*CHAPTER VII*
*THE LAND O' REST*
While some of the Long Island farms had begun to look faintly green bythe end of March, not a blade or a leaf was unfurled anywhere aroundGilead Center. Pussy willows and reddening maple twigs held the onlypromise of spring so far.
Jean drew on a pair of heavy driving gloves, and waited at the side"stoop" for Hiram to drive around from the barn with Ella Lou and thedouble seated democrat. Hiram was Cousin Roxana's hired help, smoothfaced and lean, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty. He took care ofthree horses and two cows and worked the farm with outside help in busyseasons.
Some folks in Gilead Center held that Roxy Robbins could have got alongwith one horse, but Roxana kept her pair of handsome Percherons just thesame, and let Hiram haul wood all winter with them.
Ella Lou was a black mare with white shoes and stockings and a whitestar on her forehead. It really did seem as if she knew all about thefamily's affairs. She was aware of every road in the township. Not atree could be cut down along the road, not a cord of piled wood added ortaken away, that Ella Lou did not take note of the fact at her nextpassing by.
To-day when Hiram drove up with her to the three stone steps by thewhite lilacs, she acted as wise and knowing as could be, turning herhead around to look at Jean just as if she could have said, "We're goingafter them at last, aren't we?"
Cousin Roxy stood at the screened pantry window, mixing pie crust. Sheleaned down and called some last advice as Jean climbed up and took thereins.
"Hitch her to that white post above the express office, Jeanie. There'sa couple freights come in right after that 3:30 train, and they set hercrazy shuffling back and forth. And have the girls sit on the back seat'cause them springs are kinder giving way, and your Mother's nervous.And bring up a wick for the student lamp from the Mill Company Store.No, never mind," just as Ella Lou started to prance, "'cause they don'tkeep that kind, come to think of it. Good-bye. If you don't rememberthe turnings, just slack up the reins and she'll find the right road."
Jean laughed and waved her hand. It was her first attempt at drivingalone, but Ella Lou seemed to appreciate just how she felt, and swungout around the triangle of grass that marked the entrance to the privatedriveway.
Maple Lawn stood just at the crossroads, a white comfortable-lookinghouse, one story and a half high, with a long low "ell" hitched on tothe back, and a white woodshed leaning up against it for company.
Four great rock maples grew before its spacious lawn like a row of Titansentinels, in summertime, garbed in Lincoln green like Robin Hood'smerry men. Then too, Baltimore orioles and robins nested in them andcontended with the chipmunks for squatter rights.
The house stood on a hill that faced the sunset. Down from the orchardsloped corn fields and rye fields. Below the winding white road was adeep ravine where a brook ran helterskelter by hilly pastures until itslipped away into the cool shade of a quiet glen, sweet scented withhemlock and spruce.
In the distance, hill after hill rose in mellowed beauty, each seemingto lean in sisterly fashion against the next taller one. From thesitting-room window Cousin Roxana declared she had seen "the power andthe glory" unfold in rapturous vision when the sun spread its alchemyover old Gilead township.
The course of Little River could be traced down through the valley byits fringe of willows and alders. For perhaps fifteen miles it rambled,winding in and out around little islands, dodging old submerged treesthat lifted skeleton arms in protest, spreading out above some old rockdam into a tiny lake, then dashing like some chased wild thing through amill run and out again into low, moist meadows, thick with flag andrushes.
At a point about a mile below the house stood the old Barlow lumbermill. Ella Lou caught the first hum of it and quickened her pace untilshe came to its watering trough, half toppling over at one side of theroad, its sides all green with moss.
Jean let her take her own way. Once she shied at a shadowy brown shapethat skitted across the road under her feet, and Jean wondered whetherit was a rabbit or a muskrat. Already she was catching the countryspirit. Little objects of everyday life held a meaning for her and shefound herself watching eagerly for new surprises as she drove along theold river road. How the girls would love it all, she thought, with alittle tightening of her throat. It might be a little lonesome at first,but surely it was, as Cousin Roxana always said, "the land o' rest."
The final decision on the new home site was to be left to her mother.Several places had been selected with a leaning towards the MansionHouse, but, as Roxy said again, in her cheery, buoyant way, Betty mustbe left unbiased to form her own opinion, although according to her wayof thinking, no sensible person with half their wits could pass over themerits of the Mansion House, or the wonderful opportunities itpresented.
"It's going to rack and ruin, and it fairly cries out for somebody totake hold of it and love it," she had said. "I don't know but what I'ddrive by it if I were you, Jeanie, on your way back from the station,even if it is a mite out of your way, just to see the look on yourMother's face when she sees it. There's a Providence in all things, ofcourse, and I ain't gainsaying it, but I do like to jog it along a bitnow and then."
It was a drive of seven miles down to Nantic, the nearest railroadstation. Ella Lou made it in good time and now stood complacentlyhitched to the white post above the express office. Already, itappeared, Mr. Briggs, the station master knew Jean, and smiled over atthe trim, city-like figure pacing up and down on the platform waitingfor the Willimantic train. This was the side line up to Providence thatconnected with the Boston express from New York.
"Expecting some of your folks up?" asked Mr. Briggs pleasantly. Nobodycould say that friendly interest in strangers and their affairs was notevinced around Nantic. It was part of the joy of life to Mr. Briggs tolocate their general intentions.
"My Mother and sisters," Jean answered happily.
"Figure on staying a while, do they?"
She nodded rather proudly. "We're going to live here. We're MissRobbins' cousins. You'll have the freight car up with our goods thisweek."
"Like enough," said Mr. Briggs encouragingly. "Yes, I knew you belongedto Roxy. I've known Roxy herself since she was knee high to a toadstool.There comes your local."
Around the hillside bend of track came the train. It seemed to Jean asif seconds turned to minutes then. The dear blessed train that wasbearing Mother and Helen and Kit and Doris up out of the world ofuncertainty and trouble into this haven of blossoming hopes. She wantedto stretch out both her arms to it as it slowed down and puffed, butthere on the last car she caught a glimpse of Kit, one foot all ready todrop off, waving one hand and hanging on with the other.
"Oh, Mother darling," Jean cried, joyously, once she had them all safeon the platform. "It's so beautiful up here, and Dad's looking betterevery day. He sits up for a while now, and the old doctor told us theonly thing that ailed him was a little distemper. Isn't that fun?Where are your trunks, girls?"
But this was Mr. Briggs's cue to come forward, hat in hand, and beintroduced, so he took the baggage under his own personal supervision.It appeared that you never could tell anything about when trunks wereliable to show up once they got started for Nantic, but the likelihoodwas, barring accidents, that they'd come up on the six o'clock train,and there wasn't a bit of use putting any reliance on that either,'cause they might not show up till the milk train next morning.
"Hope you'll like it up here," was his parting salute, as they drove upthe hill road, and Kit called back that they liked it already, much toMr. Briggs's enjoyment.
Mrs. Robbins sat on the front seat, both as the place of honor, and inremembrance of Cousin Roxana's warning against the back springs. At thetop of the hill Jean rested Ella Lou, so the girls could look back atthe little town. There was the huge one story stone mill, coveringacres of ground, with immense ventilators looking like those onsteamships or like stra
nge uprearing heads of prehistoric reptiles.
The little crooked main street could be traced by its lines ofbuildings, and back in a mass of trees stood the old French convent.Scattered everywhere were the houses of the mill workers, all of auniform pattern, painted white with green blinds, and a patch of greenyard to each. Jean, flushed and proud of her responsibility, turned EllaLou's head towards home and made quick time. The maple buds wereswelling and looked rosy red against the thickets of dark shiny greenlaurel. Behind them rose slim lines of white birches. Doris named themthe "White Ladyes," after the gentle lady ghost in "The Monastery."
"How far is it, Jeanie?" asked Helen. Just then the road came out onthe hilltop overlooking the big reservoir. "Oh, look, look, girls," shecried. "Isn't it like a bit of out West, Motherie? All those rocks andpines."
"I'd rather have these dear old hills than all the mountains going," Kitdeclared with her usual forcefulness. "We seem to be going up higherand higher all the time."
"So we are," Jean told her. "It's a steady rise from New London toNorwich, then up to our own Quinnebaug hills. Are you warm enough,Mumsie?"
"Plenty," said Mrs. Robbins, happily. "Though it is ever so much coolerhere than on Long Island, isn't it, girls?"
"We've got an open log fire in your room all ready for you," Jeanreplied. "You can just sit and toast and toast away to your heart'scontent, Queen Motherkin."
"For pity's sake, who ever had the courage to carry all the rocks forthese stone walls?" asked Kit. "Jean, what do you say to this? Let'sbuy barrels of cement, and mix it up with sand and water, and make a lotof lovely old garden seats and grottoes and pergolas. I'm going to makea sun dial."
"Why not get a Roman seat mold," Jean proposed, "and just pour in cementand turn out a lot of them and whenever we come to a particularly fineview, put a seat there."
"Oh, you castle builders," laughed Mrs. Robbins. "When we haven't even ahome yet. You'd think there was a baronial estate waiting for us."
"There is," Jean answered mysteriously. "Cousin Roxy and I think thatwe've found the right place. Father hasn't seen it, of course, but Ifound it, and Cousin Roxy said we couldn't get it because somebody'ddied, and it had gone to people out West."
"Which gave our precious old Jean a chance to delve into mystery," Kitsuggested. "Yes, yes, go on, sister mine. You interest us amazingly.What didst do then?"
"Oh, I found him," said Jean, enthusiastically. "He lives away out Westin Saskatoon, and has never even seen this place, so he's willing tosell it for almost nothing, $2,500, and even that includes the waterpower."
Kit shook her head deploringly.
"Listen to the poor child, Mother dear. She chats of thousands as ifthey were split peas and she was making a pudding."
"Hush, Kit. He'll rent it too for a hundred dollars a year, timberrights reserved excepting for our own use, and we can sell the hay."
"How many rooms, dear?" asked Mrs. Robbins.
"Seventeen," replied Jean, blithely. "Oh, it isn't a country cottage ora farm-house at all. They call it the Mansion House out here, and it'sso big that nobody wants it for a gift."
"Do you want a castle or an inn?" asked Kit.
"Where is it?" Helen inquired cautiously.
"When can we move in?" Doris asked practically.
"Well, you can see the cupola, I think, as soon as we get up to the topof Peck's Hill. I'll stop then. It's fearfully lonesome, and perhapsyou'd rather be in the village. Cousin Roxy says that some folks dosay--"
"Stop her, stop her," Kit exclaimed. "Jean, you're talking exactly likeCousin Roxy. Isn't she, Mother?"
"Never mind, dear. Go right on," comforted Mrs. Robbins, smiling at theeager young face beside her. Three weeks at Maple Lawn had surely takena lot of the spread out of Jean's sails.
"I don't think we'd be one bit lonely. It's about a mile from MapleLawn, and half a mile from Mr. Peck's place down the valley, and themail goes right by the door. And there's an old ruined stone mill on anisland, and a waterfall, and a bridge, and big pines along the terracein the front yard. It does need painting, I suppose, and shingling inspots, and the veranda lops a little bit where it needs shoring up,Hiram told me--"
"Specify Hiram," Helen asked mildly. "We don't know a thing aboutHiram, Jeanie."
"He's the hired man, and he can do anything."
"But, dear," interrupted Mrs. Robbins, "can't you realize that theremust be something wrong with it or it never would be rented for such asum.
"Oh, there is," Jean replied promptly. "It's too far from the railroador village, and the mill burned down six years ago, and the owner diedfrom the shock of losing everything he had, and there it stands, goingto rack and ruin, Cousin Roxy says, waiting for the Robbinses to appearand turn it into a nest."
"How about school?" asked Kit suddenly.
Jean waved her long whip grandly.
"Who wants a school out here? The groves were God's first temples.There's a school, though, over at the Gayhead crossroads. We're goingto have a horse and drive you over to the trolley so you can catch it tothe High School."
"Jean has us all moved and settled already," Mrs. Robbins said, "I'msure I'd like to be near where Roxana lives."
"Well, there it is," Jean exclaimed happily. Ella Lou pricked up herears, and quickened her pace, down one little hill, up another, over aculvert, and suddenly there appeared white chimneys rising above anapple orchard at the top of the hill.
"There it is," she said, pointing to it with her whip. "Seven milesfrom nowhere, but right next door to Heart's Content."