, nohow. He does sit up an’ read arter we’re all gone to bed sometimes. But it couldn’t be dad you heard up here–no, Miss.”

So the puzzle remained a puzzle. However, the Bray girls had so much to do, and so much to think of that, after all, the mystery of the night occupied a very small part of ’Phemie’s thought.

Lyddy had something–and a very important something, she thought–on her mind. It had risen naturally out of the talk the girls had had when they first went to bed the evening before. ’Phemie had wished for a houseful of company to make Hillcrest less lonely; the older sister had seized upon the idea as a practical suggestion.

Why not fill the big house–if they could? Why not enter the lists in the land-wide struggle for summer boarders?

Of course, if Aunt Jane would approve.

First of all, however, Lyddy wanted to see the house–the chambers upstairs especially; and she proposed to her sister, when their morning’s work was done, that they make a tour of discovery.

“Lead on,” ’Phemie replied, eagerly. “I hope we find a softer bed than that straw mattress–and one that won’t tickle so! Aunt Jane said we could do just as we pleased with things here; didn’t she?”

“Within reason,” agreed Lyddy. “And that’s all very well up to a certain point, I fancy. But I guess Aunt Jane doesn’t expect us to make use of the whole house. We will probably find this west wing roomy enough for our needs, even when father comes.”

They ventured first up the stairs leading to the rooms in this wing. There were two nice ones here and a wide hall with windows overlooking the slope of the mountainside toward Bridleburg. They could see for miles the winding road up which they had climbed the day before.

“Yes, this wing will do very nicely for us,” Lyddy said, thinking aloud. “We can make that room downstairs where we’re sleeping, our sitting-room when it comes warm weather; and that will give us all the rest of the house – ”

“All but the old doctor’s offices,” suggested ’Phemie, doubtfully. “There are three of them.”

“Well,” returned Lyddy, “three and four are seven; and seven from twenty-two leaves fifteen. Some of the first-floor rooms we’ll have to use as dining and sitting-rooms for the boarders – ”

“My goodness me!” exclaimed her sister, again breaking in upon her ruminations. “You’ve got the house full of boarders already; have you? What will Aunt Jane say?”

“That we’ll find out. But there ought to be at least twelve rooms to let. If there’s as much furniture and stuff in all as there is in these – ”

“But how’ll we ever get the boarders? And how’d we cook for ’em over that open fire? It’s ridiculous!” declared ’Phemie.

“That is yet to be proved,” returned her sister, unruffled.

They pursued their investigation through the second-floor rooms. There were eight of them in the main part of the house and two in the east wing over the old doctor’s offices. The last two were only partially furnished and had been used in their grandfather’s day more for “lumber rooms” than aught else. It was evident that Dr. Phelps had demanded quiet and freedom in his own particular wing of Hillcrest.

But the eight rooms in the main part of the house on this second floor were all of good size, well lighted, and completely furnished. Some of them had probably not been slept in for fifty years, for when the girls’ mother, and even Aunt Jane, were young, Dr. Apollo Phelps’s immediate family was not a large one.

“The furniture is all old-fashioned, it is true,” Lyddy said, reflectively. “There isn’t a metal bed in the whole house – ”

“And I had just as lief sleep in a coffin as in some of these high-headed carved walnut bedsteads,” declared ’Phemie.

“You don’t have to sleep in them,” responded her sister, quietly. “But some people would think it a privilege to do so.”

“They can have my share, and no charge,” sniffed the younger girl. “That bed downstairs is bad enough. And what would we do for mattresses? That’s one antique they wouldn’t stand for–believe me! Straw beds, indeed!”

“We’ll see about that. We might get some cheap elastic-felt mattresses, one at a time, as we needed them.”

“And springs?”

“Some of the bedsteads are roped like the one we sleep on. Others have old-fashioned spiral springs–and there are no better made to-day. The rust can be cleaned off and they can be painted.”

“I see plainly you’re laying out a lot of work for us,” sighed ’Phemie.

“Well, we’ve got to work to live,” responded her sister, briskly.

“Ya-as,” drawled ’Phemie, in imitation of Lucas Pritchett. “But I don’t want to feel as though I was just living to work!”

“Lazybones!” laughed Lyddy. “You know, if we really got started in this game – ”

“A game; is it? Keeping boarders!”

“Well?”

“I fancy it’s downright hard work,” quoth ’Phemie.

“But if it makes us independent? If it will keep poor father out of the shop? If it can be made to support us?” cried Lyddy.

’Phemie flushed suddenly and her eyes sparkled. She seized her more sedate sister and danced her about the room.

“Oh, I don’t care how hard I work if it’ll do all that!” she agreed. “Come on, Lyd! Let’s write to Aunt Jane right away.”

CHAPTER X

THE VENTURE

But Lyddy Bray never made up her mind in a hurry. Perhaps she was inclined to err on the side of caution.

Whereas ’Phemie eagerly accepted a new thing, was enthusiastic about it for a time, and then tired of it unless she got “her second wind,” as she herself laughingly admitted, Lyddy would talk over a project a long time before she really decided to act upon it.

It was so in this case. Once having seen the vista of possibilities that Lyddy’s plan revealed, the younger girl was eager to plunge into the summer-boarder project at once. But Lyddy was determined to know just what they had to work with, and just what they would need, before broaching the plan to Aunt Jane.

So she insisted upon giving a more than cursory examination to each of the eight chambers on this second floor. Some of the pieces of old furniture needed mending; but most of the mending could be done with a pot of glue and a little ingenuity. Furthermore, a can of prepared varnish and some linseed oil and alcohol would give most of the well-made and age-darkened furniture the gloss it needed.

There were old-style stone-china toilet sets in profusion, and plenty of mirrors, while there was closet room galore. The main lack, as ’Phemie had pointed out, was in the mattress line.

But when the girls climbed to the garret floor they found one finished room there–a very good sleeping-room indeed–and on the bedstead in this room were stacked, one on top of another, at least a dozen feather beds.

Each bed was wrapped in sheets of tarred paper–hermetically sealed from moths or other insect life.

“Oh, for goodness sake, Lyd!” cried ’Phemie, “let’s take one of these to sleep on. There are pillows, too; but we’ve got them. Say! we can put one of these beds on top of the straw tick and be in comfort at last.”

“All right. But the feather bed would be pretty warm for summer use,” sighed Lyddy, as she helped her sister lift down one of the beds–priceless treasures of the old-time housewife.

“Country folk–some of them–sleep on feathers the year ’round,” proclaimed ’Phemie. “Perhaps your summer boarders can be educated up to it–or down to it.”

“Well, we’ll try the ‘down’ and see how it works,” agreed Lyddy. “My! these feathers are pressed as flat as a pancake. The bed must go out into the sun and air and be tossed once in a while, so that the air will get through it, before there’ll be any ‘life’ in these feathers. Now, don’t try to do it all, ’Phemie. I’ll help you downstairs with it in a minute. I just want to look into the big garret while we’re up here. Dear me! isn’t it dusty?”

Such an attractive-looking assortment of chests, trunks, old presses, boxes, chests of drawers, decrepit furniture, and the like as was set about that garret! There was no end of old clothing hanging from the rafters, too–a forest of garments that would have delighted an old clo’ man; but —

“Oo! Oo! Ooo!” hooted ’Phemie. “Look at the spider webs. Why, I wouldn’t touch those things for the whole farm. I bet there are fat old spiders up there as big as silver dollars.”

“Well, we can keep away from that corner,” said Lyddy, with a shudder. “I don’t want old coats and hats. But I wonder what is in those drawers. We shall want bed linen if we go into the business of keeping boarders.”

She tried to open some of the nearest presses and bureaus, but all were locked. So, rather dusty and disheveled, they retired to the floor below, between them managing to carry the feather bed out upon the porch where the sun could shine upon it.