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

“I’ll ride with you–of course,” replied ’Phemie. “But I’d just as lief go in the buckboard.”

“Now that,” said the somewhat puzzled Lucas, “is another thing that makes you gals diff’rent from the gals around here.”

Old Mr. Colesworth came and made himself at home very quickly. He played cribbage with Mr. Bray in the evening while the girls did up the work and sewed; and during the early days of his stay with them he proved to be a very pleasant old gentleman, with few crotchets, and no special demands upon the girls for attention.

He walked a good deal, proved to be something of a geologist, and pottered about the rocky section of the farm with a little hammer and bag for hours together.

As Mr. Bray could walk only a little way, Mr. Colesworth did most of his rambling about Hillcrest alone. And he grew fonder and fonder of the place as the first week advanced.

As far as his entertainment went, he could have no complaint as to that, for he was getting all that Lyddy had promised him–a comfortable bed, a fire on his hearth when he wanted it, and the same plain food that the family ate.

The girls of Hillcrest Farm had received no further answer to their advertisement, but the news that they were keeping boarders had gone broadcast over the ridge, of course. Silas Trent would have spread this bit of news, if nobody else.

But on Saturday morning, soon after breakfast, Mr. Somers’s old gray mare turned up their lane, and Lyddy put on a clean apron and rolled down her sleeves to go out and speak to the school teacher.

“That’s a very good thing about that lane,” ’Phemie remarked, aside. “It is just long enough so that, if we see anybody turn in, we can primp a little before they get to the house.”

“Miss Bray,” said the teacher, hopping out of his buggy and shaking hands, “you see me here, a veritable beggar.”

“A beggar?” queried Lyddy, in surprise.

“Yes, I have come to beg a favor. And a very great one, too.”

“Why–I – ”

He laughed and went on to explain–yet his explanation at first puzzled her.

“Where do you suppose I slept last night, Miss Bray?” he asked.

“In your bed,” she returned.

“Wrong!”

“Is it a joke–or a puzzle?”

“Why, I had to sleep in the barn. You see, thus far this term I have boarded with Sam Larribee. But yesterday his boy came down with the measles. He had been out of school for several days–had been visiting the other side of the ridge. They think he caught it there–at his cousin’s.

“However,” continued Mr. Somers, “that does not help me. When I came home from school and heard the doctor’s report, I refused to enter the house. We don’t want an epidemic of measles at Pounder’s School.

“So I slept in the barn with Old Molly, here. And now I must find another boarding place. They–er–tell me, Miss Bray, that you intend to take boarders?”

“Why–er–yes,” admitted Lyddy, faintly.

“You have some already?”

“Mr. Colesworth and his son. They have just come.”

“Couldn’t you put me–and Molly–up for the rest of the term?” asked the school teacher, laughing.

“Why, I don’t know but I could,” said Lyddy, her business sense coming to her aid. “I–why, yes! I am quite sure about you; but about the horse, I do not know.”

“You surely have a stall to spare?”

“Plenty; but no feed.”

“Oh, I will bring my own grain; and I’ll let her pasture in your orchard. She doesn’t work hard and doesn’t need much forage except what she can glean at this time of year for herself.”

“Well, then, perhaps it can be arranged,” said Lyddy. “Will you come in and see what our accommodations are?”

And so that is how another boarder came to Hillcrest Farm. Mr. Somers chose one of the smaller rooms upstairs, and agreed to pay for his own entertainment and pasturage for his horse–six dollars and a half a week. It was a little more than he had been paying at Larribee’s, he said–but then, Mr. Somers wanted to come to Hillcrest.

He drove away to get his trunk out of the window of his bedroom at the measles-stricken farmhouse down the hill; he would not risk entering by the door for the sake of his other pupils.

A little later Lucas drove up from town with Harris Colesworth and his bag.

“Say!” whispered the lanky farmer, leaning from his seat to whisper to ’Phemie. “I hear tell you’ve got school teacher for a boarder, too? Is that so?”

“What of it?” demanded ’Phemie, somewhat vexed.

“Oh, nawthin’. Only ye oughter seen Sairy’s face when maw told her!”

CHAPTER XVI

THE BALL KEEPS ROLLING

The school teacher pressingly invited the Bray girls to accompany him to the temperance meeting that evening; his buggy would hold the three, he declared. But both Lyddy and ’Phemie had good reason for being excused. There was now work for them–and plenty of it.

They had to disappoint Lucas in this matter, too; but Harris Colesworth laughingly accepted the teacher’s later proposal that he attend, and the two young men drove off together, leaving the girls in the kitchen and old Mr. Colesworth and Mr. Bray playing cribbage in the dining-room.

It was while ’Phemie was clearing the supper table that her attention was caught by something that Mr. Colesworth said.

“Who is your neighbor that I see so much up yonder among the rocks, at the back of this farm, Mr. Bray?” he asked.

“Mr. Pritchett?” suggested Mr. Bray. “Cyrus Pritchett. The long-legged boy’s father. He farms a part of these acres – ”

“No. It is not Cyrus Pritchett I mean. And he is no farmer.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” said Mr. Bray.

“A rather peculiar-looking man–long hair, black coat, broad-brimmed hat. I have frequently come upon him during the last few days. He always walks off as though in haste. I never have got near enough to speak to him.”

“Why,” responded Mr. Bray, thoughtfully scanning his hand, and evidently giving little attention to Mr. Colesworth’s mystery, “why, I’m sure I don’t know what would attract anybody up in that part of the farm.”

“Saving a man interested in breaking open rocks to see what’s in them,” chuckled Mr. Colesworth. “But this fellow is no geologist.”

’Phemie, however, decided that she knew who it was. Silas Trent had mentioned seeing the man, Spink, up that way; and, on more than one occasion, ’Phemie was sure the owner of the Diamond Grits breakfast food had been lurking about Hillcrest.

“Lyddy has never asked Cyrus Pritchett about that evening he and Spink were up here–two weeks ago this very night. I almost wish she’d do so. This mystery is getting on my nerves!”

And yet ’Phemie was not at all sure that there was any mystery about it.

Lyddy, on the strength of getting her first boarders, renewed her advertisement in the Easthampton papers. At once she received half a dozen inquiries. It was yet too early in the season to expect many people to wish to come to the country to board; yet Lyddy painstakingly answered each letter, and in full.

But she really did not see how she would be able to get on over the summer with the open fire and the brick oven. It would be dreadfully hot in that kitchen. And she would have been glad to use Mrs. Pritchett’s Dutch oven that Lucas had told her about.

But since the first Sunday neither Mrs. Pritchett or Sairy had been near Hillcrest. Now that Mr. Somers had established himself here, the Bray girls did not expect to ever be forgiven by “Maw” Pritchett and her daughter.

“It’s too bad people are so foolish,” said Lyddy, wearily. “I haven’t done anything to Sairy.”

“But she and her mother think you have. By your wiles you have inveigled Mr. Somers away from Sairy,” giggled ’Phemie.

“’Phemie!” gasped her sister. “If you say such a thing again, I’ll send Mr. Somers packing!”

“Oh, shucks! Can’t you see the fun of it!?”

“There is no fun in it,” declared the very proper Lyddy. “It is only disgraceful.”

“I’d like to tell that young Mr. Colesworth about it,” laughed ’Phemie. “He’d just be tickled to death.”

Lyddy looked at her haughtily. “You dare include me in any gossip of such a character, and I–”

“Well? You’ll what?” demanded the younger girl, saucily.

“I shall feel very much like spanking you!” declared Lyddy. “And that is just what you would deserve.”

“Oh, now–don’t get mad, Lyd,” urged ’Phemie. “You take things altogether too seriously.”

“Well,” responded the older girl, going back to the main subject, “the problem of how we are to cook when it comes warm weather is a very, very serious matter.”

“We’ve just got to have a range–ought to have one with a tank, on the end in which to heat water. I’ve seen ’em advertised.”

“But how can we? I’ve gone into debt now for more than thirty dollars’ worth of commercial fertilizer. I don’t dare get deeper into the mire.”

“But,” cried the sanguine ’Phemie, “the crops will more than pay for that outlay.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re a born grump, Lyddy Bray!”

“Somebody has to look ahead,” sighed Lyddy. “The crops may fail. Such things happen. Or we may get no more boarders. Or father may get worse.”

“Don’t say such things, Lyddy!” cried her sister, stamping her foot. “Especially about father.”

The older girl put her arms about ’Phemie and the latter began to weep on her shoulder.

“Don’t let us hide our true beliefs from each other,” whispered Lyddy, brokenly. “Father is not mending–not as we hoped he would, at least. And yet the hospital doctor told Aunt Jane that there was absolutely nothing medicine could do for him.”

“I know! I know!” sobbed ’Phemie. “But don’t let’s talk about it. He is so brave himself. He talks just as though he was gaining every day; but his step is so feeble – ”

“And he has no color,” groaned Lyddy.

“But, anyhow,” ’Phemie pursued, wiping her eyes, her flurry of tears quickly over, as was her nature, “there is one good thing.”

“What is that?”

“He doesn’t lose hope himself. And we mustn’t lose it, either. Of course things will come out right–even the boarders will come.”

“We don’t know that,” said Lyddy, shaking her head again.

“How about the woman who wrote you a second time?” queried ’Phemie. “Mrs. Castle. I bet she comes next week.”

And ’Phemie was right in that prophecy. They had Lucas meet the train for Mrs. Castle on Saturday, and ’Phemie went with him. There were supplies to buy for the house and the young girl made her purchases before train time.

A little old lady in a Paisley shawl and black, close bonnet, got out of the train. The porter lifted down an ancient carpet-bag–something ’Phemie had never in her life seen before. Even Lucas was amazed by the little old woman’s outfit.

“By cracky!” he whispered to ’Phemie. “You reckon that’s the party? Why, she’s dressed more behind the times than my grandmother useter be. Guess there must be places on this airth more countrified than Bridleburg.”

But ’Phemie knew that Mrs. Castle’s letter had come from an address in Easthampton which the Brays knew to be in a very good neighborhood. Nobody but wealthy people lived on that street. Yet Mrs. Castle–aside from the valuable but old-fashioned shawl–did not look to be worth any great fortune.

“Are you the girl who wrote to me?” asked the old lady, briskly, when ’Phemie came forward to take the carpet-bag.

Mrs. Castle’s voice was very resonant; she had sharp blue eyes behind her gold-bowed spectacles; and she clipped her words and sentences in a manner that belied her age and appearance.

“No, ma’am,” said ’Phemie, doubtfully. “It was my sister who wrote. I am Euphemia Bray.”

“Ha! And what is your sister’s name? What does the ‘L’ stand for?”

“Lydia.”

“Good!” ejaculated this strange old lady. “Then I’ll ride out to the farm with you. Such good, old-fashioned names promise just what your sister said: An old-fashioned house and old-time ways. If ‘L!’ had meant ‘Lillie,’ or ‘Luella,’ or ‘Lilas’–and if you, young lady, had been called ‘Marie’–I’d have taken the very next train back to town.”

’Phemie could only stare and nod. In her secret thoughts she told herself that this queer old woman was doubtless a harmless lunatic. She did not know whether it was quite best to have Lucas drive them to Hillcrest or not.

“You got a trunk, ma’am?” asked the long-legged youth, as the old lady hopped youthfully into the buckboard, and ’Phemie lifted in the heavy carpet-bag.

“No, I haven’t. This is no fashionable boarding house I’m going to, I s’pose?” she added, eyeing ’Phemie sternly.

“Oh, no, ma’am!” returned the girl.

“Then I’ve got enough with me in this bag, and on my back, to last me a fortnight. If I like, I’ll send for something more, then.”

She certainly knew her own mind, this old lady. ’Phemie had first thought her to be near the three-score-and-ten mark; but every moment she seemed to get younger. Her face was wrinkled, but they were fine wrinkles, and her coloring made her look like a withered russet apple. Out of this golden-brown countenance the blue eyes sparkled in a really wonderful way.

“But I don’t care,” thought ’Phemie, as they clattered out of town. “Crazy or not, if she can pay her board she’s so much help. Let the ball keep on rolling. It’s getting bigger and bigger. Perhaps we shall have a houseful at Hillcrest, after all.”

CHAPTER XVII

THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER

But ’Phemie was immensely curious about this strange little old lady who was dressed so oddly, yet who apparently came from the wealthiest section of the city of Easthampton. The young girl could not bring herself to ask questions of their visitor–let Lyddy do that, if she thought it necessary. But, as it chanced, up to a certain point Mrs. Castle was quite open of speech and free to communicate information about herself.

As soon as they had got out of town she turned to ’Phemie and said:

“I expect you think I’m as queer as Dick’s hat-band, Euphemia? I am quite sure you never saw a person like me before?”

“Why–Mrs. Castle–not just like you,” admitted the embarrassed ’Phemie.

“I expect not! Well, I presume there are other old women, who are grandmothers, and have got all tangled up in these new-fangled notions that women have–Laws’ sake! I might as well tell you right off that I’ve run away!”

“Run away?” gasped ’Phemie, with a vision of keepers from an asylum coming to Hillcrest to take away their new boarder.

“That’s exactly what I have done! None of my folks know where I have gone. I just wrote a note, telling them not to look for me, and that I was going back to old-fashioned times, if I could find ’em. Then I got this bag out of the cupboard–I’d kept it all these years–packed it with my very oldest duds, and–well, here I am!” and the old lady’s laugh rang out as shrill and clear as a blackbird’s call.

“I have astonished you; have I?” she pursued. “And I suppose I have astonished my folks. But they know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I ought to be. Why, I’m a grandmother three times!”

“‘Three times?’” repeated the amazed ’Phemie.

“Yes, Miss Euphemia Bray. Three grandchildren–two girls and a boy. And they are always telling folks how up-to-date grandma is! I’m sick of being up-to-date. I’m sick of dressing so that folks behind me on the street can’t tell whether I’m a grandmother or my own youngest grandchild!

“We just live in a perfect whirl of excitement. ‘Pleasure,’ they call it. But it’s gotten to be a nuisance. My daughter-in-law has her head full of society matters and club work. The girls and Tom spend all but the little time they are obliged to give to books in the private schools they attend, in dancing and theatre parties, and the like.

“And here a week ago I found my son–their father–a man forty-five years old, and bald, and getting fat, being taught the tango by a French dancing professor in the back drawing-room!” exclaimed Mrs. Castle, in a tone of disgust that almost convulsed ’Phemie.

“That was enough. That was the last straw on the camel’s back. I made up my mind when I read your sister’s advertisement that I would like to live simply and with simple people again. I’d like really to feel like a grandmother, and dress like one, and be one.

“And if I like it up here at your place I shall stay through the summer. No hunting-lodge in the Adirondacks for me this spring, or Newport, or the Pier later, or anything of that kind. I’m going to sit on your porch and knit socks. My mother did when she was a grandmother. This is her shawl, and mother and father took this old carpet-bag with them when they went on their honeymoon.

“Mother enjoyed her old age. She spent it quietly, and it was lovely,” declared Mrs. Castle, with a note in her voice that made ’Phemie sober at once. “I am going to have quiet, and repose, and a simple life, too, before I have to die.

“It’s just killing me keeping up with the times. I don’t want to keep up with ’em. I want them to drift by me, and leave me stranded in some pleasant, sunny place, where I only have to look on. And that’s what I am going to get at Hillcrest–just that kind of a place–if you’ve got it to sell,” completed this strange old lady, with emphasis.

’Phemie Bray scarcely knew what to say. She was not sure that Mrs. Castle was quite right in her mind; yet what she said, though so surprising, sounded like sense.

“I’ll leave it to Lyddy; she’ll know what to say and do,” thought the younger sister, with faith in the ability of Lyddy to handle any emergency.

And Lyddy handled the old lady as simply as she did everything. She refused to see anything particularly odd in Mrs. Castle’s dress, manner, or outlook on life.

The old lady chose one of the larger rooms on the second floor, considered the terms moderate, and approved of everything she saw about the house.

“Make no excuses for giving me a feather bed to sleep on. I believe it will add half a dozen years to my life,” she declared. “Feather beds! My! I never expected to see such a joy again–let alone experience it.”

“Our circle is broadening,” said old Mr. Colesworth, at supper that evening. “Come! I have a three-handed counter for cribbage. Shall we take Mrs. Castle into our game, Mr. Bray?”

“If she will so honor us,” agreed the girls’ father, bowing to the little old lady.

“Well! that’s hearty of you,” said the brisk Mrs. Castle. “I’ll postpone beginning knitting my son a pair of socks that he’d never wear, until to-morrow.”

For she had actually brought along with her knitting needles and a hank of grey yarn. It grew into a nightly occurrence, this three-handed cribbage game. When Mr. Somers had no lessons to “get up,” or no examination papers to mark, he spent the evening with Lyddy and ’Phemie. He even helped with the dish-wiping and helped to bring in the wood for the morning fires.

Fire was laid in the three chambers, as well as the dining-room, to light on cold mornings, or on damp days; Lucas had spent a couple more days in chopping wood. But as the season advanced there was less and less need of these in the sleeping rooms.

There were, of course, wet and gloomy days, when the old folks were glad to sit over the dining-room fire, the elements forbidding outdoors to them. But they kept cheerful. And not a little of this cheerfulness was spread by Lyddy and ’Phemie. The older girl’s thoughtfulness for others made her much beloved, while ’Phemie’s high spirits were contagious.

On Saturday, when Harris Colesworth arrived from town to remain over Sunday, Hillcrest was indeed a lively place. This very self-possessed young man took a pleasant interest in everything that went on about the house and farm. Lyddy was still inclined to snub him–only, he wouldn’t be snubbed. He did not force his attentions upon her; but while he was at Hillcrest it seemed to Lyddy as though he was right at her elbow all the time.

“He pervades the whole place,” she complained to ’Phemie. “Why–he’s under foot, like a kitten!”

“Huh!” exclaimed the younger sister. “He’s hanging about you no more than the school teacher–and Mr. Somers has the best chance, too.”

“’Phemie!”

“Oh, don’t be a grump! Mr. Colesworth is ever so nice. He’s worth any two of your Somerses, too!”

And at that Lyddy became so indignant that she would not speak to her sister for the rest of the day. But that did not solve the problem. There was Harris Colesworth, always doing something for her, ready to do her bidding at any time, his words cheerful, his looks smiling, and, as Lyddy declared in her own mind, “utterly unable to keep his place.”

There never was so bold a young man, she verily believed!

CHAPTER XVIII

THE QUEER BOARDER

Spring marched on apace those days. The garden at Hillcrest began to take form, and the green things sprouted beautifully. Lucas Pritchett was working very hard, for his father did not allow him to neglect any of his regular work to keep the contract the young man had made with Lyddy Bray.

In another line the prospect for a crop was anxiously canvassed, too. The eggs Lyddy had sent for had arrived and, after running the incubator for a couple of days to make sure that they understood it, the girls put the hundred eggs into the trays.

The eggs were guaranteed sixty per cent. fertile and after eight days they tested them as Trent had advised. They left eighty-seven eggs in the incubator after the test.

But the incubator took an enormous amount of attention–at least, the girls thought it did.

This was not so bad by day; but they went to bed tired enough at night, and Lyddy was sure the lamp should be looked to at midnight.

It was three o’clock the first night before ’Phemie awoke with a start, and lay with throbbing pulse and with some sound ringing in her ears which she could not explain immediately. But almost at once she recalled another night–their first one at Hillcrest–when she had gone rambling about the lower floor of the old house.

But she thought of the incubator and leaped out of bed. The lamp might have flared up and cooked all those eggs. Or it might have expired and left them to freeze out there in the washhouse.

She did not arouse Lyddy, but slipped into her wrapper and slippers and crept downstairs with her candle. There had been a sound that aroused her. She heard somebody moving about the kitchen.

“Surely father hasn’t got up–he promised he wouldn’t,” thought ’Phemie.

She was not afraid of outside marauders now. Both Mr. Somers and young Mr. Colesworth were in the house. ’Phemie went boldly into the kitchen from the hall.

The porch door opened and a wavering light appeared–another candle. There was Harris Colesworth, in his robe and slippers, coming from the direction of the washhouse.

’Phemie shrank back and hid by the foot of the stairs. But she was not quick enough in putting her light out–or else he heard her giggle.

“Halt! who goes there?” demanded Colesworth, in a sepulchral voice.

“A–a fr-r-riend,” chattered ’Phemie.

“Advance, friend, and give the countersign,” commanded the young man.

“Chickens!” gasped ’Phemie, convulsed with laughter.

“You’d have had fried eggs, maybe, for all your interest in the incubator,” said Harris, with a chuckle. “So ‘Chickens’ is no longer the password.”

“Oh, they didn’t get too hot?” pleaded the girl, in despair.

“Nope. This is the second time I’ve been out. To tell you the truth,” said Harris, laughing, “I think the incubator is all right and will work like a charm; but I understand they’re a good deal like ships–likely to develop some crotchet at almost any time.”

“But it’s good of you to take the trouble to look at it for us.”

“Sure it is!” he laughed. “But that’s what I’m on earth for–to do good–didn’t you know that, Miss ’Phemie?”

She told her sister about Harris Colesworth’s kindness in the morning. But Lyddy took it the other way about.

“I declare! he can’t keep his fingers out of our pie at any stage of the game; can he?” she snapped.

“Why, Lyd!”

“Oh–don’t talk to me!” returned her older sister, who seemed to be rather snappish this morning. “That young man is getting on my nerves.”

It was Sunday and the Colesworths had engaged a two-seated carriage in town to take Mrs. Castle and Mr. Bray with them to church. There was a seat beside Mr. Somers, behind Old Molly, for one of the girls. The teacher plainly wanted to take Lyddy, but that young lady had not recovered from her ill-temper of the early morning.