The Corner House Girls Snowbound

  CHAPTER XII

  MYSTERY AND FUN

  Mr. Howbridge was evidently somewhat impressed by Hedden's report. Hestared gravely for a minute at his grizzled butler. Then he nodded.

  "Take me upstairs and show me which room you mean, Hedden," he said.

  "Yes, sir. This way, sir."

  He led the lawyer toward the nearest stairway. They mounted to thegallery. Then the man led his employer down a passage and turned shortinto a doorway. The room they entered was really on the other side ofthe chimney from the big entrance hall.

  It was a small, cozy den. Mr. Howbridge looked the place over keenly,scrutinizing the furnishings before he glanced at the open coal grateto which Hedden sought to draw his attention first of all.

  "Ah. Yes," said the lawyer, thoughtfully. "A work-basket. Low rocker.A dressing table. Couch. This, Hedden, was Mrs. Birdsall's privatesitting-room when she was alive. I never saw the house before, but Ihave heard Birdsall describe it."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Mrs. Birdsall spent a good deal of her time indoors in this room, andthe children with her. So he said. And you found live embers in thegrate there?"

  "Yes, sir," said the butler, his own eyes big with wonder.

  "No other signs of anybody having been here?"

  "Not that I could see," said Hedden.

  "Strange--if anybody had been in here who had a key. Have you seen IkeM'Graw?"

  "No, sir. The men who brought us up here said the man had goneaway--had been away for a week, sir--but would return tonight."

  "Then he was not the person who built the fire the embers of which youfound. The coals would not have burned for a week. He is the personwho has a key to the Lodge, and nobody else."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Whoever got in here, of course, either departed when you came,Hedden, or before. Did you notice any tracks about the house?"

  "Plenty, sir. But only of beasts and birds."

  "Ah-ha! Are the animals as tame as that up here?"

  "There were footprints that the men from town assured me were those ofa big cat of some kind, and there were dog footprints; only the mensaid they were those of wolves. They say the beasts are getting hungryearly in the season, because of the deep and early snow, sir."

  "Humph! Better say nothing to the children about that," said Mr.Howbridge. "Of course, this party's being here will keep any maraudinganimals at a distance. We won't care for that sort of visitor."

  "I think there is no danger, sir. I will tell the chef to throw out notable-scraps, and to feed that big dog we have brought in the backkitchen. Then there will be nothing to attract the wild creatures tothe door."

  "Good idea," Mr. Howbridge said. "And I will warn them all tomorrownot to leave the vicinity of the Lodge alone. When Ike M'Graw arriveswe shall be all right. This vicinity is his natural habitat, and hewill know all that's right to do, and what not to do."

  Mr. Howbridge still looked about the room. The thing that interestedhim most was the mystery of the intruder who had built the fire in thegrate. Mrs. Birdsall's sitting-room! And the lawyer knew from hearingthe story repeated again and again by the sorrowing widower, that thewoman had been brought in here after her fall from the horse and haddied upon the couch in the corner of the room.

  He wondered.

  Meanwhile the crowd of young people below were comforted with tea andcrackers before they went to their bedrooms to change their clothesfor dinner. Mr. Howbridge had brought the customs of his own formalhousehold to Red Deer Lodge, and, knowing how particular the lawyerwas, Ruth Kenway had warned the others to come prepared to dress fordinner.

  Mrs. MacCall, after drinking her third cup of tea, went off with thechief maid to view the house and learn something about it. The Scotchwoman was very capable and had governed Mr. Howbridge's own homebefore she went to the old Corner House to keep straight the householdlines there for the Kenways.

  Her situation here at the Lodge was one between the serving people andthe family; but the latter, especially the smaller girls, would havebeen woeful indeed had Mrs. MacCall not sat at the table with them andbeen one of the family as she was at home in Milton.

  The girls were shown to their two big rooms on the second floor, andfound them warm and cozy. They were heated by wood fires indrum-stoves. Ike M'Graw, general caretaker of the Lodge, had longsince piled each wood box in the house full with billets of hard wood.

  Neale and Luke and Sammy were given another room off the gallery abovethe main hall. There they washed, and freshened up their apparel, andotherwise made themselves more presentable. Even Sammy looked a littleless grubby than usual when they came down to the big fire again.

  It was black dark outside by this time. The wind was still moaning inthe forest, and when they went to the door the fugitive snowflakesdrifted against one's cheek.

  "Going to be a bad night, I guess," Neale said, coming back from anobservation, just as the girls came down the stairway. "Oh, look! see'em all fussed up!"

  The girls had shaken out their furbelows, and now came down smilingand preening not a little. Mr. Howbridge appeared in a Tuxedo coat.

  "Wish I'd brought my 'soup to nuts,'" admitted Luke Shepard. "This isgoing to be a dress-up affair. I thought we were coming into thewilderness to rough it."

  "All the roughing it will be done outside the house, young man," saidCecile to her brother. "You must be on your very best behaviorinside."

  Hedden's assistant announced dinner, and Mr. Howbridge offered his armto Mrs. MacCall, who had just descended the stairway in old-fashionedrustling black silk.

  Immediately Luke joined the procession with Ruth on his arm, and Nealefollowed with Agnes, giggling of course. Cecile made Sammy walk besideher, and he was really proud to do this, only he would not admit it.At the end of the procession came the two little girls.

  They had not seen the dining-room before. It was big enough for abanquet hall, and the table without being extended would have seated adozen. There was an open fireplace on either side of this room. Theacetylene lamps gave plenty of light. There were favors at each plate.There were even flowers on the table. Aside from the unplastered wallsand raftered ceiling, one might have thought this dinner served in Mr.Howbridge's own home.

  They all (the older ones at least) began to realize how great a crossit would have been for the lawyer to take into his home in Milton twoharum-scarum children like the Birdsall twins. If all tales about themwere true, they were what Neale O'Neil called "terrors."

  Such children would surely break every rule of the lawyer'swell-ordered existence. And bachelors of Mr. Howbridge's age do nottake kindly to changes.

  "Think of bringing the refinements of his own establishment away uphere into the woods for a three weeks' vacation!" gasped Cecileafterwards to Ruth.

  To-night at dinner every rule of a well-furnished and well-governedhousehold was followed. Hedden and his assistant served. The food wasdeliciously cooked and the sauce of a good appetite aided all to enjoythe meal.

  And the fun and laughter! Mr. Howbridge and Mrs. MacCall enjoyed thejokes and chatter as much as the younger people themselves. Dot'sdiscovery that this was not at all like the lodge room on MeadowStreet delighted everybody.

  "If you think that red deer ever held lodge meetings in this house,you are much mistaken, honey," Agnes told the smallest Corner Housegirl.

  Tom Jonah was allowed to come in and "sit up" at table. The old dogwas so well trained that his table manners (and this was Ruth'sdeclaration) were far superior to those of Sammy Pinkney. But Sammywas on his best behavior this evening. The grandeur of the tableservice quite overpowered him.

  When they all filed back into the hall, which was really theliving-room and reception hall combined, Tom Jonah went with them andcurled down on a warm spot on the hearth. One of the men staggered inwith a great armful of chunks for the evening fire. Hedden found apopper and popcorn. There was a basket of shiny apples, and even a jugof sweet cider appeared, to be set down near the fire to take thech
ill off it.

  "Now, this," said Mr. Howbridge, sitting in a great chair with hisslippered feet outstretched toward the fire, "is what I call countrycomfort."

  "Whist, man!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall. "'Tis plain to be seen you kenlittle about country comforts, or discomforts either. You were born inthe city, Mr. Howbridge, and you have lived in the city most of yourdays. 'Tis little you know what it means to live away from towns andfrom luxuries."

  "Why," laughed the lawyer, "I always go away for a vacation in thesummer, and I usually choose some rustic neighborhood."

  "Aye. Where they have piped water in the house, and electricity, an'hair mattresses. Aye. I know your kind of 'country,' too, Mr.Howbridge. But when I was a child at home we lived in the realcountry--only two farms in the vale and the shepherds' cots. Myfeyther was a shepherd, you know."

  "You must be some relation of ours, then, Mrs. MacCall," Luke said,smiling.

  "Oh, aye. By Adam," said the housekeeper coolly. "I've nae doot wesprang from the same stock the Bible speaks of."

  "Now will you be good?" cried Cecile, shaking a finger at her brother."Go on, Mrs. MacCall. Tell us about your Highland home."

  "Hech! There's very little to tell," said the housekeeper, shaking herhead, "save that 'twas a very lonely vale we lived in, and forbye inwinter. Then we'd not see a strange body from end to end of the snows.And the snow came early and went late.

  "If we had not a grand oat bin and a cow in the stable we bairns wouldoft go hungry. Why, our mother would sometimes keep us abed in stormyweather to save turf. A fire like yon," she added, nodding toward theblazing pile in the chimney, "would have been counted a sin even in alaird's house."

  "Ah, Mrs. MacCall," said the lawyer, "we're all lairds over here."

  "Aye, that can pay the price can have the luxuries. 'Tis so. Butluxuries we knew naught about where I was born and bred."

  "I suppose the people right around us here--the residents of thisneighborhood--have few luxuries," Ruth said thoughtfully.

  "There aren't many neighbors, I guess," said Neale, laughing.

  "But those people living in that fishing village--and even atCoxford--never saw a tenth of the things which we consider necessaryat home," Ruth pursued.

  "Suppose!" exclaimed Cecile eagerly. "Just suppose we were snowed inup here and could not get out for weeks, and nobody could get to us. Iguess we would have to learn to go without luxuries! Maybe withoutfood."

  "Oh, don't suggest such a thing," begged Agnes. "And this cold airgives one such an appetite!"

  "Don't mention a shortage of food," put in Neale, chuckling, "or Aggiewill be getting up in the night and coming down to rob the pantry."

  There might have been a squabble right then and there had not Heddenappeared, and, in his grave way, announced:

  "Mr. M'Graw has arrived, sir. Shall I bring him in here?"

  "Ah!" exclaimed the lawyer, waking up from a brown study. "Ike M'Graw?I understood from Birdsall that he is a character. Has he had supper,Hedden?"

  "Yes, sir. I knew that you would wish him served. He has been eatingin the servants' dining-room, sir."

  "Send him in," the lawyer said. "Now, young folks, here is the man whocan tell us more about Red Deer Lodge and the country hereabout, andall that goes on in it, than anybody else. Here--"

  The door opened again. Hedden announced gravely:

  "Mr. Ike M'Graw, sir."

  There strode over the threshold one of the tallest men the youngpeople, at least, had ever seen. And he was so lean that his heightseemed more than it really was.

  "Why," gasped Neale to Agnes, "he's so thin he doesn't cast a shadow,I bet!"

  "Sh!" advised the girl warningly.

  They were all vastly interested in the appearance of Mr. Ike M'Graw.