CHAPTER X
NOVEMBER
The mystery that will never be solved for the human race is why somedays must be dark and dreary and why those days sometimes stretchthemselves into weeks.
The weather that had been so perfect when our Carters first came toValhalla had held for a long time. Frosty, crisp autumn mornings thatmade the blood tingle in one's veins, followed by warmer days and thencold bracing nights when a fire in the great chimney of the living-roomwas most acceptable, had become so much the rule that when the exceptionoccurred no one was prepared to accept it.
Morning after morning Nan and Lucy had trudged cheerfully over thefields and through the lane to Grantly Station to catch the early train,enjoying the walk and not minding at all that the quarter of a mile wasreally three-quarters. Coming home was happy, too. The train reachedGrantly by half-past three, the pleasantest time in an autumn afternoon,and the girls would loiter along the road, stopping to eat wild grapesor to crack walnuts or maybe to get some persimmons, delicious andshriveled from the hard frosts. Sometimes Billy and Mag would have thegood news for them that the Suttons' car was to be at Preston and thatmeant that our girls were to get out at that station and be run home byBilly.
They were great favorites with both Mr. and Mrs. Sutton who encouragedthe intimacy with their son and daughter. Suitable companions are notalways to be found in rural communities and the coming of the Cartersto the neighborhood was recognized by that worthy couple as a greatadvantage to their children.
"Nan is a charming girl, William," Mrs. Sutton had said to her husband,"and even if Billy fancies himself to be in love with her it will do himno harm, only good, since she has such good sense and breeding."
"Of course it will do him good and maybe it is not just fancy on hispart. We Suttons have a way of deciding early and sticking to it. Eh,Margaret? I remember you had your hair in a plait and wore quite shortskirts when I began to scheme how best to get a permanent seat by you onthe train, and here I've got it!" and Mr. Sutton gave his portly wife acomfortable hug.
"And Mag is having a splendid time with Lucy," continued that lady,accepting the hug with a smile. "Lucy is so quick and clever, no onecould help liking her. I, for one, am glad the Carters have come."
"What do you think is the matter with their mother? They always speak ofher as an invalid. She looks well enough to me, although of course notrobust like one beautiful lady I know." Mr. Sutton admired his wife somuch that the flesh she was taking on just made her that much morebeautiful in his eyes. He thought there could not be too much of a goodthing.
"Invalid indeed! She is just spoiled and lazy," declared Mrs. Sutton whowas all energy and industry. "She is attractive enough but I shouldhate to be her daughter."
"Yes, and I'd hate to be her husband, too!"
The Suttons had been most pleasant and hospitable to their newneighbors, although there could not have been two women brought togetherso dissimilar as Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Carter considered hermission in life to be as beautiful as possible and also charming. Mrs.Sutton had never had time to think what her mission in life was, she wasso busy doing the things it seemed important to do. She was first of allthe wife of a successful farmer and that meant eternal vigilance on herpart, as the success of a farm depends so much on the management ofwomen. Next she was the mother of two healthy, normal children who mustbe trained in the way they should go. After that she was an importantmember of a community where her progressive spirit was needed andappreciated. Her home, Preston, was where the Ladies' Aid met and workedand kept the little church out of debt; there was headquarters for theTraveling Library; there the Magazine Club read and swapped periodicals.She was president of the Preston Equal Suffrage League, a struggling butvalorous band, and now that work of organizations was sorely needed forsuffering humanity, this same league was rolling bandages and makingcomfort kits for the Allies, showing that votes for women was not theonly thing it could work for. Truly Mrs. Sutton was a busy and happywoman.
But we are forgetting that the weather seemed destined to become ourtopic! Certainly the Suttons are a more agreeable subject than theweather our girls were fated to endure. Of course the sun can't shineall the time and in the natural course of events October days mustshorten into November days and they in turn into December, with nightsgrowing longer and longer and days shorter and shorter and both of themcolder and colder. Drizzling rains must fall, even if a trusting familyhas taken its abode in a weather-beaten old house, up a muddy lane thatmust be walked through to reach the station.
"'In winter I get up at night And dress by early candle light,'"
yawned Nan one morning as the alarm went off, warning her it was time torouse herself and Lucy. Lucy had curled up in a little ball, having goneto bed without quite enough cover. It had turned cold and damp duringthe night, a heavy rain had kept up for hours and now at six in themorning it was drizzling dismally.
"I don't see how we can go to town to-day," sighed Nan, peering out ofthe window. "It is so dark and gloomy."
"I reckon the lane will be awfully muddy," said Lucy, reluctantlyuncurling herself, "and I believe I left my rubbers at school that timeI took them in when I thought it was going to rain and it didn't."
"You'll have to borrow Helen's."
"Gee! Isn't it cold?" and Lucy drew back the foot she had tentativelypoked out of bed. "I wish we could live in a steam-heated house again."
Valhalla was heated by open fireplaces, drum stoves and the Grace ofGod, according to Chloe. There was a small stove in the younger girls'room, but up to this time they had not felt the necessity of having afire.
It seemed difficult on that rainy morning for everyone to awaken.Chloe's feet and then her reluctant legs came through the trap-door ofher attic room and slowly down the chicken steps leading into thekitchen long after Helen had started the kerosene stove and put on thekettle.
"I ain't slep' none," she declared when Helen remonstrated with herbecause of her tardiness. "The rain done leaked in on my haid an' Ireckon I's gonter die er the ammonia."
"Oh, I fancy not! A little water won't hurt you," said Helen, flyingaround the kitchen like a demented hen trying to scratch up a breakfastfor her brood. "Hurry up and set the table, it is so late."
"Won't hurt me! Lawsamussy, Miss Helen! Don't you know that niggerscan't wash they haids in winter time? They do say they wool has deeperroots than what white folks' hair is got an' the water what touches theyhaids dreens plum down inter they brains."
"Brains, did you say?" said Helen, but her sarcasm was lost on Chloe."If it leaked on your head why didn't you move your bed? It leaked onMiss Douglas and me, too, but we moved the bed."
"Well, I was in a kinder stupid an' looks like I couldn't raise han' orfoot."
"I can well believe it," muttered Helen. "Please set the table as fastas you can!"
"Helen," cried Lucy, hurrying into the dining-room, "you'll have to lendme your rubbers! I left mine in town."
"Have to?"
"Well, please to!"
"I hate for you to stretch my rubbers all out of shape."
"Stretch 'em much! Your feet are bigger than mine."
"That being the case I certainly won't lend them to be dropped off inthe mud."
"Children! Children!" admonished Douglas, hurrying to breakfast. "Whatare you quarreling about?"
"Who shall be Cinderella!" drawled Nan. "And it seems a strange subjectto dispute about on such a morning. For my part, I wish my feet were aquarter of a mile long and I could take three steps and land at thestation."
"It leaked in our room last night," said Lucy.
"And ours!" chorused Helen and Douglas.
"Mine, too! But I ain't a-keerin'," from Bobby.
"My haid is done soaked up with leaks," grinned Chloe.
"I really think Miss Ella and Miss Louise should have had the roofmended before we came," said Douglas.
"Well, tonight we can go to bed with our umbrellas up," suggested Nan.
> "Yes! An' wake up a corp!" said Chloe dismally, as she handed thecertainly not overdone biscuit. "It am sho' death ter hist a umbrell inthe house."
Nan and Lucy were finally off, forlorn little figures with raincoats andrubbers and dripping umbrellas. Helen's rubbers were a bit too small,much to that young lady's satisfaction and to Lucy's chagrin.
"My feet will slim down some as I grow older, the shoe man told me. Ibetcher when I am as old as you are my feet will be smaller," said Lucyas she paddled off with the rubbers pulled on as far as she could getthem.
The road was passable until they got within a hundred yards of thestation and then they struck a soft stretch of red clay that was theconsistency of molasses candy about to be pulled. Nan clambered up anembankment, balancing herself on a very precarious path that hung overthe road, but Lucy kept to the middle of the pike.
"I hear the train!" cried Nan. "We must hurry!"
"Hurry, indeed! How can anyone hurry through fudge?" and poor Lucy gavea wail of agony. She was stuck and stuck fast.
"Come on!" begged Nan, but Lucy with an agonized countenance looked ather sister.
"I'm stuck!"
"If I come pull you out, I'll get stuck, too! What on earth are we todo?"
"Throw me a plank," wailed Lucy in the tones of a drowning man. Her feetwere going in deeper and deeper. Helen's rubbers were almost submergedand there seemed to be nothing to keep Lucy's shoes and finally Lucyfrom going the way of the rubbers.
Nan dropped her books, umbrella and lunch on the bank and pulled a railfrom the fence. Lucy clutched it and with a great pull and a suddenlurch which sent Nan backwards into the blackberry bushes, the youngergirl came hurtling from what had threatened to become her muddy grave.
The train was whistling, so they had to forego the giggling fit thatwas upon them and run for the station. The small branch that theymust pass before they got there, was swollen beyond recognition, butone stepping-stone obligingly projected above water and with a mightyleap they were over. The accommodating accommodation train reachedthe station of Grantly before they did, but the kindly engineer andconductor waited patiently while the girls, puffing and panting, racedup the hill.
They had hardly recovered their breath when Billy and Mag boarded thetrain at Preston.
"Well, if you girls aren't spunky!" cried Billy admiringly as he sank inthe seat by Nan, which Lucy had tactfully vacated, sharing the one withMag. "Mag and I were betting you couldn't make it this morning."
"We just did and that is all," laughed Nan, recounting the perils of theway.
"And only look at my boots! Did you ever see such sights?" cried Lucy."Oh, Heavens! One of Helen's rubbers is gone!"
"That must have happened when I fished you out with the fence rail. Iheard a terrible sough but didn't realize what it meant. They were somuch too small for you," said Nan.
"Small, indeed! They were too big. Their coming off proves they were toobig," insisted Lucy.
"I'm glad your feet didn't come off too, then," teased Nan. "At one timeI thought they were going to."
Billy produced a very shady handkerchief from a hip pocket and proceededto wipe off the girls' shoes, while he sang the sad song of the ThreeFlies:
"'There were three flies inclined to roam, They thought they were tired of staying at home, So away they went with a skip and a hop Till they came to the door of a grocer-ri shop.
"'Away they went with a merry, merry buz-zz, Till they came to a tub of mo-las-i-uz, They never stopped a minute But plunged right in it And rubbed their noses and their pretty wings in it.
"'And there they stuck, and stuck, and stuck, And there they cussed their miserable luck, With nobody by But a greenbottle fly Who didn't give a darn for their miser-ri.'"
"But what I am worrying about," he continued when his song had beenapplauded, "is how you are going to get home. Our car has been put outof commission for the winter. Mag and I had to foot it over the hillthis morning, but our path is high and dry, while the road to Grantly issomething fierce. If you get off at Preston and go home with us, I'llget a rig and drive you over."
"No, indeed, we couldn't think of it," objected Nan. "This is only thebeginning of winter and we can't get off at Preston every day and imposeon you and your father's horses to get us home. We shall just have toget some top boots and get through the mud somehow."
"But you don't know that stream. If it was high this morning, byafternoon it will be way up. The Misses Grant should have told you whatyou were to expect. They should have a bridge there, but it seems MissElla wants a rustic bridge and Miss Louise thinks a stone bridge wouldbe better, so they go a century with nothing but a ford."
"Going home I mean to pull another rail off the fence and do some polevaulting," declared Lucy. "I hope I can find Helen's big old rubber Ileft sticking in the mud."
"It may stay there until the spring thawing," said Mag. "You had betterstick to the path going home. It is better to stick than get stuck."
"I wish I had some stilts," sighed Nan. "They would carry me over likeseven league boots."
"Can you walk on them?" asked Billy.
"Sure! Walking on stilts is my one athletic stunt," laughed Nan. "Ihaven't tried for years but I used to do it with extreme grace."
That afternoon Billy had a mysterious package that he stowed under theseats in the coach.
"What on earth is that?" demanded Mag.
"Larroes to catch meddlers!"
"Please, Billy!"
"Well, it's nothing but some fence rails to help Nan and Lucy get home.I'm afraid the Misses Grant will object if they pull down a fence everytime they get stuck in the mud."
The parcel proved to contain two pairs of bright red stilts found at agentleman's furnishing store. They had been used to advertise a certaingrade of very reliable trousers, of an English cut. Just before thetrain reached Preston Billy unearthed them and presented Nan and Lucyeach with a pair.
"Here are some straps, too, to put on your books to sling them over yourshoulders. You can't walk on stilts and carry things in your hands atthe same time. Tie your umbrellas to the stilts! So long!" and Billyfled from the coach before the delighted girls could thank him.
Going home over the muddy road was very different from the walk they hadtaken that morning. In the first place it had stopped raining and theirumbrellas could be closed and tied to the stilts. The air was cold andcrisp now and there was a hint of snow. They stopped in the littlestation long enough to strap their books securely and get their packs ontheir backs, and then, mounting their steeds, they started on their wayrejoicing.
"I wonder if I can walk," squealed Nan. "It has been years and yearssince I tried," and she balanced herself daintily on the great long redlegs.
"Of course you can! Once a stilt walker, always a stilt walker!" criedLucy, starting bravely off.
Nan found the art was not lost and followed her sister down the muddyhill to the branch. Billy was right: it had been high in the morning butwas much higher in the afternoon. The one stepping-stone that had keptits nose above water on their trip to town was now completely submerged.
"Ugggh!" exclaimed Lucy. "My legs are floating!" And indeed it was adifficult feat to walk through deep rushing water on stilts. They have away of floating off unless you put them down with a most determined pushand bear your whole weight on them as you step.
"Look at me! I can get through the water if I goose step!" cried Nan.
"Isn't this the best fun ever? Oh, Nan, I pretty near love Billy forthinking of such a thing. Don't you?"
"Well, I wouldn't say love exactly."
"I would! I can't see the use in beating 'round the bush about suchmatters. He is certainly the nicest person we know and does more kindthings for us."
"He is nice and I do like him a lot," confessed Nan.
"Better than the count and Mr. Tom Smith?"
"I don't see what they have to do with it," and Nan got rosy from herexertion of goose steppi
ng through the water and up the muddy hill.
"Well, the old count talked about taking a trip with you to the land ofdreaming, wherever that is, and Tom Smith took you on fine flying bats,but Billy here, he gets some stilts for you and lets you help yourselfthrough the mud. I say, give me Billy every time!"
"Billy is a nice boy; but Count de Lestis is an elegant, culturedgentleman; and Tom Smith--Tom Smith--he--he----"
"I guess you are right--Tom Smith, Tom Smith he he! But flying machineswouldn't do much good here in the mud, and stilts will get us over thebranch dry shod. There's Helen's rubber!" and Lucy adroitly lifted thelittle muddy shoe out of the mire on the end of one of her stilts andwith a skillful twist of the wrist flopped it onto dry ground.
When they reached the top of the hill where the road became better theyhid their stilts in the bushes, up close to the fence, carefullycovering them with dry leaves and brush.
"Our flamingo legs," Nan called them. During that winter many times thegirls crossed the swollen stream on those red stilts and truly thankedthe kind Billy Sutton who had thought of them. They would cache themunder the little station, there patiently and safely to await theirreturn.
It was always hard to walk through the water and on one dire occasionwhen the stream was outdoing itself, having burst all bounds and spreadfar up on the road, poor Nan goose stepped too far and fell backwards inthe water. Fortunately it was on her homeward journey and she could getto Valhalla and change her dripping garments. She came across thefollowing limerick of Frost's which she gleefully learned, feeling thatit suited her case exactly:
"'There was once a gay red flamingo Who said: By the Great Jumping Jingo! I've been in this clime An uncommon long time But have not yet mastered their lingo.'"