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CHAPTER XV
ANOTHER BOARDER

Lyddy heard her sister and Harris Colesworth in the hall, and then in the dining-room. The girls had not made a fire in any other room in the house. It took too much wood, and the dining-room was large enough to be used as a sitting-room “for company,” too.

And with the fresh maple branches and arbutus decorating the space over the mantel, and the great dish of violets on the table, and the odorous plum branches everywhere, that dining-room was certainly an attractive apartment.

The old-fashioned blue-and-white china and the few pieces of heavy silverware “dressed” the table very nicely. The linen was yellow with age, but every glass and spoon shone.

The sun streamed warmly in at the windows, the view from which was lovely. Lyddy heard the appreciative remarks of the young man as ’Phemie ushered him in.

But she ran out to greet the old gentleman. The elder Colesworth was sixty or more–a frail, scholarly-looking man, with a winning smile. He, like Mr. Bray, leaned on a cane; but Mr. Bray was at least fifteen years Mr. Colesworth’s junior.

“So you are ‘L. Bray’; are you?” asked the old gentleman, shaking hands with her. “You are the elder daughter and head of the household, your father tells me.”

“I am older than ’Phemie–yes,” admitted Lyddy, blushing. “But we have no ‘head’ here. I do my part of the work, and she does hers.”

“And, please God,” said Mr. Bray, earnestly, “I shall soon be able to do mine.”

“Work is the word, then!” cried the old gentleman. “I tell Harris that’s all that is the matter with me. I knocked off work too early. ‘Retired,’ they call it. But it doesn’t pay–it doesn’t pay.”

“There will be plenty for you to do up here, Mr. Colesworth,” suggested Lyddy, laughing. “We’ll let you chop your own wood, if you like. But perhaps picking flowers for the table will be more to your taste–at first.”

“I don’t know–I don’t know,” returned the old gentleman. “I was brought up on a farm. I used to know how to swing an axe. And I can remember yet how I hated a buck-saw.”

They went into the house; but Lyddy slipped back to the kitchen and allowed her father to follow Harris Colesworth and ’Phemie, with the old gentleman, into the dining-room.

’Phemie soon came out to help, leaving their father to entertain the visitors while dinner was being served. Lyddy had prepared a simple meal, of which the staple was the New England standby–baked beans.

She had been up before light, had built a huge fire in the brick oven, had heated it to a high temperature, and had then baked her pies, a huge pan of gingerbread, her white bread, and potatoes for dinner. She had steamed her “brown loaf” in a kettle hanging from the crane, and the sealed beanpot had been all night in the ashes on the hearth, the right “finish” being given in the brick oven as it gradually cooled off.

The girl had had wonderfully good luck with her baking. The bread was neither “all crust” nor was it dough in the middle. The pies were flaky as to crust and the apples which filled them were tender.

When Lyddy brought in the beanpot, wrapped in a blue and white towel to retain the heat, she met Harris Colesworth for the first time. To her surprise he did not attempt to appear amazed to see her.

“Miss Bray!” he cried, coming forward to shake hands with her. “I have been telling your father that we are already acquainted. But I never did expect to see you again when you sold out and went away from Trimble Avenue that morning.”

“Shows how small the world is,” said Mr. Bray, smiling. “We lived right beside the building in which Mr. Colesworth works, and he saw our advertisement in the paper – ”

“Oh, I was sure it was Miss Bray,” interrupted young Colesworth, openly acknowledging his uncalled-for interest (so Lyddy expressed it to herself) in their affairs.

“You see,” said this very frank young man, “I knew your name was Bray. And I knew you were going into the country for Mr. Bray’s health. I–I even asked at the hospital about you several times,” he added, flushing a little.

“How very kind!” murmured Lyddy, but without looking at him, as ’Phemie brought in some of the other dishes.

“Not at all; I was interested,” said the young man, laughing. “You always were afraid of getting acquainted with me when I used to watch you working about your kitchen. But now, Miss Bray, if father decides to come out here to board with you, you’ll just have to be acquainted with me.”

Mr. Bray laughed at this, and ’Phemie giggled. Lyddy’s face was a study. It did seem impossible to keep this very presuming young man at a proper distance.

But they gathered around the table then, and Lyddy had another reason for blushing. The visitors praised her cooking highly, and when they learned of the old-fashioned means by which the cooking was done, their wonder grew.

And Lyddy deserved some praise, that was sure. The potatoes came out of their crisp skins as light as feathers. The thickened pork gravy that went with them was something Mr. Colesworth the elder declared he had not tasted since he was a boy.

And when the beans were ladled from the pot–brown, moist, every bean firm in its individual jacket, but seasoned through and through–the Colesworths fairly reveled in them. The fresh bread and good butter, and the flaky wedges of apple pie, each flanked by its pilot of cheese, were likewise enjoyed.

“If you can put us up only half comfortably,” declared the elder Colesworth, bowing to Lyddy, “I can tell you right now, young lady, that we will stay. Let us see your rooms, we will come to terms, and then I’ll take a nap, if you will allow me. I need it after this heavy dinner. Why, Harris! I haven’t eaten so heartily for months.”

“Never saw you sail into the menu with any more enjoyment, Dad,” declared his son, in delight.

But Lyddy made her sister show them over the house. They were some time in making up their minds regarding the choice of apartments; but finally they decided upon one of the large rooms the girls proposed making over into bed-chambers on the ground floor. This room was nearest the east wing, had long windows opening upon the side porch, and with the two small beds removed from the half-furnished rooms on the second floor of the east wing, and brought downstairs, together with one or two other pieces of furniture, the Colesworths declared themselves satisfied with the accommodations.

Young Colesworth would come out on Saturdays and return Monday mornings. He would arrange with Lucas to drive him back and forth. And the old gentleman would come out, bag and baggage, on the coming Monday to take possession of the room.

To bind the bargain Harris handed Lyddy fifteen dollars, and asked for a receipt. Fifteen dollars a week! Lyddy had scarcely dared ask for it–had done so with fear and trembling, in fact. But the Colesworths seemed to consider it quite within reason.

“Oh, ’Phemie!” gasped Lyddy, hugging her sister tight out in the kitchen. “Just think of fifteen dollars coming in every week. Why! we can all live on that!”

“M–m; yes,” said ’Phemie, ruminatively. “But hasn’t he a handsome nose?”

“Who–what – ’Phemie Bray! haven’t you anything else in your head but young men’s noses?” cried her sister, in sudden wrath.

But it was a beginning. They had really “got into business,” as their father said that night at the supper table.

“I only fear that the work will be too much for us,” he observed.

“For ’Phemie and me, you mean, Father,” said Lyddy, firmly. “You are not to work. You’re to get well. That is your business–and your only business.”

“You girls will baby me to death!” cried Mr. Bray, wiping his eyes. “I refuse to be laid on the shelf. I hope I am not useless – ”

“My goodness me! Far from it,” cried ’Phemie. “But you’ll be lots more help to us when you are perfectly well and strong again.”

“There’ll be plenty you can do without taxing your strength–and without keeping you indoors,” Lyddy added. “Just think if we get the chicken business started. You can do all of that–after the biddies are hatched.”

“I feel so much better already, girls,” declared their father, gravely, “that I am sure I shall have a giant’s strength before fall.”

Aunt Jane had written them, however, certain advice which the doctor at the hospital had given to her regarding Mr. Bray. He was to be discouraged from performing any heavy tasks of whatsoever nature, and his diet was to consist mainly of milk and eggs–tissue-building fuel for the system.

He had worked so long in the hat shop that his lungs were in a weakened state, if not actually affected. For months they would have to watch him carefully. And to return to his work in the city would be suicidal.

Therefore were Lyddy and ’Phemie more than ever anxious to make the boarders’ project pay. And with the Colesworths’ fifteen dollars a week it seemed as though a famous start had been made in that direction.

By serving simple food, plainly cooked, Lyddy was confident that she could keep the table for all five from the board paid by Mr. Colesworth and his son. If they got other boarders, a goodly share of their weekly stipends could be added on the profit side of the ledger.

Lucas helped them for a couple of hours Monday morning, and the girls managed to put the room the newcomers had chosen into readiness for the old gentleman. Lucas drove to town to meet Mr. Colesworth. Lucas was beginning to make something out of the Bray girls’ project, too, and he grinned broadly as he said to ’Phemie:

“I’m goin’ to be able to put up for a brand new buggy nex’ fall, Miss ’Phemie–a better one than Joe Badger’s got. What ’twixt this cartin’ boarders over the roads, and makin’ Miss Lyddy’s garden, I’m going to be well fixed.”

“On the road to be a millionaire; are you, Lucas?” suggested ’Phemie, laughing.

“Nope. Jest got one object in view,” grinned Lucas.

“What’s that?”

“I wanter drive you to church in my new buggy, and make Joe Badger an’ that Nettie Meyers look like thirty cents. That’s what I want.”

“Oh, Lucas! That isn’t a very high ambition,” she cried.

“But it’s goin’ to give me an almighty lot of satisfaction,” declared the young farmer. “You won’t go back on me; will yer, Miss ’Phemie?”

“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.”