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CHAPTER XII – GRIT INVITES HIMSELF TO GREEN HILL

The vegetables, animals, and flowers might have experienced gross neglect during the next few days, after the automobile arrived, had it not been for Mrs. James’ insistence that “duty came before pleasure.” Even so, Natalie spent no time weeding the beds but gave the “farmer’s curse” ample opportunity to thrive luxuriantly.

The third day after the Lowdens had promised to hunt up Sam and send him to Green Hill Farm, a most unique post-card came for Rachel. It had the picture of the Woolworth Building on one side, and the information that this was a “gift card” given to those who visited the tower. On the side with the address, Sam printed with lead-pencil, “Deer ant: wurd cam fer me to be shoffer at yur place. Money O. K. comin rite away. sam.”

This elaborate epistle was displayed by Rachel with so much family pride that the girls had hard work to keep straight faces. But they knew how hurt Rachel would be if she thought the writing was illiterate, so they said nothing.

“If that card was mailed yesterday, as the postmark shows it was, Sam ought to be here to-day,” said Mrs. James.

“Yes, but he won’t get here in time to drive us to Ames’s farm for the guinea-hens,” said Natalie.

“As that will be my last act of law-breaking, I’ll drive,” announced Frances.

Therefore, the girls hurried away in the car. They had not gone more than half the distance to Dorothy Ames’s home, when Natalie saw a dog following the machine.

“Go home, old fellow!” called she, waving her hat to drive him back.

But the dog stood momentarily still and wagged his stumpy tail, then galloped after the car again, to make up for lost time.

“Girls, what shall we do with that dog?” cried Natalie in distress. “If he follows us much further he may get lost.”

Frances stopped the car and called the dog to her. He stood with front paws on the running-board and looked up at her with happy eyes.

“He’s a fine Collie, girls. Look at his head and the lines of his body. Someone get out and look at the collar for the owner’s name,” said Frances, leaning over to study the dog.

Belle got out and having examined the collar, remarked: “No name on it. It’s just a plain leather affair with a frayed rope-end still attached to the ring.”

The dog gave a short friendly yelp at Belle and wagged his tail rapidly, as a token of good fellowship.

“Let him run after us if he wants to, then we will take him back with us when we return,” suggested Janet.

“We’d better have him jump inside the car, then, so he won’t stray while our attentions are turned,” ventured Norma.

So the dog was given room in the tonneau where he stood and watched over the side of the machine as they flew along the road.

Arrived at Dorothy Ames’s farm, he waited until the door was opened, then he leaped out and pranced about the girls.

“That’s some dog you girls got there!” declared Mr. Ames, as he came forward to welcome his visitors.

“Yes, he must belong to someone living near Green Hill. He ran after our car as we turned from the state road into this road,” explained Natalie.

“I ain’t never seen him about afore. I knows every dog fer ten mile around Greenville, and there hain’t no farmer that kin afford a’ animal like that,” returned Mr. Ames.

“Why – is he a good one?” wondered Janet.

“Got every point a prize-winnin’ Collie ought to have. I wish he was my dog! I’d win a blue ribbon on him,” said Mr. Ames, as he examined the dog critically.

“Then someone will worry until he is home again,” said Norma concernedly.

The dog seemed not to worry, however, for he yawned and followed the girls about as if he had known them since puppyhood. Mr. Ames told the girls that the dog must be about two years old, and certainly showed he had been accustomed to a good living.

The guinea-hens were selected, several pigeons ordered to be delivered in a few days when the house would be ready, and a number of young goslings spoken for. Janet was not going to lose time planning for a stock-farm business and not act, it seemed.

“If you gals are going to take the dog back the way he came, you’d better not try to take the crate with the hens, too. I’ll leave them on my way to the Corners,” advised Mr. Ames.

The business matters settled, Frances spoke of her new line of work. “If you folks ever want to rent a car for a trip, or when you want to go to the station, just call me on the ’phone and I’ll come for you. I am starting a jitney-line and am always on hand for my clients.”

Mr. Ames laughed and said: “Sort of runnin’ opposition to Amity, eh?”

“Well, not opposition, exactly, as Amity is never about to attend to business. But I intend running the car faithfully, as anyone who is in the public service should do,” said Frances.

“What about a license?” questioned the farmer wisely.

“Oh, that’s taken care of. My chauffeur, Sam White, is going to drive the machine, while I act as conductor.”

Mr. Ames laughed again, heartier than ever, and Dorothy smiled sympathetically at Frances. Then she said: “I wish I had something to do besides churning butter and working on the farm.”

“Well, Dorothy, just you stick to us Girl Scouts and we’ll find you some desirable field of labor,” said Janet encouragingly.

Soon after this the girls started homeward, the dog jumping in without being invited and sitting up in the place provided him before. The girls patted him and said he was a clever fellow. That started his tail wagging violently and his tongue panting with pleasure.

At Green Hill, Mrs. James watched the girls stop at the side piazza, and then, to her surprise, she saw the dog jump out of the car. He stood waiting for his companions to alight and then he sprang up the steps and wagged his tail at her.

“What a fine dog,” said Mrs. James, patting his head. “Whose is he?”

“We don’t know, Jimmy. He just followed us after we left the state road. Mr. Ames says he doesn’t belong to anyone around here, ’cause he knows every dog in the county,” answered Natalie.

“He must have lost his way, then. Maybe he was with a party of autoists who passed that way. They will surely come back to hunt for him, so we had better hang a large sign out on the tree by the front gate,” said Mrs. James.

“That’s a good plan,” assented Natalie. “I’ll run in and get a cardboard box and print the sign.”

“Don’t describe the dog, – just say we found a strayed canine,” advised Janet.

“If no one comes for him, we may as well keep him until we determine what to do about it,” added Natalie.

“We must find a name for him, too. What do you suppose he was called?” asked Mrs. James.

“If we knew that, we might have a clue to his owners,” laughed Janet.

“The best way to name him is this way,” suggested Natalie. “Let each one write a name on a slip of paper and fold it up. Rachel shall deal out the votes and the last one out of the box shall be his name. How is that?”

“Good! Run and get the paper, Nat,” laughed Janet.

So in a few moments six slips of paper were cut and handed out. The pencil was passed around and everyone wrote her choice of a name for the dog. Rachel was called out to collect the votes in an old hat, and when they were well shaken she removed them, one by one, until the last one was taken up.

She opened it slowly and spelled out carefully: “G-r-i-t.”

“Ho, Grit, that is my choice!” shouted Natalie, clapping her hands. As if the dog was pleased with his name, he jumped around madly and barked shrilly.

“He seems to like his name,” said Janet, laughing at the way the animal tried to lick Natalie’s face.

“Maybe it sounds something like his real one,” suggested Mrs. James.

“Wall, whatever it is, I says he oughter have a pan of water to drink. Affer all dis excitement he needs refreshin’,” remarked Rachel, going to the kitchen and calling the dog to follow her.

He went obediently, and just as the girls began to plan the sign, and what to write thereon, the gate clicked. Mrs. James leaned over the piazza rail to see who was coming in, and saw a short, fat, colored youth of about eighteen, approaching.

“It must be Sam, – Rachel’s nephew,” whispered Mrs. James.

The expected chauffeur saw the party on the piazza and removed his cap politely, but his face expressed trouble, and he sighed as he stopped at the foot of the steps.

“You are Sam, aren’t you?” began Mrs. James.

“Yas’m, an’ I would huv be’n here long ago, as I writ, but I lost my bes’ friend and be’n huntin’ him fer more’n an hour.” Again Sam sighed heavily and his eyes were moist.

“Oh, what a pity!” exclaimed Mrs. James. “How did it happen, Sam?”

“Wall, yuh see, Ma’am, I brung him on the baggidge car tied to a rope, an’ when we got off at the Statchun he was that glad to see the green grass and fresh air that he galavanted ’round like a crazy thing. He tuk it inter his head to chase a bird what flied low along the road, and I laffed as I follered after him. But I lost sight of him, down the road, until I got to the Corners. I diden know what way to take there, so I went the most travelled one.

“That’s where I made my mistake. I should hev asked the storekeeper the way to Green Hill. I whistled and called fer a mile, er more, but Grip never showed up. Then I got afraid he was really lost. I turned back and asked the man at the Corners ef he saw’d a dog run by, an’ he said, ‘Yeh, the mutt was chasin’ down the road to Green Hill Farm.’

“I got mad at him fer callin’ Grip a mutt, but I hurried along the road he pointed out. I kep’ on goin’ and callin’, an’ went right by this place widdout knowin’ it. When I came to a farm owned by a man called Ames – a mile down the road, – he tol’ me I was too far. So I come back again. But I hain’t seen no sound of Grip sence.” A heavy sigh escaped Sam and he drew his sleeve across his wet eyes.

Perhaps the sound of the voice reached Grit – or Grip – in the kitchen, or perhaps his canine instinct told him his master was there, – whatever it was, he came bounding out of the house and leaped upon Sam with such force that the little fellow was rolled over backward upon the soft grass.

Grip pawed and rolled over again in his joy at seeing his master again, and the girls stood and shouted aloud with amusement at the scene. When Grip’s violent expression of welcome had somewhat quieted down, Mrs. James said:

“This certainly is a good ending to our adventure.”

Then she proceeded to tell Sam how the girls found Grip on the road, and how fortunate it was that no other tourists had taken him in.

Rachel heard a familiar voice and now came hurrying from her kitchen. “Wall, of all things! Ef it ain’t Sambo! How’de, my son?” exclaimed she, enfolding the little man in her capacious arms.

“You talk as ef you hadn’t looked fer me?” grinned Sam, endeavoring to free himself from the close embrace.

“I’m that glad to see yoh, Chile! I felt sort o’ fearsome ’bout leavin’ yoh all alone in a wicked city widdout me near to advise yoh dis summer,” returned Rachel, beaming joyously upon her kin.

Sam laughed, and then the story of Grip was told in a most graphic manner, the girls interrupting to add some forgotten item.

“Laws’ee! Ain’t dat a plain case o’ Providence fer us? An’ to think how Natalie called the dawg Grit, too!”

“Now that all this excitement is ended, suppose you business girls go and attend to your work,” suggested Mrs. James. “While you were away I walked over to the vegetable garden and was horrified to find so many weeds growing taller than the plants we are trying to coax along. And Janet’s investment has escaped from the pen and given Rachel and me the race of our lives. After half an hour’s heated chase we captured the pigs, but the chickens are still at large, scratching Norma’s flower slips out of the ground. I have shouted at them, and driven them away repeatedly, but I see they are back there again.”

No more needed to be said then, and in a minute’s time three excited girls were wildly racing to their various places of work to repair the damages made in their investments.

Then Sam was shown his room in the attic, where he could unpack his fabrikoid suit-case and don his farm-clothes. It was plainly evident that he liked the idea of living in the country and driving a car when called upon, and Mrs. James considered the girls were most fortunate to have Rachel’s own relative – to say nothing of the dog – on the place that summer.

Mr. Ames drove by before noon and left the crate with the guinea-hens and pigeons, and Janet eagerly began work on a separate coop for the hens. Sam offered to help build the pigeon-coop on the gable end of the carriage-house, where the birds could alight without molestation.

But the story of Janet’s stock-farm and how she succeeded is told in another book and can be given no extra room in this story. Suffice it to say, she certainly had troubles of her own in trying to raise a barnyard full of different domestic animals; and had it not been for Sam’s ever-willing help in catching the runaways or repairing the demolished fences, the result would not have been quite so good.

That evening, as they all sat on the side steps of the piazza watching the far-reaching fingers of red that shot up from the western sky, Belle spoke plaintively:

“I feel like a laggard, with you girls all working so hard at some business. Nat with her garden, Janet with the barnyard, Norma with the flowers, and Frans with her jitney – what is there for me to do? I hate dirt and animals, and I haven’t any car, – so what is left for me?” she sighed.

“Why don’t you turn your attention to Scout study?” asked Natalie, feeling that they had neglected Solomon’s Seal Camp lately.

“I don’t want that kind of work, – I want a real business, like you girls have, – but what is there to do?”

“You’ll just have to pray and wait for an answer,” suggested Norma, the devout one of the group.

“Is that what you did before the flowers came your way from Mrs. Tompkins?” asked Belle.

“No, but you see, I always pray and hope for an answer, so I don’t have to lose time when something comes to me. It is always coming at the right moment, so I never have to ask especially for any one thing,” explained Norma seriously.

Belle laughed softly. “I wish you’d do it for me, Norma.”

“Why, Belle! You know how to ask for yourself! You’ll get it all the sooner if you stop laughing and try my plan,” rebuked Norma.

The talk suddenly changed at this point, and no one thought more of Norma’s advice to Belle. But the latter was duly impressed by Norma’s faith, and determined to try secretly a prayer or two in her own behalf. So that evening after she had retired, she earnestly asked that a way might be shown her to occupy herself that summer even as her friends were doing.

The following morning Sam suggested that the car meet the three daily trains from the city, to carry any passengers to their destinations. As it took but a short time to drive to the station and back, this plan was agreed upon. Frances would act as conductor of the fares and direct Sam the way to go when taking a passenger home.

On the morning trip they would bring back the mail and any orders that might be needed for the house or the Scout camp. In the afternoon the trip would be made for passenger service only, and at evening the mail would be brought back, or any purchases needed at Tompkins’ store.

The initial trip was made that morning at nine-thirty, the girls wishing Frances all success in her new venture. As the car disappeared down the road Natalie hurried to her garden to go to work on the weeding.

Janet went to the farmyard to begin building some sort of shelter for a calf she purposed buying from Mr. Ames. And Norma began to plant seeds in her flower beds. Mrs. James went in to help Rachel, and Belle was left alone on the porch to plan various things to interest herself, also.

As she rocked nervously, trying to think of something agreeable to do, she heard Natalie cry loudly from the garden. She sprang from the porch and ran down the path to render any help possible to the friend in distress, and saw Natalie jumping up and down, with skirts held high and close about her form.

“Oh, oh! Belle, – bring a rock! Get a gun – anything – quick!” yelled Natalie.

“What for – what’s the matter?” shouted Belle, looking anxiously about for a stone or a big stick.

“A snake! A great big snake ran out of the ground and tried to get me!” screamed Natalie, still jumping up and down.

Belle caught up a heavy stone and tried to carry it quickly to her friend, but she had to drop it after running a short distance, as it was too heavy for her. Then she found a smaller stone and ran with that to demolish utterly the awful thing!

“Where is it? Where did it go?” cried Belle excitedly, as she reached the vegetable beds.

“Oh, oh – it came out of that hole in the corn-hill, and ran that way!” gasped Natalie, breathless with her violent exercise.

“Out of that hole! Why, that is only as big as my small finger! How could a great snake come from there?”

“All the same it did! Oh, oh, OH! Look, Belle! There it is, – under that corn-spear!” shouted Natalie, bending and pointing at the terrifying (?) object.

Belle had to look hard to be able to detect the little frightened snake. There, curled up under the tiny spear of green, was a young grass snake about three inches long. It held up its pretty striped head and watched fearfully for the huge rock to fall upon its innocent body.

Belle stood upright and gave vent to a loud laugh. “Oh, Nat! That is only a dear little worker in your garden. Why would you kill a creature that will gobble up your troubles?”

“What do you mean?” demanded Natalie, ashamed of her groundless fears.

“Why, I’ve read in school that grass snakes, garter snakes, and even black snakes, are the farmers’ best friends. They eat cut-worms, clean off all grubs from plants, and even keep out moles, beetles, and other pests, that ruin vegetables.”

Natalie bravely turned her back upon the grass snake at this and wagged her head prophetically: “All the same, where a young snake like that can be found there must be a big parent, too.”

“Doubtless, but the parent snake can kill off ten times as many pests as a baby snake, so don’t go and kill it when it hurries to your cornfield to catch a field-mouse,” laughed Belle.

As Belle started back for the rocking-chair to continue her mental planning, she saw Frances’ car approach swiftly from the Corners.

“Oh, goody! She has a passenger!” shouted Belle to Norma as she ran past the flower beds.

Norma dropped her trowel and fork and raced after Belle to the gate to watch the private jitney go past. But Sam stopped in front of the gate and Frances beckoned to the girls.

As Belle ran out to see what was wanted of them, a well-dressed lady, seated in the tonneau, smiled and said:

“I alighted at Greenville by mistake. I was directed to a country place beyond White Plains, where I hear I can buy some antiques. I am in the business in New York, but I haven’t time now to wait for another train and go on to visit this lady. Your young friend here thought the one named Belle might possibly undertake this commission for me, as she was at liberty to sell her time. Which of you is Belle?”

Belle immediately signified that she was the one, and the lady continued: “I believe you know something of antique furniture and china?”

“Something – because I started a little collection of my own at home. I have read many books to be had at the Library on the subject and can tell a Wedgewood jug or bowl or a Staffordshire plate, as readily as anyone. I also know the different Colonial period furniture when I see any.”

“Splendid! Then you can act as my agent up here, if you will. I must get back to keep an appointment in New York at two o’clock, but you can hunt up this old farmhouse for me that is somewhere west of Pleasantville, on a road that is described accurately on this map,” said the stranger, as she unfolded a paper and glanced at it to see that it was the right one. This was handed to Belle, and the lady continued:

“If you find anything there – or at any place in this section of the country – such as brasses, dishes, furniture, or pictures, telephone me at my business address and I will make an appointment to meet you wherever it is. Will you consider it?”

“I should like nothing better, if you think I can do it for you,” returned Belle, delighted at the prospect.

“I think you can, and for this service I will pay you for the time you actually give to the pursuit. Also I will pay for the hire of the car, as I explained to this young lady here.

“If you can possibly find time to go to this house to-day, it will please me greatly, as I want information about the four-poster canopied bed I hear is there for sale. Telephone me full particulars after you come back, will you?”

Belle agreed eagerly to the proposition, and the lady then mentioned the salary she would pay, by the hour, for this service of Belle’s. Also Frances mentioned her charge for the use of the car, which was agreed to without demur.

“Now I wish your man would drive me to the railway station at the nearest point where a train can be taken without losing more time. I do not care which town it is, as long as I can get back to the city before two o’clock.”

Belle was left standing speechless on the footpath as the car drove rapidly away, and Norma smiled happily. “Did you pray as I told you to, Belle?” asked she.

“Uh-huh!” was all the reply Norma got, but she understood Belle’s ways and ran back to her flowers without another word. Belle walked slowly toward the house to get her hat and handbag so as to start on the new venture as soon as Frances returned from the White Plains railroad station.