The Happy Venture/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE FINE OLD FARM-HOUSE
ASQUAM proper is an old fishing-village on the bayside. The new Asquam has intruded with its narrow-eaved frame cottages among the gray old houses, and has shouldered away the colonial Merchants' Hall with a moving-picture theater, garish with playbills and posters. Two large and well-patronized summer hotels flourish on the highest elevation (Asquam people say that their town is "flatter'n a johnnycake"), from which a view of the open sea can be had, as well as of the peninsulas and islands which crowd the bay.
On the third day of April the hotels and many of the cottages were closed, with weathered shutters at the windows and a general air of desolation about their windy piazzas. Asquam, both new and old, presented a rather bleak and dismal appearance to three persons who alighted thankfully from the big trolley-car in which they had lurched through miles of flat, mist-hung country for the past forty minutes.
The station-agent sat on a tilted-up box and discussed the new arrivals with one of his ever-present cronies.
"Whut they standin' ther' fer?" he said. "Some folks ain't got enough sense to go in outen the rain, seems so."
"'T ain't rainin'—not so 's to call it so," said the crony, whose name was Smith. "The gell's pretty."
"Ya-as, kind o'," agreed the station-agent, tilting back critically. "Boy's upstandin'."
"Which one?"
"Big 'n. Little 'un ain't got no git-up-'n'-git fer one o' his size. Look at him holdin' to her hand."
"Sunthin' ails him," Smith said. "Ain't all there I guess."
The station-agent nodded a condescending agreement, and cocked his foot on another box. At this moment the upstanding boy detached himself from his companions, and strode to where the old man sat.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "can you tell me how far it is to the Baldwin farm, and whether any of Mr. Sturgis's freight has come yet?"
"Baldwin fa'm?" and the station-agent scratched his ear. "Oh, you mean out on the Winterbottom Road, hey? 'Beout two mile."
"And Mr. Sturgis's freight?"
"Nawthin' come fer that name," said the agent, "'less these be them." He indicated four small packages in the baggage-room.
"Oh no," said Ken, "they're big things—beds, and things like that. Well, please let me know if they do come. I'm Mr. Sturgis."
"Oh, you be," said the agent, comprehensively.
"Ain't gonna walk away out to the Baldwin place with all them valises, air you?" Smith inquired, breaking silence for the first time.
"I don't know how else we'll get there," Ken said.
"Yay—Hop!" shouted Smith, unexpectedly, with a most astonishing siren-like whoop.
Before Ken had time to wonder whether it was a prearranged signal for attack, or merely that the man had lost his wits, an ancient person in overalls and a faded black coat appeared from behind the baggage-house.
"Hey? Well?" said he.
"Take these folks up to the Baldwin place," Smith commanded; "and don't ye go losin' no wheels this time—ye got a young lady aboard." At which sally all the old men chuckled creakily.
But the young lady showed no apprehension, only some relief, as she stepped into the tottering surrey which Hop drove up beside the platform. As the old driver slapped the reins on the placid horse's woolly back, the station-agent turned to Smith.
"George," he said, "the little 'un ain't cracked. He's blind."
"Well, gosh!" said Smith, with feeling.
Winterbottom Road unrolled itself into a white length of half-laid dust, between blown, sweet-smelling bay-clumps and boulder-filled meadows.
"Is it being nice?" Kirk asked, for the twentieth time since they had left the train for the trolley-car.
Felicia had been thanking fortune that she'd remembered to stop at the Asquam Market and lay in a few provisions. She woke from calculations of how many meals her family could make of the supplies she had bought, and looked about.
"We're near the bay," she said; "that is, you can see little silvery flashes of it between trees. They're pointy trees—junipers, I think, and there are a lot of rocks in the fields, and wild-flowers. Nothing like any place you've ever been in—wild, and salty, and—yes, quite nice."
They passed several low, sturdy farm-houses, and one or two boarded-up summer cottages; then two white chimneys showed above a dark green tumble of trees, and the ancient Hopkins pointed with his whip saying:
"Ther' you be. Kind o' dull this time year, I guess; but my! Asquam's real uppy, come summer—machines a-goin', an' city folks an' such. Reckon I'll leave you at the gate where I kin turn good."
The flap-flop of the horse's hoofs died on Winterbottom Road, and no sound came but the wind sighing in old apple-boughs, and from somewhere the melancholy creaking of a swinging shutter. The gate-way was grown about with grass; Ken crushed it as he forced open the gate, and the faint, sweet smell rose. Kirk held Felicia's sleeve, for she was carrying two bags. He stumbled eagerly through the tall dry grass of last summer's unmown growth.
"Now can you see it? Now?"
But Felicia had stopped, and Kirk stopped, too.
"Are we there? Why don't you say anything?"
Felicia said nothing because she could not trust her voice. Kirk knew every shade of it; she could not deceive him. Gaunt and gray the "fine old farm-house" stood its ground before them. Old it assuredly was, and once fine, perhaps, as its solid square chimneys and mullioned windows attested. But oh, the gray grimness of it! the sagging shutter that creaked, the burdocks that choked the stone door-step, the desolate wind that surged in the orchard trees and would not be still!
Ken did what Felicia could not do. He laughed—a real laugh, and swept Kirk into warm, familiar arms.
"It's a big, jolly, fine old place!" he said. "Its windows twinkle merrily, and the front door is only waiting for the key I have in my pocket. We've got home, Quirk—haven't we, Phil?"
Felicia blessed Ken. She almost fancied that the windows did twinkle kindly. The big front door swung open without any discourteous hesitation, and Ken stood in the hall.
"Phew—dark!" he said. "Wait here, you fellows, while I get some shutters open."
They could hear his footsteps sound hollowly in the back rooms, and shafts of dusky light, preceded by hammerings and thumpings, began presently to band the inside of the house. Felicia stepped upon the painted floor of the bare hall, glanced up the narrow stairs, and then stood in the musty, half-lit emptiness of what she guessed to be the living-room, waiting for Ken. Kirk did not explore. He stood quite still beside his sister, sorting out sounds, analyzing smells. Ken came in, very dusty, rubbing his hands on his trousers.
"Lots of fireplaces, anyway," he said. "Put down your things—if you've anywhere to put 'em. I'll load all the duffle into this room and see if there's any wood in the woodshed. Glory! No beds, no blankets! There'll have to be wood, if the orchard primeval is sacrificed!" And he went, whistling blithely.
"This is an adventure." Felicia whispered dramatically to Kirk. "We've never had a real one before; have we?"
"Oh, it's nice!" Kirk cried suddenly. "It's low, and still, and—the house wants us, Phil!"
"The house wants us," murmured Felicia. "I believe that's going to help me."
It was quite the queerest supper that the three had ever cooked or eaten. Perhaps "cooked" is not exactly the right word for what happened to the can of peas and the can of baked beans. Ken did find wood—not in the woodshed, but strewing the orchard grass; hard old apple-wood, gray and tough. It burned merrily enough in the living-room fireplace, and the chimney responded with a hollow rushing as the hot air poured into it.
"It makes it seem as if there were something alive here besides us, anyway," Felicia said.
They were all sitting on the hearth, warming their fingers, and when the apple-wood fire burned down to coals that now and again spurted short-lived flame, they set the can of peas and the can of baked beans among the embers. They turned them gingerly from time to time with two sticks, and laughed a great deal. The laughter echoed about in the empty stillness of the house.
Ken's knife was of the massive and useful sort that contains a whole array of formidable tools. These included a can-opener, which now did duty on the smoked tins. It had been previously used to punch holes in the tops of the cans before they went among the coals—"for we don't want the blessed things blowing up," Ken had said. Nothing at all was the matter with the contents of the cans, however, in spite of the strange process of cookery. The Sturgises ate peas and baked beans on chunks of unbuttered bread (cut with another part of Ken's knife) and decided that nothing had ever tasted quite so good.
"No dish-washing, at any rate," said Ken; "we've eaten our dishes."
Kirk chose to find this very entertaining, and consumed another "bread-plate," as he termed it, on the spot.
The cooking being finished, more gnarly apple-wood was put on the fire, and the black, awkward shadows of three figures leaped out upon the bare wall and danced there in the ruddy gloom. Bedtime loomed nearer and nearer as a grave problem, and Ken and Felicia were silent, each wondering how the floor could be made softest.
"The Japanese sleep on the floor," Ken said, "and they have blocks of wood for pillows. Our bags are the size, and, I imagine, the consistency, of blocks of wood. N'est-ce pas, oui, oui?"
"I'd rather sleep on a rolled-up something-or-other out of my bag than on the bag itself, any day—or night," Felicia remarked.
"As you please," Ken said; "but act quickly. Our brother yawns."
"Bedtime, honey," Felicia laughed to Kirk. "Even queerer than supper-time was."
"A bed by night, a hard-wood floor by day," Ken misquoted murmurously.
"Hard-wood!" Felicia sniffed. "Hard wood!"
The problem now arose: which was most to be desired, an overcoat under you to soften the floor, or on top of you to keep you warm?
"If he has my overcoat, it'll do both," Ken suggested. "Put his sweater on, too."
"But what'll you do?" Kirk objected.
"Roll up in your overcoat, of course," Ken said.
This also entertained Kirk.
"No, but really?" he said, sober all at once.
"Don't you fret about me. I'll haul it away from you after you're asleep."
And Kirk snuggled into the capacious folds of Ken's Burberry, apparently confident that his brother really would claim it when he needed it.
Ken and Felicia sat up, feeding the fire occasionally, until long after Kirk's quiet breathing told them that he was asleep.
"Well, we've made rather a mess of things, so far," Ken observed, somewhat cheerlessly.
"We were ninnies not to think that none of the stuff would have come," Felicia said. "We'll have to do something before to-morrow night. This is all right for once, but—!"
"Goodness knows when the things will come," said Ken, poking at the fore-stick. "The old personage said that all the freight, express, everything, comes by that weird trolley-line, at its own convenience."
"Should n't you think that they'd have something dependable, in a summer place?" Felicia sighed. "Oh, it seems as if we'd been living for years in houses with no furniture in them. And the home things will simply rattle, here."
"I wish we could have brought more of them," Ken said. "We'll have to rout around to-morrow and buy an oil-stove or something and a couple of chairs to sit on. Ah hum! Let's turn in, Phil. We've a tight room and a fire, anyhow. Shall you be warm enough?"
"Plenty. I've my coat, and a sweater. But what are you going to do?"
"Oh, I'll sit up a bit longer and stoke. And really. Kirk's overcoat spreads out farther than you'd think. He's tallish, nowadays."
Felicia discovered that there are ways and ways of sleeping on the floor. She found, after sundry writhings, the right way, and drifted off to sleep long before she expected to.
Ken woke later in the stillness of the last hours of night. The room was scarcely lit by the smoldering brands of the fire; its silence hardly stirred by the murmurous hissing of the logs. Without, small marsh frogs trilled their silver welcome to the spring, an unceasing jingle of tiny bell-notes. Kirk was cuddled close beside Ken, and woke abruptly as Ken drew him nearer.
"You didn't take your overcoat," he whispered.
"We'll both have it, now," his brother said. "Curl up tight, old man; it'll wrap round the two of us."
"Is it night still?" Kirk asked.
"Black night," Ken whispered; "stars at the window, and a tree swaying across it. And in here a sort of dusky lightness—dark in the corners, and shadows on the walls, and the fire glowing away. Phil's asleep on the other side of the hearth, and she looks very nice. And listen—hear the toads?"
"Is that what they are? I thought it was a fairy something. They make nice noises! Where do they live?"
"In some marsh. They sit there and fiddle away on bramble roots and sing about various things they like."
"What nice toads!" murmured Kirk.
"Sh-sh!" whispered Ken; "we're waking Phil. Good night—good morning, I mean. Warm enough now?"
"Yes. Oh, Ken, aren't we having fun?"
"Aren't we, though!" breathed his brother, pulling the end of the Burberry over Kirk's shoulders.
The sun is a good thing. It clears away not only the dark shadows in the corners of empty rooms, but also the gloom that settles in anxious people's minds at midnight. The rising of the sun made, to be sure, small difference to Kirk, whose mind harbored very little gloom, and was lit principally by the spirits of those around him. Consequently, when his brother and sister began reveling in the clear, cold dawn, Kirk executed a joyous little pas seul in the middle of the living-room floor and set off on a tour of exploration. He returned from it with his fingers very dusty, and a loop of cobwebs over his hair.
"It's all corners," he said, as Felicia caught him to brush him off, "and steps. Two steps down and one up, and just when you aren't 'specting it."
"You'd better go easy," Ken counseled, "until you've had a personally conducted tour. You'll break your neck."
"I'm being careful. And I know already about this door. There's a kink in the wall, and then a hump in the floor-boards just before you get there. It's an exciting house."
"That it is!" said Ken, reaching with a forked stick for the handle of the galvanized iron pail which sat upon the fire. Nobody ever heard of boiling eggs in a galvanized iron pail, but that is exactly what the Sturgises did. The pail, in an excellent state of preservation, had been found in the woodshed. The pump yielded, unhesitatingly, any amount of delicious cold water, and though three eggs did look surprisingly small in the bottom of the pail, they boiled quite as well as if they'd been in a saucepan.
"Only think of all the kettles and things I brought!" Felicia mourned. "We'll have to buy some plates and cups, though, Ken." Most of the Sturgis china was reposing in a well-packed barrel in a room over Mr. Dodge's garage, accompanied by many other things for which their owners longed.
"How the dickens do we capture the eggs?" Ken demanded. "Pigs in clover's not in it. Lend a hand, Phil!"