CHAPTER XXI
FOR VALUE RECEIVED
It seemed but a very short time later that Nancy was again awakened. Butnow the sunshine was streaming into her room, and she heard Miss Mannerstalking down in the hall, in a suppressed voice.
"The children are not up yet," she was saying. "But come in, Ruth. Yousee we were somewhat disturbed--"
"Come on up, Ruth!" called out Nancy. "Come up and hear about ourpar-tee!"
Ruth came up promptly, and the story of the broken water pipe waspresently being told her, brokenly.
"How perfectly--thrill-ing!" she commented in her well knowncharacterization of the affected Vera. "But you should have had Neroturn off the water--"
"I'll bet he could too," shouted Ted from his room. Ted never lost achance to praise Nero.
"But just listen to _my_ story," Ruth begged. "I've got a thrillingyarn, too."
"Then, wait until I get propped up for it," ordered Nancy. "I can't hearcomfortably when I'm down." She put her two pillows under her shouldersand assumed a most affected air of the tired society girl after herdance. Even a cap was improvised from a twisted stocking, a lacy robewas concocted from her thin, soft slip, and the luxurious effect wascompleted by Ruth piling upon the bed a bunch of mussed up storepaper--the morning mail!
"There now," said Ruth, "I hope you can hear. Although I must say youare not well cast. The character for you, Nan, is that of a short hairedlady at a big desk, her eyes bulging out of goggles and her waist linestrapped into a belt. You know--"
"Yes, I know," admitted Nancy, "but I like this better--it's morebecoming, isn't it?" Another pose and a shift of the lacy robe. ThenNancy appeared ready to hear Ruth's story.
"You sold the place!" Ruth blurted out without a hint of its coming.
"The place?"
"Yes. To Lady Cullen. And she said positively over the long distancelast night to Dad, that she never would have bought it but for you."
"Of course, she would," scoffed Nancy.
"Nope. Dad said that place just wouldn't sell. He and his men have shownit to so many. But dear Mrs. Cullen!" Ruth sighed foolishly. "She toldDad that the young lady was so enthusiastic over the place that she waspositive her granddaughter, Naomi, would react in the same way. Noticethat Nan, re-act."
"Yeah," drawled Nancy. "That's what this is--I'm--re-acting," and shefell further back among her pillows.
"But really, Nan, it is true," insisted Ruth, laying hold of one ofNancy's long, slender hands. "And you needn't blush about it, either. Ithink the way you blush under that olive skin of yours--" But a pillow,vigorously applied to Ruth's face, checked further compliments.
"If you don't want to hear," Ruth presently continued.
"Of course I do. I'm just as glad as glad, Ruth, that your dad has soldthe place, but I know very well Mrs. Cullen would have bought itanyhow."
"She wouldn't. Dad says so, she says so--I say--says--so," declaredRuth. "And if you don't believe it just listen to this." She changed herposition sitting up very straight and facing Nancy very positively tomake the statement most emphatic. "Mrs. Cullen very tactfully suggestedthat your interest and your success be--remunerated."
"Ruth!"
"Now, don't let me hurt your feelings, Nan, but Dad would honestly loveto have you accept."
"I won't," declared Nancy, blushing furiously now. "The idea--"
"Then, he will talk to your mother about it. Do you know, little girl,what a lot of money a big sale like that brings to Dad's firm? And howmuch he would have to pay out in commission to the man who succeeded inmaking the sale?"
"I know one thing," said Nancy, shifting herself out of the bed andplanting two bare feet firmly upon the floor, "I'm being made a businesswoman, a store-keeper, a cooking school director, a plumber and now areal-estate agent. I don't mind being a few things but that's quitea--lot!"
"You haven't said Enthusiast," Ruth reminded her, "that is what countsmost. But Nancy, you really ought to consider," pressed Ruth. "The moneywould mean so much to your mother, and you have a perfect right to it. Iknew the way you were tearing around that big place, that you wouldflim-flam Cullen," joked Ruth. "And Dad says, a hundred dollars isn'tanything on a fifteen thousand dollar deal--"
"Fifteen thousand!"
"Yes, all of that. And here's the little one hundred check," Ruth waspressing a slip of paper into Nancy's unwilling hand. "Dad will bedreadfully disappointed if you refuse--you're not too proud, are you?"
"Too proud!" and the black eyes snapped little pin points of sparks."No, indeed, I mean to be a business woman, like mother, and I don'tcare how soon I start," proclaimed Nancy, firmly.
"Spoken like--Nancy Brandon!" hailed Ruth, gleefully, for she had knownall along what a task it would be to get Nancy to take the check. Andjust as she had honestly stated, the amount given Nancy was but a smallfraction of that which a man from Mr. Ashley's office would have had toreceive for the same service.
Unbelieving, Nancy stared at the check.
"One hundred dollars!" she murmured, her eyes now beaming withanticipation. "And mother's vacation only three days off!"
"But please, Nan," Ruth hurried to change the subject, "don't go away toparts unknown and leave me pining here. Of course, there are lots ofgirls--hanging around," she smiled very prettily and looked very dimplyas she said this, "but since you came to Long Leigh, Nan, the othergirls don't count as much as they did."
"I suppose," said Nancy in her "twinkling" way, "that may be because I'msuch a freak. I'm a lot of fun--"
"Nan--cee!"
"Ruth--ee!"
And they finished the argument with a very pardonable show of affection,if it was only a sound slap on Nancy's not fully clothed shoulders and apretty good whack on Ruth's plump little thigh.
When Nancy was alone again, (for Ruth was to meet the girls at Isabel'sand they were all going for a swim before their ten o'clock cookinglesson,) she smoothed out the little blue check lovingly. It was sostrange to think that money was acquired through mere enthusiasm. ThatMrs. Cullen would have decided to buy that enormous place merely uponNancy's--enthusiasm. That the cooking school had been started and wassuccessfully running because of her--enthusiasm!
"Perhaps," she told the reflection in her glass, "it's a good thing todespise some kinds of work if it makes one enthusiastic for other kinds.But even now," she was insisting to that same mocking smile, "_I can_make a very good cake."
To meet the girls at the lake, Nancy took a short cut up, over the hillthat would lead her past the old stone house. She had hurried herbreakfast and made sure that Miss Manners did not need her help to getready for the class, then, gowned in the easiest thing to put on--andoff, her lavender gingham, she raced off up the hill.
But she never could hurry past the stone house; everything around itheld fascination for Nancy, even the half-formed dread that someone orsomething would drop down from the sky, or spring up out of the earth,as Mr. Sanders had formerly been accused of doing. So, instead ofcrossing the fence where the old cedar tree had broken through and hadthus made an opening, Nancy continued on up through the stone path thatwould bring her out at the apple orchard.
"As if there could be anything weird in this open place," she wassaying. "Why, the old cistern over there looks as spic-span as whenfolks used to draw water from it, and I'm sure," she was thinking, "aturned upside-down rain-barrel shows care and attention--no mosquitoescan breed in that."
She stood a few moments to enjoy the soft summer scene, for it was notyet quite time to meet the girls, when from the direction of therain-barrel she head a whine, a cat's cry, surely.
"Some poor cat maybe caught in briars," Nancy decided promptly, as againcame a piteous meaow of a kitten or a cat.
Following the call Nancy hurried in its direction.
"Here puss?" she called. "Kitty-kitty-kitty!"
The cry stopped as her voice called to it. It was not near the rainbarrel, Nancy now decide
d, but over by the cistern. Quickly she turnedin that direction, but when within a few feet of the square little boxthat covered the artificial well, she was suddenly startled by anoise--a queer noise.
"What's that?" was her unspoken question.
She listened. It was a man's voice, singing!
"Where, where--can that be!" she murmured half aloud, meanwhileunconsciously walking toward the cistern.
Then a hammering! A buzzing!
"Oh!" screamed Nancy in alarm, now realizing that she had been hearingsomething very strange indeed. "Oh, I must--get--away!" was her wilddetermination, as she turned and dashed down the hill, making her waythis time through the opening in the fence where the cedar tree hadfallen.