Dig Here!

  II

  Fishers Haven

  HARBOR STREET, Fishers Haven, runs north and south. On your left, asyou walk up it, you can see a line of blue across green meadows andhear the faint roar of the surf. Everything looked washed and clean;the little houses white with green shutters, set in tiny green yards.Eve said it was a picture village out of a scouring powderadvertisement.

  We were walking up from the bus stop. There was no railroad in FishersHaven. It seemed good to stretch our legs after the all-day train ride.I was carrying my suitcase, which was pretty heavy, but I didn't mind.The bus driver had directed us: "Turn the corner at the drug store,it's the third house."

  There it was! White like the others, with a small front yard, borderedon two sides by a neat hedge. A brick walk led up to a narrow frontstoop. Our eyes were lifted anxiously to the door as we mounted thesteps. It had, I could not suppress the thought, a very closed look. Ilifted the knocker with some trepidation; it seemed like an intrusionto make a noise in so silent a place.

  It was a feeble knock, but no sooner had it died away when we heard awindow raised above us and a voice called, "Go round to the back andwipe your feet on the mat."

  Eve giggled. How I loved her for it!

  The grass in the side yard had been freshly mowed and smelleddeliciously. "Syringas, too!" Eve inhaled rapturously. "I'm going tosleep out in that lily-of-the-valley bed," she whispered, "and pretendI'm a dryad!"

  "Hush! Here she is."

  A small woman in a big white apron was standing on the back porch. Hereyes were dark and very bright, and her nose had a kind of pinched-inlook as if she were smelling of something. Her expression was--well,speculative.

  "So here you are!" she said, holding out a bony, work-worn hand. "Iguess you're Sandra. You've got the Hutton nose."

  "Have I?" I laughed. And, moved by an impulse for which I was quiteunable to account, I stooped and kissed her where her hair was partedflatly on her forehead. "This is my best friend, Eve Fordyce," I saidbefore she had recovered from her surprise at my salutation.

  Eve smiled devastatingly. "Pleased to meet you," said my relative.

  "It was awfully sweet of you to let me come along with Sandy," Evesaid. "I hope we aren't going to be a lot of bother."

  "Well, I guess everybody's a bother when it comes to that," returnedAunt Cal not too ungraciously. "It's a good deal of bother to liveanyway, what with three meals a day winter and summer."

  "Do you know I've often thought of that very thing myself," agreed Eve."If it wasn't for eating, what loads of spare time we'd have to do alot of extra exciting things."

  Aunt Cal looked as if precisely this view of the matter had notoccurred to her before. But all she said was, "Come in, supper's on thestove."

  The kitchen was small and painfully neat; the same scrubbed look waseverywhere. We washed our hands at the sink at Aunt Cal's direction, assupper, she said, had already stood about as long as it could, and satdown at a blue and white oilcloth covered table. It was a good supper,though plain, as Aunt Cal had warned me. Baked beans, bread and butter,tea and applesauce. Eve and I chattered about our trip, while Aunt Caldrank strong tea and said little.

  It was nearly dark by the time we had finished eating everything thatwas on the table. The noisily ticking alarm clock on the kitchen shelfsaid ten minutes past eight. "I expect you'll want to go to bed earlyafter your long trip," Aunt Cal remarked as she began to clear thetable. She took one of the shining glass lamps from the shelf and,though it wasn't yet dark enough to light it, led the way upstairs.

  "This is the spare room," she said with some pride, throwing open adoor at the end of the short passage. It was not large, but its prim,cool order presented so pleasant a contrast to the clutter of departurethat we had left behind us that morning that we both heaved aninvoluntary sight of relief. "Oh, it's lovely," Eve breathed. "And thatbed looks big enough for six giants."

  A faint look of dismay flitted across our hostess' countenance at thesuggested picture. "I guess it'll hold two your size," she said dryly.And added, "Breakfast's at seven sharp. Goodnight."

  As the door closed, I sank weakly upon the bed. "I feel somehow," Isaid, "as if there'd been a death in the family."

  Eve laughed. And the familiar ring of it made the strange room seemless strange. "Oh, Evey darling," I cried, "I'm so glad you're here.Promise you won't go and walk out on me now."

  "Heavens, no! Why should I? I think Aunt Cal is a treasure--only shedoesn't know it. I'm going to pretend she's my aunt too. She's sodifferent from Aunt Margery, and I think a variety in relations is verybroadening. The thing we've got to do, Sandy, is to make her glad we'rehere."

  "I suppose so," I said. It was like Eve to look at things that way.Well, maybe I'd feel more optimistic in the morning, I thought. I foundthe key to my suitcase and went to unpack.

  "Bother this lock!" I exclaimed after a few minutes of fumbling. "Thekey just won't go in!"

  Eve, who had already finished emptying her bag while I had beenstruggling, came over to help me. "Why, Sandy," she said, "this can'tbe the key, it's too large."

  "Well, it's the key I locked it with this morning," I retortedimpatiently. "My trunk key is flat and I haven't any other."

  Eve shook her head puzzled. "You'd better look through your handbaganyway," she said. "This simply can't be the key."

  Just to satisfy her, I dumped the contents of my bag on the blue andwhite counterpane of the bed. There was the key to my trunk, half a barof nut fudge wrapped in tin foil and bearing unmistakable evidences ofhaving been sat on, my address book in which all the girls had writtentheir summer addresses just last night, a vanity case, two rubberbands, a stub of a pencil, and a handkerchief. That was all.

  "You see," I said, "it's just got to be the key. It can't be anythingelse."

  "Then," said Eve most surprisingly, "this isn't your suitcase!"

  "What!" I wheeled about and looked at the case on the chair. It wasblack and had once been shiny. It surely looked like mine, scratchesand all. But wait--what was that gouge in the fabric near the hinge? Ididn't remember that.

  Then Eve did a funny thing. She leant over and sniffed it. "Tobacco!"she exclaimed.

  I went to sniff too; the odor was unmistakable. I took the case up andfelt its weight again. "I remember thinking it was awfully heavy on theway from the station," I mused. I was looking the case over morecarefully now and the more I looked, the more unfamiliar it became.Could it be possible that Eve was right and that somehow or other I'dcontrived to walk off with somebody else's baggage? I could notunderstand it.

  "But how could it have happened?" I cried. "I had it with me all theway on the train and in the station in Boston and on the bus after weleft Berkshire Plains."

  Eve had dropped onto an old sea chest which stood under the window. Sheseemed to be thinking deeply. Finally her face lighted up. "I've gotit!" she cried. "'Member that little, bow-legged man in the funnyclothes who stopped the bus out in the country quite a while after weleft Berkshire Plains? It wasn't even at a crossroads and I said, 'Howconvenient!' or something."

  I nodded. I did remember the man. He had taken a seat just in front ofus and, having nothing better to do, I had observed him ratherparticularly.

  Eve was going on. "He had a suitcase, a black one like this. He musthave placed it in the aisle next yours and when you got out--don't yousee--you simply picked up his instead of yours."

  "Of all the imbecile performances!" I cried.

  Eve grinned impishly. "Oh, you can laugh!" I stormed. "But I'd like tohave you tell me what I'm going to do now?"

  "Wonder what's in it?" Eve's curiosity, I've frequently told her, willget her into trouble some day. She had taken up the case and wasshaking it gently. "Not quite heavy enough for a bootlegger's," shemused, "still pretty full of something."

  "What does it matter!" I snapped. "I'm not in the least interested inwhat stringy little men are carrying about the cou
ntry. What I'minterested in is what has become of my second best nightie and myJapanese kimono and my toothbrush."

  "Oh, well, there's no use worrying about 'em now," Eve saidpractically. Her finger was toying with the catch of the intrudingbaggage. Suddenly there was a snap and it sprang open. The case wasn'teven locked!

  I watched Eve lift the lid gingerly as if she expected something tospring out at her. Maintaining my pose of indifference, I did not move.But of course I could not help seeing when the lid fell back, revealinga pile of men's clothing with a folded newspaper on top. The paperfluttered to the floor as Eve poked the clothes aside. "There might bean address," she remarked.

  Underneath the clothes, we discovered a collection of small jars andbottles. "Harry's Hair Restorer," Eve read. "And what's this--'Harry'sScalp Salve,' 'Harry's Magic Lotion for Baldness.'" She giggled. Thenmeeting my disapproving eyes, she said: "All right, Sandy, you're rightof course, I am a snoop. But I did think we ought to look for a name orsomething to go on."

  "Aren't there any letters?" I asked.

  "Don't see any." She was putting the bottles back. "I guess we'll justhave to take it back to the bus station in the morning and see whatthey can do for us. But don't worry, darling, you'll surely get yourthings back. They wouldn't do 'Harry' any good, you know!"

  "But what about Aunt Cal?" I inquired anxiously. "Shall we tell her,d'you think?"

  "I don't see why not. After all, everyone makes mistakes."

  "Ye-es," I agreed doubtfully, "I suppose so." I was thinking of thatspeculative look in my relative's sharp eyes and I was quite certainthat not even in the most unguarded moment of her life would she havedone anything so stupid as to appropriate baggage which did not belongto her.

  It was quite dark before we had finished discussing what had happenedand were at last ready to settle down for the night. Eve was already inbed when I blew out the light and went to open the window.

  I poked my head through the dotted Swiss curtain into the cool sweetnight. The only light spot anywhere was the strip of sandy road beyondthe fence. "Tomorrow," I thought, "we'll explore that road and all theothers. We'll go down to the beach and see how cold the water isand----"

  "What _are_ you looking at?" Eve called impatiently.

  I turned and came toward the bed. "There's a man creeping along thegrass on the other side of the hedge!" I said.

  "Creeping?"

  "Creeping is what I said!"

  "Oh, dear," Eve sighed. "I just can't bother with any more mysteriestonight." She snuggled deeper into her pillow. "Do come to bed. Nodoubt he's--just--catching fireflies--or--or--hunting bird's nests--orsomething----"

  Her voice trailed off into nothingness. And without another word, Iclimbed into bed and pulled the covers close about me.

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